A founder looks back at the issues at play in the final year of failed furniture e-commerce startup, Dot & Bo. He shares his perspective and learnings in the aftermath.
In 2011, Samuel Maruta and Vincent Mourou, two Frenchmen living in Vietnam, founded Marou to produce fine chocolate from bean to bar. Just seven years later, Marou had opened two shops in Vietnam and was exporting its chocolate to twenty countries, including the United States, France, Sweden, Japan, and South Korea. The company's brand and business model were deeply rooted in its commitment to using only locally grown cacao beans: Marou had forged close ties with small Vietnamese farmers to create a reliable supply of high-quality beans, vital to the production of exquisite chocolate. While highlighting the values and vision of the company's founders (taste, local purchasing, fair and sustainable trade, prudent and organic growth), the case outlines the company's efforts to secure its supply of cacao beans to ensure the high quality of the chocolate it produced. The case also describes the company's distribution and sales strategies both domestically and internationally. The winner of several international awards and lauded by the New York Times in March 2016 as producing "the best chocolate you've never tasted," Marou seemed to be well positioned in the high-end "bean to bar" chocolate niche.
SK Group, one of Korea's largest conglomerates, announced its Double Bottom Line (DBL) initiative in 2018. In January 2019, Chairman Tae-won Chey unveiled the company's pledge not only to monitor and report SK's social value, but also see social value account for 50 percent of the company's key performance indicators. This case study follows SK's shift to DBL management and efforts to place social value at the core of its business model. Social media and a hyper-connected society heaped unprecedented pressure on corporates to deliver value and to make sure no-one was left behind. To implement its DBL initiative, SK, a leading producer of energy, chemicals, telecoms, and semiconductors, needed to investigate how to measure social value created in all its business operations in monetary terms - whether value created (positive value) or value destroyed (negative value). SK began to measure its indirect contributions to the economy and business activity, in addition to social contributions like employee volunteer programs, and SK donations and CSR activities. These efforts covered all aspects of SK's operations, from the 3,600 SK-operated gas stations throughout Korea to water-free scrubbers designed to process impurities discharged during semiconductor production. The case also looks at SK's efforts to explore new institutional frameworks to multilateralize its social value agenda, to build a common and actionable approach to social value creation and measurement within the broader global business community.
In 2019, entrepreneur Juan Carlos Castilla-Rubio was developing a project he hoped could generate and share wealth from the natural resources of the Amazon without destroying those resources. His idea, called Earth Bank of Codes (EBC), would create a library of the genomic codes of all known species that could be tapped for discovery and innovation, from new medical interventions to more efficient manufacturing processes. He proposed to use blockchain technology to make the data both accessible and trackable so that its use could be monitored. Castilla-Rubio envisioned a time when a company in the U.S. could access a biological asset from the Peruvian Amazon, develop and commercialize a product based on the asset, and have a fraction of the resulting sales land directly in the bank account of various beneficiaries, including the Peruvian government and indigenous communities. Now he was facing major decisions about how to structure EBC to achieve his goals. Should he start at the top and build partnerships with national governments and inter-governmental organizations as the cornerstone of EBC? Or would it be better to forge ahead with a few stakeholders in an entrepreneurial project?
Stephen Scott needed to decide whether to keep his behavioral analytics startup in the people analytics sector or shift his company into the RegTech sector. Starling had develop technology that enabled its customers to anticipate and shape the behavior of their employees by examining company data on employees, including email traffic. Starling had struggled to grow in the people analytics sector while RegTech was an emerging sector that might provide better opportunities to grow.
In 2018, Changsheng Bio-technology Co., Ltd. (Changsheng), a leading biopharmaceutical company and one of the market leaders in vaccines, was found to have falsified its production and inspection data and to have sold substandard vaccines in the Chinese market. The unethical conduct triggered widespread public anger and immediate government intervention. What actions could Changsheng take to mitigate the effect of this scandal?
