Capital Breeders was a major player in the Zambian poultry industry. From processing chickens, Capital Breeders created substantial waste, namely feathers and blood. The company was interested in both saving money and improving its environmental performance. It assessed four alternative uses for this waste: the production of sustainable biomaterials, bio-based fertilizer, bioenergy production, and animal feed. Students were asked to make a qualitative assessment of the options, ultimately ranking them in terms of initial feasibility. The case also provided an opportunity to discuss the ethics of waste diversion in the poultry industry.
Andrew Chen, chief executive officer of Andrew’s Dental Chain (ADC), faces the challenge of managing and scaling his rapidly growing dental business, which operates 15 clinics across Guangdong Province, China. ADC plans to double its locations within three years, but the current system of manual oversight is proving inadequate. The clinics function as independent entities, raising concerns about the consistency of patient care, staff qualifications, and operational efficiency. To support this expansion, a comprehensive data model for a new standardized information system must be designed to integrate data across all locations and enable better decision-making.
Café Greenr launched in 2015 with a vision of blending sustainability and community living. Starting as a rooftop café in Shapur Jat, South Delhi, it quickly pioneered plant-based dining in India, creating a unique market niche. The café's success stemmed from strategic first-mover positioning and offering a variety of plant-based proteins. Emphasizing environmental, social, and personal sustainability, it provided a space for conscious living. Despite challenges in traditional cuisine markets, Greenr positioned itself through community engagement, collaborations, and events. The case explores its strategic decisions for potential franchise expansion, aiming to lead conscious dining in India.
By April 2019, the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (Jeevika), had become a cornerstone in empowerment and poverty-eradication efforts in Bihar, the poorest state in India. With an innovative talent-management initiative known as the Young Professional (YP) program, Jeevika aimed to harness the potential of top-tier postgraduate students to drive its projects. However, the organization faced significant challenges with this program, including a high turnover rate and growing dissatisfaction among YPs regarding disparate compensation and career progression opportunities. The YP program was established to bring fresh, innovative perspectives to Jeevika, and it succeeded in making substantial contributions to major World Bank–funded projects like the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project and the Bihar Transformative Development Project. Despite these successes, the growing number of grievances about unequal pay, a lack of job security, and unclear career trajectories led to numerous resignations. Senior leaders at Jeevika now stood at a crossroads, needing to decide whether to continue, amend, or dissolve the YP program in light of these challenges. Members of the leadership group had different views on these issues and the strategic implications of any changes they might make to the policy. Should the company discontinue the program? If it chose to continue it, how could it best address the issues YPs faced? What policies would best serve them?
Kongsberg Maritime, a Norway-based company well known for its high-tech ship equipment, succeeded in acquiring Rolls-Royce Commercial Marine in April 2019. Kongsberg Maritime aimed to strengthen its position as a global technology leader by expanding its product portfolio and revenue, enhancing its international setup, and improving overall performance. In the following years, the company faced the challenges of integrating people and products from both large and diverse companies, and of adapting its organizational structure. It had to make two key strategic decisions: the approach to integration (operational, structural, or human) and the location strategy (centralized or decentralized).
Fashnear Technologies Private Limited (Meesho), a social commerce platform founded in 2015 in Bangalore, India, altered the landscape of the Indian e-commerce industry by allowing individuals and small company owners to start selling goods from suppliers through their own social media accounts. Meesho leveraged social media and messaging platforms to allow anyone to sell products at a profit. Its simple interface allowed resellers to easily access and then showcase available products to their own customers. Meesho focused specifically on Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns, targeting an underserved market, and brought opportunities for individual entrepreneurs and local businesses to reach a wider audience. Meesho expanded since its founding in a competitive e-commerce market that included global giants, established companies, and new entrants. However, by August 2024, could Meesho continue growing and maintain its sustainable position in an increasingly competitive industry?
In April 2024, Ricardo Garza Limón, the founder of Grupo Garza Limón in Mexico, was reflecting on the succession process he had embarked on in 2016. Despite making progress, Ricardo regretted not having achieved his main goal: seeing one of his two sons take on the role of chief executive officer (CEO) in the family firm. The company had a solid nonfamily CEO in place but needed to strengthen its board of directors and formalize a trust to align future generations with corporate governance principles. Ricardo also recognized the serious challenges facing the succession process. Not only were his sons unprepared for leadership and lacking key competencies, but there were ongoing conflicts between family members and struggles to balance family dynamics with business needs. With all these considerations in mind, Ricardo wondered whether his chosen succession plan had been the right one. If not, did he need to do something else to ensure the continuity and success of his business legacy?
The case describes the journey of Associated Capsules Group World (ACG World) in implementing initiatives to bring about diversity and inclusion (D&I) within the organization. Nikita Panchal, global head of talent and organizational development at ACG World, was given the responsibility for improving D&I in 2020. She began with a vision of bringing about a change where inclusion would become the norm instead of a stand-alone activity. The case elaborates on ACG World’s D&I journey within a male-dominated manufacturing industry. It outlines the key initiatives that were implemented, which stemmed from the formation of five workstreams: community; capability building; processes and policies; associate life cycle; and communication. The case allows for a critical review of ACG World’s journey and considers ways to build a strong case for D&I to bring on board senior leaders.
