This case focuses on the actions of Beijing Baman Technology Co., Ltd. ("Baman") to improve supply chain performance to support its innovative "boundaryless dining" business model. These actions included defining supply chain strategies and roles, and driving upstream and downstream collaboration. As a start-up, Baman served authentic Hunan Changde beef rice noodles, earning its restaurant chain great popularity online through successful community marketing. It then innovated its business model by breaking time and space restrictions of traditional eateries and diversifying its portfolio to include dine-in, take-away and retail products. However, after expanding its retail SKUs, Baman suffered from a bloated inventory and faltering cash flow at the end of 2017. Company founder Zhang Tianyi then realized the importance of supply chain management and the different characteristics between restaurant and retail supply chains. Since 2018, Baman has made relentless efforts to build on supply chain management capabilities by clearly defining supply chain strategies, tactically segmenting the management of restaurant and retail supply chains, and improving supply chain efficiency while reducing costs through upstream and downstream collaboration. The case ends with an open discussion: how could Baman manage more complex supply chains to boost efficiency with lower costs? By depicting the story of a start-up, this case expands on how a company can improve its supply chain to facilitate business model innovation, which may serve as a reference for supply chain management of small and medium-sized enterprises in other sectors of the real economy.
This case describes the strategies and business models of Alibaba and JD.com (JD). After more than ten years of development, two giants-Alibaba, the world's largest online marketplace operator, and JD.com (JD), China's largest online direct sales operator-towered over China's e-commerce industry. In 2014, Alibaba and JD were listed successively, and in the first half of 2015, they disclosed their first annual reports after listing. These two financial statements attracted the attention of Zhang Wei, a sell-side investment manager who has just graduated from his EMBA program. To prepare for questions from his clients, he has begun to think about the differences between the strategies and business models of Alibaba and JD. How would these differences affect their financial statements? What are the investment highlights of the two companies?
This case describes how Alibaba and JD built their business empires and delivered results using their respective business models after going public. Shortly after Alibaba and JD.com (JD) released their respective annual financial reports in the first half of 2019, Zhang Wei, who had been recently promoted to Investment Manager, got a call from an institutional investor. The investor intended to purchase shares of Alibaba or JD, and hoped to assess the two companies' investment value from a financial perspective. Alibaba and JD adopt different development strategies and business models, ranking the top two in China's e-commerce arena. Which company is of higher investment value: Alibaba or JD? As a business school graduate, Zhang Wei has decided to analyze the two companies' financial statements, and based on that, evaluate the two companies' investment value and investment risk.
This case examines a universal question: How can a tech startup (such as an AI or big data startup) address the pain points of traditional vertical industries through technological innovation and create value? Some tech startups set ambitious goals, which demand significant and sustained investments in R&D, but fail to plan for commercial development in order to remain viable: when funding runs out, they go bust. Others aim for low-hanging fruit in more easily accessible markets, at the expense of pursuing their original goal; once engaged on this path, it is extremely difficult to change course and build an iconic name. The issue, then, is how tech startups should strike a balance between "aiming too high" and "taking a faster route." The LinkDoc Technology (hereinafter "LinkDoc") case was compiled as one way to find answers to these questions. The case examines how LinkDoc, specializing in big data and serving the vertical healthcare industry, found its own answers to these issues and, more specifically, how it identified and entered its target market segment, and subsequently found a way to commercialize its technology and create a viable business.
The Jill Draeger case is designed as an introduction to a general course on entrepreneurship. It is appropriate for many levels of students. It attempts to portray the archetype of opportunity-focused, resource-constrained behavior that is the hallmark of entrepreneurship. The case describes the career of Jill Draeger, an MBA with a background in the consumer electronics industry, principally smartphones. After a career hiatus, she has the idea of licensing the right to create Olympic-themed watches for the 2016 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Korea. The case then describes the hurdles she confronts in terms of obtaining the license, attracting the resources, and building the capabilities required to pursue the opportunity.
In January 2018, President Donald Trump announced steep tariffs on solar imports, at once plunging the US solar industry into uncertainty and deeply angering vital trade partners such as China, South Korea, and the European Union. The tariffs were in response to a complaint made by two bankrupt solar companies seeking protection against cheap solar imports. The companies invoked a rarely used provision of the 1974 United States Trade Act, Section 201 (safeguards), and argued that antidumping and countervailing duties imposed on China in 2012 had done little to stem the flow of solar products because Chinese producers had simply moved production to countries such as Malaysia and South Korea, where the duties did not apply. Five years after enduring a series of bruising trade battles, the global solar industry was once again in the eye of a rapidly escalating trade storm. Amid an unprecedented number of trade disputes at the WTO, the role of safeguards had suddenly taken center stage. Yet, the application of safeguards in the global trading system had been historically rife with problems. This case is designed to be taught in follow up to HKS Case 1992.0: Shaping the Future of Solar Power: Climate Change, Industrial Policy and Free Trade.
