In March 2018, Snap Inc. (Snap), based in Venice, California, and commonly known as Snapchat for its application that allowed users to send photos that disappeared, was looking for ways to grow its user base in the competitive social media platform industry and to differentiate itself from the other major platforms. To do this, it was trying to position itself as a "camera" company and to become relevant to a larger target market: adults aged 25 and older, a demographic that seemed already well-served by current social media platform options.
In 2017, the president and co-owner of MacKinnon Industries was considering the opportunity to diversify his business and bring a former family business back into the MacKinnon family. With an extensive background in acquiring and managing manufacturing businesses, he now had an opportunity to purchase Corkford Brewery Inc. (Corkford Brewery). The deal included the land, building, and equipment, as well as four successful brands from Tanzer Brewing Company, which owned Corkford Brewery. MacKinnon wanted to evaluate the financial viability of the business venture under three different potential operating scenarios, assess the potential of adding ciders to the product mix, and consider the price that he would be willing to pay to acquire the business.
This case is part of a series of four integrated cases about The Empowerment Plan (TEP), a Detroit-based nonprofit that worked to break the cycle of homelessness through training, employment, and job placement. Founded in 2012 by Veronika Scott, TEP recruited employees through homeless shelters and provided them with training, education, and full-time employment manufacturing sleeping bag coats. The specially designed coats were distributed free of charge to the homeless population. Case A presents basic information about the founding of TEP, how employees were hired and trained, employee roles on the production line, and how employees were promoted, managed and motivated. The case also introduces the concept of the TEP internship/fellowship program and is appropriate for a class session focused on job design and job crafting.
This case is part of a series of four integrated cases about The Empowerment Plan (TEP), a Detroit-based nonprofit that worked to break the cycle of homelessness through training, employment, and job placement. Founded in 2012 by Veronika Scott, TEP recruited employees through homeless shelters and provided them with training, education, and full-time employment manufacturing sleeping bag coats. The specially designed coats were distributed free of charge to the homeless population. Case B reviews the founding of TEP as a nonprofit entity, discusses the agency and employment model used at TEP, and introduces the Maxwell Detroit retail line of coats. It is most appropriate for a class session focused on key employment law concepts and product liability issues.
This case is part of a series of four integrated cases about The Empowerment Plan (TEP), a Detroit-based nonprofit that worked to break the cycle of homelessness through training, employment, and job placement. Founded in 2012 by Veronika Scott, TEP recruited employees through homeless shelters and provided them with training, education, and full-time employment manufacturing sleeping bag coats. The specially designed coats were distributed free of charge to the homeless population. Case C asks students to work in teams to deliver a presentation aimed at persuading a particular stakeholder group (corporate donors, individual donors, foundations) to donate to TEP. They will learn to select, organize, and present information clearly, concisely, and professionally. This case is appropriate for a class session focused on persuasive communications. Note: A background information document about The Empowerment Plan accompanies this case.
This case is part of a series of four integrated cases about The Empowerment Plan (TEP), a Detroit-based nonprofit that worked to break the cycle of homelessness through training, employment, and job placement. Founded in 2012 by Veronika Scott, TEP recruited employees through homeless shelters and provided them with training, education, and full-time employment manufacturing sleeping bag coats. The specially designed coats were distributed free of charge to the homeless population. Case D discusses the raw materials used by TEP, how the materials are sourced, challenges in managing the supply chain-such as reliability, quality, and sustainability-and minimizing the total cost of production. Additionally, the case examines the benefits and challenges of using donated raw materials within a supply chain. It is most appropriate for a class session focused on supply chain management.
Rachael Ray built a remarkable career and brand, first as a cooking personality, and then as a lifestyle maven. This case explores her early career, decisions taken along the way, and the successes she achieved in publishing, television and as a spokesperson. As her career matured, the case follows the choices she made and charts the opportunities a brand personality such as Ray faces in reinventing themselves authentically over time. It provides students with insights into managing a career over the span of life events; the ways a narrative arc helps anchor an individual's story, and may need to be actively managed over time; and the tradeoffs at play in managing such a narrative.
The Indian digital payment market was estimated to grow to around USD 700 billion - USD 1 trillion by 2022. A number of players had entered the market to challenge Paytm which aimed to maintain its prominent position in the Indian mobile wallet space. To increase its user base and use-cases, Paytm introduced the Lucky Lifafa campaign to provide Indian users a novel way of sending money as a gift. The campaign bore similarities to the Red Envelope campaign used by WeChat to garner a wide user base in Chine. In spite of gift-giving being an integral part of Indian culture, the acceptance of Lucky Lifafa among Indian users was significantly different from that of the Red Envelope among Chinese users. The case describes the Lucky Lifafa campaign and the context in which it was executed, thus highlighting the differences in the way gifts are given in Chinese and Indian societies. Additionally, the case also provides details of existing and upcoming players in the mobile wallet market space in India.