On February 24, 2016, HTL International Holdings Ltd (HTL), a Singapore-based furniture company, announced that it had entered into a purchase agreement with Guangdong Yihua Timber Industry Co. Ltd (Yihua). According to the agreement, which was subject to approvals, Yihua would pay SG$1.00 for each share of HTL. However, the agreement required that HTL meet set profit targets in each of the next three years. A compensation agreement between HTL's controlling shareholder and Yihua stipulated that if HTL did not make its profit targets, HTL's controlling shareholder would make up the shortfall to Yihua. When the agreement was announced, HTL's share price was at $0.70, and the $0.30 gap signalled uncertainty about whether Yihua's shareholders would agree to the acquisition. Minority shareholders and potential investors, who were not bound by the profit guarantee, needed to decide whether they should buy, sell, or hold HTL's shares.
In early 2016, Canada's venture capital (VC) investment environment was growing and, as a result, exciting new start-ups were fruitfully collaborating with a sophisticated selection of investors. Ajay Joshi, a partner at Helarctos Ventures (HV), a seed-stage venture capital investment fund based in Toronto, Canada, was an experienced entrepreneur in the mobile wireless technology (tech) space and a savvy VC investor. HV, founded in 2013, had invested in 28 tech start-ups, and six of them had been successfully acquired. But even with past successes, in an environment of hungry, enthusiastic start-ups that was getting larger and more diverse every year, Joshi and the HV team needed to continuously re-evaluate their process and be sure that they were relying on the right criteria for evaluating investments. Each investment in a start-up was a major decision and represented a significant and long-term allocation of finite capital, time, and energy. Joshi and HV needed to be sure of their decisions, when surety was in short supply.
Rite Aid Corporation (Rite Aid) shareholders had turned down a US$3 million bonus proposed for the chief executive officer (CEO) and elected a new board chair. Under the CEO's leadership, Rite Aid had paid off some debt and returned to modest profitability. However, two failed plans to sell the business had shaken the shareholders' confidence. Having dealt with falling sales, shrinking profits, the sale of over half of its stores, and the news that Amazon.com Inc. had acquired an online pharmacy, Rite Aid was facing challenges from all sides. The drugstore industry was in turmoil, and without a buyer, the board chair needed to revisit the company's strategy and its management's capabilities. In the face of consolidation, vertical integration, and disruption from new entrants, survival was uncertain. Could Rite Aid survive on its own? Would it be feasible to attempt a third merger agreement, or were more radical options needed?
In 2012, Sina Weibo stood out from competing microblogging products and developed into the largest social media platform in China. However, in 2013, competition from WeChat, a lack of high-quality content, and the exposure of an excessive number of fake accounts led to difficulties for Sina Weibo. By addressing three aspects of user activity-content producers, content consumers, and the platform operator-Sina Weibo was able to get back on the right track. The platform went from a loss in 2014 to a profit in 2018. However, behind the prosperity, in January 2019, Sina Weibo was facing new threats-namely, the disappearance of Chinese Internet user traffic dividends and competition from rivals Toutiao and Douyin. Sina Weibo's chief executive officer had to determine how to deal with these new threats.
Incorporated in 1983 in Uttar Pradesh, India, GHCL Limited had established itself by 2018 as a well-diversified group operating in chemicals, textiles, and consumer products segments. The home textiles division had launched a new line of bedsheets called Rekoop-a polyester fibre, extracted from recycled plastic bottles and combined with cotton to produce Rekoop bedsheets. The fibre also contained a DNA marker that enabled tracing of the product from fibre to finished product. The textile division was known for its low prices and weak business performance; to overcome that, the company believed that Rekoop could sell for higher prices and move the division's focus from volumes to margins. Rekoop could provide brand salience, visibility, and higher prices. However, the president and chief executive officer of the home textile division faced many decisions-what distribution strategy to follow, how to get stores and customers to buy the product, how to increase customer awareness, what price points to use, how to maintain brand salience, and above all which markets to enter.
