Nima Gohil, head of the new digital and creative consumer research department at L’Oréal USA (L’Oréal), was preparing for the upcoming January 2016 board meeting at L’Oréal’s research and innovation headquarters in Clark, New Jersey. L’Oréal’s competitors were using new digital media to highlight beauty products to current and new users, and L’Oréal was under pressure to develop a better way to connect with consumers to maintain—if not grow—market share. Top management had also urged Gohil’s department to reduce time and costs when collecting insights from consumers. Gohil focused on the hair care consumer segments, where she thought it was critical for L’Oréal to address and fully commit to the digital transformation that was being adopted by many other industries. She had only a few weeks to complete her assessments of L’Oréal’s digital strategy and assets and to prepare a functional recommendation to upper management.
The chief executive officer and co-founder of DoorDash was facing various challenges. Based in San Francisco, California, DoorDash was the market leader in the US food delivery services industry. In December 2020, despite ongoing losses, the start-up launched the largest initial public offering of the year in the United States. Market observers believed that intense competition in the US food delivery services industry and DoorDash’s questionable business model fundamentals would make profitability difficult to achieve. Restaurants were raising objections to food delivery platforms, seeing profits shrink due to commissions paid to the platforms. Consumers were paying at least 40 per cent more on orders made through an online delivery platform compared to self-pickup. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer demand for food delivery services increased and DoorDash reported a profit for the second quarter of 2020. DoorDash was expanding rapidly, after several rounds of funding. Could the co-founder prove critics wrong about the business fundamentals of his food delivery platform? How could he create a sustainable profit for DoorDash?
SA Taxi was a vertically integrated business that operated in South Africa's distinctive taxi industry. Despite being plagued by violence, informal structures, unsafe road practices and lack of government support, the taxi industry had grown to become South Africa's most common mode of public transport. SA Taxi was one of the largest companies entirely focused on serving the taxi industry. In addition to vehicle financing services, it offered insurance products, refurbishment services, and retail capabilities. SA Taxi served a mainly black-owned industry whose main participants-taxi owners, drivers, and commuters-had been historically disadvantaged. SA Taxi CEO Terry Kier understood that his company was already creating substantial impact for these constituents through financial inclusion, job creation and skills development but he knew that SA Taxi needed to do more to enhance its sustainability as well as that of the industry. By 2018, following multiple engagements with industry representatives, Kier saw an ownership deal that benefited the industry as SA Taxi's next strategic move. Although there was an alignment among the company's leadership on the need for and purpose of the deal, the transaction itself was far from clear. After consulting with internal and external stakeholders, Kier landed on three deal options. Kier and the company's founders needed to agree on the best path forward.
SA Taxi was a vertically integrated business that operated in South Africa's distinctive taxi industry. Despite being plagued by violence, informal structures, unsafe road practices and lack of government support, the taxi industry had grown to become South Africa's most common mode of public transport. SA Taxi was one of the largest companies entirely focused on serving the taxi industry. In addition to vehicle financing services, it offered insurance products, refurbishment services, and retail capabilities. SA Taxi served a mainly black-owned industry whose main participants-taxi owners, drivers, and commuters-had been historically disadvantaged. SA Taxi CEO Terry Kier understood that his company was already creating substantial impact for these constituents through financial inclusion, job creation and skills development but he knew that SA Taxi needed to do more to enhance its sustainability as well as that of the industry. By 2018, following multiple engagements with industry representatives, Kier saw an ownership deal that benefited the industry as SA Taxi's next strategic move. Although there was an alignment among the company's leadership on the need for and purpose of the deal, the transaction itself was far from clear. After consulting with internal and external stakeholders, Kier landed on three deal options. Kier and the company's founders needed to agree on the best path forward.
This case traces the rise of Mohandas Gandhi from his early days in British-controlled India to the inspirational martyr who, through personal deprivation and leadership, inspired millions and became the catalyst for India to break away from Britain. The case describes how he trained to be a lawyer in Britain and then later dedicated his life to the service of others less fortunate. Students will learn how Mahatma Gandhi became famous as he navigated life's choices to leave a lasting impact on the world.
