The case focuses on key decisions facing a startup venture BuyHive, that is on the cusp of disintermediating the sourcing business with a new business model. There are a few core issues such as (1) identifying the pros and cons of raising capital from strategic investors who can open doors to large pools of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) that can be attracted to the platform versus financial investors who typically only bring in the capital, (2) how to monetize the data that the company can access from the platform users, and (3) how to address some of the issues that are central to platforms such as platform disintermediation, network switching, bridging, and multi-homing. The founders have to specifically consider ways in which they can increase scale and stickiness with respect to the platform users as well as its sourcing specialists. The platform was an outcome of radically rethinking the way value was being delivered to buyers seeking to identify manufacturers who could supply to the specifications that the buyers had developed. The giant global sourcing companies and platforms such as Alibaba, Made-in-China, Global Sources among others had typically focused on creating value for the suppliers (manufacturers and their representatives or intermediaries). BuyHive seeks to turn the attention on buyers as their core focus and create a buyer-centric platform. The company has to make decisions on identifying the right type of investors, engineering the platform to create greater buyer value, improve stickiness of the platform, and adopt AI-based algorithms in bringing sourcing experts on board.
The case tells the story of El Ordeño, an Ecuadorian company competing in the dairy sector, whose central purpose is to help small ranchers in the country's Andean (mountainous) region rise out of poverty. To do this, it designed a business model in which they were included as shareholders, received fair payment for their milk and avoid intermediaries by creating their own distribution centers. To better communicate the social impact of this enterprise, and provide more transparency to its supply chain, the company decided to build a blockchain solution, the first of its kind in Ecuador and Latin America. In January 2021, after almost two years since launching the initiative, senior management has to make a decision: Should El Ordeño strengthen or abandon the blockchain technology.
This case revolves around Framberry Congelados S.A. (Framberry), an Osorno, Chile-based, privately held frozen berries produce wholesaler. Framberry was severely affected by the ongoing Covid pandemic that was expected to last for another three to five years. The pandemic directly or indirectly affected every aspect of Framberry's operations and threatened the company's survival unless an effective crisis management plan was formulated and successfully implemented. Framberry's Zonal Manager, Mr. Claudio Tapia, was tasked with designing and executing a comprehensive plan to navigate the company through the complex situation it faced.
This case discusses the launch of a marketing campaign titled "The Barbershop Girls of India" created by Gillette India, a Procter and Gamble company (P&G). Gillette India had been highlighting social issues for many years. Their "Gillette soldier for women" campaign, launched in 2013, is just one example. But this time, they took addressing social issues up a notch by addressing gender stereotypes in Indian society through their "The Barbershop Girls of India" campaign. The case outlines the company's prior efforts in social media platforms leading to the launch of the "The Barbershop Girls of India." The case encourages students to analyze how companies choose social issues to address through their marketing communication campaigns, as well as how marketing communications may be integrated with corporate goals and brand identity. The case concludes with questions about the future of the Gillette India brand, and what type of marketing efforts it should follow in the future.
Concerns over decreasing global food security had been growing worldwide due to factors ranging from growing population and demand for food to declining levels of arable land due to urbanisation and climate change. This was exacerbated by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given its own constraints in arable land and natural resources, Singapore was well ahead of other developed economies in pioneering the novel food industry development for food security. FRESH was a research centre launched by the Singapore government in 2021 to foster public-private partnership to build up local food safety science and R&D capabilities to support the safety assessment of novel food ranging from plant-based and cell-based meat to microbial and insect protein. FRESH knew that its rare and valuable expertise on novel food safety assessment would position it well to not only support Singapore's transformation of its own agri-industry, but also play a catalytic role in the international novel food scene with Singapore's strong reputation for stringent food safety standards. FRESH had to decide between two options for its future business model-remain as a public-funded institution or become a corporatized entity.
All innovation begins with the imagination. But before your imagination can be harnessed, it must be ignited. In an excerpt from their book of the same title, the authors argue that three things spark the imagination: accidents, anomalies and analogies. However, for any of these types of surprises to impact us, our minds must be prepared, and that means improving our abilities in three areas: noticing; comprehending; and interpreting. They describe how to develop and improve upon each skill, along the way explaining the importance of paying attention to our frustrations, how to draw analogies and how to immerse ourselves in new worldviews.