In 2012, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice-an NGO dedicated, in large part, to criminal justice reform-led a campaign to enact a new state law in New Jersey known colloquially as "Ban the Box," which barred employers from automatically screening out persons with a criminal record when filling a job opening. The Institute had tried to pass such a law four years earlier, but in the face of concerted opposition from the business lobby, the measure had failed. The Institute decided to try again-this time with a smarter, more effective strategy. The case provides brief background on mass incarceration, the barriers to reentry for people with a criminal record, the rationale for the Ban the Box movement, and then provides a behind-the-scenes look at NJISJ's strategic thinking and internal debates. This includes information about NJISJ itself-what strengths and weaknesses does it bring to the table? What considerations will likely sway the state legislature and incoming Republican Governor Chris Christie? What approach to take with respect to employers? Which interest groups to tap, and how? What tone should the messaging take? In negotiations over the language of the bill, how far to bend?
Supply chain management impacts the delivery of both products and services for public and private sectors. Road salt for winterization illustrates the challenges associated with supply chain management from snowfall variability to product availability, sourcing, ordering, lead time, storage, and application aspects. Decisions involving service levels associated with road salt that public entities make directly impact the safety and lives of their citizens as well as public sector budgets and the local economy. Ultimately, the goal is to develop a justified strategy for road salt that create public value.
After a major setback in the fall of 2018, Dr. David Jacobs, a radiologist and physician leader in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was frustrated in his attempts to reform the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), the professional association which represented all physicians in the province. He must decide whether to keep trying to reform the OMA or to launch a new association, the Ontario Specialists Association (OSA), which would be devoted to addressing the minority interests of the province's high-billing specialists. After years of trying to make progress on the key issues for specialist physicians within the OMA, the minority specialist group felt poorly represented by the OMA and unfairly treated in contract negotiations for physician services with the province's Ministry of Health, the sole payer of insured physician services in Ontario. Jacobs must decide whether it was in the best interests of the high-billing specialists to continue being represented by the OMA - whose membership was dominated by primary care physicians with divergent interests from those of the specialists - or to establish the OSA to represent the unique interests of specialists in contract negotiations with the Ministry. The central issue dividing the minority specialists and the majority primary care physicians was a fair resolution to the issue of "relativity" - or relative physician compensation between areas of clinical practice. The minority high-billing specialists were facing another round of fee cuts in order to redirect money to the lower billing majority including primary care. Consequently, the high-billing specialists were contemplating leaving from the OMA - their representative that had sanctioned the proposed deal that benefited the majority at their expense.
Negotiating the initial equity split among founders is not as straight-forward as it might first appear. In this case, five Belgians launch Novosanis, a university spinoff, to commercialize two promising medical devices: VAX-ID and Colli-Pee. VAX-ID is an injection device suited for highly accurate and painless drug delivery effective at low volumes. Colli-Pee provides a non-invasive method of detecting Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) and other infectious diseases. The Novosanis founding team includes two scientists who proposed the original ideas, two project coordinators who managed the R&D process at the university, and an industrial partner who provided technical support. The team's first inclination is to split the equity evenly, to reflect their relatively equal contributions prior to the spinoff. It becomes clear however, that if future contributions are included in the decision, an equal split might actually be unfair and counterproductive. One founder agrees to be the spin-off's full-time CEO and another consents to be part-time CTO. The remaining founders choose not to take active roles post start-up. The team has an important decision to make: How should they divide the shares of Novosanis to compensate prior contributions, while also supporting the venture going forward? Would equal be fair?
This case addresses the challenges faced by the Neuroscience Outpatient Center (NOC) at the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) and unfolds the Evidence Based Management Approach adopted to Optimize Efficiency and respond to the rising obstacles. After briefly describing the healthcare industry, the changes in ambulatory care model and the vision of AUBMC, authors dive into the challenges encountered by patients, physicians, and management at the NOC. The NOC is the first of several multidisciplinary centers launched at AUBMC to centralize services and facilitate patient care in an optimal manner. Such centers foster collaboration among faculty and ensure integration of care. This case focuses on the operational challenges faced by the NOC that ultimately impact the level of service and patients' experiences. The center was struggling to maintain patient satisfaction and optimal operations in place. The evidence-based healthcare management unit at AUBMC assisted the center's management in collecting the needed quantitative and qualitative data that can serve as a tool to provide effective recommendations to the center and improve patient experience.
Staff.AI is a start-up technology company featuring a new resource-sharing application for hospitals and health care professionals. Developed by neurosurgeon Dr. Carl Einarsson, the application addresses the substantial cost of staffing personnel for temporary requirements of acute care hospitals. Utilizing familiar mobile technology of Airbnb, TaskRabbit, Uber, and other resource-sharing companies, Staff.AI matches hospital staffing needs with available professionals, streamlining the recruiting process, reducing staffing agency costs, and correlating data of medical teams and clinical efficacy. Having conducted a successful beta-test with a major academic medical center and recruited capital, Dr. Einarsson must determine a reasonable pricing model to bring the company's namesake product to market.
