On November 11, 2016, Xi Dan, Senior Vice President of Tencent, and Ma Yongwu, Dean of Tencent Academy, were discussing how Tencent could develop new capabilities to sustain its growth miracle and entry into new technologies, expansion into B2B businesses, and internationalization.
Benchmarking and executive expertise don't necessarily determine the best key performance indicators (KPIs). Data-driven companies increasingly employ predictive analytics such as machine learning to help identify and refine key strategic measures. More finely tuned KPI measures lead to behaviors that are better aligned with strategic objectives.
This is the story of how Agoda, a subsidiary of the Booking Holdings online travel group, made its way to a single "KPI + constraint" model that helps run a good bit of the business. It took some trial and error to get there; the KPIs that were developed and tested along the way promoted both positive and counterproductive behaviors and outcomes. But the business found its guiding principles, implemented them, improved performance, and fostered learning and cooperation in the process.
Successful digital transformations require leaders to frame performance targets around data-defined business objectives rather than technological capabilities. The authors share a four-component leadership framework they developed for KPI-driven digital transformation that enables a virtuous cycle of improvement. They also discuss how to design effective strategic KPI portfolios.
Many Chinese family businesses are facing a succession crisis due to the lack of succession planning. Contrary to this finding, Chen Koon-yaw, the fourth-generation owner of the Hop Lion Feather Works Corporation, had planned early and handed the leadership role over to the next generation well before his retirement age. Hop Lion is a supplier of processed down and feathers to well-known consumer brands specialising in beddings and winter coats, including Canada Goose, Moncler, The North Face, and many others. Founded in 1908 and headquartered in Taiwan, the century-old family business had faced multiple crises that threatened its survival in the early 1990s - family separation, employee betrayal, loss of major clients and a highly volatile business environment. Chen's experience of an abrupt takeover of the family business after the demise of his father had led to his decision of not leaving succession planning to chance, and grooming his son as the next leader well in advance. Even after officially handing over to his elder son in 2015, there were doubts on whether he would truly let go. At 61, he had stepped down earlier than most Taiwanese CEOs. Should he continue to exert control over his successor to influence decision-making?
Today's challenges of digital transformation, coupled with the pandemic, call for a shift in leaders' mindsets so that they can revamp their businesses for the better. The author discusses four common assumptions about driving transformation and suggests ways leaders can rethink them to help their companies thrive when challenged with constant global change.
Redress is an environmental charity that aims to encourage consumers, the fashion industry and manufacturers, to take a more sustainable approach to garment and textile manufacturing. Every day, thousands of tonnes of unwanted garments and textiles are dumped in landfills, an issue that has escalated due to fast-fashion production. Textile manufacturing consumes valuable resources such as water and releases harmful pollutants, while worldwide shipments account for 10% of global carbon emissions. Redress encourages consumers, both corporates and individuals, to take a more responsible attitude to fashion, through clothing drives, redistribution of garments, and pop up stores in Hong Kong. It also works with the global manufacturing and textile industry to encourage greater sustainability through key initiatives, events and forums.
The case Reviving Edwards Lifesciences provides a vehicle to understand the evolution of Edwards Lifesciences (EL) as a leader in the heart valve replacement industry, with solutions for aortic, mitral, and tricuspid valves. The company has been at the forefront of innovation specifically in the research, design, and manufacturing of multiple generations of valves used in transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). The case describes the various components of strategy and organization that EL successfully integrated to manage the process of continuous innovation, and to create and deliver outstanding value over an extended period to customers, partners, and shareholders, thereby earning the admiration of analysts and management experts.
OnlyFans, a paywalled platform primarily known for hosting adult content, had drifted towards sexually explicit content since COVID-19-related lockdowns began in March 2020. However, given pressure from its investors, in August 2021 OnlyFans announced it would ban sexually explicit content from its site later that year. Following the announcement, the company came under fierce criticism from its adult content creators, who maintained that OnlyFans owed its growth to pornography, an industry that had been evolving as technological advancements arose. On August 25, 2021, upon renegotiating with its capital providers, OnlyFans suspended the ban, though irreversible damage had been done. Considering the related information technology (IT) management and ethical issues, what should the chief executive officer of OnlyFans have done when OnlyFans’ different stakeholders pulled the platform in different directions and expressed opposing ethical views? How was an open platform like OnlyFans supposed to judge what was ethical and what was not? Was banning (or not banning) sexually explicit content ethical?
In May 2021, Asahi Group Holdings, Limited (Asahi), a Japanese global beer, spirits, soft drinks, and food company, shifted its focus to non-alcoholic beers. The shift was made after spending US$20 billion to acquire premium beer brands from Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, a Belgian multinational drinks and brewing company.<br><br>The Japanese beer market had been shrinking for decades with Japan’s declining population, and more recently, the market had shrunk further because of restrictions imposed during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In response, domestic beer producers were looking abroad for better market opportunities.<br><br>Asahi needed a strategy to compete against the Belgian beer giant. Considerations included whether to pursue growth in Asahi’s core beer business or diversify in the food industry, how to position a growing portfolio of products to minimize cannibalization, whether to shift focus from the premium to the lower-mass beer market, and how to approach the potential Chinese beer market. Regardless of growth strategy, Asahi needed to deal with a loss in share value, triggered by investors nervous about Asahi’s acquisition spree. To regain investor trust, Asahi needed to manage its financial leverage.
