Set in June 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the case traces the evolution of SensorFlow, an early-stage start-up offering an IoT-powered Energy Management Solution (EMS) to the hospitality sector in Southeast Asia. It documents the founding story and illustrates how the founders, Saikrishnan Ranganathan and Max Pagel, drove the adoption of their innovation by securing a distinctive value proposition and unique business model. SensorFlow's EMS was targeted at the hospitality sector struggling under pressure to reduce energy consumption and operations costs besides meeting sustainability norms. SensorFlow's EMS addressed the gaps in the incumbent solutions with its minimally invasive, less expensive plug-and-play design. In addition, the zero-upfront-cost and pay-as-you-save payment model shortened the sales cycle and accelerated customer acquisition and business growth. However, when the pandemic hit, the growth slowed, and as the long-term implications on the hospitality industry became apparent, the founders had to review their business plans.
ComfortDelGro Taxi, the leading taxi company in Singapore, was established in 1970 as NTUC-Comfort Taxi. In 2015, it was the dominant taxi operator in Singapore. However, starting from 2012, the company began to face increasing competition from third-party ride-hailing (TPH) companies like Grab and Gojek, whose respective market capitalisations far exceeded that of ComfortDelGro Taxi. Even though the company consistently adopted new technologies to improve its performance and stay ahead of the competition, the challenge posed by these new entrants was unprecedented. In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic dealt a further blow to the company within an already tough operating environment. ComfortDelGro Taxi was quick to respond with a slew of initiatives to support its drivers and the community. Meanwhile, a new regulatory framework for the point-to-point (P2P) transport industry was implemented by the Land Transport Authority. Notwithstanding the above, commuters appear to have embraced third-party ride-hailing companies, resulting in an exponential growth in their vehicle population, and a massive 40% reduction in ComfortDelGro Taxi's fleet within 5 years. How should ComfortDelGro Taxi meet these challenges?
Kia Motors India (Kia) had tasted success in India within a year of the launch of its product Seltos. Kia’s managing director and chief executive officer was quite happy with the sales figures for Seltos, the mid-sized sport utility vehicle (SUV) launched in August 2019, and was fairly confident that Kia’s compact SUV Sonet would follow the same path. Kia’s positioning strategies had worked very well thus far, and the company had been able to cultivate a brand image of a premium automaker whose products were considered aspirational.<br><br>However, Kia’s competitors seemed to have learned from Kia’s success in realizing what worked for Indian consumers and were starting to launch new variants of existing models. In the face of this competitive onslaught and slowing economic growth in India, the chief executive officer had to formulate strategies that would keep Kia’s growth trajectory on track. Could his understanding of the dynamics of the SUV segment in India enable him to frame effective positioning and growth strategies that would continue to work for Kia?
Kombucha Canada Inc. sold kombucha beverages to restaurants and grocery stores in British Columbia, Canada. Restaurant and store closures, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, had affected the company’s sales. The business owner wanted to value her inventory at year-end using the first-in, first-out method of valuation and calculate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on her inventory.
Technology is advancing at a rapid rate, changing various aspects of our everyday lives. Businesses and governments are trying to adapt to this change by embracing positive aspects, while remaining attentive to negative aspects. This note focuses on technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data, considering the ethical issues that these technologies create within our society and also how these ethical issues are being addressed.
This final note in the four-part series on competitive-cost analysis introduces the concepts of learning curves and experience curves, which can be analyzed with a log-log relationship between unit cost and cumulative volume.
This case presents The Coca-Cola Company's (Coke's) involvement in the controversial Georgia voting bills. It can be used to explore brand purpose and activation of purpose through activism. Presenting a chronology of Coke's statements as the firm responded to consumer and organizational actions, the case enables students to explore the challenges associated with the following: 1) aligning activism with brand purpose, 2) engaging in activism in a way that strengthens the consumer-brand relationship, and 3) aligning activism efforts with business growth. Consequently, the case offers opportunities to dive deeply into brand activism, brand purpose design, and brand activation, as well as corporate response to consumer activism. The case includes proprietary information about Coke's purpose, beliefs, and values that can provide the basis for a compelling discussion. This case is well suited for undergraduate, MBA, MBA for executives (EMBA), and Executive Education programs. For undergraduate students, it can be placed in a course in brand management, capstone marketing strategy, management/leadership communication, or management strategy, introducing the concept of aligning brand actions with brand purpose. For MBA/EMBA students, it can be placed in a first-year core marketing course, management communication course, management strategy course, or brand management elective. In Executive Education programs, the case can help firm leaders proactively think about how to engage in controversial issues that divide consumers, shareholders, and employees. Coke appears to be caught flat-footed, reacting rather than leading from a clear point of view. This case enables executives to think about how they might manage such a situation before it arises.
