As the Ebola outbreak threatens the fragile health system of Liberia, Raj Panjabi, the founder of Last Mile Health, faces a dilemma: should he expand beyond the organization's core mission to help the country build emergency health care capacity, or should he stick to his knitting? Panjabi, a Liberian who immigrated with his family to the United States during the Liberian Civil War, founded Last Mile Health as a non-profit organization to recruit and train community health workers to reach remote rural communities with basic health services. The case traces the founding and early years of Last Mile Health, before the organization has to decide whether they pursue a significant amount of new funding to expand into other areas.
This case examines the organizational relationship between the Museum of Modern Art and its affiliate MoMA PS1. The relationship raises a number of business and corporate strategy questions regarding the evolution of organizational relationships and their management. The setting also allows students to learn about how nonprofit and for-profit organization strategy differ.
YFY Inc., a Taiwan-based global multinational firm with its origins in agriculture and paper products, had recently become an innovator in environmentally-friendly packaging material—producing nPulp, paper pulp made from straw. The company’s visionary leadership choices had shaped its technological choices through various institutional changes and helped it overcome a number of technical and organizational obstacles in order to commercialize this innovation. However, like all green innovations, nPulp still faced serious challenges, such as unsupported policies and regulations, and unstable supply. In 2017, the company’s leadership needed to find other applications for this product to increase its market adoption rate and maintain and expand its operation. At the same time, they wondered if the previous generation’s vision of creating a business ecosystem including organic farming, proper waste treatment, non-chemical paper manufacturing, energy and resource recycling, and new materials was even feasible.
In July 2017, a financial analyst from an Indian investment bank was assigned the task of identifying a suitable company from the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector for the bank’s portfolio. The bank wanted to expand its investment portfolio from the mobile Internet, information technology, health care, financial technology, and e-commerce sectors into the FMCG sector. After researching three significant players in the personal care segment and comparing these companies’ key ratios, the analyst determined that one of them, Bajaj Consumer Care Ltd., was a suitable candidate for valuation. Now, he had to perform a buy-side valuation of the company using the discounted cash flow technique to determine whether Bajaj Consumer Care Ltd. would be the right fit for his company’s investment plans.
The chief executive officer of Ridlr, a mobile application (app), faced a new challenge in 2019. Ridlr was a subsidiary of ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd., which was a major player in India's transportation-as-a-service sector and also owned Ola, a ride-hailing app. The chief executive officer envisioned Ridlr becoming the preferred information and mobile ticketing option for India’s public transportation modes. He wanted to successfully position the firm to grow from 600 million annual transactions in 2019 to 6 billion in 2022. He was confident in the firm's value proposition to serve the large consumer base, but he wasn't convinced that direct monetization through consumers was the best option. Although the business-to-business channels of transporters and technology service providers offered some opportunities at monetization, how could Ridlr gain access to that value? The chief executive officer needed to prepare a product and marketing strategy that would ensure both growth and monetization. Where should he begin?
In December 2018, Hindustan Unilever Limited announced that it would buy out GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s Consumer Healthcare Ltd. India business, which included popular brands such as Horlicks, Boost, and Viva. With Horlicks in its portfolio, Hindustan Unilever Limited expected to gain market share, draw synergies from individual strengths, and gain access to a larger consumer base. However, India’s health food drink category had registered only single-digit growth in 2017. Its primary target audience of parents, physicians, and nutritionists had concerns regarding the side effects of sugar as a key ingredient in beverages such as Horlicks. With consumer focus shifting to healthier, preservative-free alternatives, among other issues, Hindustan Unilever Limited was faced with a challenge: how could it build on Horlicks’s brand equity to sustain its leadership position in the disrupting health food drink market, leverage its leadership position to grow the company in this segment, and take that growth to double digits?
The chief executive officer (CEO) of Middle East Airlines (MEA) had to decide whether the airline should fly over Syria during the armed conflict. All other airlines in the Middle East had decided not to fly over Syria either because they did not want to show their support for the Syrian government or because they believed it was too dangerous. Yet, these airlines did not have as much to lose as MEA because, unlike them, 50 per cent of this airline’s flights flew over that country. It was estimated that MEA could lose US$50 million if it did not fly over Syria. What should the CEO do?
