Fatima Akilu never intended to be a leader. But in 2012, she was appointed Director for Behavioural Analysis and Strategy at Nigeria's Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), charged with leading the country's efforts to combat the effects of the violent extremism of Boko Haram and other terrorist groups.
NiPay is a software provider competing in the Nigerian business-to-business payments market. Founded by Idaku Ibrahim nearly 20 years ago, NiPay sells two products to retailers and other merchants, which enable individual shoppers to transact either online or via a mobile device.
Dr. Robert Pearl, newly elected as CEO in 1999, faced a massive new challenge: saving Kaiser Permanente from imminent bankruptcy. From 1999 to 2017, Dr. Pearl transformed Kaiser Permanente from a dysfunctional organization to one of the largest and most lauded in the U.S. Dr. Pearl strategically shifted the organization from the lowest-cost provider to one with superior quality and service at a competitive price. He achieved this goal by applying an "art to science" approach to drive down operational costs and persuading otherwise reticent doctors.
Following VF Corporation's acquisition of cult streetwear brand Supreme, consumers and industry pundits were nervous that becoming part of a large, public corporation would put an end to Supreme's slow and careful growth trajectory as pressure for quarterly results became more prominent. From its humble beginnings as a skate shop in downtown Manhattan, Supreme had become a global cult brand favored by celebrities, key opinion leaders, and socialites. The mere fact that Supreme was losing its independence could jeopardize its brand mystique. VF's chief financial officer reported that Supreme had more than doubled revenues from $200 million in 2017 and foresaw a clear line of sight to a billion dollars, citing opportunities of further e-commerce penetration as well as expanding the global footprint of Supreme's retail stores. Online fan forums lit up on news of the acquisition, with many expressing concern that a brand once described as "nothing short of a religion to its fervent disciples" would lose its street credibility. Could founder James Jebbia maintain the iconic and exclusive image of Supreme while VF pursued its aggressive growth agenda? As Supreme scaled and made itself more accessible to the masses, could it hold onto its countercultural appeal and sense of cool? Looking ahead to 2021, Supreme would continue to grapple with the lost profit opportunity related to entrepreneurial resellers, who purchased and then flipped Supreme merchandise on marketplaces such as eBay at significant profits.
This case examines the business career of Kuo-Ching Li, who was born in China in 1892, and built a successful minerals trading business called Wah Chang in the United States during the interwar years. He acquired a prominent role in tungsten, the strongest natural metal on earth, and during World War II he played a major role in securing supplies of the strategic mineral from China and Latin America for the United States war effort. The case is set against the background of the era of the Chinese Exclusion Acts between 1882 and 1943 which largely curtailed Chinese immigration to the United States and denied ethnic Chinese citizenship. It explores how Li was able to build his brokerage business in such a setting on the basis of contacts in both China and the United States. It ends with the Communist Revolution in China in 1949 which appeared to threaten his dual identity.
In July of 2021, Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) contemplated the future of its growth investing practice, known as "Century." While still relatively new as a focused initiative, BVP's growth investing already had significant momentum. The fund's investment pace had been faster than expected, and the initial investments looked strong. But many of their VC competitors had already been operating growth funds, a new wave of growth-stage-focused investors were increasing their investment activity, and the team wondered what BVP should do. They considered three "out of the box" ideas: extending the firm's multi-stage focus to include leveraged buyouts, expanding aggressively into East Asia and Africa, and applying the BVP process to public companies through a hedge fund. Which option, if any, should the team pursue?
This case features Isabella Couchet, the chief operations officer of CaLNG, a company that planned to sell liquefied natural gas (LNG) to help California utilities better match supply and demand through peak shaving. The price of natural gas drawn from the California pipeline infrastructure increased with sudden huge demand spikes during the summer and winter peaks, so the ability to use LNG to fulfill demand during peak periods would be a significant financial benefit to utilities. CaLNG planned to receive LNG at its Coos Bay terminal in Oregon and then transport it to California using specialized trailers. It had to design its LNG supply chain while considering the costs of storage facilities and transportation. CaLNG could build a centralized tank farm at Coos Bay and, from there, use a large number of trailers for on-demand delivery. Alternatively, the company could build satellite tanks at utilities, an option that would require fewer trailers because the satellite tanks could be filled during off-peak periods.
Janet Zuccarini, the sole owner and visionary behind the Gusto 54 Restaurant Group (Gusto 54), had leveraged her industry experience to grow the restaurant group into a huge success story. Gusto 54 owned and operated nine restaurant concepts in Toronto and Los Angeles, and rapid expansion plans were underway. In a competitive, low-margin industry, where more than half of new restaurants failed, Gusto 54 had found a way to outperform its peers and consistently achieve its desired profit margins. Gusto 54's strategy was grounded in innovative growth, the use of technology, and empowerment of all employees to take an entrepreneurial approach to their roles. This two-part case allows students to examine in Case A how Zuccarini built an organizational culture that invested in employees and entrusted the leadership team with autonomy. The strategy had been effective in fuelling the company's present growth, but as Gusto 54 expanded, Zuccarini wanted to ensure that the growth plans did not compromise the family-style culture her employees valued. Case B picks up Gusto 54's story in September 2020, the restaurant having dealt with the challenges of the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic and a cultural self-examination amid the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. With Gusto 54's previous expansion plans placing the restaurant in a financially precarious position, could the restaurant's established culture help the restaurant survive the short- and long-term impacts of the pandemic and respond to the cultural crisis raised by the BLM movement?