Founded in 2010, Worldreader was an international nonprofit organization that promoted reading to children around the world. For many years, Worldreader distributed e-readers to under-resourced communities and funded its operations primarily through philanthropic donations. In 2019, Worldreader launched the BookSmart mobile reading application, and soon thereafter came the idea of a new, self-perpetuating funding structure: the "flywheel." Worldreader aimed to charge schools and community-based organizations a $6 monthly subscription fee per child to use BookSmart, with the goal of using earned revenue to sustain operational costs and using philanthropy to cover other strategic priorities. However, Worldreader soon realized that ability to pay varied greatly among potential "customers," leading to several exceptions to the initial price. The team also worried that the subscription hindered achieving scale and conflicted with Worldreader's ultimate goal of impacting millions of children. As Co-Founder and CEO David Risher and his team prepared for an upcoming meeting with UNICEF, which typically sought fixed-price contracts, they considered whether a price per-child, per-month would be acceptable. More broadly, they considered whether they had landed on the optimal price point and funding strategy-and the potential implications of pursuing earned revenue on Worldreader's ability to bid for international development grants.
This case is written from the perspective of Ting-ting Loh, CEO of Aguila Safety Group (ASG). A prominent UK-based personal protective equipment (PPE) procurement company, ASG was one of the main suppliers of medical equipment to the UK National Health Service (NHS). During the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of rubber glove factory workers in Malaysia tested positive for the virus. This reignited discussions and investigations of the labor practices in the factories. Numerous companies were accused of using forced labor, including some of ASG's direct suppliers. Ting-ting had to make important decisions about how to address the allegations of forced labor in ASG's supply chain, while continuing to meet demands for medical supplies during the pandemic.
Imam, Director Global-Marketing, TEGA Industries, was reviewing a research report prepared by a reputed US research agency to design the entry strategy in the US for innovative Conveyor Components (CC). The case provides information on the company background, details of the company products, value proposition of CC in India, research methodology followed by the agency, market environment, market demand, industry structure, profile of key competitors, distribution structure and attractive points of entry for TEGA. The case can be used to challenge participants to understand the concept of value proposition, critique the research (including additional information needed) and to explore the entry strategy.
Artificial intelligence increasingly attracts attention and investments. However, appropriating value from this general-purpose technology (GPT) can be difficult. To understand these challenges, this article analyzes why IBM failed to generate significant profits from IBM Watson Health despite its promising starting points. The findings suggest that, considering the characteristics of GPT, an overly closed approach for taking it to market contributed to the failure. Furthermore, conditions such as the immaturity and the complexity of the application field intensified the challenges. This study suggests that using a strong appropriability regime in open innovation can enhance the appropriation of value from a GPT.
When the author agreed to accept the top job at UPS, the global shipping service, in late winter of 2019, she expected to steer the company toward a brighter future. She had no idea that she would have to do it during a global pandemic that made her organization an essential service but kept most people at home and pushed demand for shipped goods to holiday levels year-round. When she officially took over, in June 2020, she gathered her top team to decide on the principles to which they would hold fast during this crisis--including integrity, efficiency, constant learning and improvement, and a strong focus on both customers and employees. Among their top priorities were maintaining their brand relevance, keeping their balance sheet and credit rating solid, protecting their dual-class ownership structure, and continuing to pay a dividend. The organization divested from some businesses and invested in others, which has led over the past year to impressive growth, a happier customer base, and a more engaged workforce.
