In July 2020, the founder and manager of Montreal Community Contact (Contact), a bimonthly community newspaper, was considering strategies to ensure the survival of his business. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that he was sixty-three years old, he worried about what the future of the newspaper would look like if anything were to happen to him. Contact had been running for almost thirty years and had a loyal readership within the Black community in Montreal and a loyal cadre of advertisers, but online media was threatening the newspaper industry, and each year the business just managed to break even. The business's owner now felt it was important to secure the long-term survival of the newspaper. How should he improve the stability of Contact while evaluating future avenues for the business?
In October 2018, Yehuda Katzman, vice-president of marketing and business development at design house Inbal Dror, was attending the 2018 New York Bridal Fashion Week event, where Inbal Dror and its direct competitors revealed their spring lines to distinct buyers. As in previous years, Katzman had lined up meetings with interested retailers and wanted to make sure they appreciated the unique nature of Inbal Dror's designs and the quality of its craftsmanship and the raw materials it used. Katzman also wanted to ensure that the couture brand was recognized for its dependability, sincerity, and understanding of different cultures. Travelling from Israel to participate in international bridal shows was a costly undertaking, and it was critical for Katzman to identify new retailers to continue expanding Inbal Dror's global reach. His challenge this time was to successfully penetrate the vast markets of China and the Far East-a challenge that could, if successful, generate incredible growth.
The case describes the start-up and evolution of UK-based digital bank Starling. Founded in 2014, Starling offered personal and business accounts, and lending products, promising a better customer-service experience, faster approvals and a more digital-friendly approach than traditional banks. By 2022, a European expansion was underway, along with plans to provide the bank's proprietary technology as software-as-a-service outside Europe and prepare for an IPO. The case analyses the leadership style of Starling's founder and highly atypical leader, Anne Boden, and the corporate culture established under her leadership.
As one of the largest banks in Hong Kong and worldwide, HSBC faced unprecedented challenges from mobile payment platforms (e.g., Alipay and WeChat Pay). In response, HSBC quickly launched its first e-wallet PayMe, a fee-free, user-friendly mobile app that targeted people and businesses in Hong Kong. Within five years of launch, PayMe had 2.6 million users in Hong Kong. The success of PayMe is attributed to its user-friendly design and its initial targeting of the peer-to-peer (P2P) market. Unlike its competitors, PayMe focused on the P2P market by solving consumers' difficulty in transferring money among friends without cash or the many steps of online transfer. As the payment between friends naturally had a social network effect, PayMe's customer base grew exponentially with only minimum marketing expenses. However, when expanding to the fee-charging P2M market, PayMe experienced more challenges as merchants were reluctant to pay for an additional payment method. With 2.6 million users and their HKD8mn in the e-wallet, PayMe's executives were exploring ways to trigger a virtuous cycle in the two-sided market, i.e., P2P and P2M markets. How can PayMe expand its customer base while becoming a profitable payment platform?
Founded in Montreal in 2015 by three friends, Poches & Fils enjoyed huge success from the beginning, fuelled largely by its quirky and humorous positioning in the highly competitive fashion industry. Initially marketed directly on the Web, the brand has been on the shelves of Quebec retailers since 2016. Its distribution partnerships generated sustained revenue growth until 2017, prompting the company to diversify its offering and attempt internationalization. However, eroding margins and declining sales in 2018 and 2019 imposed some tough decisions. The following year would be pivotal: Poches & Fils had to strengthen its profitability and increase its online sales. Questions arose: How could the partners jumpstart the growth of this DNVB? How could P&F do better? Which performance indicators should it use?
PrideBites is a case that highlights the entrepreneurial journey of four young graduates who witnessed the dearth of cheap, good quality, and customizable pet products in the market and decided to make these customizable pet products. These founders also had to seek funds to grow their business. The case walks readers through the decisions investors make and the roles of entrepreneurs in successfully getting funds from venture capitalists. This case also provides an opportunity for students to understand Mises and Rothbard's emergence and function of entrepreneurial profit and loss, and how this informs everyday business life and experiences. It presents rich material to understand that funding a venture is more a result of a negotiation process between the venture capital firm and the entrepreneurial firm and more an art than science.
