In August 2018, Excelco Equipment Pte. Ltd. (Excelco), based in Singapore, was facing challenges in recruiting talented young workers. The company’s senior staff would retire soon, and the majority of its workers were above the age of 40. Excelco had enjoyed a stable workforce flow for several decades, but now its employees were aging, and it needed to attract young workers. Excelco’s executive director was proud of the company’s family culture and attractive work environment, but prospective young workers seemed to have different wish lists for their dream jobs. Based on the feedback he received from young talent on what Excelco had to offer, he needed to make some important decisions on issues including how to improve the company’s current recruitment process and how to raise its employer brand awareness. Excelco’s resource constraints, as a small company in a traditional industry, meant that tackling its employment challenges would not be easy. The executive director needed to address several issues, including countering the poor image of construction jobs, promoting Excelco’s unique selling points, and finding the right recruitment channels. Ultimately, he had to recruit the right young talent into the right positions. Could he do it?
The director of diversity and inclusion at a community agency is trying to decide whether to update her business email signature to express her gender identity by providing preferred pronouns. The director must decide whether the benefits of adding the information exceed the potential costs.<br><br><br><br>Subsequently, in a second and third situation—each situation presented as a separate addition to the main case—the director must decide the extent to which she will formally influence her workers to update their email signatures with gender pronoun, and then whether to update her LinkedIn profile. Much of her decision rests on the cultural operating norms of the organization and the director’s role in the organization.
Shanghai Jiujia Information Technology Co., Ltd. (CaiHong) was founded in April 2015 by entrepreneur Junyuan Huang. The company has transitioned from an e-commerce platform to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform to better compete in China’s Legal Service Plus Internet (LSPI) industry. While exploring some key concepts about CaiHong, such as market positioning, business model innovation, SaaS, and growth strategies, several questions are raised about the company’s growth in the LSPI industry and the company’s application of SaaS. First, what factors facilitated CaiHong’s transition from the business-to-consumer (B2C) market to the business-to-business (B2B) market? Second, what is CaiHong’s approach to business model innovation based on the SaaS platform? Third, how can it build on the success of the SaaS model through continuous innovation and further disruption of the LSPI industry?
The chief executive officer of Ambhar Global Spirits LLC joined the company in 2003, when its Tequila Ambhar brand was immersed in financial and image problems. He dedicated himself to reconfiguring the positioning of Tequila Ambhar, establishing it as a product of high quality and sophistication for knowledgeable consumers. With this conviction, he worked closely with a tequila industry consultant to modify product and marketing components and perfect the production process, to create a fully Mexican, 100 per cent agave, handmade tequila with a high-end premium positioning. By 2017, the chief executive officer believed the time was right to raise the bar on Ambhar’s positioning and distribution in the US market. With great expectations for the product, and with the support of the board of directors, he intended to develop a commercial plan to increase market share by 30 per cent. However, he and the expert consultant were at odds on the next logical step for the brand: strengthen strategic alliances to reinforce the distribution network and increase points-of-sale in the United States, or improve branding to make the tequila more authentic and bring it closer to the consumer?
In 2019, the co-founders of Praxis—a toothpaste that aimed to improve the health and wellness of its users by incorporating vitamins, minerals, and supplements into the toothpaste—were contemplating whether to launch their business. The mission of Praxis was to facilitate a health-conscious lifestyle and empower individuals to improve their productivity and well-being. The duo wanted to assess the business environment, evaluate their product and marketing strategy, project the venture’s financial performance for the first three years of operations, and ultimately determine whether they should pursue the idea. They had specific goals in mind since they had won a case competition at their university, been approached by many investors, and been shortlisted to star on Dragons’ Den. Could they successfully launch Praxis, differentiate Praxis from other industry players, and continue managing their existing workload in their studies at Western University?
Subway had been a dominant player in the submarine sandwich category since its inception in 1965. By 2011, the company had surpassed McDonald’s as the world’s largest restaurant chain. However, the emergence of strong competition and a number of issues—mostly related to its products, place, and price—had caused the company to struggle since 2014. The company’s franchise system was poorly designed and operated, product quality had slipped, the company had not kept up with industry and dietary trends, and the arrest of the company’s key spokesperson had a negative effect on the company’s profits. Revenues declined from 2014 to 2019, and 2,376 stores were closed between 2016 and 2018. Subway needed to turn itself around. How could Subway’s chief executive officer resolve the company’s product-, place-, and price-related issues to help reverse its fortunes?