applications sanctioned on the same collateral, fake collateral pledged against loan applications, fake receipts circulated in trade deals, etc. These security issues were present globally and were a major source of concern for banks and other players who bore the risk in such transactions. Besides, the transaction processes were manual and characteristically time-consuming, less efficient, non-communicative and non-transparent. In the above context, technological innovations had the potential to create a paradigm shift in the operations of financial markets, with reduced risks and transaction costs. Whrrl's concept was simple - a block-chain platform that solved the problem of security and inefficiency in the asset-backed lending process, particularly in the Warehouse Receipt Financing segment. Whrrl was designed as a combination of two main components: the block-chain platform at the back-end that connected warehouses and banks; and the mobile app for farmers and traders that connected them with warehouses and banks. On June 5, 2020, the Indian government announced a number of regulatory changes to ease farmers' woes. With such major changes taking place in the ecosystem, Ashish Anand and his team at Whrrl were left wondering about their next steps. Anand had never intended Whrrl to be limited by geographical or sector-based boundaries; instead, his vision of Whrrl was to be the solution of choice for any asset-backed lending across the globe; in particular South East Asia, for commodities such as agricultural cash crops, metals and crude oil and Africa for agricultural commodities. The key challenge in India was slower market development compared with its South East Asian peers. Further, Indian agricultural warehouse financing yielded lower margins (net interest margins) compared to other types of financing such as agricultural equipment, unsecured MSME loans and other types of supply chain finance.
The chief executive officer and co-founder of DoorDash was facing various challenges. Based in San Francisco, California, DoorDash was the market leader in the US food delivery services industry. In December 2020, despite ongoing losses, the start-up launched the largest initial public offering of the year in the United States. Market observers believed that intense competition in the US food delivery services industry and DoorDash's questionable business model fundamentals would make profitability difficult to achieve. Restaurants were raising objections to food delivery platforms, seeing profits shrink due to commissions paid to the platforms. Consumers were paying at least 40 per cent more on orders made through an online delivery platform compared to self-pickup. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer demand for food delivery services increased and DoorDash reported a profit for the second quarter of 2020. DoorDash was expanding rapidly, after several rounds of funding. Could the co-founder prove critics wrong about the business fundamentals of his food delivery platform? How could he create a sustainable profit for DoorDash?
Stripe, a San Francisco-based financial and software as a service (SaaS) company, is launching a platform to encourage its clients to invest in carbon removal technologies. The new platform, Stripe Climate, allows clients to divert a percentage of their credit card revenue to fund carbon removal companies. The case asks students to justify Stripe's decision to enter the carbon removal investing space by launching a product that does not generate any profit. Should Stripe, a fintech services company, be entering the carbon removal technologies industry? The case introduces students to different carbon offset and removal strategies that companies have deployed, which can lead to robust discussion about the effectiveness of corporate approaches to climate change solutions. Additionally, this case provides background for rich debate on the role of the private sector in taking leadership roles to address climate change.
Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for leaders to ask their employees to cross ethical lines. Though they may do so in an effort to enhance short-term results, for instance, or to gain personal benefits, they also run the risk of negatively affecting their employees' motivation and task performance over the long term.
Since her appointment as General Manager of The National Symphony Orchestra of Colombia, Claudia Franco focused on its commercial management. She managed to increase the revenue of the Orchestra through an ambitious commercial agenda that involved concerts with famous artists, chamber concerts, recordings and movie soundtracks. Claudia counted on the musician's commitment and disposition to accomplish all the activities aimed at positioning the Orchestra in Colombia and abroad, while acknowledging they did not have an exclusivity contract. In fact, many of them were hired on a temporary basis and the majority had side jobs to complement their earnings. Given the budget cuts announced by the government at the time, Mariana -the Minister of Culture- requested the implementation of a performance management system for the Orchestra. She considered performance information crucial to make decisions regarding musicians' hiring and salary. Cost containment and organizational efficiency were her main priorities. Musicians, on the other hand, were reluctant to commit to key performance indicators, as they believed that difficult auditions, rehearsals, and live concerts were enough evidence of their artistic performance and commitment to the National Symphony Orchestra. Claudia was in the middle of a struggle: she knew that 80% of the Orchestra's budget came from the Ministry, and not complying with the Ministry's demands could imply a significant reduction of the budget allocation. On the other hand, she needed musicians on board to execute her agenda. What alternatives did she have, and how did she deal with the stakeholders' conflicting demands?