In late December 2019 the members of the Systemwide Emergency and Urgent Care Council (SWEUCC), the council for emergency services at Baptist Health South Florida (BHSF), pored over the emergency department (ED) data usage reports for four of its urban hospitals (Urban 4) for fiscal years 2016-2019. The overuse problem was not getting better. In fact, it was getting worse. The data showed that an increasing number of patients used the Urban 4 hospital EDs for non-urgent care and for medical conditions that could have been treated in a primary care setting Non-urgent care patients were overcrowding the ED resulting in long waits to be seen by a provider, and in some cases, patients left the ED after many hours without having been seen. The overcrowding added stress on ED hospital resources thereby jeopardizing the quality of the delivery of care. If a patient had private commercial insurance, the hospital received payments for the ED visit. Private commercial insurers, however had begun to deny payment for unnecessary ED visits to disincentivize this behavior. The burden shifted to patients to pay the expenses of the ED visit out-of-pocket. Not surprisingly, many patients could not pay the high cost of these medical bills given high policy deductibles or being underinsured. Consequently, the hospitals were sometimes left without reimbursement. SWEUCC convened to evaluate BHSF's options. Their overarching goal was to help standardize care across the organization to increase efficiency and lower costs. "Carevenience" was one of the programs implemented by BHSF in 2017 to solve the patient overutilization problem in the ED. The idea was to provide patients with non-urgent care alternatives including geographically convenient treatment facilities and time-saving appointment options. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid also provided its own best practices recommendations to hospitals to address patient overutilization including broadening access to primary care
In April of 2018, Mike Horsfield, CEO of Rock Valley Physical Therapy (RVPT), was scheduled to meet with shareholders to discuss the future ownership of the company. All RVPT shareholders and key executives were licensed physical therapists. Most of the shareholders and a large number of important, long-term employees expected to retire in the coming years, with retirements starting in 2020. RVPT's line of credit was tied up in their growth strategy, leaving them unable to cash out those seeking retirement. Horsfield had a lucrative offer from a Private Equity (PE) firm to buy into the business, which would provide the funding for those planning to retire, but he was concerned about how a profit-focused PE investor might change RVPT's culture and its patient-focused medical practice. The offer was tempting, but he was unsure how to present the offer to the shareholders and whether he should argue for or against accepting the PE firm's offer. As the only MBA among the shareholders, Horsfield's opinion carried weight and could sway the decision.
In December 1938, US president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) contemplated recent setbacks that challenged the viability of his program of economic recovery, popularly called the "New Deal." Various achievements and defeats in the first three years of his administration energized his supporters and galvanized a diverse opposition of conservatives, populists, and extremists-who believed FDR had gone too far or not far enough. Critics accused him of overreach of powers beyond his constitutional authority, of inconsistency, of inciting class warfare, and of creating conditions that actually retarded recovery. Would the record of the New Deal sustain the level of popular support that he won in the election of 1936? Had his policies and programs promoted economic recovery? What lessons should he learn from his defeats? What changes should he make in his programs and politics as he entered the election year? Should he double down on his progressive agenda or change course?
The Kolo Nafaso programme was started in 2009 in Burkina Faso by AAK, a 140-year-old Swedish supplier of vegetable fats and oils. AAK created a direct link with the producers - women in West Africa who traditionally harvested shea nuts - and cut out the middlemen. The aim was to improve productivity and pay a fair price. As a cocoa butter equivalent, the oil from the nuts was a major ingredient for chocolate manufacturers, who could then claim that their products were made from traceable ingredients and a sustainable supply - a growing concern for consumers and investors. As the programme expanded from Burkina Faso to Ghana, AAK met several obstacles: maintaining the loyalty of the shea producers when local competitors offered higher prices, operational challenges associated with expansion, ensuring a stable supply despite political unrest in Burkina Faso, rising costs, and realising the potential brand value of Kolo Nafaso.
By April 7, 2020, over 1.4 million people worldwide had contracted the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Governments raced to curb the spread of COVID-19 by scaling up testing, quarantining those infected, and tracing their possible contacts. It had taken Singapore's Government Technology Agency (GovTech) and Ministry of Health (MOH) all of eight weeks to develop the world's first nationwide deployment of a Bluetooth-based contact tracing system, TraceTogether, and deploy it in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19. From late January to mid-March 2020, GovTech's Jason Bay and his team raced to create a technology that would supplement the work of Singapore's human contact tracers. Days after its launch, Singapore's foreign minister announced plans to open source the technology. Now, in early April, TraceTogether was a beta for the world. Whether the system would really help in Singapore, and whether other countries should adopt it was still a wide-open question.