Eating raw fish was not very common in Madrid in 1999, other than a few Japanese restaurants that existed. These restaurants were either targeting Japanese tourists in Madrid or well-traveled, high-income individuals who had discovered sushi abroad. Sushita's founders belonged to the second group. Young and cosmopolitan, both Sandra Segimon and Natasha Apolinario were quickly attracted to sushi on their trips to London and New York. A healthy, low-calorie, high-protein diet, which, in addition to being good for their bodies, was also delicious. They started their business by developing sushi trays. After years of growing a successful sushi takeaway business, one of their most important clients was lost in an expansion strategy disagreement. The client was forcing Sushita to open a large number of sushi corners at their own expense. This client represented 35% of their sales so losing them as a client was a huge blow to their projected revenues for that year and years to come. Following this major setback, Sandra and Natasha decided to never again be overly dependent on a single client. So what should they do? They were already present in the most important supermarket chains in Spain, and they had recently started selling frozen takeaways to major Spanish national hotel chains. They knew that they needed to continue growing the Sushita brand, but how?
Gilberto Dimenstein, a well-known Brazilian journalist, created a new model called Catraca Livre in 2011 that connected residents of Sao Paulo with untapped resources by aggregating information into a centralized online platform. As an Advanced Leadership Fellow at Harvard, Dimenstein developed Catraca Livre to fulfill the goal of fostering community empowerment. From 2011 to 2019, Catraca Livre grew to become a major news site in Brazil, serving over 50 million users over 8 digital channels. Catraca Livre expanded its scope to focus on digital campaigns, which combatted issues like sexual assault and fake news. Catraca Livre also scaled as an organization by achieving financial independence and no longer relying on funding from foundation, moving into a new headquarters, and adding an in-house technology team. After stepping down as CEO of Catraca Livre in May 2017, Dimenstein founded a new venture, ReciproCidade, which leverages the resources of Catraca Livre to stimulate creative community projects to further its social impact. This case shows how Dimenstein scaled Catraca Livre to have greater reach throughout Brazil through the use of digital technologies and offers a model for community empowerment and advocacy globally through a digital platform.
In 2014, with Uber disrupting the taxi industry worldwide and Montreal's industry, hampered by obsolete rules and regulations, in dire need of a revolution, the founders of Teo Taxi hoped to offer a fresh alternative. They proposed a unique business model based on an electric-only taxicab fleet, decent wages for drivers, and profits reinvested in the local economy. Reinventing an industry and fighting strong adversaries such as Uber would however come at a huge cost. The case recounts the story of a young company striving to reach breakeven without compromising the social and environmental values at its core. Despite its best efforts, in January 2019, Teo Taxi filed for bankruptcy, leaving 450 drivers jobless. The case invites students to identify the factors that led to Teo Taxi's bankruptcy and propose strategies that could have helped to achieve breakeven, stabilize the business model, and ensure sustainability.
ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, the viral short video app, made headline news when its valuation jumped to $75 billion, surpassing Uber ($72 billion) to become the world's most valuable start-up. ByteDance leveraged capabilities in consumer-focused artificial intelligence (AI) to become one of the first Chinese Big Tech digital platforms to succeed outside China, notably in the US and India. The case focuses on the strategic value of predictive AI on the supply and demand sides of digital content, illustrating how AI-based tools enable the production of viral content and customized delivery and consumption. It compares the Chinese and US approach to AI, drawing a distinction between their implementation and innovative capabilities. Other issues include the internationalization of digital platforms, notably the management of inappropriate and illegal content in the respective institutional settings, and China's unique approach to content filtering that combines AI with human censors. Competition with China's other Big Tech companies - Tencent and Baidu - is also discussed. The case can also be used as a general introduction to artificial intelligence, including a brief history of AI (Section 2), categorization of AI applications (Section 3), and a comparison of AI in China and the US (Section 4).
