This third case in the series that begins with "Design Thinking in Action (A): South Western Railway" (UVA-S-0377) describes two waves of experimentation undertaken by UK railway operator South Western Railway (SWR) and its design-consultancy partner, David Kester & Associates (DK&A), during the deliver stage of their joint project to improve customer experience at SWR. They had followed a classic design thinking methodology, discovering customer experiences and needs, defining journey maps and personas, and developing concepts. In this final case, they tested those concepts in actual rail stations to determine whether they met goals for desirability, feasibility, and viability. For those interested in adding self or peer assessment to students' design thinking learning journey, Professor Jeanne Liedtka, working with coauthors Karen Hold, Jessica Eldridge, and Treehouse Design, has synthesized more than a decade of research at Darden to create the Innovation Impact Assessment. This tool will help students identify personal development opportunities and provide them with practical guidance (in the form of detailed individual feedback reports) to accelerate skill development. The instrument identifies a set of five core competencies based on 44 behaviors that successful design thinkers have in common. It is available for individual use and bulk purchase via Darden Business Publishing at this link: https://store.darden.virginia.edu/innovation_impact_assessment.
The founder of Jucai Human Resources Development Co., Ltd. had witnessed the development of China’s human resources service industry over the previous 20 years. In the company’s early stages, it had mainly relied on the advantage of information asymmetry of the Internet to carry out online recruitment services. But from 2015, the founder became interested in and confident about the prospects of providing a talent assessment service for public institutions and thus decided to start such a service. After five years of development, the company had become a leading enterprise in the domestic talent assessment service for public institutions. However, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, talent assessment services for public institutions suddenly stagnated. The founder realized that this service was too dependent on government policy support, although income from this service accounted for 70 per cent of its revenue. If public institutions shifted their talent assessment business from outsourcing assessment to independent assessment, the company would face a severe challenge. Therefore, the founder had to consider how his company could reduce its dependence on policies and achieve sustainable development by using existing data resources.
The case is designed to be used in courses on Nonprofit Operations Management, Data Analytics, Six Sigma, and Business Process Excellence/Improvement in MBA or Executive MBA programs. It is suitable for teaching students about the common problem of lower rates of volunteerism in nonprofit organizations. Further, the case study helps present the importance and application of inferential statistics (data analytics) to identify the impact of various factors on the problem (effect). The case is set in early 2021 when Shefali Sharma, the Strategy and Learning Manager with Teach For India (TFI), faced a few challenging questions from a professor at the Indian School of Business (ISB) during her presentation at an industry gathering in Hyderabad, India. Sharma was concerned about the low matriculation rate of TFI fellows, despite the rigorous recruitment, selection, and matriculation (RSM) process. A mere 50-60% matriculation rate was not a commensurate return for an investment of INR 6.5 million and the massive effort put into the RSM process. In 2017, Sharma organized focused informative and experiential events to motivate candidates to join the fellowship, but it was not very clear if these events impacted the TFI matriculation rate. After the industry gathering at ISB, Sharma followed up with the professor to seek his guidance in performing data analytics on the matriculation data. Sharma wondered if inferential data analysis could help her understand which demographic factors and events impact the matriculation rate.
South Africa, like most other countries, is in the process of reducing its carbon emissions to comply with COP26 and, hopefully, reach net zero emissions by 2050. However, because South Africa relies almost wholly on coal (93%) for electricity, and on coal for artificial gasoline, this is a huge task. Furthermore, its state-owned utility - ESCOM - is just recovering from a period of corrupt, "state capture," and requires state support to cover its debt service. Finally, because of the country's high unemployment and strong labor unions, a "just energy transition" is essential. Jobs and retraining for thousands of coal miners and energy workers, their families and communities, will dominate the process of energy transition.
Explores channel management issues in the U.S. food industry. Natureview Farm, a Vermont-based producer of organic yogurt with $13 million in revenues, is the leading national yogurt brand (24% market share) sold into natural foods stores. It has achieved this through its special yogurt manufacturing process and through cultivating personal relationships with dairy buyers in the natural foods channel. Set in 2000, when the company faces financial pressure to grow revenues to $20 million by the end of 2001 due to a planned exit by its venture capital investors. The immediate decision point that the protagonist, Natureview's vice president of marketing, faces is whether to achieve this revenue growth by expanding into the supermarket channel.
