Michael Joyce, Vice President of Inventory Management at JOANN, championed an effort to develop and implement an inventory allocation analytics tool that used advanced analytics to predict in-season demand of seasonal items for each of JOANN's nearly 900 stores and optimize store-specific inventory allocation decisions guided by these predictions. After the analytics tool had been in use for a full season of products, Joyce was surprised to hear that not everyone was pleased with its outcomes. With all of the concerns raised, should Joyce halt the use of the analytics tool for the next season?
In 2017, the chief executive officer of Rawayeti Foods, a Pakistani company dedicated to ensuring the purity and quality of its spices and pulses, was considering the future of his family-owned business. The company had experienced great success since its inception in 2011, but Rawayeti Foods was planning to expand its operations into other parts of the company. Formalized management practices, job descriptions, and performance management systems were not in place, but the chief executive officer and his sons knew expansion would be successful only if the company formalized its human resources management policies and practices for consistent country-wide implementation. Had the time come to shift focus from operational matters to management and human resources concerns? Could Rawayeti Foods gain buy-in from its employees and introduce a new performance management system that was seen as fair, equitable, and motivating?
Local Alike是一家位於泰國的社會企業，其導入「以社區為主體的旅遊 (Community- based Tourism)」的永續旅遊模式，這個概念是以社區居民為主體，一切旅遊的方案制訂與發展方向都是由居民做主。Local Alike扮演類似扶植者角色，藉由一連串了輔導流程，協助社區居民發展旅遊，目的在提升當地居民的生活水平，同時解決當地的社會問題。
This case is about INSEAD's Startup Booster for Entrepreneurs (SBE) and the MBA students who choose the elective. The unique course is designed to immerse students in an entrepreneurial environment. As an entrepreneur rather than a typical academic, Raomal Perera developed the elective to run over three periods, giving students enough time to start a venture or hatch an idea. SBE is an experiential entrepreneurial journey where students learn by doing. It provides real-world, hands-on experience for founders and would-be entrepreneurs rather than theory. Raomal encourages students who have a preconceived project to take the course and put what they learn into practice. Focal points include how to conduct customer discovery interviews, develop prototypes, and pitch an idea to investors. While the students who apply are all seriously 'venture-minded', they all have individual motives and experience, and their own distinct idea, goals and expectations. Outcomes vary: each student is a case study with his/her own success story.
Based in India, Butterfly Edufields Pvt. Ltd. (BFF) designed, developed, assembled, and distributed educational activities and games for Grade 1–10 students to help them understand various science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts. After more than a decade of existence, BFF had grown significantly in terms of production capacity, human resources, product portfolio, and geographical reach. Between 2010 and 2019, its revenues had grown 15 times. In November 2019, the company's chief executive officer faced three challenges: (1) the firm's inability to meet orders for newly introduced products; (2) its limited ability to tap and serve the huge market of 1.5 million schools across India; and (3) its failure to capture the enormous potential of selling educational toys online—a $300 million market. The chief executive officer believed that the traditional cost structure of centralized design, production, and distribution might not support the non-linear growth he envisaged for the company, so he had collected the value-added details for one of BFF's products with the intention of evaluating alternate value chain configurations for the company.
In February 2020, an entrepreneur and his team in China created a mobile application called Tong Cheng Lian Kang (TCLK), which crowdsourced information on publicly known cases of COVID-19, enabling users to find out if they might have been exposed to an infected individual. The application leveraged blockchain technology to record and validate user submissions of COVID-19 cases to ensure that submission and validation data were immutable, transparent, and decentralized. Users could volunteer to submit publicly recorded cases of COVID-19 or to validate the submissions of others in exchange for digital tokens on the blockchain platform, which they could use to redeem small gifts. As the number of new COVID-19 cases decreased, the entrepreneur wondered how to expand the blockchain concept to build a more sustainable business model. He was considering three options: expanding internationally, which would require building trust with users who lacked familiarity with Chinese applications; diversifying within the healthcare industry by expanding to a business-to-business model, possibly by linking prospective patients to hospitals and health care; and applying the blockchain concept to address issues in industries outside of healthcare. How could he best ensure the sustainability of TCLK?
