Korean pop music (K-pop), once limited to an Asian market, broke its cultural boundaries and became global in 2012 when Psy's song-and-dance video "Gangnam Style" went viral around the world. The subsequent global success of the Korean idol boy band BTS confirmed that K-pop had a place in an international music market. With international performances and major US awards since its debut in 2013, BTS was carefully analyzed by those who wanted to identify the reasons for its success. Factors such as the band's active use of social media and quality transgenerational content were commonly identified, but media reports pointed mainly to the influence of the band's fan group, or ARMY, and its social media influencers, known as hommas, as reasons for BTS's success. Big Hit Entertainment (Big Hit), BTS's talent agency, needed to sustain the band's unprecedented success. What should Big Hit consider in developing a sustainable competitive advantage in a global music market increasingly taking advantage of new media?
A 2010 global event had far-reaching effects on the Indian energy sector, when a change in Indonesian law affected the commercial viability of power plants in India that were based on imported Indonesian coal. There were serious implications for private participation in the electricity sector, which was slowly moving toward liberalization and privatization. The issue was convoluted and became all the more serious when, in 2017, a compensatory tariff allowed by regulatory bodies to provide relief for the increased coal prices was disallowed by the Supreme Court of India within the contractual framework.
In March 2006, Iftekhar Enayetullah and Abu Hasnat Md. Maqsood Sinha, the cofounders of Waste Concern, a social enterprise based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and focused on developing innovative waste management solutions for cities in emerging Asia, faced their biggest challenge yet: scaling up their organization's activities and impact. The previous fall, working with a Dutch recycling firm, Waste Concern had secured approval from the United Nations and the Bangladeshi government for two projects under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, a policy program designed to spur infrastructure investments in emerging countries that would help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. To move forward with the projects, Waste Concern also required access to the Matuail landfill, which was owned and operated by the Dhaka City Corporation, the city government of Bangladesh's capital. But despite the projects' obvious benefits to Dhaka and Waste Concern's lobbying of key local officials for months, the DCC still had not granted its permission, and it was unclear whether the DCC ever would. The clock was ticking for Enayetullah and Sinha. Was there a way to persuade the DCC to provide access to the landfill so that Waste Concern could pursue the two CDM projects at Matuail as planned? Or would the social entrepreneurs be better off taking a different path to scale Waste Concern's efforts to address urban waste management and global climate change?
In May 2018, US-based multinational retail giant Walmart Inc. (Walmart) took control of India’s biggest e-commerce platform Flipkart Internet Private Ltd. (Flipkart). Despite being the industry leader, Flipkart had been continuously losing market share to Amazon.com, Inc. (Amazon) and was looking for support from a deep-pocketed investor. This created an opportunity for Walmart to enter the Indian e-commerce industry, bypassing regulations governing foreign direct investments. However, the unprecedented growth of Amazon, new foreign direct investment rules in India, Reliance Industries Ltd.’s entry into e-commerce, and challenges due to COVID-19 all created unexpected turbulence for the new partners. How would the Walmart–Flipkart duo overcome these challenges? Would Walmart divest its investment in Flipkart and end its aspirations to become one of the largest e-commerce companies in India? Or would the duo overcome these challenges together and emerge as winners?
A 2010 global event had far-reaching effects on the Indian energy sector, when a change in Indonesian law affected the commercial viability of power plants in India that were based on imported Indonesian coal. There were serious implications for private participation in the electricity sector, which was slowly moving toward liberalization and privatization. The issue was convoluted and became all the more serious when, in 2017, a compensatory tariff allowed by regulatory bodies to provide relief for the increased coal prices was disallowed by the Supreme Court of India within the contractual framework.
In May 2020, the three cofounders of Kinsip House of Fine Spirits (Kinsip), a craft distillery located on a farm in Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada, felt a great sense of accomplishment. The distillery had a varied product mix that included light and dark spirits, a broad variety of bitters, and cask-aged maple syrup. However, in March of 2020, the business had retooled to produce hand sanitizer in response to the shortages resulting from the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a distillery, Kinsip already produced ethanol for its regular products, which was also a key ingredient in the composition of hand sanitizer, and in combining this with their production and bottling expertise, were able to meet the needs of the community quickly and effectively. Before long, Kinsip had added hand sanitizer to its list of products for sale to the public. Should the cofounders make hand sanitizer a regular Kinsip product offering?
As a result of recent success and rapid growth, the Skyrose Marketing Agency team was becoming overwhelmed with significant variation in workload levels. The vice-president, who was responsible for managing the company’s clients from the beverage industry, wanted to smooth the team’s workload level to improve morale. She also wanted to remain attentive to her clients’ needs, which could increase as peak holiday seasons approached. The vice-president was considering using Google Trends to predict how popular certain beverage products would be in the future so that her beverage company clients could predict future sales volumes. She hoped that by forecasting proxy sales for three specific clients she could gain key insight to help her smooth the volume levels of her team’s workload, without having a negative impact on her client relationships.
