Burlap & Barrel was an upcoming and successful public benefit corporation based in the Queens borough of New York City that imported spices from foreign farms and sold them to restaurants, gourmet food stores, home cooks, and other food services in the United States and other markets. In March 2020, when COVID-19 gripped the world and forced most food establishments to close down temporarily, the two co-founders of Burlap & Barrel saw an instant drop in their revenues because half of their sales volume normally came from restaurants. To stay afloat in the pandemic, they changed their focus from wholesale channels to a direct-to-consumer business model. Media coverage in major outlets helped demand increase, but the shift from wholesale to direct-to-consumer raised many supply chain inefficiencies in sourcing, storing, packaging, and transportation. In early 2021, as restaurants began gradually reopening, the two B&B co-founders became concerned about meeting the growing demand from both direct-to-consumer and restaurant orders while retaining their core ethical, environmental, and business values.
In May 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the protests that followed the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody, leadership at the National Association for Stock Car Automobile Racing (NASCAR), the American auto-racing company best known for stock-car racing, had to decide whether to ban the Confederate flag at its events. To many, the flag was emblematic of racism and a celebration of the Confederacy and its attempts, in the American Civil War, to retain the institution of slavery. Race attendees often carried the flag with them, it was emblazoned on clothes, souvenirs, and mugs, and some even tattooed it on themselves. The Confederate flag had been controversial for years, and NASCAR had tried to eliminate it and other racist symbols from its events, but to no avail. But this time was different: awareness of injustice and inequity had permeated the country's social consciousness and people throughout America had taken to the streets to protest. Nonetheless, many NASCAR fans claimed the Confederacy flag was representative of "heritage, not hate" and threatened to boycott the sport if it were banned. Despite NASCAR's attempts to diversify both the organization and the audience, NASCAR's fan base remained decidedly conservative and, for the most part, tolerant of the flag's presence. NASCAR did not want to alienate its fan base, but leadership did want to change with the times and instill diversity in every aspect of the organization. It also did not want to put up roadblocks to attendee comfort-and for many current and potential fans, the Confederate flag's presence was a roadblock.
This case is a follow-up to ""NASCAR and the Confederate Flag (A)"" (UVA-E-0441). It outlines how National Association for Stock Car Automobile Racing (NASCAR) leadership announced on June 10, 2020, that the Confederate flag was no longer welcome at race events and venues. Reaction was both positive and negative. However, despite this decisive move, questions remained, including: How would each track enforce the ban? What steps could NASCAR take to move past this controversy and get fans-and some employees who disagreed with the ban-to focus on the sport? How could NASCAR grow its demographics beyond the conservative, white Southerners who had comprised much of NASCAR's fanbase over history, and how could the organization become more inclusive?
Alexandra Camacho, Vice President of Credit Risk at the Multilateral Development Agency (MDA), faces the challenge of preparing in a short time a report that links the results of CSR management to the financial performance of Banco W. Demonstrating the link between finance and CSR has been established as an essential requirement given the critical position of Ernesto Rivera, Vice President of Sustainable Development, as a prerequisite to the approval of a guarantee being requested by Banco W. The approval of this guarantee will allow Alexandra to complete the goals required of her unit, to attend to the special request of the President of MDA to give a prompt response to the bank and to open a new niche of clients. In the role of Alexandra Camacho, the students will take on the challenge of developing the Value Footprint or Fourth Financial Statement. It will enable them to relate the results of the financial management and the CSR of Banco W and thus be able to support the recommendation of the endorsement requested by Banco W. This case uses public information of Banco W for didactic purposes, and all characters and situations presented are the product of fiction.
In May 2021, SHEIN overtook Amazon as the most downloaded shopping app on the US iOS and Android app stores. During the pandemic in 2020, SHEIN achieved substantial sales growth and is now catching up with the fast-fashion giant Zara. This case first briefly discusses the apparel and fast-fashion industry and the creation of the fast-fashion model by Zara. Then it covers SHEIN's historical development and its "fast-fashion 2.0" business model-using big data and algorithms to identify customers and their preferences. The case also discusses various perspectives of SHEIN's business operations: products and pricing, marketing and branding, and supply chain management. The case further discusses several challenges that SHEIN faces: product quality, transparency of company disclosure, environmental impact, and geopolitical risk. In the last section, the case presents several options that SHEIN may be able to pursue in the future. The case is suitable for MBA, EMBA, and undergraduate students who are interested in competitive strategy, technology or digital strategy, innovation, blue ocean strategy, China strategy, global strategy (cross-border e-commerce), and the fashion industry. The case can be used in core strategy courses at different levels, as it covers various topics.