TransDigm was a highly acquisitive company that manufactured a wide range of highly engineered aerospace parts for both military and commercial customers. Over the ten years ending in 2016, its stock price had increase ten times, and both EBITDA and revenues had grown at compound annual rates in excess of 20%. But in early 2017, investors, customers, and government officials began to question the implementation, sustainability, and ethics of the firm's unique value creation strategy. That strategy consisted of three parts: value-based pricing, cost reductions, and new product development. In the short term, CEO Nick Howley had to decide whether to respond to the barrage of criticism; in the longer term, he had to decide whether to change the firm's highly successful strategy.
This case, a follow-on to "Luvo" (517-049), provides a brief look at changes that have occured at Luvo, now called Performance Kitchen, since the timing of the first case (mid 2016). Set in January 2020, Luvo (B) touches on developments such as the company's purchase of a small food retail chain and its "food-is-medicine" strategic positioning, which includes selling to health insurers and other firms in the health care industry.
The late 20th century saw a dramatic shift in the criminal justice system of the United States. While incarceration rates had remained stable through the 1960s, they quintupled by the 2000s to 707 per 100,000, far exceeding that of all other nations in the world. By 2020, nearly 2.3 million individuals were locked up in U.S. prisons, jails, and detention centers. Of these, 60% were Black or Latinx. Why the mass incarceration, and why such disparities by race? Were they responses to recent political and economic shifts, or part of a deeper social and cultural history? And what could be done to address what was now widely recognized by policymakers as a crisis of the criminal justice system in the United States?
From the time he transformed the world of online banking, Elon Musk had established himself as a bold innovator eager to challenge the status quo in hopes of, as he put it, advancing human society. After selling X.com to PayPal in 2002, he founded a series of start-ups in pursuit of that dream, starting with Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX). Hoping to "make human life multiplanetary", Musk aimed to establish the first Mars civilization, but was unable to procure rockets that would be cheap or reliable enough to make the journey. Over the course of the next decade, SpaceX would develop a line of revolutionary rockets that transformed the commercial space launch industry. Using reusable rockets to exploit the benefits of economies of scale, SpaceX cut costs to orbit by a factor of 18 and captured a large percentage of the global launch market, once thought to be inaccessible to newcomers in the industry. But after a remarkable decade, Musk's original goal to reach Mars seemed both within reach and impossibly optimistic. SpaceX had proven technologies that would be critical in supporting a crewed mission to Mars, but the cost to get there was estimated to be well above $200 billion dollars in 2014. While revenues from the launch services market were impressive, they were nowhere near the $200 billion needed to develop a Mars civilization. Would there be enough demand for launch services to make Elon Musk's vision a possibility, or would SpaceX have to find other ways to get there?
This note explores the concept of ki, or energy. It concentrates on aikido, a Japanese martial art that channels the human body's natural energy toward balance, health, grounding, and the mental clarity required to overcome obstacles and discover new insights. Aikido is a defensively oriented martial art, designed to utilize the ki of the attack in a manner that turns that energy to the detriment of the attacker. The note discusses the six principles of aikido and applies them to business situations. It brings new perspectives on challenges and opportunities faced by businesses ranging from Dollar General to Standard and Poor's to Rodale Press, and generates insights about strategy, including purpose, mission, culture, mergers, and competition.
In March 2017, the American fast food giant McDonald's Corporation (McDonald's) launched an ambitious strategic plan, named the Velocity Growth Plan, with the intention of maintaining its dominance over competitors. As part of this strategy, McDonald's wanted to retain its current customers, regain lost customers, and convert casual customers into more committed customers. To help accomplish these objectives, McDonald's introduced delivery and mobile ordering services. The company also announced that it would remodel its stores, as part the Velocity Growth Plan. Two years later, in March 2019, McDonald's acquired Dynamic Yield, a digital personalization platform that could be integrated into McDonald's drive-through service, in-store kiosks, and mobile application. By early 2019, McDonald's was the largest fast food company in the world, with approximately 37,855 restaurants across 120 countries, largely seen as the premiere fast food company in the industry. However, Dynamic Yield's software provided McDonald's with the ability to offer customers immediate recommendations, one-to-one messaging, and customer data management. How could McDonald's best use Dynamic Yield to meet its ambitious growth objectives?