Based in India, Butterfly Edufields Pvt. Ltd. (BFF) designed, developed, assembled, and distributed educational activities and games for Grade 1-10 students to help them understand various science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts. After more than a decade of existence, BFF had grown significantly in terms of production capacity, human resources, product portfolio, and geographical reach. Between 2010 and 2019, its revenues had grown 15 times. In November 2019, the company's chief executive officer faced three challenges: (1) the firm's inability to meet orders for newly introduced products; (2) its limited ability to tap and serve the huge market of 1.5 million schools across India; and (3) its failure to capture the enormous potential of selling educational toys online-a $300 million market. The chief executive officer believed that the traditional cost structure of centralized design, production, and distribution might not support the non-linear growth he envisaged for the company, so he had collected the value-added details for one of BFF's products with the intention of evaluating alternate value chain configurations for the company.
In February 2020, an entrepreneur and his team in China created a mobile application called Tong Cheng Lian Kang (TCLK), which crowdsourced information on publicly known cases of COVID-19, enabling users to find out if they might have been exposed to an infected individual. The application leveraged blockchain technology to record and validate user submissions of COVID-19 cases to ensure that submission and validation data were immutable, transparent, and decentralized. Users could volunteer to submit publicly recorded cases of COVID-19 or to validate the submissions of others in exchange for digital tokens on the blockchain platform, which they could use to redeem small gifts. As the number of new COVID-19 cases decreased, the entrepreneur wondered how to expand the blockchain concept to build a more sustainable business model. He was considering three options: expanding internationally, which would require building trust with users who lacked familiarity with Chinese applications; diversifying within the healthcare industry by expanding to a business-to-business model, possibly by linking prospective patients to hospitals and health care; and applying the blockchain concept to address issues in industries outside of healthcare. How could he best ensure the sustainability of TCLK?
Hitachi must decide whether to make a British executive, who has successfully built its European rail business from scratch, head of its global rail division even though the bulk of revenues for the unit still come from Japan. The case describes the history of Hitachi Rail as the provider of trains for the Japanese Shinkansen and its struggles to build a European business with expatriates before the success of an outside hire, Alistair Dormer, in winning major contracts in the UK. By 2014, Hitachi is wondering whether to make Dormer CEO of the global rail business in order to further globalise the unit. Will an outsider and a foreigner be the correct choice for a Japanese company? How can the values of the Japanese company be preserved as it globalises? What changes are necessary to further globalise the business?
This supplement describes the strategy and organisation changes made by British executive, Alistair Dormer, after he is made head of Hitachi Rail's global business. The company acquires an Italian company, continues to win contracts in the UK, but struggles to bring its greenfield manufacturing facility up to speed as knowledge transfer from Japan proves difficult. Dormer creates a new global organisation structure with executives based in different geographies and tries to maintain the traditional Hitachi values in the new organisation.
This case analyzes the situation faced by the judges who were choosing that year's World Coach of the Year in November 2010. The FIFA Award ceremony was to be held for the first time in January of the following year in Zurich (Switzerland). The voting period opened in the final week of October and lasted a month. As this was the first time the award ceremony would be held, the judges needed to make a decision that convinced the public and did not jeopardize FIFA's credibility. Hence, they needed to take into consideration aspects relating to the results obtained by the coaches, their personalities, their relationships with the players, and the type of players who had an influence on the three finalists' leadership characteristics. The key question was: who was the most complete leader and deserved the 'World Coach of the Year' award?
The Unified Dental Care case follows search fund leaders Jason Jackson and Olaide Lawal as they evaluate whether or not to acquire Unified Dental Care, a mid-sized dental practice in Detroit. The case addresses managing audits, accounting issues, and other issues of trust with a seller, as well as handling communications with a search fund board of investors.
