Founded in 1998 in Fribourg, Switzerland, Dartfish developed a video technology able to track movement and trajectory. Its user-friendly analysis tools, known as the SimulCam and StroMotion, set it apart from the competition, allowing it to conquer three market segments: broadcasting and media; sports training and education, physiotherapy, and healthcare; and online video sharing. Being first in a market it had created and the recipient of extensive media coverage, Dartfish quickly expanded its international network to serve a wide spectrum of customers. Over time, however, the market became saturated with competitors popping up everywhere, and, rather than focusing on understanding and serving its clients' needs, the firm worked to develop new technologies. Despite its apparent success, it eventually realized that it was spreading itself too thin and needed to rethink its value proposition. The case provides a platform to explore the internationalization strategies adopted by Dartfish, a born-global firm, and the dos and don'ts of market expansion.
Copenhagen Airports A/S (CPH) has been severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with flight activity at levels not seen since the 1970s. Although the virus overshadows everything, three senior managers discuss a more long-term trend: the steadily declining revenues of the airport's shopping mall. Over the past number of years, consumer interest in food, beverages, and tax-free items has continuously decreased, posing considerable challenges to CPH's business model. About 80 per cent of the airport's profits are generated by the non-aeronautical business, of which the shopping mall is the biggest part, and CPH needs that income to continue investing into the airport's status as an important hub for airlines. What could CPH do to deliver better existing services, and what new services would merit serious consideration? Could CPH launch new products or services that would be attractive to both passengers and shopping mall tenants, or would it need to redevelop its entire business model? Since the commercial business was key to driving the airport's further development, the managers knew that finding answers to these questions was important to sustaining CPH's position as a leading hub in Northern Europe. The case is not about the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications for the aviation industry. This is a case about the long-term trend of declining revenues in the airport's shopping mall.
In 2021, the chair of the admissions committee at The School of Management in Gandhinagar, India, had only three months to prepare for the start of the school's next master of business administration program. During these three months, prospective students who had received admission offers could decide to decline offers, even though some had already paid relevant fees. Understanding the uncertainty of those decisions was critical to estimate the number of additional offers to send out to other candidates. If the final number of prospective students joining the program was lower than the school's available capacity, The School of Management would lose contributions toward its fixed business costs and potential profit. It would also mean that the school's resources would be underused. On the other hand, denying admission to students who had received offers to join the program, due to a lack of space, could adversely affect the school's brand image and future admissions. Understanding the decision-making process of prospective students was critical over the long term to develop appropriate retention strategies and encourage all candidates to accept their admission offers.
Aftertaste Foundation (Aftertaste) was an organization that provided livelihood support to women living in the impoverished urban areas of Mumbai, India, who created sustainable handicrafts. Aftertaste was started in 2013 and initially employed three craftswomen. By 2021, the organization had expanded to two locations and had increased the number of craftswomen employed to 40. Aftertaste’s business model was focused on creating social impact by generating revenue through the sale of handcrafted items to corporate and retail buyers. For six years, Aftertaste was supported financially by the social impact organization Avanti Foundation. In September 2019, Aftertaste was registered as an independent entity. However, shortly after its transition, in March 2020, the foundation was confronted by the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. A nationwide order for temporary lockdowns soon forced Aftertaste to stop all in-person operations. When the country started reopening after pandemic lockdowns, Aftertaste’s owner struggled to maintain the financial sustainability of her organization. Surrounded by enduring pandemic uncertainty, she had to decide what strategy to pursue for the future of her organization. How could she overcome her venture’s losses and lead Aftertaste on a path of financially sustainable growth?
After Wirecard AG (Wirecard) collapsed in 2020, the financial technology (fintech) company, revealed as an elaborate fraud, came to be known as Germany’s Enron as investigators confirmed many of the concerns that had been raised by whistle-blowers and journalists. For instance, they confirmed that the company was using round-tripping to inflate revenues and that escrow accounts in Southeast Asia did not exist. Auditors had raised concerns for years, but then signed off on the company’s financial statements. What were the responsibilities of regulators and auditors with regard to the company, and what red flags should they have paid attention to?
