A young HBS graduate purchases a publisher of specialty magazines that advertises second hand cars, boats, trucks, etc. The magazines carry photographs and a brief description of each article for sale. The company faces the problem of deciding on how many magazines to drop off at each distribution point. Teaching objectives: relevant costs which are not always obvious, simple forecasting, and shortcomings of critical fractile analysis.
In 2019, the Brazos Valley Food Bank (BVFB) in Texas increased its distribution and food-storage capacity and was delivering food to food-insecure people in six nearby counties through its partner agencies. While the number of food-insecure people in each of these counties was relatively stable, the food distribution capacities of BVFB's partner agencies and the food supply fluctuated. As a non-profit organization, BVFB needed to equitably distribute food across all the counties it served, but it first needed to decide how to define "equitable food distribution." Which parameters, food needs, or costs should it use to calculate this? How could it ensure that its food distribution did not favour one county over another? Was equitable food distribution achievable for BVFB at all?
Simple Energy was an electric scooter start-up in India founded with the intent of filling a market gap for a well-designed e-scooter, fully made in India, with sufficient range to be practical. In April 2021, with a couple of months left to launch Mark 2, the company's first e-scooter, the founders needed to settle on their marketing strategy and decide how to position Simple Energy as a relatively new entrant in what was becoming a fiercely competitive market. Simple Energy had one model ready, but competitors had entered the market with multiple variants. Should Simple Energy introduce both a basic and premium variant of Mark 2? The founders also wondered whether they should focus on introducing Mark 2 in one city first or start operations in multiple cities simultaneously.
In 2016, UltraTech Cement Limited acquired a number of Jaypee Cement Corporation Ltd.'s cement capacity assets in India's largest cement sector deal. As a result of this acquisition, all permanent employees at the acquired plants became employees of UltraTech Cement Limited. This included people working in plants, logistics, sales and marketing offices, and head office. On analyzing the employee data and organizational structure, considerable differences became apparent. The differences were related to organizational culture, organizational structure at the plant level, reporting relationships, and employee compensation. The challenge was to combine the two organizations and streamline human resources policies and practices fairly and equitably and help Jaypee Cement Corporation Ltd. employees integrate well into the newly merged entity.
In early 2021, McKinsey & Company (McKinsey) agreed to pay US$573 million to end US state-level investigations into claims that it had helped exacerbate the global opioid crisis. Tom Peters, an influential and highly respected management guru, was upset by how far his former employer had been willing to go in helping US drug maker Purdue Pharma LP increase sales of OxyContin, a narcotic-based painkiller that helped drive an opioid epidemic responsible for hundreds of thousands of tragic deaths. As far as Peters was concerned, there was no question as to whether what McKinsey did was wrong: it had ignored the "moral responsibility of business" by helping an unethical client maximize profit by aggressively promoting the wide-scale use of a highly addictive drug. In addition to asking why McKinsey was still open for business, Peters posed a previously unimaginable question: "At this moment in time, why would anyone want to go to work for McKinsey?"
Mark Zuckerberg's brave new world sounds cool-but regulators need to recognize it is being designed by the Facebook culture responsible for creating major social issues
When analyzing a business case, MBA students tend to extrapolate by concluding that whatever a successful company did was effective, and whatever a failed company did was wrong. At the heart of the problem is the classical confusion between correlation and causality. This case demonstrates the pitfalls of such thinking through a parable, in which an alien who descended to earth concluded that lying on a hospital bed causes a person to die. It then provides several concrete examples of business analysis so students can discuss whether we can attribute commercial success to various practices or "visions" of a company. Finally, it suggests a choice-centered approach to case studies on how to draw a meaningful conclusion through observations (as opposed to rigorous statistical analysis). The suggestions include clarifying the purpose of case analysis, framing the central question as a choice, considering trade-offs, identifying external conditions, and going beyond a particular company. The final part is an appendix, which goes beyond business cases by discussing similar confusions in war, art, health, and education, and scientific methods in natural sciences and economics.
This module note provides an overview of exploratory data analysis for an introduction to data science course. It begins by defining the term "data", and then describes the different types of data that companies work with (structured v. unstructured, categorical v. numeric, etc.). Next, the note describes the basic summary statistics that firms use to track key business outcomes. Finally, the note provides an overview of different visualizations. An appendix is provided, which includes the R code for creating all of the figures and visualizations shown in the note.
This note provides an overview of statistical inference for an introductory data science course. First, the note discusses samples and populations. Next the note describes how to calculate confidence intervals for means and proportions. Then it walks through the logic of hypothesis testing and the interpretation of p-values (in the context of two-sample hypothesis testing for means and proportions). The appendix of the note contains R code for all of these topics.
This note provides an overview of linear regression for an introductory data science course. It begins with a discussion of correlation, and explains why correlation does not necessarily imply causation. The note then describes the method of least squares , and how to interpret the r-squared and model coefficient values of a simple linear regression model. Next, the note describes how the interpretation of a model coefficient changes when there are multiple independent variables in the model. Finally, the note explains how to interpret the coefficients on dummy variables in a regression model. The appendix includes R code for implementing all of these topics.
