Educators and entrepreneurs alike are excited about the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to change the way learning will look like in the future. There is a confluence of factors such as the availability of large sources of rich, granular data; fast connectivity; powerful processing capabilities at a lower cost; and the ubiquity of mobile devices driving the imagination of entrepreneurs who are envisioning a world powered by AI to change the way learning should happen. One of the exciting companies to emerge in this field is Liulishuo. Founded in 2012, Liulishuo operates mobile apps for English speaking practice and uses AI technologies to power personalized, adaptive learning experience. Co-founder Wang Yi and his colleagues believe that AI technologies could be a disruptive force in every aspect of English learning, including proficiency improvement and test preparation. They believe that AI technology could benefit English learners around the world and make everyone a global citizen.
This note provides a description of international flows and positions data, a way to identify extreme capital flow episodes (such as surges and stops), and a straightforward technique to predict whether a country should receive more or fewer portfolio inflows in the coming year based on a notion of benchmark inflows.
This case study highlights the opportunities and economic, environmental, and social value generated by one of the nation's largest college dining operations, the University of Michigan's MDining. The case describes the MDining leadership team and their holistic approach to implementing local and sustainable food sourcing initiatives. The team's challenges in implementing an aspirational local sourcing program and gaps in the ecosystem encourage students to discuss potential solutions. The case covers the important role a university can play in improving food sustainability on campus, especially through student clubs, projects, and employment and research opportunities. More broadly, the case highlights challenges that large institutions can face in implementing local sourcing and what role institutions can play in ensuring sustainable food services procurement.
The Universidad Privada Boliviana (UPB), the Private University of Bolivia, was founded in 1993. Not long after, in the late 1990s, civil unrest erupted with coca growers battling police in the streets outside the campus. Students and faculty fled, the prior President retired, and the University was functionally insolvent. Manuel Olave was hired as Rector (President) in 1999 to salvage the struggling school. Charged with turning around the struggling university, Olave realized that head-on competition would not help UPB thrive. Instead of benchmarking against leading universities, Olave formed a team to explore growth opportunities, using blue ocean methodologies like the Buyer Utility Map, Strategy Canvas, and Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create (ERRC) Grid. Based on insights from the blue ocean shift process, UPB made a series of strategic moves to capture untapped demand for higher education that was more affordable and of higher value for students. Two decades later, UPB is ranked the best private university in Bolivia, enrollment is at capacity, and the school is planning a third campus. The case comes with a first-hand video interview with Manuel Olave describing his blue ocean shift. The video can be downloaded for teaching purposes from https://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/teaching-materials/upb/ Also available in Spanish and Portuguese.
The case focuses on blockchain (and distributed ledger technology or DLT) - a 'hot' area of fintech - and on R3 as a fintech consortium that includes some of the world's largest banks, financial institutions and regulators. R3 started out as a family office in 2014 and evolved into a fintech company focused on the application of distributed ledger technology (DLT). Within three short years it had built a global consortium of 80 members from the financial services industry, including Barclays, J.P. Morgan, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and UBS. The consortium's efforts resulted in an open-source DLT called Corda, geared towards handling increasingly complex transactions and regulatory oversight. Although Corda was inspired by blockchain, R3 did not view it as a blockchain product. In May 2017, R3's Series A raised US$107 million in funding to continue the development and implementation of Corda and expand its Lab & Research Center. Barely a year later, speculation arose that R3 was exploring an IPO.
The case discusses supply chain risk management: how to leverage the structure of a supply network to assess its resilience, focusing on the consequences of disruption rather than the causes, as is traditionally done. The proposed framework, presented in a 2014 HBR paper by Simchi-Levi, Schmidt and Wei, describes how a consultant, Ann Van Delft, applies this framework when assessing the supply chain risk for her client a large telco internet service provider. Telco had recently experienced several outages due to equipment malfunctioning and a shortage of spare parts, resulting in the loss of some customers to its competitors. Ann was hired to deal with these issues as senior management felt the outages were damaging Telco's brand, and would deter new customers.
The field of neuromarketing, sometimes known as consumer neuroscience, studies the brain to predict and potentially even manipulate consumer behavior and decision making. Over the past five years several groundbreaking studies have demonstrated its potential to create value for marketers. But those interested in using its tools must still determine whether that's worth the investment and how to do it well. "Neuromarketing" loosely refers to the measurement of physiological and neural signals to gain insight into customers' motivations, preferences, and decisions. Its most common methods are brain scanning, which measures neural activity, and physiological tracking, which measures eye movement and other proxies for that activity. This article explores some of the research into those methods and discusses their benefits and drawbacks. Potential users of neuromarketing should be cautious about partnering with specialist consulting firms--experts warn that the field is plagued by vendors who oversell what neuromarketing can deliver. One neuroscience and business professor suggests using a checklist: Are actual neuroscientists involved in the study? Are any of the consultancy's methods, data, or tools published in peer-reviewed journals? Is its subject pool representative?--a question that is particularly important for global brands. Do the consultants have marketing expertise along with scientific knowledge? Do they have a track record of success? And can they prove when challenged that they will offer insights beyond what can be gleaned through traditional methods?