After years of learning from the best bakeries around the world, Polish entrepreneur Monika Walecka returned to her native Poland and, in 2019, opened her artisanal bakery, All in Flour. The bakery was an extension of her values and struck a delicate balance between financial and social objectives. All in Flour was located in one of the most upscale districts of Warsaw and focused on top-quality bread products. It used high-quality, diverse, and expensive ingredients sourced from small, local suppliers, and its bread prices were probably the highest in Warsaw. Walecka was considering whether to pursue any development options. In fact, her preferred option, at present, was to do nothing. She knew that growth was not an obvious choice because it came with risk, costs, and problems. Nevertheless, the decision of whether to change something was becoming the most important challenge of her entrepreneurial career as a baker.
Pittsburgh, PA, was once the crown jewel of American heavy industry. During the 19th and 20th centuries, the city was an undisputed leader in steel production, boasting some of the largest companies and wealthiest individuals in the world. Its abundance of manufacturing jobs also attracted diverse migrants seeking a better life. But when the US steel industry collapsed in the 1980s, major companies fled Pittsburgh, along with wealthier residents and much of the middle class. The city and surrounding towns plunged into poverty, and "Steel City" lost a crucial piece of its identity. By 2022, Pittsburgh appeared to be thriving again. Major research institutions like Carnegie Mellon University drove the city's transition to an "eds and meds" economy. With its profusion of technical talent, Pittsburgh also developed industry clusters around advanced technologies like robotics and lured technology giants like Google and Amazon. Yet this newfound wealth did not extend to all corners of the city. Infrastructure was crumbling, poverty rates remained high, and Black residents had worse outcomes than both white residents and their counterparts in many other cities. Moreover, fiscal challenges and fragmented governance made it difficult for local leadership to implement solutions to these complex problems. Ed Gainey, Pittsburgh's newly elected and first Black mayor, considered objectives for his four-year term. How could he ensure both growth and shared prosperity? Which problems should he tackle first, and who should be at the table? How would he measure progress?
In 1970 Chile became the first country to elect a Marxist president through open, multi-party elections in Salvador Allende. In his first year as president, Allende nationalized the copper industry, Chile's largest export industry that was developed and owned by US multinationals. The nationalization was politically popular, and Allende ultimately refused to provide compensation. The US administration of President Richard Nixon saw Allende's government as a political and ideological threat both in the context of the Cold War, and to the economic interests of the "First World" at a time of rising resource nationalism and political activism in the so-called "Third World."
Applied Intuition, a leader in autonomous vehicle simulation software, has just closed on a $175 million round of Series D financing that values the four-year-old firm at $3.6 billion. With the immediate future secure, CEO Qasar Younis must now chart a strategic course for Applied Intuition's growth over the next ten years.
Frustrated by the current system's shortcomings, including failing to provide clients with the teams they needed for increasingly advisory work and affording junior consultants an opportunity to adequately apprentice, Murphy was worried that the current compensation system was holding RRA back from executing on his growth strategy intended to help RRA-a top 5 search firm-recapture market share lost to its competitors since the great recession. He had tried many attempts, over multiple years, to change the culture through other means, but only with tepid success. Now he had to decide whether to pull the trigger on a large-scale effort to adjust RRA's discretionary bonus system after hearing concern-and even anger-over the proposal from some of his top 20 consultants. To permit students to analyze the situation, they have access to detailed, real performance and compensation data for all RRA consultants in 2015 (in the supplementary (C) case spreadsheet), along with the modeling RRA did to forecast the effect of the compensation system changes on each person. Students can therefore analyze how a more collaborative approach to compensation might positively impact some consultants and adversely impact others, assessing the benefits and risks of the dislocation. By asking students to decide whether Murphy should move forward with the new compensation system, or whether an alternative might be better, students will wrestle with the role of compensation systems in driving intended behaviors, such as collaboration, and thus in supporting or warping organizational culture, performance, and growth. By analyzing the dislocation to employees' variable compensation due to a change, students will learn the challenges of changing and calibrating compensation systems.
Frustrated by the current system's shortcomings, including failing to provide clients with the teams they needed for increasingly advisory work and affording junior consultants an opportunity to adequately apprentice, Murphy was worried that the current compensation system was holding RRA back from executing on his growth strategy intended to help RRA-a top 5 search firm-recapture market share lost to its competitors since the great recession. He had tried many attempts, over multiple years, to change the culture through other means, but only with tepid success. Now he had to decide whether to pull the trigger on a large-scale effort to adjust RRA's discretionary bonus system after hearing concern-and even anger-over the proposal from some of his top 20 consultants. To permit students to analyze the situation, they have access to detailed, real performance and compensation data for all RRA consultants in 2015 (in the supplementary (C) case spreadsheet), along with the modeling RRA did to forecast the effect of the compensation system changes on each person. Students can therefore analyze how a more collaborative approach to compensation might positively impact some consultants and adversely impact others, assessing the benefits and risks of the dislocation. By asking students to decide whether Murphy should move forward with the new compensation system, or whether an alternative might be better, students will wrestle with the role of compensation systems in driving intended behaviors, such as collaboration, and thus in supporting or warping organizational culture, performance, and growth. By analyzing the dislocation to employees' variable compensation due to a change, students will learn the challenges of changing and calibrating compensation systems.
In August of 2018, Tania Tetlow is inaugurated as President of Loyola University New Orleans, in the midst of turmoil. Prior to her start, the university was given a final warning to land a balanced budget by year's end by its accreditors or risk facing probation. It is now up to Tetlow to see through a transformation already wracked with turmoil, with an eye toward necessary cost-cutting and future growth. How should she steady the ship financially; build trust with the administration, Board, faculty and staff, and student body; manage a group of consultants brought in by her predecessors; and communicate to these groups about the potential reality on the horizon? More fundamentally, how will she see Loyola through the risk of probation just months into her tenure?