Many people believe that the process for achieving breakthrough innovations is chaotic, random, and unmanageable. But that view is flawed, the authors argue. Breakthroughs can be systematically generated using a process modeled on the principles that drive evolution in nature: "variance generation," which creates a variety of life-forms; and "selection pressure" to select those that can best survive in a given environment. Flagship Pioneering, the venture-creation firm behind Moderna Therapeutics and one of the most widely used Covid-19 vaccines in the United States, uses such an approach. It has successfully launched more than 100 life-sciences businesses. Its process, called "emergent discovery," is a rigorous set of activities including prospecting for ideas in novel spaces; developing speculative conjectures; and relentlessly questioning hypotheses.
More and more companies are relying on pricing algorithms to maximize profits. The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning enables real-time price adjustments based on supply and demand, competitors' activities, delivery schedules, and so forth. But constant price shifts have a downside: They may trigger unfavorable perceptions of a firm's offerings and its brand. It's vital, therefore, to understand and manage the signals being sent by the algorithms. The authors offer real-world examples of companies that have succeeded in this endeavor and others that have not. And they recommend four steps to avoid harm: Determine an appropriate use case for algorithmic pricing and explain its benefits to customers; designate an owner to supervise and be accountable for the system; set and monitor guardrails, both to protect against wild surges and to learn how price changes affect all aspects of the organization; and override the algorithms when necessary.
The Economist opened 2021 with a cover story headlined "Why Retailers Everywhere Should Look to China." It's not hard to see why. China is both a large and a fast-growing retail market--worth about $5 trillion in 2020--and highly digitized. And the pandemic has made digital every retailer's strategic priority. The authors draw from their research on Chinese retailers to explain five lessons that Western companies can learn from China as they develop their own digital market offerings: 1) Create single entry points where customers can access all their potential purchases. 2) Embed digital evaluation in the customer journey. 3) Don't think of sales as isolated events. 4) Rethink the logistical fundamentals. 5) Always stay close to the customer.
Although power is essential to taking charge and driving change, it makes leaders vulnerable to two traps that can not only erode their own effectiveness but also undermine their team's. Hubris--the excessive pride and self-confidence that can come with power--causes people to greatly overestimate their own abilities, while self-focus makes them less attentive to subordinates, diminishing their ability to lead successfully. The authors offer strategies for recognizing and avoiding these pitfalls. They outline how to cultivate humility and empathy as antidotes to hubris and self-focus, through actions such as establishing channels for honest input, creating visible reminders that success is fleeting, immersing oneself in other people's jobs and experiences, and embedding interdependence in organizational systems. A balanced relationship with power can seldom be developed overnight, but in time, leaders who follow this advice will boost their own effectiveness and facilitate exceptional performance from their teams.
For years public concern about technological risk has focused on the misuse of personal data. But as firms embed more and more artificial intelligence in products and processes, attention is shifting to the potential for bad or biased decisions by algorithms--particularly the complex, evolving kind that diagnose cancers, drive cars, or approve loans. Inevitably, many governments will feel regulation is essential to protect consumers from that risk. This article explains the moves regulators are most likely to make and the three main challenges businesses need to consider as they adopt and integrate AI. The first is ensuring fairness. That requires evaluating the impact of AI outcomes on people's lives, whether decisions are mechanical or subjective, and how equitably the AI operates across varying markets. The second is transparency. Regulators are very likely to require firms to explain how the software makes decisions, but that often isn't easy to unwind. The third is figuring out how to manage algorithms that learn and adapt; while they may be more accurate, they also can evolve in a dangerous or discriminatory way. Though AI offers businesses great value, it also increases their strategic risk. Companies need to take an active role in writing the rulebook for algorithms.
To become more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, many companies have turned to unconscious bias (UB) training. By raising awareness of the mental shortcuts that lead to snap judgment--often based on race and gender--about people's talents or character, it strives to make hiring and promotion fairer and improve interactions with customers and among colleagues. But most UB training is ineffective, research shows. The problem is, increasing awareness is not enough--and can even backfire--because sending the message that bias is involuntary and widespread may make it seem unavoidable. UB training that gets results, in contrast, teaches attendees to manage their biases, practice new behaviors, and track their progress. It gives them information that contradicts stereotypes and allows them to connect with colleagues whose experiences are different from theirs. And it's not a onetime session; it entails a longer journey and structural organizational changes. In this article the authors describe how rigorous UB programs at Microsoft, Starbucks, and other organizations help employees overcome denial and act on their awareness, develop the empathy that combats bias, diversify their networks, and commit to improvement.