Fuyao Glass America (FGA) is an auto glass manufacturing facility in Moraine, Ohio. This case builds upon the story presented in the documentary film American Factory, which outlines how the Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co., Ltd. purchased a closed General Motors plant to launch a US facility that leveraged the Group's Chinese manufacturing expertise. Students are asked to propose a change-management plan for the executive management team to create an inclusive, engaging workplace that bridges cultural differences and attracts and retains the skilled workers necessary to make this facility successful. The case picks up where the American Factory documentary ends, asking students to consider how they might address the challenges faced by FGA's management team as they attempt to expand their manufacturing techniques in the US. In particular, FGA's leadership wrestles with the following: (1) creating an inclusive, engaging workplace that bridges cultural differences; (2) overcoming the talent management challenges revealed during the unionizing effort by the United Auto Workers; and (3) attracting and retaining skilled workers. This case shares FGA's management challenges from the perspectives of the president and CEO of FGA from 2016 to 2022, and the director of HR/employment management at FGA during most of that time. The two executives share information about FGA's talent management practices and the initiatives implemented between 2017 and 2020 to address issues related to the management challenges and employee concerns raised in the documentary and in media accounts.
This case describes the regional restructuring story of Bank of China (BOC) Liaoning Branch, a provincial branch. In January 2016, BOC's Beijing head office decided to make a crucial strategic adjustment to its institutional setup in Liaoning Province. Tianbing Jia, the newly appointed president of Liaoning Branch, was tasked with splitting up the branch and relocating it from the city of Dalian to the city of Shenyang in just three months. Jia and his executive team made meticulous preparations for the separation and relocation to ensure everything went smoothly while safeguarding employees' well-being. Thanks to the effective work of Jia and his team, the relocation was completed on time. However, this was just the first step in a complicated restructuring process. Following the move, Jia and his team had to start a new organization from the ground up in an unfamiliar city. This presented another significant challenge: integrating Liaoning Branch from Dalian and Shenyang Branch into a new provincial branch.
Ten-year-old, Palo Alto-based Ribbit Capital is best-known for its global investments in fintech. The firm was also an early advocate of crypto and blockchain, having invested in more than two dozen startups in the space in the past decade. In the Spring of 2022, Partner Nick Shalek contemplates an investment into Gauntlet, a Brooklyn-based crypto startup. He weighs not only the pros and cons of the Gauntlet investment in the context of the fund's overall portfolio, but also the deal structure. While investing in crypto startups played to many of the strengths that the Ribbit Capital team had built investing in fintech startups, there were a variety of aspects of crypto startup investing that were new and different. Sourcing deals, performing diligence, providing guidance to entrepreneurs, understanding governance, and negotiating deal terms were similar in principle, but presented new opportunities and challenges to navigate.
In January 2021, the chief data and analytics officer (CDAO) at Allianz Benelux SA (Allianz) spotted a possible opportunity to optimize cash flow with direct debit. Direct debit was a pre-authorized financial transaction between two parties where the amount due was directly and automatically collected from the payer’s bank account. Direct debit would allow Allianz to shorten payment processes, reduce risks by anticipating payments, and improve customer loyalty. Despite the clear advantages of direct debit for both clients and insurers, only a few of Allianz’s clients were currently making use of direct debit. It was not clear what drove Allianz’s customers or brokers to implement direct debit. This was where the CDAO and his data office team came in. The data office possessed a large amount of data on Allianz’s property and casualty insurance contracts and customers. Now the team needed to investigate how this data could be leveraged to determine the value drivers and develop a strategy to convert more clients to direct debit payments.
