Onward Technologies Limited was an engineering services outsourcing company based in India with divisions and branch offices around the world. Founded in 1991, the company was an early entrant in the services outsourcing sector and had performed moderately well. Over time, the company had moved from providing banking services support to providing engineering services. Competitors, however, showed greater growth, and new companies were commanding an increasing share of the market. In 2006, Onward Technologies Limited underwent a significant restructuring process and sharply reduced its clientele with the goal of establishing a long-term but narrow focus. Still, the company had not been growing at the rate envisioned by its founder. It had secured a significant and prestigious order from a well-known US company and was wondering which path to pursue. Should the company continue doing business in the developed economies and working with new Fortune 500 companies, or should it pursue new opportunities in the emerging Asian markets.
Robert Unanue, chief executive officer (CEO) of Goya Foods, the largest Hispanic food company in the United States, came under criticism on July 9, 2020, when as an invited guest at the White House, he praised the US President. Upset community members boycotted Goya products. Supporters of the US president, on the other hand, began to buycott. Experts mentioned that weighing into political opinion before the 2020 US presidential election was a bad business decision for any corporate entity. Was Unanue wrong in sharing his opinion? What could the possible impact of the boycott be on Goya’s revenues? What should Unanue do to manage the company’s reputation?
yourtown was an Australian non-profit organization offering a variety of services to children, young people, and families, supported by a range of stakeholders including federal and state governments, corporations, and, most significantly, members of the public. It was best known for its art union initiative in which supporters bought tickets to a raffle for luxury homes and automobiles.<br>In 2016, the organization rebranded from BoysTown, which at the time had awareness levels of 60 per cent in Australia. Now, in 2017, yourtown had an awareness level of only 10 per cent. Had the rebranding been the right move? Had it been too slow? Was it possible to regain past awareness levels or even exceed them?
Juhi Warrier was a successful human resources (HR) professional with almost two decades of work experience across various industries. She had recently joined the Indian unit of Revital Pharma Inc. (Revital), a leading healthcare manufacturer based in the United States. Heading talent acquisition (TA), Warrier was hired to bring in a fresh perspective and drive change. As only the third female among the 200 leaders in senior management roles, gender diversity was among the top goals on her agenda. However, she was in for a shock, as not only did her ideas for revamping the TA process find no takers but she also had a hard time gaining acceptance as a woman who was a senior leader on the team. The case describes the challenges faced by Warrier in championing the diversity agenda at Revital, while navigating the personal battles of gaining acceptance as a leader. Various incidents described in the case reveal the gaps in the system and the ingrained biases in the company culture. As Warrier works through the system, she is often forced to compromise on her diversity goals. Warrier now faces the dilemma of whether she should re-evaluate her goals or keep striving for equal opportunities in the TA process. What can Warrier do to succeed as a leader and build an inclusive workplace?
Many companies have failed at reskilling because they didn't know the specific capabilities their employees needed to develop to fill the talent gap. This article presents research that highlights four competencies IT professionals will need in order to sustain their careers in the digital age. These qualities transcend technical proficiency and embrace interpersonal skills and a drive for continuous learning.
Tim Höttges was at the outset of his seventh year as CEO of Deutsche Telekom (DT) in 2020. The company served more than 184 million mobile customers and had a presence in over 50 countries. Over the course of the previous 7 years, European telecommunication companies had experienced varying degrees of success. Revenues for telecommunication companies in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain as a whole fell by 14 percent from 2012-2019, while DT's revenues rose by 38 percent, with fully two-thirds of DT's revenues generated outside of Germany in 2019. In late January, 2020, Höttges and his executive team are focused on the challenges faced by European telcos: advances in "digitization," "cloudification" and "softwarization" of the telecommunications network, along with the growth of 5G wireless capabilities, and the emergence of new types of co-opetitive relationships with the hyperscalers, large companies like Amazon and Microsoft that were making efforts dominate the public cloud and cloud services industries and expand into related verticals. This case describes the strategic challenges facing DT in 2020 and beyond that Höttges needs to think about and act upon: (1) the evolution of network technologies to cloud-centric production models, (2) attractive products and services as well as customer interaction through digital channels, synergies, and efficiency levers in internal processes, (3) the battle with the hyperscalers, and (4) the resolution of the fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) challenge in Germany.