In February 2020, the board of directors of the French energy utility company, Engie SA (Engie), terminated the services of the company’s chief executive officer (CEO). Before her departure, this CEO was the only female CEO among the Cotation Assistée en Continu (CAC) 40 benchmark stock market index of firms. After becoming CEO in May 2016, she divested billions of dollars’ worth of fossil-fuel assets and reinvested the proceeds in renewable and energy efficiency services. Her goal was to restructure the loss-making energy company, but the board of directors was not satisfied with her performance. Despite an improvement in the company’s financial performance during her tenure, Engie remained one of the lowest-valued energy utility companies on European stock exchanges. With a focus on renewable energy, Engie’s relative performance continued to suffer. The chair of the company’s board of directors had to determine the cause of the company’s stock market performance and find ways to improve. He also had to consider what other factors, in addition to value creation for shareholders, should be used as a performance measure for the next CEO.
The release of Tesla Inc. (Tesla)’s financial results in early 2019 made it clear that significant challenges lay ahead for the firm. While Tesla remained the market leader for electric vehicles in the global automobile industry, sales had dropped dramatically, and Tesla was once again losing money. Its recent launch of the Model 3 held great promise and added a key vehicle to its growing product portfolio, but customer complaints about late delivery were on the rise. As a leader of electric vehicles in the global automobile industry, which capabilities are most important for Tesla to further develop, and how broadly should the firm stretch its supply chain and service network? Were changes to the firm’s strategy required in order to advance its mission to accelerate the world’s transition to clean energy?
In February 2020, Nick Dalton, executive vice president HR business transformation at Unilever, reflected on the changing nature of work marked by rapid advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation. Launched in 2016, Unilever's Future of Work initiative aimed to accelerate the speed of change throughout the organization and prepare the workforce for a digitalized and highly automated era. Despite the success over the last three years, the program still faced significant challenges in its implementation: How should Unilever, one of the world's largest consumer goods companies, adapt and accelerate the speed of change throughout the organization? Was it even possible to lead a systematic, agile workforce transformation across several geographies with local context differences? How could Unilever prepare and upscale its workforce for the future?
The case delineates the journey of L.V. Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI), which evolved to become the biggest rural eyecare network, and it is amongst the most well-known eyecare providers in the world. Established in the year 1987 in the city of Hyderabad, India, LVPEI had been known internationally for its quality of eye care. As part of its vision, it treats half of its patients free of cost by adopting the cross-subsidization model. It developed the unique 'Pyramid Model' to serve the last mile population. The subject of Strategy and Innovation is riddled with paradoxes. A paradox is typically a pair of opposites, that have to be creatively reconciled, ensuring that both the opposites are simultaneously true. The case is set in the year 2018, and the key highlight of the case is to showcase how LVPEI has reconciled the hierarchy of paradoxes, i.e., strategy paradoxes, and innovation paradoxes during its 30 years journey and achieved excellence in eye care. The vital question of how LVPEI can sustain continued innovative excellence has emerged now. The senior management of LVPEI has to chart their way forward for the coming 30 years, reconciling the hierarchy of paradoxes. These paradoxes are elusively described in the case. Students would need to identify the paradoxes and think through LVPEI's journey ahead by reconciling them.
In 2018, Middlebury College's board of trustees is considering a proposal called Energy2028 that would push the small, liberal arts and sciences college in Vermont to become a net zero carbon emitter, decrease energy usage by 25%, divest fossil fuels from its endowment, and build new educational programming focused on energy and climate change. Building the Energy2028 proposal was a multistakeholder process that was guided by the college's president, Laurie Patton. Patton and her team brought together student activists, faculty experts, board members, and financial experts to craft a proposal that was bold, yet achievable. Perhaps the most surprising element was the divestment pledge. Just five years earlier, the board had faced a similar decision on divestment and chose not to act. Had Patton done enough to convince the board to change their minds and support the complete package of Energy2028?
In 2006, Zita Cobb and two of her brothers, Alan Cobb and Tony Cobb, native Newfoundlanders, launched Shorefast to help grow another leg of Fogo Island's economy. Like so many rural communities, Fogo Island's fate was tied directly to one primary resource-in this case cod. For centuries, Fogo Islanders made their living by fishing and trading cod, but by 1992, the Canadian government put a moratorium on the limited stocks left, forcing many rural Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to move to larger centers in search of new employment. Shorefast is a non-profit organization that has explored ways to catalyze economic development on Fogo Island through intentional place-making. Through Shorefast's experience of launching the Fogo Island Inn, in 2019 the co-founders of Shorefast are wondering how they can use their experience to inform a global conversations about sustainability and place-based economies that can help reimagine capitalism.