Goal-based mission and vision statements have been around for decades and are widely accepted as a required practice for corporations. But as the post-pandemic economy takes shape, that definition of purpose has expanded significantly. The author argues that duty-based purpose - anchored in explicit values -has become critical for organizations to thrive. She describes the three pillars of duty-based purpose: values, social service and stewardship, providing rich examples. She then explains how to marry the goal and duty-based aspects of an organization's purpose. In a world where viruses can paralyze economies, climate change ravages communities, and the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen, she makes it clear that this expanded conception of purpose must become a foundational aspect of every organization.
We have entered a new era for business in which sustaining competitive advantage requires companies to transform their business models for sustainability. As a result, leaders need a systemic understanding of sustainability challenges-and how their companies can play a part in addressing them. The authors-current and former senior consultants at Boston Consulting Group-introduce the concept of Sustainable Business Model Innovation (SBMI) and the four steps required to achieve it: Expand the business canvas; innovate for resilience; link to drivers of value; and scale the initiative. Many examples of companies large (3M, BASF, PepsiCo) and small (Ajinomoto, Indigo AG, Veolia) that have achieved SBMI are provided throughout. In the end, the authors show that it is not only possible-but increasingly critical-to create social and business value with one business model.
As the world begins to emerge from the global pandemic, a majority of consumers have reimagined their values and purpose. According to research from Accenture, they have made a consequential shift to focusing on what matters most for them in life - and their motivations for buying are, accordingly, meaningfully different. The author, a senior executive at Accenture, shares the firm's findings and shows that these changes reveal an enormous new 'white space' in which brands must differentiate themselves anew in order to survive. He describes four steps to attracting the Reimagined Consumer: eengineer; rethink; reimagine and recalibrate. He makes it clear that evolving their business model is not a choice for organizations, it is an imperative: Consumers will leave brands that don't recognize their new priorities-and will pay more for those that do.
Pre-pandemic, leaders were having lots of conversations about innovation, disruption and digital transformation. But existential challenges over the past two years have forced that conversation to become much broader. In a wide ranging interview, renowned leadership and professional development expert Herminia Ibarra argues that responding to a global pandemic, an environmental crisis and the quest for racial equity demands that leaders shift from being 'know-it-alls' to being 'learn-it-alls'. She describes the five skills requires to thrive in the post-pandemic environment: cross-cutting, collaboration, coaching, culture-shaping and connecting. She also describes how critical it is to foster psychological safety on a team and warns that authenticity-for leaders and their employees-should never be used as an excuse to remain the same over time.
Innovation plays a pivotal role in shaping the economic fabric of nations. In particular, market-creating innovations - which create new markets by democratizing access to previously-exclusive products - have been a vital force for generating prosperity in wealthy countries, and are integral for building a prosperous future for emerging economies. The authors, from the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, argue that in order to create new markets for people who have traditionally been unable to purchase certain products due to barriers such as cost and access, organizations not only need to develop a product that meets these customers' needs, they must also develop a way to get it to them. Having researched 100 companies in 30 countries that created markets between 1706 and 2018, they share six key strategies that enable market creation.
After building the oil and gas distribution company UBI Group in her native Ghana and then selling a majority stake to an international investor, Salma Okonkwo turned her attention to solar power. As the pace of industrialization in Africa accelerates, she wants to make sure that political and corporate leaders don't repeat the mistakes that their Western and Chinese peers made as they pursued development and economic growth. That's why, in 2018, she created Blue Power Energy. It's still early days for the company, which has 20 employees and hasn't yet started generating revenues. But it's currently building two solar farms in Ghana with the goal of eight more by 2028 and has signed contracts to supply 3 million customers with 140 megawatts of clean energy by the end of 2023. Okonkwo's hope is that she can apply the lessons she learned launching and building UBI to her new venture so that it not only becomes just as successful but also makes a more positive impact on the world.