The case describes the last quarter century in the Foundation's life cycle. During these years, the Foundation developed a governance structure and conditions of governance that allowed it to become the parent company of a group of enterprises in addition to being faithful to its mission, dealing with the moral hazard present in the different agency relationships, and remaining active in the environment in which it competed.In March 2017, 15 months following the withdrawal of the founding religious order, the relevant issue for the Foundation's director -following the validation of the organization's strategic orientation- was whether or not it was time to reconfigure its governance structure.
On March 18, 2019, Yuvraj Mehta, head Corporate Brand Management & Communications (CBMC) at Larsen & Toubro (L&T), heard about negative media narratives against L&T, following a high-profile merger and acquisition (M&A) between the company and Mindtree. Some of the allegations against L&T were "hostile takeover" and "destruction of Mindtree's culture." Mehta was faced with the issues of influencing all stakeholders; turning the tide and changing the narrative from hostile takeover to continuity, growth and profitability; and integrating Mindtree and its employees and culture into L&T. Compared to L&T's previous acquisitions, which were small, and other strategic initiatives, which were mostly organic, Mindtree acquisition was the largest (in value terms) in its history. It was also the most complex as Mindtree promoters aggressively resisted the acquisition, and L&T had to acquire a large number of shares through an open offer. Media speculations began in January 2019 when L&T, the engineering and construction giant, planned to acquire a majority stake in the young IT firm, Mindtree. Soon the reporting changed to aggressive media ranting. Time was at a premium. Mehta knew he would need to begin strategising almost immediately. How should he proceed? What should be his first move?
In 2019, BT Slingsby founds Catalys Pacific, the first biotech "venture creation" fund in Tokyo. After convincing some of the biggest Japanese pharmaceutical firms to invest, BT hopes the fund can make a big splash and transform biotechnology innovation in Japan. After examining hundreds of potential investment opportunities, his team must decide which deals to pursue first. How can Catalys Pacific establish a positive investment track record while galvanizing an entire innovation ecosystem? To achieve its vision, the Catalys Pacific team must use its experience in the Japanese pharmaceutical industry to identify promising deals, while navigating corporate politics and potential cultural roadblocks.
In mid-2019, the chief regions and markets officer of the Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE (AGCS) insurance company was wondering how to grow the company's innovation culture, and how to manage resistance from other areas of the business. AGCS was part of Allianz SE, a European multinational financial services company whose core businesses were insurance and asset management. Recent changes in the global landscape had been driven by technological advancements, and market leaders would need to consider using new methods and innovation. AGCS had set up a new corporate incubator to accelerate digital innovation. However, the digital innovation incubator's journey was not without challenges and learning curve issues, especially during its initial stages. Within 18 months, the new corporate incubator was fully entrenched within AGCS. The next steps involved finding the right key stakeholders and strategic thrust to help it thrive.
In February 2016, the managing director of Astro-Vision Futuretech Private Limited (Astro-Vision), one of the leading astrology product and service providers in India, was deliberating his company's strategic options. He had to decide on the strategic direction of his company, particularly the business verticals, products and services, and marketing and distribution channels he should focus on, given the business environment and the company's competencies, vision, mission, value propositions, and potential for future growth.
In January 2017, Canada-based Saputo Inc. was preparing an offer to acquire the remaining shares of an Australian dairy firm, Warrnambool Cheese & Butter Factory Co. Hold. Ltd. (WCB). Saputo Inc. had previously acquired a majority of the equity, but minority shareholders prevented Saputo Inc. from delisting WCB from the Australian Securities Exchange. Although WCB was a publicly traded company, the current share price might not reflect its intrinsic value because its shares were very thinly traded, with most shares being owned by Saputo Inc. and a few minority shareholders. Saputo Inc. had to determine an appropriate offer price for the acquisition.