In February 2016, the principal dealer of several European luxury automotive dealerships learned from Audi of America LLC (Audi) that he would have to relocate one of his dealerships to a new location. The relocation would be to a new market area and the dealer would most likely lose his current customer base. Instead, the dealer used the opportunity to create a new business model for auto retailing that could enable him to maintain his market share without having to comply with Audi's relocation requirement. His new concept, named "Carcierge" and opened in 2016, was showing initial success, but the dealer wondered whether the boutique sales model he developed would be viable in the long run.
Bengaluru Airport began an expansion project worth US$2 billion in 2018, but by mid-2020 COVID-19 had severely impacted the aviation industry and reduced passenger volume at the airport by half. Although the airport's leadership team had detected the crisis early and taken swift action, with no cure for the virus in sight business continuity and staff safety were in jeopardy. The next board meeting was in August 2020, less than seven weeks away, and the pandemic threatened to derail the expansion plans. Among other pressing questions the leadership team had to address-including whether to continue with the expansion plan, reduce its scope, or delay it-was whether they had done enough throughout the crisis to inspire confidence.
This role-playing exercise aims to tackle issues related to inter-organizational collaboration to scale up innovations. The role-playing experience helps learners discover, appreciate, and learn to govern inherent tensions in inter-organizational collaboration. The exercise is set in the Canadian auto parts industry, which could benefit tremendously from more sophisticated robotic technology to assist the manufacturing process. The role play asks learners to engage in an inter-organizational collaboration agreement. Each participant will represent a company whose in-house knowledge, resources or capabilities can contribute to developing a robot.
The leading digital platforms control access to an increasing share of the world's data and because innovation is increasingly data-driven, entrepreneurs and enterprises may find it difficult to seize new opportunities. Keeping the engine of innovation running will require policy makers to consider providing access not only to capital but to data as well.
Based in Shanghai, China, Huazhu Group, the world's third-largest hotel operator, was known for its standardized IT system. It helped the company boost efficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief Digital Officer Xinxin Liu also faced some longer-term challenges: What resources and digital strategy would the company need as it tapped into the higher-end hotel market to become a multi-brand hotel giant? How should Huazhu balance the needs between using its IT solutions to scale its own operations on one hand and to empower other hotels on the other?
The Board of ICICI Bank was meeting on January 30, 2019, to decide the action to be taken against the Bank's former MD & CEO, Chanda Kochhar, in response to an independent investigation report that found her guilty of violation of the Bank's code of conduct pertaining to conflict of interest. The non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank, Girish Chandra Chaturvedi, must decide the possible actions the Board might consider against Kochhar. Punitive action against Kochhar would be a reversal of an earlier decision of the Board to allowing Chanda Kochhar to resign without any cause (Termination Simplicter). Maintaining status quo on the decision could hurt the credibility of the Board and the reputation of the Bank. While evaluating the choices, Chaturvedi must maintain professional integrity and be fair to Kochhar. He had to frame the justifications for the choices he would put before a possibly divided Board.
In 2019, two fatal plane crashes plunged Boeing in an unprecedented crisis, setting off a maelstrom of controversy about Boeing's corporate practices and the safety of the 737 MAX - the recently redesigned version of its most successful commercial jetliner. Within weeks, the MAX was grounded worldwide, and Boeing faced financial, legal, regulatory and reputational pressures. All while under intense media scrutiny and heightened safety concerns from the flying public. And then the COVID-19 pandemic hit the aviation industry, escalating the crisis into an existential threat to Boeing's commercial aviation business. Amid this perfect storm, Boeing executives faced one key question: How to restore Boeing's reputation as a leading aircraft manufacturer?
The key objective of this case is to provide students with the skills and understanding of how out-of-home (OOH) advertising is utilized as a channel for brands to communicate their messages to consumers, as well as how a media company contributes to the value chain in the industry. The six examples cited in the case illustrate the concept in practice as well as the developing trend of the interactive outdoor-and-online (O&O) model going forward. The case describes a situation faced by Asiaray Media Group (Asiaray), a company founded by Vincent Lam in Hong Kong in 1993. Despite entering the market as a latecomer amid fierce competition, Asiaray has grown in stature as a media enterprise and gained a strong foothold in Greater China and Singapore. Its success was largely attributed to its innovative spirit, particularly in developing its Space Management concept as highlighted in the case studies. The pandemic which began in 2020 brought disruptive and unprecedented changes to the economy and the advertising landscape. Despite signs of recovery in the first half of 2021, the company recorded a net loss of HK$113.7 million in the period, and its share price had plummeted close to 75% from just before the pandemic. Based on what he and the company have learned and built in the past, Vincent must now seek and seize the next opportunity, with innovation being a key for survival in these changing times.
