In late 2022, McDonald’s, one of America’s oldest and most iconic fast food companies, introduced a mostly automated store in Fort Worth, Texas. The only human employees at this store were in the kitchen and did not interact with consumers during the ordering or pick up of food. While some consumers liked this concept, it also received very negative reviews on social media, with some responses addressing the ethics of replacing human labour with robotics. The chief executive officer of McDonald’s had a choice to make: Should he listen to consumer complaints and make changes to the mostly automated store, or should he continue to move the company fully automated stores?
The case presents three mini-cases on employment discrimination. In the first, “(Un)See the Seen," a project manager faced the dilemma of how to support a neurodivergent associate whose principal consultant opposes him. In the second, "License to Ageism—When the Old Play Games with the Young," a young project leader faced the dilemma of how to protect himself from a junior partner and a toxic culture in the firm. In the third, "Cold Shoulder Another Day—A(vo)iding Disability," an HR manager faced the dilemma of how to ensure a paraplegic intern continued his internship when his reporting officer did not support him.
In 2021, amidst a world pandemic and escalated racial tensions, Allens Lane Art Center, a non-profit art centre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was losing its leadership and failing to live up to its history-making initiative to promote integration among community members through the arts. The Center's executive director was stepping down and there was no replacement in line. Also, like many small businesses in the West Mount Airy neighbourhood of Philadelphia during this period, the Center suffered low revenue, among other issues. <br><br>The president of the Center's board of directors had to determine how to bring the small non-profit back to life and generate a reawakened commitment from the board. They had to be prepared to make difficult decisions, including determining how the Center could change its business model while holding to its mission of bringing diverse communities together through the arts.
In December 2022, Steve Noakes, Board Chair of Binna Burra Lodge Ltd, Queensland, Australia learned that they had received government funding of AU$18 million to reconstruct the Lodge and cabins lost in the 2019 bushfires. The timeframe was tight for this major re-build which would need to adhere to a safer, more sustainable, and fire-resistant materials. They were also committed to re-building with a stronger Binna Burra spirit that would include the meaningful involvement of the local community, including the local Indigenous population, the Yugambeh languages people, but it also had to be financially viable.
The founders of the app-based credit line MoneyTap shared a vision of creating an inclusionary multi-product banking experience. The company’s gross revenue had surged from its first year, but while the business was doing well, growth was not coming easy because of intense competition. The organization wanted to expand its offerings to include a pay-later feature, credit cards, and digital savings and become India’s first full-stack neobank. The team’s current brand, MoneyTap, was a personal credit-line brand, and to expand it to a full-service neobank required a new brand strategy and a rethinking of the brand architecture. While branding and its concepts were perceived to be more applicable to consumer goods, the founders were convinced that their fintech start-up could only move to the next level by leveraging the inherent power of a strong brand.
Audioteka S.A. was established in 2008 and had a presence in various European markets. It was time for Audioteka to reaffirm its value as a fast-growing mid-sized Polish company. By 2022 the company offered 80,000 audiobooks in 11 languages. Newly appointed chief executive officer Arkadiusz Seidler was exploring possibilities to enter new markets that could help the company grow. An unusual direction had been identified, India. Preliminary data indicated that the idea was promising. But was it worth considering a project that could be perceived as an expression of overconfidence and eccentricity on the part of Audioteka's current management? To date, no Polish company had achieved success in India.
Zoho Corporation Ltd. (Zoho) was a privately held technology company that provided a suite of software applications for businesses of all sizes. The company was founded in 1996 with the aim of providing affordable, easy-to-use software applications to small- and medium-sized enterprises. In 2021, Zoho announced that it had reached $1 billion in revenue. The founders' socio-economic vision of embracing collective well-being and purpose-driven leadership and following unconventional business practices such as transnational localism had contributed to its unwavering growth. Under the leadership of its chief executive officer, who focused on customer-centricity, simplicity, and doing business with responsibility and accountability, the organization was able to pursue social and commercial objectives simultaneously. In late 2023, Zoho intended to address the grand challenges of the world, particularly the challenges of a developing nation, through its coordinated actions and collaborative efforts. The chief executive officer faced several pressing questions: What should Zoho do to remain afloat amid the global downturn? As a socially responsible enterprise, how can could Zoho balance its business goals with social goals, given the complex landscape of social responsibility?
This role-play exercise presents students with a realistic and complex negotiation challenge: it asks them to participate in a quantifiable negotiation between managing partners in a venture capital fund who are embroiled in a co-founder dispute. The negotiation is multifaceted, focusing on both reputational safeguards and financial outcomes across five key quantifiable issues. The negotiation is also underscored by an atypical yet critical ethical conundrum, offering a rich context for exploring the interplay between ethical considerations and business decision-making. These scenarios compel negotiators to engage deeply with the ethical dimensions of their strategies, assessing not only the limits of their own moral flexibility but also the veracity of their adversary's claims.
This role-play exercise presents students with a realistic and complex negotiation challenge: it asks them to participate in a quantifiable negotiation between managing partners in a venture capital fund who are embroiled in a co-founder dispute. The negotiation is multifaceted, focusing on both reputational safeguards and financial outcomes across five key quantifiable issues. The negotiation is also underscored by an atypical yet critical ethical conundrum, offering a rich context for exploring the interplay between ethical considerations and business decision-making. These scenarios compel negotiators to engage deeply with the ethical dimensions of their strategies, assessing not only the limits of their own moral flexibility but also the veracity of their adversary's claims.