Digitization may be necessary for many businesses' continued success, but in our increasingly complex world, what companies really need to do is build new forms of competitive advantage and transform themselves for the future. And that requires fundamental changes in their top leaders--not just in individuals' capabilities but in the way they collectively steer the ship. Drawing on their research at 12 prominent global firms, the authors note the contradictory-seeming skills that leaders are expected to have--being both great visionaries and expert executors, for example. But in this article they focus on the urgent imperative to improve leadership teams, arguing that CEOs should: (1) Identify the roles that are needed at the top to reimagine and then deliver on the company's purpose. (2) Fill those roles thoughtfully, assembling a diverse group of people who think boldly and work together harmoniously. (3) Focus the team on driving transformation rather than managing the current business. (4) Take ownership of the team's behavior, fostering trust, collaboration, and a commitment to leading the company forward rather than dwelling on personal advancement.
All too often fitness centers, medical providers, colleges, and organizations in many other industries seek to distinguish themselves only on the quality, convenience, and experience of what they sell, say the authors. It's not that those things aren't important. But they matter only as means to the ends that people seek. Too many organizations lose sight of this truth. Even when they do promote what they sell in relation to consumers' aspirations, they rarely design solutions that allow people to realize them. Instead, individuals must cobble together what they think they need to achieve their goals--for example, a trainer, a particular diet, and a support network to lose weight. Enterprises should recognize the economic opportunity offered by the transformation business, in which consumers come to them with a desire to improve some fundamental aspect of their lives. Even though we're all filled with hopes, aims, and ambitions, significant change is incredibly hard to accomplish on our own. This article offers an approach to designing a transformation business.
Some multigenerational companies or their predecessors have committed acts in the past that would be anathema today--they invested in or owned slaves, for example, or they were complicit in crimes against humanity. How should today's executives respond to such historical transgressions? Drawing on her recent book about the effort by the French National Railways to make amends for its role in the Holocaust, the author argues that rather than become defensive, executives should accept that appropriately responding to crimes in the past is their fiduciary and moral duty. They can begin by commissioning independent historians, publicly apologizing in a meaningful manner, and offering compensation on the advice of victims'-rights groups. The alternative is often expensive lawsuits and bruising negotiations with victims or their descendants.
Professional growth can get stymied for all sorts of reasons. But one of the most important is rarely discussed: You're contending with ghosts from your past. Early in life, family dynamics give rise to many fundamental behaviors and attitudes toward authority, mastery, and identity. When similar dynamics emerge at work, people often revert to childhood patterns. To enable change in the personal realm, psychologists often encourage clients to consider the nature of their original family system. This approach can--and should--be applied at work too. Guided by the tenets of family-systems theory and their own research, the authors have identified six elements of family dynamics that commonly play out in the workplace. To achieve your greatest potential as a leader, you need to recognize your own "family ghosts," understand how they influence your behavior at work, and decide which ones to celebrate and which ones to leave behind.
As people develop competence in a new domain of expertise, they move along an S Curve: Growth is slow and effortful at the outset, or launch point. It then progresses rapidly as people acquire new skills in a stretch known as the sweet spot. At the peak is mastery, when work becomes easier but the curve flattens. Understanding where your employees are on this S Curve of Learning will help you coach them appropriately, craft thoughtful succession plans, and build a team with diverse but complementary strengths. The S Curve is a tool that smart managers use to launch conversations with their reports and develop tailored development plans for them. It reveals when people are ready for bigger challenges--something that's especially critical when they're in mastery, which may mean they're getting restless and need to jump to a new S Curve. Often the employees don't even realize they're ready to take the leap, but their managers push them anyway. When that happens, it's key to surround an employee with the right supporting team. A good team will include members from all phases of the curve, who can contribute diverse perspectives and skills.
Quantum computers can solve problems exponentially faster than classical computers can. They will bring about two huge changes: an end to our current infrastructure for cybersecurity over public networks and an explosion of algorithmic power that holds the promise to reshape our world. Scientists face myriad challenges in developing commercially relevant quantum computers. But once they are overcome, the disruption caused by postquantum cryptography will eclipse that of Y2K, which cost the United States and its businesses more than $100 billion to mitigate. This article examines the way quantum computers will not only upend digital security but spur investment, reshape industries, and spark innovation.