Atlantic Computer, a leading player in the high-end server market, has detected a marketplace opportunity in the basic server segment. They have developed a new server, the Tronn, to meet the needs of this segment. In addition, they have created a software tool, called the "Performance Enhancing Server Accelerator," or PESA, that allows the Tronn to perform up to four times faster than its standard speed. The central question revolves around how to price the Tronn and PESA. Although cost-plus, competition-based, and status-quo pricing are the most common means by which firms establish prices for their offerings, these approaches may prevent firms from fully realizing the benefits that are due to them. Provides an opportunity to optimize value capture for the firm by utilizing value-in-use pricing (i.e., examining the value that a firm's offering creates for the customer, and using the savings generated as the basis for developing prices). Also allows for the exploration of the challenges surrounding the implementation of a value-in-use pricing strategy. These include the reactions of competitors, customers, and stakeholders within the firm.
Cambridge Sciences Pharmaceuticals (CSP) expects final approval for its revolutionary weight loss drug, Metabical. Metabical will be the only weight loss drug with FDA approval that is also clinically proven to be effective for moderately overweight people. Barbara Printup, Senior Marketing Director for CSP, must develop the positioning strategy and marketing communications plan in preparation for the launch of the new drug. Printup must consider the consumer decision-making process and the interaction between the consumer who purchases the drug and the health care provider who prescribes the medication. Despite promising medical studies and consumer research, poor positioning of the drug in the highly competitive market for weight-loss solutions could spell disaster. Students analyze market research data and consider the optimal positioning strategy and marketing communications program.
Metabical is a new weight loss drug from Cambridge Sciences Pharmaceuticals intended for moderately overweight individuals. In anticipation of final FDA approval, the senior director of marketing, Barbara Printup, prepares for the product launch and must make several critical decisions. First, she must select the optimal packaging size for the drug which typically requires a 12-week course of treatment. Next, she must determine the appropriate pricing. Since most insurance companies do not cover weight-loss medications, price has a direct impact on the sales forecast. To establish the initial demand forecast, Printup considers three approaches based on different assumptions. Her final recommendations must consider long term profitability and meet the company's desired return on investment.The case includes a quantitative assignment for students.
Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, a small luxury private hotel management firm running a collection of 12 individually branded hotels and resorts in multiple countries, was wondering how to foster customer retention and loyalty and capture the maximum value from its 115,000 guests. Rosewood had always allowed each hotel to stand as its own individual brand, with the Rosewood name presented as a muted sub-brand, if at all. Now Rosewood's new leadership was contemplating whether the firm should significantly increase the prominence of the corporate identity, making Rosewood a corporate brand. The main challenge that Rosewood's executives face is to assess whether the potential economic benefits from increased guest retention can outweigh the $1,000,000 marketing investment needed to implement the corporate branding strategy. The central focus is a quantitative assignment that asks students to calculate how customer lifetime value would be affected by a shift from individual branding to corporate branding.
Hunley, Inc. manufactures rods for the niche sport of fly fishing. It specializes in freshwater rods that are perceived as "middle-market" products, targeted at "avid" fly fishers, In the face of declining revenue and a decreasing price per unit sold, the company's president is considering several growth options, including introducing a rod made from state-of-the-art materials (moving up-market) and expanding distribution into Walmart (down-market). Hunley's president must decide whether either option is feasible and if so, what kind of marketing plan is necessary for each to succeed. If neither option is chosen, he must determine what other ways Hunley might grow. This is a rich marketing mix case that requires students to develop a qualitative and quantitative plan for Hunley's product line under two very different growth options. The discussion can illuminate numerous marketing issues that an instructor might want to emphasize, including: brand extension, product and company market position, positioning statements, market segmentation, introductory marketing programs, new product launches, channel conflict, sales force management of a strategic shift, among others. This case is suitable for an introductory marketing course for undergraduate or MBA students. It can also be used in a section on positioning and increasing consumers' willingness-to-pay within a strategy course. Further, the challenges facing Hunley are relevant to many courses in executive education.
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