Incorporated in 1983 in Uttar Pradesh, India, GHCL Limited had established itself by 2018 as a well-diversified group operating in chemicals, textiles, and consumer products segments. The home textiles division had launched a new line of bedsheets called Rekoop—a polyester fibre, extracted from recycled plastic bottles and combined with cotton to produce Rekoop bedsheets. The fibre also contained a DNA marker that enabled tracing of the product from fibre to finished product. The textile division was known for its low prices and weak business performance; to overcome that, the company believed that Rekoop could sell for higher prices and move the division’s focus from volumes to margins. Rekoop could provide brand salience, visibility, and higher prices. However, the president and chief executive officer of the home textile division faced many decisions—what distribution strategy to follow, how to get stores and customers to buy the product, how to increase customer awareness, what price points to use, how to maintain brand salience, and above all which markets to enter.
In 2012, Sina Weibo stood out from competing microblogging products and developed into the largest social media platform in China. However, in 2013, competition from WeChat, a lack of high-quality content, and the exposure of an excessive number of fake accounts led to difficulties for Sina Weibo. By addressing three aspects of user activity—content producers, content consumers, and the platform operator—Sina Weibo was able to get back on the right track. The platform went from a loss in 2014 to a profit in 2018. However, behind the prosperity, in January 2019, Sina Weibo was facing new threats—namely, the disappearance of Chinese Internet user traffic dividends and competition from rivals Toutiao and Douyin. Sina Weibo’s chief executive officer had to determine how to deal with these new threats.
In early 2016, Canada’s venture capital (VC) investment environment was growing and, as a result, exciting new start-ups were fruitfully collaborating with a sophisticated selection of investors. Ajay Joshi, a partner at Helarctos Ventures (HV), a seed-stage venture capital investment fund based in Toronto, Canada, was an experienced entrepreneur in the mobile wireless technology (tech) space and a savvy VC investor. HV, founded in 2013, had invested in 28 tech start-ups, and six of them had been successfully acquired. But even with past successes, in an environment of hungry, enthusiastic start-ups that was getting larger and more diverse every year, Joshi and the HV team needed to continuously re-evaluate their process and be sure that they were relying on the right criteria for evaluating investments. Each investment in a start-up was a major decision and represented a significant and long-term allocation of finite capital, time, and energy. Joshi and HV needed to be sure of their decisions, when surety was in short supply.
Rite Aid Corporation (Rite Aid) shareholders had turned down a US$3 million bonus proposed for the chief executive officer (CEO) and elected a new board chair. Under the CEO’s leadership, Rite Aid had paid off some debt and returned to modest profitability. However, two failed plans to sell the business had shaken the shareholders’ confidence. Having dealt with falling sales, shrinking profits, the sale of over half of its stores, and the news that Amazon.com Inc. had acquired an online pharmacy, Rite Aid was facing challenges from all sides. The drugstore industry was in turmoil, and without a buyer, the board chair needed to revisit the company’s strategy and its management’s capabilities. In the face of consolidation, vertical integration, and disruption from new entrants, survival was uncertain. Could Rite Aid survive on its own? Would it be feasible to attempt a third merger agreement, or were more radical options needed?
On February 24, 2016, HTL International Holdings Ltd (HTL), a Singapore-based furniture company, announced that it had entered into a purchase agreement with Guangdong Yihua Timber Industry Co. Ltd (Yihua). According to the agreement, which was subject to approvals, Yihua would pay SG$1.00 for each share of HTL. However, the agreement required that HTL meet set profit targets in each of the next three years. A compensation agreement between HTL’s controlling shareholder and Yihua stipulated that if HTL did not make its profit targets, HTL’s controlling shareholder would make up the shortfall to Yihua. When the agreement was announced, HTL’s share price was at $0.70, and the $0.30 gap signalled uncertainty about whether Yihua’s shareholders would agree to the acquisition. Minority shareholders and potential investors, who were not bound by the profit guarantee, needed to decide whether they should buy, sell, or hold HTL’s shares.
In 2018, Changsheng Bio-technology Co., Ltd. (Changsheng), a leading biopharmaceutical company and one of the market leaders in vaccines, was found to have falsified its production and inspection data and to have sold substandard vaccines in the Chinese market. The unethical conduct triggered widespread public anger and immediate government intervention. What actions could Changsheng take to mitigate the effect of this scandal?