Beyond Meat Inc. (Beyond Meat), a manufacturer of plant-based protein products founded in 2009 and based in Los Angeles, California, had become a success, despite supply chain and manufacturing issues. However, as competition flooded the market, the firm’s founder and chief executive officer (CEO) faced a number of challenges: Beyond Meat was investing more and more in differentiation and innovation, and even refining the recipe of its bestselling Beyond Burger—something the CEO himself considered risky. Beyond Meat filed for an initial public offering in May 2019, and by the end of July 2019, the company’s share price had increased by over 800 per cent, but analysts considered Beyond Meat stocks to be overvalued given that the company’s increasing revenues and high-priced products had not prevented increasing losses. Still, Beyond Meat was expected to disrupt the animal-based protein industry. What should the CEO do to justify the valuation of Beyond Meat? How should he handle competitive forces? Did his venture hold any potential to disrupt the animal protein industry?
With businesses struggling and with marketing efforts toned down for the foreseeable future during the COVID-19 crisis, it’s hard to build a brand. But you can still support your brand’s reputation through thoughtful leadership and treating people right. And since the reputation of your brand—not to mention your personal leadership and the culture of your company—hinges on how you operate during difficult times, best practices in corporate communications have never been more important. Make sure you let all concerned know how deeply you empathize with their personal challenges and show genuine gratitude for their contributions. If you’re forced to cut salaries or break other employee commitments, a sincere apology can go a long way. However, being an inspirational leader is about more than grand gestures or rousing speeches. Think way outside the box to find creative ways to join your team in their day-to-day efforts. Encourage your people to stay connected, stay healthy, and have fun. The need for open and transparent communication, of course, is just as vital with customers and partners as it is with employees. Be honest in every interaction. If products are going to be delayed, let customers know right away. The business world needs leaders who work side by side with their people, who share tough news with compassion and empathy, and who make transparency their top priority.
Holding a massive beer festival brought the Chinese city of Qingdao and Tsingtao Beer Co. Ltd., China’s most famous beer brand, direct economic benefits and public awareness. However, through the Qingdao International Beer Festival—a natural advertising opportunity—foreign beers benefited as well. To date, Chinese beer brands held less than half of the high-end Chinese beer market. China levied no tariffs on beer imports, which increased the market competition. Were the objectives of Tsingtao Beer and the local government fully aligned with regard to the annual festival? Was the beer festival helping one more than it helped the other? Did it help Tsingtao Beer’s competitors? Should the Qingdao International Beer Festival work to recapture or emphasize some of its own cultural uniqueness?
In April 2018, the owner of Express Bike Works (EBW), an Indian start-up that provided automated motorcycle washing, among other services, was planning to expand his business to various locations in South India, such as Udupi, Chennai, and Bangalore. He needed to decide whether to expand through self-owned stores or franchise stores and wondered how to select appropriate store locations. His objective was to come up with an expansion strategy that would maximize his payoff.
Transformational leaders challenge the status quo, provide a vision of a promising future, and motivate and inspire their followers to join in the pursuit of a better world. But many of these leaders also fit the American Psychiatric Association classification for narcissistic personality disorder. They are grandiose, entitled, self-confident, risk seeking, manipulative, and hostile. This article reviews the literature on narcissism and shows how what we think of as transformational leadership overlaps substantially with grandiose narcissism. As grandiose narcissists can appear as transformational leaders, it is important to distinguish between what leadership scholars have characterized as "transformational" and these "pseudo-transformational" candidates.
Design thinking has made huge inroads in organizations today and has been widely popularized as one of the most effective approaches to complex problem solving. However, the prescriptive models to design thinking that are now widely used by "nondesigners" in the business world are criticized for their detachment from users, poor execution, and tendency to converge on safe solutions. This article examines the efficacy of using crowdsourcing as an underpinning technology for executing design thinking by nondesigners to alleviate these issues. It advances a generative model of complex problem solving with theoretical as well as practical implications.
Holding a massive beer festival brought the Chinese city of Qingdao and Tsingtao Beer Co. Ltd., China's most famous beer brand, direct economic benefits and public awareness. However, through the Qingdao International Beer Festival-a natural advertising opportunity-foreign beers benefited as well. To date, Chinese beer brands held less than half of the high-end Chinese beer market. China levied no tariffs on beer imports, which increased the market competition. Were the objectives of Tsingtao Beer and the local government fully aligned with regard to the annual festival? Was the beer festival helping one more than it helped the other? Did it help Tsingtao Beer's competitors? Should the Qingdao International Beer Festival work to recapture or emphasize some of its own cultural uniqueness?