How should a venture capital firm divide compensation and decision rights between its founders and its next-generation partners? Platinum Capital faced this decision in July 2020. Platinum's younger partners had just requested a piece of the firm's highly lucrative Management Company from Platinum's founders. The founders felt they were owed compensation for the risk and "lean" years they had faced when founding the firm. Yet, the high-performing new partners had other career opportunities and wanted to be "real" partners in the business. Should the founders grant the next generation access to the management company? If so, how should the firm's decision rights work in this new scenario?
The case captures the experience of a customer in a service failure incident when ordering a Porsche Taycan, and the recovery process managed by the local dealer. It outlines in detail the customer's journey from first contact in a test-drive to placing the order, and finally, taking ownership of the new car. Descriptions include the negotiations and interactions between the customer and the salesperson in addressing the service failure and its recovery. The case unfolds with the head of Customer Relations at Porsche learning about the incident from a routine customer satisfaction report. Key decisions faced by the manager involve conducting a root cause analysis of the incident as well as finding recommendations to improve internal processes in handling customer complaint and in recovery. The case covers concepts of root cause analysis, double deviation in service failure, theories of justice in service recovery, customer satisfaction management, and on a secondary level, dealership management.
The case tells the story of Sami Arpa a young entrepreneur with a passion for the movie industry. Sami Arpa and his start-up Largo leverage technology to improve the movie industry. Largo launched in 2018 with the platform for short films called Sofy.tv. In 2020 Largo launches its own SaaS B2B platform providing an AI algorithm for the film-making industry. The algorithms support scriptwriters, producers, and artists with insights on the genre, content, and dramaturgy of their film, a character analysis, casting propositions, and a financial forecast. Largo's early success is confirmed by awards from the San Sebastian and Berlin Film Festival. It is central to evaluate geographical markets which could be attractive for Largo to play in such as Europe, the US, Latin America, India, and China. Facing in addition different new opportunities from a variety of industry segments such as advertising, broadcasting, scripts, and social media, the challenge is how to strategically focus given the resources at hand. Largo must position itself within the different geographical markets and the various industry segments to gain a competitive advantage against strong competitors like StoryFit and Cinelytic.
This case presents the development trajectory of Meizu, a well-known smartphone brand in China, including its inception, rapid rise, and gradual decline, as well as how the leadership characteristics of J. Wong, its founder, precipitated both its success and failure. High school dropout Wong founded the company in 2002. As a result of the company's superb product quality, Meizu became the leading company in China's MP3 player market. In 2006, Wong realized that MP3 players would gradually give way to smartphones and decided to switch production to the latter. He had a perfectionist approach to product development. After three years of R&D and rejecting two versions he deemed unsatisfactory, he finally launched the M8, Meizu's first mobile phone. To craft a comfortable wooden back cover for the MX3, he even made 31 models using a woodworking plane. He was also one of the first people to ride the wave of the fan economy and internet marketing, and frequently discussed technological topics with users on the Meizu BBS forum. In the past, when copycat mobile phones inundated the market, Wong's geeky personality garnered attention and a vast fan base for Meizu. However, as the market gradually matured and competition intensified, Meizu slowly fell behind. It only launched one smartphone model per year, and its excessive perfectionism meant it could not keep up with the competition. What kind of person was Wong? How should we evaluate the successes and crises he has brought to the company? This case sheds light on how the personality traits of a company's leader could affect the development of both the leader himself and the company.