This note provides an introduction to machine learning for an introductory data science course. The note begins with a description of supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning. Then, the note provides a brief explanation of the difference between traditional statistical modeling and machine learning. Next, the note covers two models used for classification, logistic regression and decision trees. After introducing these two models, the note explains how train, validation, and holdout sets (and k-fold cross validation) are used to tune and evaluate different models. Finally, the note concludes with a discussion of different performance metrics (ROC cruves, confusion matrices, log loss) that are used to evaluate classification models.
VH1, MTV, and LOGO were all popular television channels owned by the Paramount television network. One of the most successful shows on LOGO was RuPaul’s Drag Race, a reality television show featuring drag queens. Paramount was considering moving RuPaul’s Drag Race off LOGO to a different platform within the Paramount portfolio in 2017. Before deciding where RuPaul’s Drag Race would air, Paramount needed to determine whether the show could be successful on another platform given its current fan base, how the potential move would affect the show’s ratings, and whether the positioning or targeting strategy for the series would need to change if it were moved.
When the pandemic shifted many people to remote work, long-held attitudes about the practice shifted as well. Now, as many organizations are adopting hybrid work arrangements, it's imperative that leaders end the tendency to overlook remote employees' contributions and aspirations. The authors offer recommendations for both leaders and employees to help them work toward equity and access for both in-person and remote personnel.
VH1, MTV, and LOGO were all popular television channels owned by the ViacomCBS television network. One of the most successful shows on LOGO was RuPaul's Drag Race, a reality television show featuring drag queens. ViacomCBS was considering moving RuPaul's Drag Race off LOGO to a different platform within the ViacomCBS portfolio in 2017. Before deciding where RuPaul's Drag Race would air, ViacomCBS needed to determine whether the show could be successful on another platform given its current fan base, how the potential move would affect the show's ratings, and whether the positioning or targeting strategy for the series would need to change if it were moved.
The Happy Turtle was a bootstrapped start-up in Delhi, India, that was focused on driving a circular economy for plastics. The company aimed to offer sustainable and biodegradable lifestyle alternatives to plastic, which could secure a greener future for the planet. The founder of The Happy Turtle had left a successful and flourishing corporate culture to follow her passion for sustainability. By mid-2019, The Happy Turtle had been growing at a slow but steady pace to reach a breakeven point. One year later, however, the company was finding itself at a crossroads. Business uncertainty had arisen due to the Indian government's new policy on plastic waste management, various underlying issues related to the circular economy, and the challenge of raising money from angel investors. In addition, the founder was finding it difficult to recruit, hire, and retain the right talent to help her achieve The Happy Turtle's vision. What strategic and routine decisions would she have to make to reach her company's goals and vision?
Interface has been a leading innovator in the carpet industry, specializing in the manufacturing of carpet tiles for commercial flooring. This case describes the history, context, and technology behind the company's development of its newest sustainable innovation-carbon negative carpet tiles. Interface began pursuing a path of bold sustainable initiatives in 1994 when Founder and CEO Ray Anderson, confronted by an employee, had a realization of the company's negative environmental impact. The company then began moving toward a carbon neutral future, through carpet recycling and leasing programs, transparent emissions reporting and new carbon storing materials. This case uses Interface's story to: explore the context and motivations for companies pursuing environmental goals such as carbon negativity; present the transparency and reporting dynamics within the realm of carbon accounting; and contemplate the stakeholder dynamics created by these decisions. The primary dilemma is whether Interface made the correct decision in launching its carbon negative carpet tiles, given these different factors.
Makena Wanjiru, chair of Kiri Mount Kenya Conservation Network and Resource Centre (Kiri), wondered whether turning Kiri’s loans business into a co-operative bank would be in the group’s best interest. The challenge was to convince the rest of the board members of the idea. The board of directors would meet on July 18, 2019. Wanjiru had to draft a report before then explaining how the idea was consistent with the group’s current strategy and would benefit Kiri for years to come. Wanjiru also needed to consider strategies to grow Kiri’s agribusiness beyond the Mount Kenya community.
In mid-January 2022, Nadine Hachach-Haram, founder and CEO of Proximie, was thinking about the company's growth plans. Launched in 2016, Proximie was a platform that enabled clinicians, proctors, and medical device company personnel to be virtually present in operating rooms (OR) where they would use mixed reality and a suite of digital audio and visual tools to communicate with, mentor, assist, and observe those performing procedures. The goal was to improve patient outcomes. The company had grown quickly, opening offices in Beirut, London, and Boston, and had 135 employees. Proximie's technology had been used in tens of thousands of procedures in over 50 countries and 500 hospitals. It had raised close to $50 million in equity financing and was now entering strategic partnerships to broaden its reach. In deploying its platform, Proximie also digitized and structured formerly uncaptured data from ORs, making it possible to build a novel database of rich surgical data and prepare an infrastructure for both analytics and for curating insights from users. Hachach-Haram aspired for Proximie to become a platform that powered every OR in the world. To achieve these goals, Hachach-Haram had to navigate several challenges as she scaled the company. She needed to carefully think about the company's partnership and data strategies. Which formula would position the company best for the next stage of growth?