Korean pop music (K-pop), once limited to an Asian market, broke its cultural boundaries and became global in 2012 when Psy’s song-and-dance video “Gangnam Style” went viral around the world. The subsequent global success of the Korean idol boy band BTS confirmed that K-pop had a place in an international music market. With international performances and major US awards since its debut in 2013, BTS was carefully analyzed by those who wanted to identify the reasons for its success. Factors such as the band’s active use of social media and quality transgenerational content were commonly identified, but media reports pointed mainly to the influence of the band’s fan group, or ARMY, and its social media influencers, known as hommas, as reasons for BTS’s success. Big Hit Entertainment (Big Hit), BTS’s talent agency, needed to sustain the band’s unprecedented success. What should Big Hit consider in developing a sustainable competitive advantage in a global music market increasingly taking advantage of new media?
Lea Block has tried to initiate digital transformation at Seuzach AG, a large global provider of medical devices for the health care industry. As marketing director, she has identified major shifts in German health care that demand that Seuzach changes its ways of approaching customers. Instead of targeting the specific needs of doctors in hospitals, Seuzach should rather address the new decision makers: the CEOs, CFOs, or CIOs of hospitals, who have a different buying logic. Seuzach should also leap into the future players in the industry through the application of digital innovations which allow for data driven, cloud-based digital services and business models that integrate data across the whole product range. In Seuzach's matrix organization (global product responsibility, supported by regional sales) Lea wants to convince the heads of marketing for the different product businesses to change. She seems to be able to quickly convince her colleagues of what she calls 'digital C-level marketing.' However, as soon as work is supposed to start, she realizes that commitments were less strong than she assumed. A few weeks later, Lea is clearly told that there will be no support for her. The short case study is set when Lea realizes the failure of her digital transformation initiative. This case is an update of the case Anna Frisch at Aesch AG: Initiating lateral change, a sanitized case that was set in 2007, in response to demands from students to have more up-to-date case as a basis for classroom discussions. As compared to the original case, this case provides an update of the developments in the German healthcare sector and puts stronger emphasis on the technology-related aspects of the proposed changes.
Business leaders must make sound, data-based decisions about their company's geographic footprint to ensure that they can meet future global challenges. The author's analysis of the Fortune Global 500 finds that COVID-19 will have a lasting effect on the geography of competition, regardless of vaccine availability. He identifies two misconceptions leaders should avoid and points to three trends that that could reshape companies' geographic footprints in the wake of the pandemic.
Successful implementation is essential for achieving policymakers' goals and must be considered during both design and delivery. The mission of this monograph is to provide you with a framework and set of tools to achieve success. The starting point is a four-step framework for developing effective implementation plans: Architect, Pilot, Scale, Improve. A set of tools that support each of the framework stages are then profiled. Tools for change management and project management are also provided. HKS Case 2216.0
When Peter Moyo was appointed as chief executive officer (CEO) of Old Mutual Emerging Markets (Old Mutual), one of South Africa’s largest and oldest financial institutions, in 2017, the chair of Old Mutual, Trevor Manuel, and the Old Mutual board were optimistic, as Moyo seemed like the ideal candidate. However, less than two years into his tenure, Moyo’s employment was terminated owing to a conflict of interest and a breakdown of trust between Moyo and the chair and board. From the moment he was suspended, Moyo made the dispute very public, and appeared to be orchestrating a media campaign against Old Mutual and the directors, especially Manuel. A protracted and bruising legal battle ensued, and many corporate governance lessons were learned. It was now incumbent on the board to identify and appoint a new CEO of Old Mutual. Given the local and international environment, and in view of internal and external challenges, they needed to consider what kind of CEO would be appropriate for Old Mutual; what criteria they should set for this crucial position; and what the right timing and communication process would be around the new CEO’s appointment.
In July 2016, Di Yang and Grace Guo of the leading Chinese private equity group CPE faced a dilemma-a happy dilemma, but a challenge nonetheless. CPE's investment in the waste-to-energy firm SUS Environment had proved to be exceedingly successful. This success had triggered a question, which they needed to address in a recommendation to the investment committee of the private equity group. One possibility would be to view this investment as an "early win," and to begin the process of liquidating their equity stake. This would provide an inconvertible signal to the limited partners of the success of the fund. Alternatively, they could invest more in the company. If the next five years were as successful for SUS Environmental as the last two, this step could lead to a tremendous return. How should CPE resolve this question?
In early 2019, the founders of Anomalie, an online direct-to-consumer provider of bridal gowns, have just agreed to an $13.6 million Series A investment from a Silicon Valley VC. They are considering three major initiatives as they move forward. (1) To scale their very successful organic acquisition process that already engages 25% of the brides-to-be in an active discussion, (2) to automate their largely manual offering that allows the bride to design her own dress, or (3) to invest heavily in technology to support their unique strategy of buying direct from the factories in Suzhou, China bypassing both the distribution and retail channels.