Headquartered in Botswana, Wilderness Safaris was an ecotourism operator that organized several camps and mobile safaris in Africa. Recently, Wilderness Safaris, and the industry in which it operated, had suffered from significant revenue loss because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although Wilderness Safaris had managed to remain operable, the pandemic had changed the industry’s long-term landscape. The vice-president of Wilderness Safaris was interested in applying for an award designed to financially support organizations in solving wildlife conservation problems through technologies. She needed to assess and prioritize several technology innovations and communicate a clear strategy for balancing business profitability with social impact.
In October 2020, the Inspector General of the United States Postal Service (USPS) conducted a survey of the American public and found that despite service challenges largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic-employee absenteeism, mail and package delays-91% of respondents held a positive opinion of the agency. Indeed, the percentage of respondents who said that the USPS provided excellent customer service rose seven points between 2019 and 2020, from 68% to 75%. But even as the public expressed its pride, support and satisfaction with the USPS, the agency posted a $9.2 billion loss in 2020. The General Accountability Office noted that USPS had lost $69 billion over the previous 11 fiscal years. This, despite steady revenue increases; in 2020, the USPS increased revenues by $2 billion over 2019, to $73 billion, which included new revenue from an 18.8% rise in package delivery. This case details the history of the USPS and its unique role as an independent agency of the US Federal government, with a focus on the financial, management and policy decisions that have contributed to its precarious position.
Infosys Consulting was known for delivering innovative consulting services to some of the world's most complex companies. Launched in 2004 as a separate subsidiary, Infosys Consulting was integrated into a new business unit within its parent company in 2011. This case study examines strategic and operational decisions the global leader in consulting and technology faced in growing the increasingly commoditized-and competitive-systems integration and IT outsourcing business. This path involved several bumps in the road, to be sure, and achieving a healthy growth trajectory would require careful decisions about everything from leadership to client relationships to company governance. And it would take a new global model primed to capture the massive opportunities at the intersection of strategy and technology.
The case study titled "Ace Micromatic Group: A Hidden Champion in the Indian Machine Tools Industry" details the journey of Ace Micromatic Group (AMG): how a mid-sized Indian company founded in 1979 and headquartered in Bangalore grew to become India's largest machine tools company by 2005, a position it held until 2020. The case highlights how the group's cofounders have stayed together and committed to managing the group by adopting professional practices. With 700 on-field employees and over 55 service centers, AMG became the undisputed market leader in India. However, 2020 was a challenging year, with the COVID-19 pandemic impacting businesses worldwide. The case describes the concerns of the Managing Director and CEO of Micromatic Machine Tools (MMT) Private Limited, T. K. Ramesh, regarding the changing manufacturing map of the world. Ramesh wanted to envisage how this would affect AMG's expansion strategy and how the group should allocate resources between different markets. Another development that Ramesh and his team followed closely were the disruptive technologies- electric cars and car-sharing platforms-that had already created waves in the automobile sector. The emergence and growth of automobile hiring and sharing economy platforms such as Uber and Ola meant that the public, especially the younger generation, preferred the convenience of on-demand automobiles on a pay-per-use basis to vehicle ownership. With the number of automobiles being produced and sold declining over time, how should AMG respond?
Set in April 2021, the case study traces the process of amalgamation of the Union Bank of India (UBI) with the erstwhile Andhra Bank (e-AB) and Corporation Bank (e-CB) following the announcement by the Ministry of Finance (MoF), Government of India (GoI), on August 30, 2019. With the Amalgamation Effective Date set as April 1, 2020, Rajkiran Rai G., the Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of UBI, who oversaw the amalgamation project was faced with formidable challenges. The banks had distinctive cultures and values. While UBI was pan-national, the employee and customer compositions of the e-AB and e-CB reflected their regional dominance. The case documents how Rai and his team successfully integrated people, products, policies, cultures, technology, and customers within a stringent and short timeline. It describes the sustained efforts to unify employees under a common identity and align them toward the shared vision of becoming the best in the industry. The case provides an overview of the differentiated measures undertaken by Rai and his team to engage the different stakeholders, the governance structure for decision making and implementation, comprehensive measures to ensure transparency through communication and access to resources, meticulous planning, delegation, monitoring, and course corrections in the face of obstacles. One year after the AED, the financial performance of UBI testified to the success of the amalgamation. However, Rai had to foster a customer-centric and performance-oriented culture at UBI. He had to fortify the bank's future prospects by institutionalizing the learnings from the transformation. As the bank embraced digital transformation more frequent changes were imminent. Rai had to tackle the challenge of building an agile, mission-driven, and learning-oriented organization.
