As Tara Noland, the Executive Director (ED) of GreenLight Cincinnati, reflected on her first few years on the job. Noland had delivered on what she had been hired to do in the city: work with leading philanthropists and nonprofit executives to use data and evidence to assess and understand the most pressing community needs; conduct due diligence on leading organizations nationally that were interested in replicating evidence-based programs in Cincinnati; and provide multi-year unrestricted funding and on-the-ground support for the selected programs as they launched in the community. Now, looking to raise the second fund, Noland thought about her future. GreenLight Fund is an innovative venture philanthropy fund that raises regional funds to help replicate evidence-based social service programs. The case explores the launch of their Cincinnati site and outlines some of the questions in how GreenLight balances national and local decision-making, creates career pathways for staff, how it helps organizations replicate, and how it manages its own replication and scale.
The chairman and managing director of Power Finance Corporation Limited (PFC) acquired REC Limited (REC), which was also engaged in the business of financing power sector projects. Both companies were in the public sector, with the Government of India holding the majority stake. The chairman and managing director must determine the next course of action for the two firms in order to achieve the maximum level of synergy.
The chairman and managing director of Power Finance Corporation Limited (PFC) acquired REC Limited (REC), which was also engaged in the business of financing power sector projects. Both companies were in the public sector, with the Government of India holding the majority stake. The chairman and managing director must determine the next course of action for the two firms in order to achieve the maximum level of synergy.
DailyFish was an emerging e-commerce enterprise that was started in 2016 by Baby Marine Ventures, one of the largest exporters of frozen seafood from India. Subramanian Sankaran, Head of Loyalties and customer service management (CSM) was facing challenges related to increased missed calls in the call center that eventually led to a loss of sales opportunities. The chief executive officer of the company instructed Sankaran to reduce the waiting time per call by one third, thereby minimizing the missed calls. Sankaran had to find out how to minimize the waiting time without compromising the call quality. He was looking forward to hiring a couple of executives to tackle the issue. He planned to find the best fit using fractional factorial experiment using Taguchi orthogonal arrays.
The case discusses the strategy of CIAM, a French activist investment firm, involved in a case of a buy-out of minority shareholders in the telecommunications sector. Altice NV, an international telecommunications company based in the Netherlands that owned more than 77% of SFR Group shares, made a bid for the remaining shares of France's second largest mobile operator. Believing that the offer was woefully inadequate and constituted an abuse of power, CIAM had been fighting for a better offer as one of SFR's vocal minority shareholders with a series of action plans-leveraging legal, communications, and public relations tactics. CIAM had just received a new piece of information, divulging a potential misuse of SFR corporate assets by Altice, and was discussing next steps.
Vinay Sanghi, the founder and CEO of CarTrade, had been trying different business strategies to keep the company, which he founded in 2010 as an online marketplace for used and new cars, profitable and on track for growth. In a crowded and disorganized dealer marketplace in India, and an environment where consumers had gotten used to buying online, Sanghi had found that some big challenges were getting dealers to believe the validity of digital platforms to bring in customers, and for CarTrade itself to grow, get more margins from dealers, and get more advertising revenue from car manufacturers. Sanghi came from a world of brick-and-mortar retail and his family had run car dealerships, so he had started drawing on some of that history to build a franchising model, and acquire a large offline auctioner of vehicles in India. Plans were also underway to build an NBFC to lend to dealers and consumers. Would this be enough, and were these promising strategies? What would be the way forward for CarTrade, an e-marketplace, to build its margins, solidify its customer base and steer toward growth?
For the twenty years following the Zapatista uprising (1994-2013), the federal government had placed a lot of resources and policy attention in an effort to reduce the large income gaps between Chiapas and the rest of Mexico. Public investment in schools, hospitals, and conditional cash transfer programs had been implemented, resulting in a significant improvement that did reduce the gap in terms of educational and health outcomes. Massive infrastructure projects had been undertaken to upgrade Chiapas' roads, ports and airports, boosting the connectivity of the state with markets within the state and elsewhere in Mexico. And yet, twenty years later the income gap between workers in Chiapas and the rest of Mexico had deepened, and Chiapas remains the poorest state in Mexico, with three quarters of its population poor and close to half in extreme poverty. Large productivity gaps - as proxied by wages - are not only observed between states, but have also expanded dramatically within the three sectors employing two-¬thirds of the workers in Chiapas: Agriculture, wholesale and retail, and manufacturing. One year into his term as Finance Minister for the government of Enrique Peña Nieto (2013-2018), Luis Videgaray ponders the statistical evidence available and baffles at the puzzle. The case includes a series of videos featuring Luis Videgaray, Mexico's former Secretary of Finance and Public Credit (2012-2016). In the first video, "The Chiapas Puzzle" (7:41 min.), to be viewed by students in preparation for the class, Mr. Videgaray explains the situation in Chiapas and the dilemmas he and the Mexican Government faced early on. The other three videos, "The Case of Yazaki" (3:55 min.), "Infrastructure and Political Economy" (4:19 min.), and "Takeaways" (5:03 min.) can be played as part of the class discussion. A supplemental slide set is also included with this case.