In 2020, Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, with 28 medals in various swimming events, was now retired. As he looked back on his 20+ year athletic career, he considered what had gone into making him the greatest of all time-the highs and lows, successes and struggles. He had lived with mental health issues for much of his life, going public with his struggles in 2015, when he talked about his depression and suicidal thoughts. Mental health was a major focus for Phelps in 2020. He was working on removing the stigma associated with mental health issues, improving access to care, and preventing suicides. But as a professional athlete who was used to the rigor and routine of daily workouts and measurable goals, how could he ensure he was having the greatest possible impact in this new mission?
The case illustrates how Ping An can anticipate digital trends such as cloud computing and evolve from its core business to expand to new areas. Ping An began by selling property and casualty insurance but soon expanded to banking and financial services. The firm then invested heavily in I.T. development in order to take part in the Internet economy, focusing on five verticals: financial services, healthcare, automobiles, real estate and smart cities. In the five verticals, Ping An incubated 11 independent technology affiliates that dwarfed a valuation of $70 billion. By 2020, 3 companies were publicly traded as independent entities. Ping An was no longer a financial institution, instead, it had become a "finance + technology" and a "finance + ecosystem" company. While so many financial institutions and other traditional businesses always talk about digitization and transformation, but the progress is pretty slow. Ping An is in a very different place. The Ping An case is interesting both from a Chinese and a global perspective. As a firmly rooted Chinese firm, Ping An embodies the rise of a traditional company that learned to harness new technologies and compete with China's pure technology players. From a global perspective, Ping An offers lessons in how to develop an ecosystem of technology affiliates: the firm has developed a set of best practices for incubating, funding and collaborating with spin-offs.
While Ping An is so successful to transform and reinvent itself to a tech giant, it discovered the demand of small and medium sized financial institutions to deploy technology. In December 2015, Ping An set up OneConnect, a fintech spinoff, to export its internal technology and repackage them as services to other banks and insurance companies in China. Case (B) is about how Ping An incubated OneConnect and development of OneConnect. OneConnect is in an expansion phase, growing from its Chinese client base to offer its cloud-based services across Asia. At the beginning it relied very much on Ping An in terms of technology, people and other resources, and became more and more independently later on. OneConnect turned out to be a unicorn and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2019.
Case (C) is about Autohome, which is the only unicorn Ping An acquired, rather than built from the ground up. After acquisition by Ping An, Autohome was transformed form a pure automobile website to develop four key offerings - content, transaction, finance, and lifestyle - all powered by AI, big data, and cloud technology. After the acquisition, in the span of three and a half years, Autohome's stock price quadrupled.
Onward Technologies Limited was an engineering services outsourcing company based in India with divisions and branch offices around the world. Founded in 1991, the company was an early entrant in the services outsourcing sector and had performed moderately well. Over time, the company had moved from providing banking services support to providing engineering services. Competitors, however, showed greater growth, and new companies were commanding an increasing share of the market. In 2006, Onward Technologies Limited underwent a significant restructuring process and sharply reduced its clientele with the goal of establishing a long-term but narrow focus. Still, the company had not been growing at the rate envisioned by its founder. It had secured a significant and prestigious order from a well-known US company and was wondering which path to pursue. Should the company continue doing business in the developed economies and working with new Fortune 500 companies, or should it pursue new opportunities in the emerging Asian markets.
In 2015, Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd (Mapletree), a real estate and capital management company headquartered in Singapore, was due to launch its new Five-Year Growth plan. The key decisions that the company needed to take were: should Mapletree extend its reach geographically outside Asia? Should it also consider going into any of the new asset classes-student accommodation, corporate housing and data centres-that it was currently evaluating? The case is divided into two parts. Case A is set in December 2014, and discusses the strategic decisions the company needs to take for future growth. It has several possible options - grow in the existing markets, expand its product portfolio, or enter a new market. Adopting a hybrid strategy, Mapletree decided on a mixed approach that included some geographical diversification as well as a strong push for new products in existing markets. Case A also discusses how Mapletree put together its initial five-year plan and expanded in Asia before venturing into Western markets. Case B is set in 2019 and focuses on how Mapletree achieved its second phase of growth. The key takeaway here is how the company organised itself internally to deliver growth. Discussion points in the case are around the elements of shared incentives, clearly aligned plans, and a team culture of successful execution. The case also elaborates on how Mapletree put together its new five-year plan with a clear and ambitious goal of doubling its assets under management (AUM), and then backed it up with specific geographic and product market initiatives.