In October 2018, the founder of NutriHealth started to think about the next phase of her company’s growth strategy. NutriHealth began as a stand-alone clinic in 1998 and was a service provider of personalized wellness and health management diet plans. It was time to make decisions that would lead to sustained growth. NutriHealth had reached a satisfactory position in the market, and investors had become interested in the venture, offering capital. There were many options to explore, and the founder wanted to find the best approach in choosing a growth pathway.
Liz O'Sullivan, an employee at a fast-growing technology company called Clarifi, had a moral dilemma: She disagreed with Clarifi's decision to sell its image-recognition technology to the U.S. Department of Defense for possible use in weaponized drones. This case examines her career to this point and the potential ways in which she can address her concerns. The CEO has been receptive to her ideas, but there is little chance he will cancel the contract. She can either continue to advocate internally, or she can quit. If she quits, she wonders whether she should leak the details of the contract-and her decision to quit-to the media. The case contrasts her dilemma-in the voice-loyalty-exit framework-with that of Jack Poulson, a senior Google employee who quit the company in protest over Google's decision to build a censored search engine for the Chinese market.
Jeffrey Deitch is an influential gallery owner and art entrepreneur. An HBS alumnus generally credited with developing the field of bank art advisory and financing services, Deitch has had a storied career in both the commercial and non-profit art world. Wrestling with industry consolidation and rapidly changing consumer tastes, Deitch must decide on his next entrepreneurial venture in the arts.
SRS and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) follows the process by which SRS, a lean maker of remotely-operated submersible vehicles, navigates the DIU's acquisition process. Set up in 2015 to speed the U.S. military's access to promising commercial technologies, the DIU supports U.S. innovation while aiding early-stage ventures in multiple ways: with revenues via prototype agreements, with technology validation for potential investors, and potentially with sizeable production contracts. In 2019, the DIU was looking to augment this effort by investing in pre-prototype startups and commercialization efforts earlier in the technology development cycle, but its limited size and resources begged larger questions of how to build capacity and scale.
This case provides a post-mortem of the advertising technology (adtech) company Sizmek. Sizmek grew via multiple acquisitions, with the vision of becoming an integrated adtech company that could leverage AI to buy digital media, while creating and serving display and video content. At its peak, one of its acquisitions had an IPO valuation of almost 1 billion dollars. However, Sizmek struggled with an integration that was taking longer than expected, but also with misalignment of agency incentives, stricter data privacy regulations, and the rise of the walled gardens - Google, Facebook, and Amazon - that made the adtech ecosystem very competitive, with dynamics of winners-take-all markets. By 2019 Sizmek had to file Chapter 11, and was sold in pieces. Is there anything Sizmek could have done differently in their go-to-market strategy, product road-map, or overall partnerships to avoid such rapid collapse?
Motorcycles are by far the most popular form of motorized transportation in Indonesia, and are used to provide taxi-like service called ojek as well. In 2014, the two biggest providers of app-based, online booking and payment for conventional (four-wheel) taxis in Indonesia began to offer online booking and payment for motorcycle taxi rides as well. These services proved very popular, cutting sharply into the use and earnings of conventional motorcycle taxis. The Indonesian government was unsure whether and how it should regulate the new mode of transport, which it feared was adding to traffic congestion and accidents. Case number 2164.0
Bringing together the formal rationality of AI and the substantive rationality of humans can help companies meet their goals and optimize the chances of success. However, before designing AI systems, managers need to assess the openness of the decision-making process and the level of risk. These assessments will help managers figure out the right teaming options for implementing their AI systems.
In late 2018, the chief executive officer and founder of Tunaiku, a new digital consumer-lending financial technology (fintech) company in Indonesia, faced a dilemma. Although he had set out in 2014 to revolutionize Indonesia's consumer lending by providing people in the underserved lower segment of society with small unsecured loans, he now faced his most crucial challenge-dealing with Indonesia's changing regulatory environment. When he had launched the venture in 2014, fintech was unknown, and the founder had eventually decided to offer the product through a bank. But after Indonesia introduced a new fintech regulation, he needed to reconsider his earlier decision. Should Tunaiku move to a fintech licence or remain as a bank?
The chief executive officer (CEO) of Middle East Airlines (MEA) had to decide whether the airline should fly over Syria during the armed conflict. All other airlines in the Middle East had decided not to fly over Syria either because they did not want to show their support for the Syrian government or because they believed it was too dangerous. Yet, these airlines did not have as much to lose as MEA because, unlike them, 50 per cent of this airline's flights flew over that country. It was estimated that MEA could lose US$50 million if it did not fly over Syria. What should the CEO do?