In November 2019, David Broom, Chief Marketing Officer of FWD Singapore, replayed a commercial ad clip of his company, as he ruefully considered the competitiveness of the insurance market in Southeast Asia. Building competitive resilience in a cutthroat market dominated by large traditional insurance players was a constant challenge for FWD. Although his company had launched innovative products in the market with improved claims processes, competitors had quickly replicated the product features and launched similar products. FWD had launched its direct-to-consumer business in September 2016 with the aim of changing the way people felt about insurance by leveraging technology to deliver products that were relevant, easy to understand, and well-priced. The direct-to-consumer business focused on life and general insurance products like direct-term life, car, travel, personal accident, and maid insurance. All FWD products were sold online, making it one of the first completely online insurance companies in the region. The company had implemented an online underwriting system, and mobile technology solutions for claims processing. FWD was also the first corporate health insurer in Southeast Asia to adopt two AI solutions - one to read documents and another to assess corporate claims (detecting fraud waste and possible abuse). And yet, despite its best efforts to leverage technology, FWD found that technology alone yielded a very slippery slope as a competitive advantage. Broom brainstormed with his colleagues for hooks that would provide FWD with that practically difficult "oomph factor" known as sustainable competitive advantage. What could be their competitive strategy?
DailyFish was an emerging e-commerce enterprise that was started in 2016 by Baby Marine Ventures, one of the largest exporters of frozen seafood from India. Subramanian Sankaran, Head of Loyalties and customer service management (CSM) was facing challenges related to increased missed calls in the call center that eventually led to a loss of sales opportunities. The chief executive officer of the company instructed Sankaran to reduce the waiting time per call by one third, thereby minimizing the missed calls. Sankaran had to find out how to minimize the waiting time without compromising the call quality. He was looking forward to hiring a couple of executives to tackle the issue. He planned to find the best fit using fractional factorial experiment using Taguchi orthogonal arrays.
The case opens in 2019 as Raja Al Mazrouei, executive vice president of FinTech Hive (the Hive) at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the first and largest financial technology accelerator in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia region, contemplates her and the Hive's option to support the fintech ecosystem in Dubai as the accelerated startups face funding challenges in the market. The case chronicles Al Mazrouei's efforts to set up the Hive in 2016 to create a fintech ecosystem in the region in line with the Kingdom's National Agenda to help financial institutions engage with technology to remain relevant to the region's evolving customer and market needs. The case provides a detailed overview of the model the Hive was based on and its growth story that led the Hive to rank as the 10th largest Global Fintech Hub and the 3rd biggest Global Islamic Fintech Hub in 2019. Having successfully "graduated" two classes of startups, in 2019 the Hive had signed partnerships with accelerators and incubators around the world and had announced a $100 million dedicated fund to support fintech companies globally. Yet, Al Mazrouei knew that she had just scratched the surface and there was a lot to be done. The investment mentality in the region was still quite conservative, and there were only a few venture capital funds and angel investors were virtually non-existent. The continued success of the startups depended on their access to funding and Al Mazrouei was concerned about the Hive's ability to support the increasing number of fintech startups the Hive had lured to Dubai. One such startup that had successfully graduated from the Hive's 2018 accelerator program was in the market raising funds. Would they succeed? Would the Hive's funds be enough to encourage VCs, financial institutions, and angel investors to join in and invest in early-stage fintech startups to keep them going?
This case explores a new board director who wants more detail from the management team than his fellow directors are willing to press for. New board director Sam Pesca is frustrated that CFO Alex Marotta provides only a minimal two-page financial summary at board meetings, despite Pesca's requests for more comprehensive information. The other directors object to pressing Marotta for more detail, and young CEO R.J. Oscott asks Pesca to refrain from pressing the CFO. This case is part of a series of vignettes that capture different dilemmas faced by directors as they join boards of companies and understand the dynamics of the new boards that they join.