One of India’s leading stainless steel conglomerates, Jindal Stainless Limited (JSL) specialized in manufacturing flat sheets and coils, specific sections, pipes, and tubes. Abhyudaya Jindal, the managing director of JSL, was recently informed about the growing number of counterfeit products on the market that were adversely impacting JSL’s brand reputation and sales, as well as goodwill towards the company.<br><br>This case explores the challenges faced by Abhyudaya Jindal as he tried to address the issue of counterfeiting in the stainless steel pipes and tubes market. The case discusses various ways a company can battle counterfeit goods and how co-branding can be used as a market strategy. The case also examines how strengthening relationships with channel members can help a brand fight counterfeiting.
By January 2022, approximately 100 employees from Microsoft Corporation’s (Microsoft) HoloLens division, which had pioneered augmented reality (AR), quit. Most joined Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly Facebook), despite the company’s recent controversies. Meta was seeking talent for metaverse technology that required AR and virtual reality (VR) expertise. Metaverse talent was scant industry wide. Meta offered double salaries to poach talent from Microsoft, its partner for different projects. The executives leaving Microsoft were key employees of the HoloLens division. Microsoft’s choice to not hire more engineers after the US Army contract led employees to question Microsoft’s commitment toward HoloLens, a part of metaverse technology. However, Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft, confirmed Microsoft’s commitment toward metaverse technology, though some employees disagreed. What could Nadella do to retain HoloLens employees? With an increasing demand for metaverse-related skills, how could Nadella attract more talent? Was Meta’s employee poaching likely to bring any good news for Microsoft?
<p align="justify">When vaccines became widely available in 2021, Dr. Bonnie Henry—the provincial health officer of British Columbia (BC)—was tasked with the monumental mission of immunizing all BC residents against the COVID-19 pandemic. By November 19, 2021, almost 91 per cent of eligible residents had received their first dose of the vaccine, and 87 per cent had received their second dose. At the same time, the pediatric vaccine for children aged five to eleven was approved by Health Canada; however, polling suggested that BC parents were hesitant to vaccinate their young children. Henry faced the new challenge of creating a plan to convince parents and caregivers that vaccinating their children was both necessary and safe.<p>
Leaders are responsible for planning and executing actions that advance organizational goals. As individuals gain career experience, they tend to develop and rely on implicit mental models that shape how they go about "getting things done." Without knowing it, most people develop a primary action orientation - analytical, contextual, or relational - that informs their mental map for action. Action orientations can be useful because they inform how you develop a plan, determine where to focus your time and attention, and when to enlist the help of others. However, an overreliance on any one orientation can lead to poor action plans that may derail your ability to execute (especially when operating in a new role or an unfamiliar situation).
When Yonyou's founder Wang Wenjing was considering the pros and cons of fully embracing the cloud-based SaaS (software as a service) model, the company was on the road to becoming China's leading ERP software provider. It took years for Yonyou to entirely change its business model from selling software licenses to collecting services fee. Industry-wide, the trend was more than clear that providing cloud-based service would become a predominant business model, but it was still a difficult decision for individual competitors because it would mean a series of changes, including reshaping executives' mindset, reorganizing teams, cutting staff, redefining key performance indicators and incentive plan, to support its shift from the traditional cash cow business to an emerging one. Some actions were painful but necessary. Additionally, Yonyou's management needed to keep a close eye on its financials just in case that investors might not be satisfied with the results. The new business model that Yonyou adopted was a cloud platform that provided a base and a set of uniform standards for partners such as independent developers and service providers to join and prosper. The biggest challenge ahead was to take every opportunity to educate the market and grow its subscription-based revenue so that it was able to stand fast in terms of domestic market share.
Being conscious of ambivalence and conflicting feelings of positive and negative emotions has great value: It helps decision makers suspend initial judgments, deflect biases, and integrate contradictory material. Recent studies have found that when people are aware of being ambivalent and understand the cause, they're spurred to consciously assess the moral aspects of their choices and are better able to resist distracting biases.