In June 2018, the executive vice-president of Networks and Information Technology of KPN BV (KPN), Bouke Hoving, was evaluating the digital transformation of KPN, the leading telecommunications company in the Netherlands. Hoving had been an initiator of a turnaround that had started at KPN in 2014, after a financially and operationally hectic year. The entry into the market of over-the-top digital services, which used the Internet to bypass platforms the traditional telecommunications companies had once used to control access to customers, had forced KPN to act swiftly, fundamentally revisiting its strategy. By 2018, KPN was in much better shape. By working in agile ways, it had been able to respond more quickly to market and technological developments. Short-term survival seemed to have been secured. The question still to be addressed was how to accelerate KPN’s transformation with the aim of making KPN a winner in a world where digital dominated.
In June 2018, the executive vice-president of Networks and Information Technology of KPN BV (KPN), Bouke Hoving, was evaluating the digital transformation of KPN, the leading telecommunications company in the Netherlands. Hoving had been an initiator of a turnaround that had started at KPN in 2014, after a financially and operationally hectic year. The entry into the market of over-the-top digital services, which used the Internet to bypass platforms the traditional telecommunications companies had once used to control access to customers, had forced KPN to act swiftly, fundamentally revisiting its strategy. By 2018, KPN was in much better shape. By working in agile ways, it had been able to respond more quickly to market and technological developments. Short-term survival seemed to have been secured. The question still to be addressed was how to accelerate KPN's transformation with the aim of making KPN a winner in a world where digital dominated.
Play@Work is an online system that allows employees to award honorary 'medals' to subordinates, superiors and colleagues for actions that reinforce the company's values, and 'golden beans' that can be exchanged for benefits. Awards can be issued and are publicly accessible to all in real-time. Play@Work can realize a flat, flexible and warm management style, allowing organizational culture to motivate and regulate members' behaviors in a subtle manner, and give employees a clear idea of who appreciates, encourages and inspires them. The system has been fully implemented in Yonyou and has redefined work relationships. The prominent features of this case are novelty and practicality. Novelty is reflected in Play@Work's position as a cultural communication tool in the era of digital human resource management. Play@Work best suits enterprises dominated by knowledge workers, particularly those under strong pressure to innovate. Practicality is reflected in its use of 'soft' cultural management tools through a system consisting of medals, golden beans and other concrete actions. Before the introduction of Play@Work, enterprises mainly sought to improve their managers' awareness and skills by means of training, but due to the absence of a practical tool, the results of such training largely depended on the manager's own understanding and self-motivation. Play@Work provides a concrete method to communicate issues of corporate culture, and its versatile applications make it useful in a wide range of management scenarios. Improving work performance is one of the objectives of management, but the challenge that managers often encounter is that they are excessively task-driven and tend to neglect human elements. Play@Work operates on the principle that engaging with people on a human level can facilitate work and the attainment of targets. The value of this case is reflected in its demonstration of ways to improve work relationships by means of managing organizational culture.
Reissco, a Tier 2 automotive supplier of chassis and safety technologies, is being squeezed by retail customers like Auto Zone who demand low prices and high service levels. In this environment, companies like Reissco must be as efficient as possible to survive. So, Reissco decided to outsource its production, closing its last remaining internal production plant. Unfortunately, diminishment of expertise often follows losing internal production, and in the case there is strong evidence that this has happened at Reissco. The company does not seem to understand the real cost drivers and is, therefore, vulnerable to opportunistic price changes by its suppliers. Additionally, Reissco is unable to capture upside benefits when supplier costs go down.
In 2015, in Aalborg, Denmark, the two co-founders of Better World Fashion formed their company as a social enterprise, aiming to highlight all that was wrong with the fashion industry and offer a cleaner and more ethical solution. The business was designed to focus not only on profit but also on minimizing the environmental impact of the supply chain. The founders chose to specialize in garments made from re-purposed leather, as leather had a long lifespan, and could be reused repeatedly without its qualities diminishing. Leather was also the most resource-consuming garment material to produce, and therefore was both the most environmentally damaging material and the material that was most in need of recycling. The company's business model aimed to gain a competitive advantage through its image as a sustainable brand and its premium-quality products, which incorporated an emotional connection through the use of unique serial numbers and storytelling. However, in 2018, the co-founders wondered whether the company should continue as it had been originally positioned or whether it should change its strategies for growth and competitive advantage in international marketing.
Even as a teenager, Nadine Vogel knew she wanted to be an executive with a FORTUNE 500 company. This case chronicles her journey and her life and career choices, from college through her midlife decision to leave the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, where she had spearheaded the launch of a new division aimed at serving parents of children with disabilities. Vogel's leadership and career negotiating skills are exemplified, as she navigates through a myriad of personal and professional obstacles.