<div style="font-size: 0.94em; line-height: 1.4;"><p align="justify">Ivey Business School Professor Emeritus Glenn Rowe has learned a lot about leadership by studying decision-making in the private sector, but his most valuable leadership lesson was learned as the officer-in-charge of Patrol Boat Standoff in the mid-1980s, when Rowe was a staff officer at a Canadian naval reserve division. On his first day as officer-in-charge, Rowe made an error that led to his ship’s grounding—a cardinal sin in any navy. This article—which Rowe co-authored with Ken Nason, another former Canadian naval officer with a second career in business—examines how failure can drive leadership development by highlighting how it positively affected Rowe’s career. Although we often hear that failure is not an option, this is a costly perspective. After all, failure shapes our character, restores focus, renews motivation, and teaches us about accountability, transparency, responsibility, adaptability, and ownership. Learning from failure, however, can’t happen unless one embraces failure as a teacher. When Rowe grounded his patrol boat, he learned the value of staying calm during a crisis and discovered that he had command ability. Earlier in his career, when approaching HMCS Preserver’s commanding officer to discuss issues tied to his performance, he didn’t save his job, but by admitting to himself and navy authorities that his performance was less than ideal, he avoided the “ostrich effect.”
<div style="font-size: 0.94em; line-height: 1.4;"><p align="justify">How can business school educators most effectively teach diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)? In 2023, a working group devoted to the subject held a professional development workshop on teaching DEI. This article summarizes key takeaways from the event. As the first teaching demonstration showed, when developing diversity initiatives, it’s important to create interventions and messages that aren’t one-size-fits-all. In the second teaching demonstration, the instructor set conversation guidelines that included “active and empathetic listening,” “challenge the idea, not the person,” and “take space and make space.” She challenged students to embrace discomfort, trust intent, and acknowledge assumptions, and sought to reframe conversations about DEI not as difficult but as transformational. In the third demonstration, the instructor encouraged students to think about the conditions that allowed them to grow their emotional intelligence or leadership skills. The article ends with some expert advice from DEI instructors: bring your authentic self; orient yourself to learn; and invite reflection.
<div style="font-size: 0.94em; line-height: 1.4;"><p align="justify">Most high-tech companies are reinventing themselves. The changes high-tech companies have undertaken have made it easier for them to deliver and scale high-tech services instead of simply selling products. Their sales representatives have an increasing focus on building long-term, meaningful client relationships over large-volume deals. They’re starting to bypass conversations about product upgrades in favour of discussions on innovations, data-driven value comparisons, and as-a-service models. Your company needs to know what it can be getting out of these new strategic contracts to get more value, save time and money, and reduce risks. You need to learn how to work with your high-tech providers as they transform themselves. An opportunity exists to carve out customized product and service packages with your suppliers to meet your company’s needs. This article offers a checklist to help your company reap the benefits of the evolving high-tech industry: <br><br><ul><li>Figure out how a subscription model can help you.</li><li>Get into the weeds and be strategic—look for purpose, scale, and flexibility. </li><li>Calculate a cost-to-innovation balance. </li><li>Zoom in on the fine print and iron out misalignments inherent in new service-level agreements between your business and your suppliers. </li><li>Stay connected and keep asking about the support your supplier might be able to provide.</li></ul>
The Future Ready Food Safety Hub (FRESH) was a Singapore-based food safety research organization with a global reputation as an authority on assessing the safety and suitability of novel food products meant for sale in the Singapore market. As Singapore had become the first country in the world to approve the sale of laboratory-grown chicken, more and more companies were approaching FRESH for guidance in their safety dossier submissions to the Singapore Food Agency. With a small team of 10 members to keep up with the growing demand for its services, FRESH considered two options: engaging companies one-on-one to address the specific challenges they faced to meet novel food safety requirements, or adopting a consortium approach engaging multiple companies to collaboratively identify and prioritize common problems and develop optimal solutions for the industry. FRESH had to decide which option would best achieve its goals in advancing food safety research and building the novel food ecosystem.
The director of Yashashvi Rasayan Pvt. Ltd. (YRPL) was satisfied with the plant’s productivity for the financial year 2022–23. Part of the Yash Group, a reputable family-based chemical manufacturer in India since the 1950s, YRPL had exceeded the threshold capacity of 333 metric tons over the last four months, positively affecting the profit and loss statement. Despite this success, the director remained concerned about the safety culture and people-related issues within the organization. After a successful business transformation initiated two years ago, the director pondered whether the success was due to incremental improvement efforts or to the principles of organizational development (OD). He congratulated the leadership team and asked the head of leadership and OD to arrange a meeting with key stakeholders to discuss the next phase of transformation.