February 2022 marked the start of the tenure of a new managing director and chief executive officer at Punjab National Bank, a critical position in the wake of the bank's challenges, including a massive instance of fraud and challenges associated with the bank's amalgamation with the United Bank of India and Oriental Bank of Commerce in 2020. With over three decades of experience leading other public sector banks, the new leader embarked on the mission to restore the bank's 128-year legacy. Faced with the daunting task of restoring the bank's former reputation and glory, he explored strategies for implementing a comprehensive plan to bring Punjab National Bank back on the track of sustainable growth. Which strategy would reshape the bank's trajectory and ensure sustainable growth while also reviving the bank's legacy and heritage?
Founded in September 2016 and based in Beijing, China, ZOMOZOMO primarily conducted business through its gamified freelancers' platform, where designers' works were publicly requested, reviewed, chosen, and rewarded, eliminating some of the long-standing troubles within the industry, such as inefficiency, fragmentation, and lack of transparency. The company soon became a prominent player in the design industry. The first four years of the company witnessed the rapid expansion and diversification of its client base, which began to include many influential brands such as Amazon.com Inc., Nike Inc., and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. However, ZOMOZOMO began to find it increasingly challenging to meet the needs and requirements of its high-end clients in terms of response time, service quality control, and confidentiality. In deciding to shift from a bidding platform to a provider of one-stop design solutions, ZOMOZOMO needed to determine whether it should prioritize building its internal capabilities or seek external partnerships to deliver high-quality design solutions to its high-end clients.
Mamaearth was founded by husband-and-wife duo Varun and Ghazal Alagh in 2016. The core value proposition of Mamaearth’s offer focused on toxin-free, safe products based on natural ingredients, which resonated strongly with its target audience. Despite operating in a tough and competitive industry with many large, established global and Indian companies, Mamaearth had been able to build a strong presence in the market and achieve unicorn status in 2022. One remarkable aspect of the firm’s growth had been that it was one of the few unicorns that—along with strong top-line growth—had a positive bottom line and had turned profitable in the previous two years. This early success gave founders and investors the confidence to plan their next move, which was to issue an initial public offering (IPO) at a valuation of $3 billion in 2023. But the IPO was planned at a time when there was a marked downturn in funding in the start-up ecosystem. Further, the post-listing performance of some of the other celebrated unicorns had been less than satisfactory, resulting in heavy losses for investors. Therefore, many unicorn firms that had been planning IPOs had deferred their plans. Facing the possibility of such a poor scenario, should Mamaearth move ahead with its IPO, defer in anticipation of a more opportune time, or find alternative means of raising funds?
Braithwaite & Co. Limited (BCL) was a leading railway-engineering public sector company in India. The company was incorporated in 1930 as the first wagon manufacturing company in India. In 1976, the Government of India (GoI) nationalized the company, registering and incorporating it as a fully owned GoI undertaking to support Indian Railways by supplying railway wagons. However, following nationalization, BCL faced growth challenges and gradually accumulated significant losses during the 1990s; eventually, it was declared legally sick and referred to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR). The reasons identified for its sickness were failure to technologically upgrade and adapt to changing market scenarios, dependence on a single customer (Indian Railways), and operational-level issues within the organization. Yatish Kumar joined BCL in 2018 and took a series of strategic and operational measures to turn the company around. These measures resulted in BCL’s improved financial performance, profitability, and a quick turnaround, and the company was awarded Miniratna Category-I status in 2021. Although BCL had been growing at a good rate, Kumar was concerned about how to sustain the turnaround and maintain that growth rate in the future.
In fall 2023, the Food Program of Met Council-America's largest Jewish charity dedicated to fighting poverty-completed the rollout of the newest version of its digital pantry platform to twelve food pantries in the Met Council food pantry network. The digital initiative coincided with a shift from food pantries' traditional "pre-packed" model-in which pantry staff and volunteers pre-packed standardized bags of foods and handed them out to long lines of waiting clients (the standard model in the US)-to a "client choice" model, where clients could choose their own food items. Over half of the pantries in Met Council's network were undergoing the transition to client choice. For most of these pantries, the client choice model was initially implemented as an in-person shopping experience, similar to a small-scale grocery store. For the digital pantries, though, clients would be able to see available items and place orders online, similar to an online grocery shopping experience. Met Council viewed the digital initiative as the next step towards increasing the dignity of the pantry experience and incentivizing healthy food choices. This case discusses the evolution of the digital pantry; specifically, the pros and cons of each pantry model from an operational efficiency perspective, how operational levers can influence consumers' purchasing decisions, fairness in resource allocation problems, and "push" versus "pull" inventory distribution models.
Twenty years ago, consultants at Bain & Company published a book that explored a dispiriting reality: Although companies spent billions of dollars a year pursuing deals, 70% of mergers and acquisitions wound up as failures. But today those odds have inverted. According to new research by Bain, over the past 20 years firms have done more than 660,000 acquisitions, worth a total of $56 trillion, with deals reaching a peak in 2021. And close to 70% of them have succeeded. Even among the roughly 30% that were less successful, many of the deals still created some value. What has changed? This article presents four explanations for the turnabout.
Even when machine intelligence outperforms human workers, when it replaces a human colleague, group productivity falls, a new study found. In addition, the output of people who are simply observers is negatively affected. Managers need to think carefully about the impact that AI has on team sociability, motivation, and trust.