In April 2018, the owner of Express Bike Works (EBW), an Indian start-up that provided automated motorcycle washing, among other services, was planning to expand his business to various locations in South India, such as Udupi, Chennai, and Bangalore. He needed to decide whether to expand through self-owned stores or franchise stores and wondered how to select appropriate store locations. His objective was to come up with an expansion strategy that would maximize his payoff.
In April 2019, the chief executive officer of Dubai-based Diamond Developers, reflected on his company's progress in developing a business model based on sustainable living. In December 2015, The Sustainable City in Dubai had welcomed its first residents. The project had become a success story, both commercially and in terms of building a vibrant community of 3,000 residents from 60 countries, who were living a lifestyle characterized by social, environmental, and economic sustainability. After this initial and significant success, the chief executive officer wondered how to replicate the concept, both locally and internationally, to grow the company and to maximize the company's contribution to sustainability and to the fight against climate change.
In mid 2019, Mobiuspace, a Chinese Internet company, faced a new challenge. As a result of declining revenues from domestic mobile Internet markets, overseas markets offered new opportunities. In 2009, Snaptube, a short video aggregation and distribution platform that Mobiuspace offered as its main product, seized the opportunity to grow in emerging markets by creating localized and personalized video content. Despite the company's initial success with its expansion strategy, Mobiuspace's chief executive officer still needed to figure out how to achieve sustainable profitability and long term growth. In particular, he had to enhance users' engagement and diversify the company's sources of revenue. How would he achieve all of his objectives?
Following the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, the US government set out to modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement, threatening to revoke it if a new favourable deal was not reached with Canada and Mexico. Among other demands, the United States wanted to increase its access to Canada's protected dairy markets and was calling for the Canadian dairy supply management system to be dismantled. But the health of the Canadian dairy industry depended on supply management. In negotiating the new agreement, Chrystia Freeland, the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Canada, needed to consider the balance of domestic interests in supply management with Canada's international trade priorities.
In mid-2018, the president and chief executive officer of Siemens Canada was examining his options in executing Vision 2020+, a growth plan developed by the company's headquarters in Germany. One of the cornerstones of the plan was digitalization, both internally, among the company's sprawling manufacturing operations, and externally, among the company's industrial customers. How could Siemens Canada, as a North American subsidiary of a large multinational enterprise, add value to the global plan? And to do so, what skills and competencies would Siemens Canada need to acquire locally?
Pamela Jeffery, founder and chief executive officer of The Pamela Jeffery Group and the Canadian Board Diversity Council (CBDC), had worked diligently for nine years to improve diversity at the board level. While the CBDC aimed at improving diversity in general at the board level, its key focus was to improve the representation of women on corporate boards in Canada. Jeffery and the CBDC methodically carried out plans to involve stakeholders, establish processes, and deliver progress on their goals. Yet they faced a new set of challenges in 2019: while Canadian boards now included more women overall, and most board directors felt that their boards were diverse enough, men and women were still not equally represented at the board level. Jeffery's challenge was to determine what the next steps could be in what seemed like a long journey of transformation at the board level.
Neste, a Finnish oil company, has established itself as a key player and early mover in the renewable fuel market since its patent of NEXBTL renewable diesel in 1996. As new transportation regulations put stricter limits on emissions, renewable fuels become increasingly important. Students are placed in the role of Neste CEO Peter Vanacker to analyze both the current and future state of the renewable fuel industry and determine Neste's strategy. How should Neste position itself as the sustainability leader in fueling transportation sector industries including road, aviation, and maritime shipping?
This short, fictional case chronicles the story of Susan Hughes, the CFO for 4 Sisters Construction Co. (4SCC), who introduces the economic profit (EP) construct to her fellow executives (and sisters) as a viable means for signaling to owners the value the company created for them that year. As such, she has also created a one-step reference table that converts their more familiar earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) financial measure to an EP measure. The case explains the use of the reference table, and poses several scenarios for students to use it, explain it, and anticipate the effects of rising or falling income tax rates.
Articles published in academic journals are rich in research that can be invaluable for business management, operations, and strategy. But managers often consider the publications to be too theoretical and impractical. This note can help business practitioners how to approach academic articles and quickly extract relevant information they can apply in their decision-making to benefit their organization.
This case focuses on the political economy of ethanol policy in the United States and Brazil. The cases outlines policies put in place by the governments of the United States and Brazil to bolster the ethanol industry and the role of politics and interest groups.