Set in August 2019, this case describes the efforts of L. V. Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) to implement an initiative to improve the well-being of its employees by addressing their needs holistically. LVPEI is one of the leading medical institutions in India and the world in eye care treatment and research. As part of its mission to treat its patients well and provide excellent eye care services, LVPEI also sought to treat its employees well and provide them with a work setting that enabled them to thrive. This focus on employee well-being led LVPEI's Chairman, Dr. G. N. Rao, and Vice-Chairman, Dr. G. Chandra Sekhar, to invite Ram Nidumolu, co-author of the case study (referred to as "the consultant" in the case for the purposes of objectivity), to identify areas of improvement and implement initiatives to enhance employee well-being. The initiative described in this case study began in August 2018 and was completed a year later. The initiative was built around a new approach to employee well-being called "beingful work". Beingful work theory, developed by Nidumolu and his associates, posits that employee well-being is influenced by the extent to which the workplace fulfills the needs of the employee's "whole self" or being. These holistic needs include material, psychological, social, ecological, and moral/spiritual needs that employees bring to their work. The more the organization cultivates a work setting that fulfills these needs, the more meaningful work becomes for employees, making them more engaged with their work. Meaningful and engaging work, in turn, promotes the holistic well-being of employees because of the positive energy it creates. The case describes three phases of implementation of beingful work at LVPEI, of which the third phase-scaling up-is proving to be the most challenging.
In the second decade of the 21st century, many time-honored baijiu distillers faced challenges from the digital economy. Going digital was undoubtedly tricky for them, but the mega-trend of digitalization was unavoidable, and the time-honored baijiu distillers had no choice but to adapt. Leading time-honored baijiu distillers were the first in the industry to jump into this trend. However, the road ahead seemed more challenging for small and medium baijiu distillers. This case study focuses on digitalizing a time-honored baijiu distiller in Jiangxi - LIDU Liquor (hereinafter referred to as LIDU). The case describes LIDU's digital journey starting in 2014, focusing on defining digitization, influencing factors, digital measures, and evaluating indicators. It aims to help students understand why and how time-honored baijiu distillers start digitalization. It also provides suggestions on how to assess its digitalization performance. This case offers insights and references for traditional manufacturers and companies in the digital era.
Headquartered in Botswana, Wilderness Safaris was an ecotourism operator that organized several camps and mobile safaris in Africa. Recently, Wilderness Safaris, and the industry in which it operated, had suffered from significant revenue loss because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although Wilderness Safaris had managed to remain operable, the pandemic had changed the industry's long-term landscape. The vice-president of Wilderness Safaris was interested in applying for an award designed to financially support organizations in solving wildlife conservation problems through technologies. She needed to assess and prioritize several technology innovations and communicate a clear strategy for balancing business profitability with social impact.
This article focuses on the use of IT systems to meet rapidly changing customer needs. It places particular emphasis on the building of IT “systems strength.” This is defined at Accenture as a measure of a company’s ability to innovate at scale. It is calculated by assessing three factors: tech adoption, tech depth, and organizational culture. The article builds on multiple large sample surveys, as well as in-depth interviewing with large organizations. The second part of the paper considers what to do if your company is not a market leader. Here, the authors explain how “middle-of-the-pack” organizations can leapfrog other firms to accelerate their innovation-led growth. The key here is to change the IT budget allocation from an emphasis on operations to an increased emphasis on innovation.