This case study is organised into four parts (A through D), meant to be read and discussed progressively. Jane Blanston, a newly hired Enterprise Architect at LGB Bank, had developed over her career a specialisation in Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). Prior to joining LGB, she had recent successes in a smaller regional bank where she had replaced its outdated batch-mode file transfer style of integration with a real-time SOA style of integration. This provided the bank with a more flexible architecture and an abstraction layer which enabled the bank to make large scale changes in the backend (e.g., a core banking system replacement) with minimal impact to the bank's front-end banking channels (e.g., internet banking). Furthermore, with an SOA in place, the bank had the ability to rapidly assemble new solutions by reusing existing services. Blanston was headhunted by LGB and offered a job based on her expertise in SOA and reputation as a problem solver. LGB specifically wanted her to review its current microservices-based architecture (a subset of SOA) and to propose an improved architecture which emphasised service reuse, like what she had implemented in the past. Even though LGB was a larger bank with larger integration problems, She decided to take up the challenge. She accepted the job offer to join LGB's technology department based in Singapore.
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) company NIO had launched Battery as a Service (BaaS), in a competitive bid to reduce vehicle price and make its products more attractive to its consumers. By 2021, almost 40% of its consumer base had switched to using BaaS, and NIO had plans to expand its BaaS services further. BaaS offered four key benefits. Firstly, it reduced the price of the EV by about US$ 10,800. Secondly, it allowed consumers to do multiple battery swaps for a nominal US$ 152 monthly subscription fee. Thirdly, it allowed consumers to swap their batteries in a short time of 3 to 5 minutes, as opposed to 45 minutes recharge at a charging station. To support its BaaS program, NIO had installed 301 battery-swapping stations across China by July 2021, and had plans to complete 3000 swapping stations globally by 2025. Fourthly, BaaS supported a circular economy, as it potentially helped recycle batteries in a more controlled fashion, which could then be reused in other industries (like for solar panels in homes). However, NIO's BaaS entailed a few shortcomings despite its promise. Its implementation involved the construction of swapping stations, deployment of automated technology, and maintenance of battery stocks at stations, which was an expensive affair. Besides, technology for batteries had started to advance, and batteries could last longer in terms of miles travelled based on a single charge, reducing the need for frequent recharge at swapping stations. Given the scenario, was NIO's BaaS venture a sustainable business model? Could it provide NIO with a strong competitive advantage?
The Alcagüete case is an example of a market-focused social initiative (B Corporation) that encountered serious doubts regarding its mission while it was considering an expansion proposal that would allow it to grow exponentially in record time. Alcagüete produced and sold healthy snacks. A fundamental pillar of the business was its social value proposition of combating childhood malnutrition. This was reflected in the brand and its 1x1 cause-related marketing strategy under which for each product sold, a contribution was made to a social organization addressing childhood malnutrition in Colombia, becoming a mainstay of its positioning and differentiation strategy. A progressive growth strategy had been working, but a more significant scale-up was needed the following year. One of the company's strategic partners had offered to sell products at hard-discount stores, but at what cost? And if they didn't, what other growth options were available?
Following a weekend strategy retreat in October 2018, the vice-chair and group CEO of Kuwait-headquartered mobile telecommunications company Zain, was proud of the company’s performance over the previous year. Zain Group had much to celebrate, having blazed a trail in advancing women’s empowerment and inclusion in the workplace—a double challenge in a technology industry that was also based in a region heavily influenced by traditional gender values. Its strategy included the launch of the Women Empowerment Network initiative (WE Initiative) in November 2017, a strategic master plan aimed at achieving gender equality, empowering women, and advancing women’s careers at Zain. However, a great deal of progress remained, and new challenges were emerging. The company had put significant emphasis and resources toward women’s empowerment and development, leaving some of the male colleagues feeling overlooked and left out. As well, other groups, such as people with disabilities and younger generations, also had barriers to overcome. How could the company continue its efforts to support women while also being inclusive and considering the needs of all its employees?
LenDenClub (LDC) was a primarily online platform operated by Innofin Solutions Pvt. Ltd. in the peer-to-peer lending industry in India. To offer differentiated products in a growing segment, LDC decided to focus on the untapped segment of low-salary earners. However, it was risky to serve this segment; borrowers had little credit history but often required loans immediately for emergency expenditures, and these borrowers had limited repayment capacity, so it was challenging for LDC to remain profitable. LDC responded by developing a new product based specifically on the targeted segment’s needs that allowed LDC to give small loans to more borrowers while achieving the lowest default rates. In June 2020, with preliminary testing done, LDC needed to refine InstaMoney’s features to achieve the best version of the product and obtain the best performance of InstaMoney in terms of conversions and the lowest default rates.
In 2019, Bruno Masson, the vice chairman of Veolia's Ethics Committee, was preparing for a meeting on a rollout plan for a new whistleblowing system to more countries. Veolia, a global supplier of water, waste, and energy services, had recently gone through several incidents of corporate misconduct. In response, Veolia believed that strengthening corporate whistleblowing was an essential next step to prevent future incidents of misconduct. Given the positive experiences with its existing platform in the U.S., Veolia had originally tested this platform in Germany, where both corporate and legal protections for whistleblowers were weaker compared to the U.S.. However, this rollout turned out to be unsuccessful. This initial setback prompted Masson to try a different approach to encourage more whistleblowing. They hired an outside vendor to provide Veolia with new whistleblowing capabilities. Would the new system be more successful in encouraging employees to report their concerns? How would the whistleblowing laws in Germany influence the effectiveness of this platform? Could this technology have negative implications for employee trust and productivity in the long run?