Since 2000, Infineum International Limited had been expanding rapidly throughout the Asia Pacific region. The company launched its inclusion and diversity program in 2009, which saw strong progress after 2013, when the company established its inclusion-first vision. From 2016 on, numerous inclusion and diversity activities were held to generate involvement and feedback from the locally engaged inclusion and diversity champions. In February 2020, the company's global talent and learning manager shared his concerns about the company's future inclusion and diversity journey. He had devoted time and energy in the past few years to organize activities through town hall meetings, leadership training workshops, and the company's intranet, but hoped to make the inclusive approach even more meaningful in the future. What kind of measures should they apply to assess what they have done so far? To what extent should human resources actions be aligned with the inclusive culture? More importantly, would the current model of inclusion and diversity be sustained in the future?
Zoom, a popular video conferencing service based out of San Jose, California was built from scratch to be a business-segment focused, easy-to-use video conferencing service. The program was created by Zoom Video Communications Inc., which was founded by Eric Yuan in 2012. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the video conference market grew rapidly. Despite competing against much larger competitors, such as Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Webex, Zoom took an early lead, surmounted significant obstacles, and continued to grow. At the end of 2020, however, Zoom had to consider how to maintain its lead-not only during, but also after the pandemic.
ACME Birdseed Company (ACME) started as a top-quality birdseed company; but as its baby boomer customers age and retire, it has begun using lower-quality ingredients while expanding to a larger range of stores and geographical areas. While it is still the dominant player in the birdseed market, its profits have been dropping for the past two years, and Angela Baker, ACME's founder and CEO, must make recommendations to its board of directors to increase shareholder confidence in the company. This cross-disciplinary case presents a fictional company dealing with many of the issues a real company faces. The primary focus is on strategy and the need to make tradeoffs, or to gauge acquired knowledge on any of these topic areas. It can also be used to discuss many other critical issues, including profit margin, marketing, customer segmentation, competition, supply chain, corporate social responsibility (CSR), regulation, entrepreneurship, and more.
Using the context of a private-bank chief economist preparing for a client call just as the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index (SCI) reached a 29-month high on July 7, 2020, this case places students in a position to prepare an outlook on the prospects for investment in China. It also enables the comparison of China to various potential investment geographies, such as the United States and other financial markets around the globe. The material covers the development of China's financial system from the 1980s to the 2020s, paying particular attention to the banking system, equity and debt markets, and the structure of household-level financial assets. Special emphasis is placed on the most recent boom-and-bust cycles of Chinese equities, helping students to understand the factors suggesting additional equity growth and retraction. The case applies Robert Shiller's standard analysis for speculative bubbles to China's equity market. China is the world's second-largest economy and equity market, but its stock market is still underdeveloped relative to other investment channels, as evidenced in the structure of China's aggregate financial assets and the composition of household wealth. Additionally, the government response and interventions play a large role. How would COVID-19 affect the investment opportunities in China, and how did China's markets compare to markets in the rest of the world? Most importantly, was this the time for American investors to invest in China? This case has been taught in a second-year MBA elective on China in the global economy, in a module examining progress and challenges in Chinese markets. It has also been successfully taught in a course on emerging markets, in a module examining global investments. The material allows for an examination of financial markets in China in particular, and stock market conditions in emerging markets more generally.
Unlike traditional company assets that will deteriorate or be depleted over time, data can be reused and recombined freely without degradation. Increasing the liquidity the ease of data asset reuse and recombination of strategic data is the first step to data monetization. The authors describe how the efforts of a financial services firm and three other organizations to facilitate the recurring reuse and recombination of strategic data assets are paying off.
Zoom, a popular video conferencing service based out of San Jose, California was built from scratch to be a business-segment focused, easy-to-use video conferencing service. The program was created by Zoom Video Communications Inc., which was founded by Eric Yuan in 2012. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the video conference market grew rapidly. Despite competing against much larger competitors, such as Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Webex, Zoom took an early lead, surmounted significant obstacles, and continued to grow. At the end of 2020, however, Zoom had to consider how to maintain its lead—not only during, but also after the pandemic.
Since 2000, Infineum International Limited had been expanding rapidly throughout the Asia Pacific region. The company launched its inclusion and diversity program in 2009, which saw strong progress after 2013, when the company established its inclusion-first vision. From 2016 on, numerous inclusion and diversity activities were held to generate involvement and feedback from the locally engaged inclusion and diversity champions. In February 2020, the company’s global talent and learning manager shared his concerns about the company’s future inclusion and diversity journey. He had devoted time and energy in the past few years to organize activities through town hall meetings, leadership training workshops, and the company’s intranet, but hoped to make the inclusive approach even more meaningful in the future. What kind of measures should they apply to assess what they have done so far? To what extent should human resources actions be aligned with the inclusive culture? More importantly, would the current model of inclusion and diversity be sustained in the future?