In 2015, Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd (Mapletree), a real estate and capital management company headquartered in Singapore, was due to launch its new Five-Year Growth plan. The key decisions that the company needed to take were: should Mapletree extend its reach geographically outside Asia? Should it also consider going into any of the new asset classes-student accommodation, corporate housing and data centres-that it was currently evaluating? The case is divided into two parts. Case A is set in December 2014, and discusses the strategic decisions the company needs to take for future growth. It has several possible options - grow in the existing markets, expand its product portfolio, or enter a new market. Adopting a hybrid strategy, Mapletree decided on a mixed approach that included some geographical diversification as well as a strong push for new products in existing markets. Case A also discusses how Mapletree put together its initial five-year plan and expanded in Asia before venturing into Western markets. Case B is set in 2019 and focuses on how Mapletree achieved its second phase of growth. The key takeaway here is how the company organised itself internally to deliver growth. Discussion points in the case are around the elements of shared incentives, clearly aligned plans, and a team culture of successful execution. The case also elaborates on how Mapletree put together its new five-year plan with a clear and ambitious goal of doubling its assets under management (AUM), and then backed it up with specific geographic and product market initiatives.
The case begins in 2009, when the Gong Cha franchise was launched in Singapore by entrepreneur Rodney Tang with a sole outlet in a mall. Within two years, the franchise expanded to 20 outlets, and another five years later, there were 80 outlets in the city-state, and Gong Cha had a well-established and loyal patronage. In 2016, when financial restructuring of the parent company led to some important changes in the operating clauses of the franchise agreement, Tang had to decide whether to extend the contract or to set up his own new chain. Taking away a brand, valued by so many loyal consumers (and one which might yet re-enter the Singapore market with a different operator), while introducing a new brand, located at the same outlets as the Gong Cha ones clearly presented some major challenges. Competitors like Koi, Sweet Talk and Each-a-Cup would also be looking to attract the loyal Gong Cha patrons. Establishing a new brand would have its own set of challenges. How could Tang differentiate from Gong Cha while not alienating the Gong Cha loyal consumer, especially when the original brand will likely return to the Singapore market?
Sonoma Raceway, located north of San Francisco, had a long history of hosting premier motor racing events. However, after decades of growth, fan attendance and viewership had started to decline in the 2010s. Fan demographics were changing, with younger fans looking for a different experience than traditional fans. These challenges confronted the entire motorsports industry. As 2020 began, Sonoma Raceway was in the midst of a major shift in its business strategy, impacting all aspects of its operations. The coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of all of the raceway's major events, putting additional stress on the raceway.
The invention of antibiotics increased the average lifespan by two decades, though WHO warns that antibiotic resistant will become the most common death by 2050 if the resistance issue cannot be overcome. This paradox is an exemplary dilemma of the society's urgency of creating value, such as developing new antibiotic drugs, although the value creator may not be able to capture this value in a financially profitable way. The traditional business model of pharma is broken and no solution exists yet. Several diverse stakeholders with different interests are required to find a global solution to this complex problem. While no financial model provides a perfect solution for all involved stakeholders, it is important to make progress before the antibiotic resistant bacteria have made the drugs totally ineffective. For each financial model we will describe advantages and disadvantages, provide financial analysis and describe the implications for the ecosystem. Further, the different business model canvas from the view- point of a pharmaceutical company investing in antibiotics R&D. As the business model canvas is limited with providing the multi-dimensional overview of the stakeholders in the eco-system and their interaction, an approach to reflect all stakeholders in one table is provided.
In February 2017, the chief executive officer of Conexus Credit Union, a local credit union headquartered in Regina, Saskatchewan, was preparing to meet with the board of directors. He would be pitching his plan to build, staff, and operate a start-up venture program to be called the Cultivator. The Cultivator would create a stream of new regional high-technology businesses that would be well-placed, both for Conexus to serve and its members and the wider community to benefit from. The real question was how to operationalize this model: Should Conexus use the template of existing for-profit start-up accelerator programs to launch companies quickly and optimally to fail or scale? Or considering its community mandate, should Conexus take a different route?