On February 8, 2021, Tesla revealed, through its 10-K filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), that it had purchased $1.5 billion of Bitcoin, totaling 7.5% of the company's cash, and that it planned to accept payments in the cryptocurrency soon. These announcements came at the heel of the sixth straight quarter of positive GAAP profit and the first profitable fiscal year in the company's history. The revelation about Tesla's Bitcoin purchases were met with mixed reactions by stock investors and market participants. This case centers around the accounting treatment of Bitcoin at Tesla: what does the accounting treatment say about Bitcoin as an asset, and what are its implications for Tesla's profitability under the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles or Elon Musk's compensation incentives? The case also raises questions about whether investing in Bitcoin is consistent with the company's strategy or could be deemed a form of speculation, and whether Musk's public communications about cryptocurrencies (e.g., his cryptocurrency-related "Tweets") constitute a form of market manipulation.
Borusan Cat is an international distributor of Caterpillar heavy machines. Esra Durgun (Director of Strategy, Digitization, and Innovation) and Ozgur Gunaydin (CEO) seem to have bet their careers on developing Muneccim, a new predictive technology that is designed to reduce downtime of heavy construction machines that Borusan Cat sells. While they have been able to manage to develop the technology to a level that beats any human expert in predicting machine failures, they still have not been able to find a way to monetize the technology. After spending a few years and millions of dollars developing the technology, they are both under pressure from Borusan Group, Borusan Cat's holding company, to show monetary results. Sales have been declining due to the economic downturn in Turkey, and the Company has been losing market share to their strong domestic competitors. Gunaydin and Durgun must decide about their monetization strategy for Muneccim and pick which segment of the market they want to target with this technology.
In May 2019, amidst of an ever-worsening trade war between the U.S. and China, President Donald Trump added Chinese telecom giant Huawei to the Department of Commerce's "entity list," essentially forbidding American firms from doing business with the company. Huawei, along with another Chinese telecom firm, ZTE, seemed poised to lead the globe in 5G technology, a step-wise shift in mobile communications that would be rolled out everywhere from Beijing to Beirut to Boise over the early 2020s. In the last year of Trump's presidency, a group at the State Department led by Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Energy, and the Environment, former Silicon Valley business leader Keith Krach, embarked on a global campaign to challenge the market dominance of Chinese firms. The Clean Network initiative, which recruited countries and companies into commitments to abide by a set of shared principles in technology adoption and practices, began with 5G but Krach and others had ambitions well beyond. The controversial program to some heralded a new era of multilateral, democratic governance of the internet and to others augured a "splinternet" where market participants and countries had to choose between the U.S. and China. Whatever the view, the competitive landscape for 5G was different at the end of 2020, and participants had to understand how and why.
If you can understand football scoring or read a recipe, you can understand an income statement, with the help of this note. It is important to understand an income statement because it tells investors or any stakeholder of a company whether or not the company is making money. An income statement also gives information to company managers to make better forecasts and decisions.
It's hard to understand why successful leaders suddenly fail to meet expectations what the authors term leader derailment. While personalities are sometimes to blame, organizational context plays a significant role. Companies can help prevent derailment by identifying the most challenging demands leaders must overcome early on and providing them with better support systems.
Richard Evans, the newly appointed General Manager of the Siam Chemicals Company (SCC) returns to his Bangkok office after a two-week absence to find his in-box full of emails from his Thai team. Under time pressure he must first prioritise and then decide how best to respond to them. However, SCC is his first posting outside Europe and he has begun to realise that in this very different cultural environment, his previous managerial experience and assumptions are not applicable. If he is to gain the respect of his local managers and motivate them to increase SCC's productivity in a highly competitive regional market, then he must decipher what lies behind the requestions and problems in their messages and respond appropriately. Evans has one hour before he must leave to catch a flight to Basel to attend a Board meeting at SCC's parent HQ. There he is expected to report on his progress and future plans for improving the subsidiary's performance.
In late May 2020, the two founding and managing partners at Redhill Capital, in the Pearl River New City district of Guangzhou, China, were considering various reasons why the year was developing far differently than they had expected. The two-year-old venture capital firm’s limited partners and investees were all shocked by the dire developments, as was the entire country and the whole world. Earlier that year, rapidly spreading outbreaks of COVID-19, which had started in Wuhan, in China’s Hubei province, had led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, and many countries were closing down their borders. With the world seemingly plunging into a deep depression, the two founders of Redhill Capital were wondering about the future of their venture capital firm, which normally invested in medical technology and biotechnology. How should the company’s strategy be adjusted to survive the crisis and take advantage of new opportunities in the rapidly changing world?