Human judgment relies not only on reasoning but also imagination, reflection, examination, valuation, and empathy, giving it an intrinsic moral dimension. The authors argue that just as over-reliance on navigation systems may cause us to forget how to use our innate sense of direction, over-reliance on AI-based decision support systems puts us at risk of abdicating our moral responsibilities.
In a historic agreement on 8 October 2021, 136 countries approved the OECD two-pillar solution in a major overhaul of the century-old international taxation system. At the G20 Summit in Rome on 30 October 2021, the leaders of the world's biggest economies endorsed the two-pillar solution, decades in the making but which will be implemented in 2023. The new agreement will overcome the tax challenges arising from the digital economy and will ensure that big businesses pay a fair share of taxes on profits from market jurisdictions where they operate. The case explores the two parts, placing a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% on the profits of the world's largest businesses; and shifting tax revenues to market jurisdictions where large businesses have their customers and sell their products. Protagonist Janet Yellen, Secretary of the US Treasury, played an instrumental role in getting reluctant finance ministers on board. President Joe Biden supported the OECD plan in part because it will stop growing tensions between G20 countries over digital service taxes.
Since 1989, US companies have been trying--mostly unsuccessfully--to marry the ease of ordering groceries online with the convenience of home delivery. All have learned that the combination of customer demands and logistical challenges has made it difficult to be profitable in this space. Unlike retailers of standard items (such as books), sellers of groceries had to exercise judgment when selecting fresh meat, fruits, and vegetables to satisfy consumers' tastes. Once selected, many items needed to be packed in specific ways and required timely delivery to maintain freshness and quality. In addition, the "last mile" of delivery was costly and highly variable between high-density urban customers and those in more dispersed suburban and rural communities. Customers were familiar with in-store prices and resisted paying more, a preference reinforced by Amazon and other online retailers, which had created an expectation that online prices should be the same as--or even lower than--prices in stores. In addition, customers had a strong aversion to delivery charges, even if delivery saved them time. They also much preferred the convenience of narrow time windows for delivery and had a low tolerance for mistakes.
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.
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?
AcademyOne, Inc. (AcademyOne) was a small privately owned software provider whose focus was on providing students with college transfer solutions. It operated as an educational technology company that provided software as a service (SaaS) products to simplify and streamline the college transfer and advising process. After surviving an economic recession and an industry lawsuit, the firm had regained its financial footing, and in 2021, now that it was financially secure, some of its long-term investors had asked to cash out their investments. AcademyOne’s president and chief operating officer was tasked with looking for ways to grow the business and with valuing AcademyOne, with the end game of selling the business.
Karim Beguir and Zohra Slim were the co-founders of InstaDeep, a deep tech startup focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. Instadeep was one of the few companies globally that were partnering with DeepMind, an AI subsidiary of Google [Alphabet Inc.]. InstaDeep employed DeepMind's reinforcement learning approach in its business solutions. When Beguir and Slim founded the company in 2014, it was a web design company that aimed to build a globally competitive enterprise and create impact by hiring talent in Africa. Beguir, a mathematician by training, figured out that AI could be employed to solve century-long industrial problems such as container packing or route optimization, so the duo shifted the company's focus to AI in 2017. They then had the option to either apply for proprietary IP and monetize their intellectual property rights or to publish the idea as a research article on an open access platform, which would allow all scientists to benefit from it. By 2021, InstaDeep had created two major branded products: DeepPCB, an AI-powered printed circuit board routing system, and DeepChain, an AI-based protein design system to speed time to market for new drugs being developed by scientists. They had two other products in development, and the possibility of developing many more verticals was in the cards. But Beguir and Slim had to decide whether to position InstaDeep as an extremely horizontal AI company that could push innovation in a multitude of verticals, or to focus on just a few. The former would create big impact by fully leveraging the capabilities of the AI team in a wide range of fields. But focusing on a few verticals and managing fewer customers had its advantages, too. What should they do?