A.P. Møller – Mærsk A/S (Maersk) dominated the shipping business as the world’s second-largest container shipping company in terms of fleet size and capacity of handling cargo. In December 2023, Houthi attacks on various Maersk vessels passing through the Red Sea interrupted supply chains from Asia to Europe. One Maersk vessel was hit by a missile while travelling from Salalah, Oman to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Maersk temporarily halted all its container shipments via the Red Sea route. One week after resuming travel, a second Maersk vessel was hit. Container ship operations in the Red Sea were again forced to stop. The US Central Command and other co-operative groups such as the Combined Maritime Forces intervened to help normalize the unrest created by Houthi rebels but their efforts had little impact. Maersk’s share price fell by almost 5 per cent in December 2023. Maersk was wondering how to resolve its situation and move forward. Should it evaluate alternative routes or transportation modes to continue providing seamless shipping services to its clients? Should Maersk continue or enhance its recently implemented policies for transit disruption fees? Or should Maersk follow a demand-driven route, in addition to the disruption fees, to maintain vessel and crew safety?
In January 2023, the diagnostic services provider Simira Diagnostics (Simira), founded in Navi Mumbai, India, in 2017, decided to launch a company-wide rebranding project. When unveiling the new logo to the team, the co-founder emphasized the need to become a purpose-led organization with patient centricity at its core. The redesigned brand’s logo and tag line would include a new service delivery proposition. As she worked to strengthen the company’s brand identity, the co-founder knew that merely capturing the essence of the organization in the logo and tag line would not be enough; she would have to support the branding process by devising an effective advertising and communications strategy to ensure an accelerated level of brand awareness by Simira customers. She would also have to ensure a consistent and seamless customer service experience to strengthen the brand and patient centricity.
Bryan Gilvesy, CEO of ALUS, must create a proposal to spend ALUS’ $100,000 marketing budget for their brand “New Acre Project”. The brand had experienced good growth in previous years, but sales had stagnated for the past two, creating concerns about the survival of New Acre Project. Gilvesy must invigorate growth and reach sales of $6 million by choosing a target market, whether he should offer carbon credits or not, and at what price. He also had to choose a promotional channel and the messaging New Acre Project would use going forward.
Contrary to the typical practice of cutting operating expenses by compromising on employees’ benefits, the chairman of Zentaku Kogyo Company Ltd. (Zentaku), David Wu Chongrang, aimed to improve the standard of living of his staff by steadily raising their salaries and benefits. In fact, the key performance indicator David had set for himself was to raise his employees’ salaries regularly to a preset target benchmark. Contrary to conventional approaches, over the past sixteen years (2006–2022) David had reduced Zentaku’s revenue by 28 per cent and the number of employees by two-thirds, while raising the annual gross profit per employee to 239 per cent. Zentaku had achieved more with less by transforming itself through the rigorous implementation of lean production, inspired by the famed Toyota Production System, but Zentaku’s future leadership now faced challenges in sustaining the success Zentaku had achieved. Were the management methods adopted in the past applicable to the younger generation of workers? How could the current management pass the enterprise to the younger generation while ensuring employees remained fulfilled in the workplace?
PeriFerry is a pioneering social enterprise working toward creating sustainable livelihood opportunities and inclusive workplaces for transgender persons in India. Originally located in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, PeriFerry has upskilled 320 transgender persons and sensitized more than 30,000 employees about their inclusion in the workplace. PeriFerry’s founder and chief executive officer, Neelam Jain, does not believe in an extravagant showcase of effort. Instead, since she founded PeriFerry in 2017, her approach was that when transgender persons wished to transform their lives, they could locate and reach out to PeriFerry via the internet and various social media platforms like LinkedIn, X, Facebook, or Instagram or meet on-ground community representatives. But Jain is looking forward to PeriFerry’s next five years and contemplating whether this approach will be relevant to scale social impact. Alternatively, Jain is considering adopting a proactive stance in reaching out to transgender people. This could involve extending its geographical coverage to include other cities in India and introducing a diverse range of services to provide holistic support for transgender persons. The new approach will allow PeriFerry to scale wide by reaching out to more trans people who are dispersed in various geographical locations in India who find it difficult to locate PeriFerry due to a lack of technological amenities. But Jain would also have to figure out the resources and capabilities required to scale its social impact. Jain must determine which strategy PeriFerry should pursue in the next 2-3 years.
In October 2021, the founder and chief executive officer of Microsign Products Ltd. in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India, was planning to expand the company, but wanted to ensure consistency for employees with disabilities. The company was planning to increase its list of products and expand its market by partnering with foreign companies. Despite his expansion plans, the founder wanted to continue his company’s mission to “Able the disabled.” He had been committed to social responsibility since launching the company in 1987 by hiring individuals with disabilities. He was now wondering if he needed new employee policies to support his vision of hiring people with disabilities into mainstream workplace positions and promote career growth for his employees. How would his expansion plans affect the company’s work culture? How could he be sure to retain the “family” workplace model he had always promoted?