Three leading researchers--a marketing professor, a philosopher, and a neuroscientist--talk with HBR about the ethical implications of neuromarketing. Although consumers typically accept that their purchase behavior is public, these experts say, they think of their brains and thoughts as private, which can lead to backlash against organizations that use neuromarketing tools. And while informed consent is standard in the academic world, it's not always strictly adhered to on the industry side. Another big concern, particularly among consumer advocacy groups, is subconscious influence. But, says one of these researchers, "nothing neuroscience could ever measure could definitively drive a particular purchase," because so many other factors have input: mood, hunger, the presence of friends, how a product is displayed. Nevertheless, neurotesting could be used to target vulnerable populations--say, by trying to create ads that will induce more teenagers to vape. Conversely, it has been shown to increase the effectiveness of public service announcements. "One way to think about all these issues," says another of these experts, "is that neuroscience incrementally improves our ability to generate effective marketing messages in many areas--it's like turning up the dial a bit on the effectiveness of marketing. That dial turns up the ethical implications, too."
JTBC, which began operations in 2011, provided press coverage, drama shows, and entertainment programs. Within a relatively brief period, the company had gained the position of Korea's most trusted press outlet, and played a pivotal role in reporting key information related to the controversial case of President Park Geun-hye and her advisor - information that ultimately led to the president's impeachment in March 2017. The case study details the legal and technological transformation of South Korea's media landscape, offers a survey of the top players in provision of news and entertainment programs, and describes the strategies JTBC adopted to move quickly in a rapidly transforming industry.
On December 5, 2018 The Oak View Group (OVG) broke ground on the Seattle Center Arena (SCA) project. The cost of the project was not insignificant-and it continued to rise. Originally projected to cost $564 million, at groundbreaking the price tag stood at $850 million. Seattle sports fans were thrilled with the project. The city of Seattle had been without a winter sports team since 2008 when the Seattle SuperSonics, a National Basketball Association (NBA) franchise, left the city for Oklahoma. The SCA would be home to a new National Hockey League (NHL) franchise, and the hope was that, sooner rather than later, the NBA would return to Seattle. Tim Leiweke, cofounder and CEO of OVG, was ultimately responsible for the success of the project. A sports industry veteran with experience building sports facilities and developing event and sponsorship revenue for sports facilities, Leiweke believed music and live entertainment were critical to making the finances work. Leiweke would need to walk a fine line between promoting the SCA as venue for music and live entertainment, while at the same time, maintaining the trust and support of Seattle's sports fans.
In 2015, Costco Wholesale Corporation (Costco) was ranked as one of the world’s largest global retailers based on sales revenue, second only to Walmart Inc. It had successfully expanded into eight international markets: Canada, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Mexico, Taiwan, Australia, and the United Kingdom, managing to grow despite the turbulent economic conditions prevalent in these countries. Costco challenged stereotypes and employed unconventional business strategies to position itself as a leading transnational retailer. Costco’s business model was crucial to the company’s financial success and expansion over the years. Key company success factors included its membership-based operating model, its focus on low-cost efficiencies, the perceived quality and value of the Kirkland Signature brand, and its philosophy of rewarding human capital. However, as Costco made plans to expand its operations, it faced challenges due to intensified competition in the global retail industry and policies and regulations in local markets that restricted big box retailers. In this context of uncertain international markets, which markets should it enter next? What was the best entry method for each individual market?
Founded in 1963 by Bhavarlal Jain (Bhau), who believed in "providing solutions for every problem," Jain Irrigation in 2018 had a global footprint and $1.1 billion in revenue. Bhau had insisted that his business add value to farmers' lives and promote sustainable agricultural practices, and that social mission remained at the heart of the organization. Jain's business was now run by Bhau's four sons and included five main business units: micro-irrigation (MI) systems, industrial-use pipes, tissue culture research and development, food processing and solar energy products. As a new, third generation began to move into company management, the Jain family considered how to sustain growth, profitability, and also their commitment to farmer livelihoods.
As a strategist, you must understand and calibrate the environment in which your organization operates. How generous or challenging is the environment? What forces drive the munificence or sparseness of your environment? How are those forces changing, and what is their likely impact on your organization? Is this change slow or fast? Can you influence or mold those forces in ways that benefit your organization? This module note, Market Attractiveness, helps you address these questions. It offers a framework to understand the forces that influence the environment in which your enterprise operates, evaluate the attractiveness of the environment, plan how best to respond to these forces, and contemplate how your enterprise can shape the environment favorably.
In October 2007, Tarek Sakka and Fouad Dajani launched Ajeej Capital, the first independent investment advisory in the MENA region. Fittingly named ajeej, an Arabic word which translates to "growth and propagation in a chaotic setting," the firm's AUM grew from $20 million to $1 billion before its 10th anniversary despite a deep-cutting global financial crisis, market turmoil driven by the Arab Spring, and years of weak oil prices. Leveraging deep local knowledge, strong relations in the region, and a "PE investment approach in public equity markets," Ajeej had outperformed its benchmark regional stock indices and attracted investing capital from large institutional investors around the world. The case follows the investment methodology of Ajeej Capital's investment fund, the Ajeej MENA Fund, through the turmoil of Ajeej's first decade. The case then focuses in on September 2016, with Sakka and Dajani facing a historic hurdle: Saudi Arabia, the largest economy in the region, had just announced their first ever public-sector pay cuts, triggered by the Vision 2030 agenda. Ajeej, with 50% of its portfolio invested in Saudi companies, had to decide how to position its investment portfolio to successfully navigate a period of structural change in the region.
Once a royal residence and today one of the most photographed Parisian landmarks, the Louvre, home of iconic masterpieces, was the world's largest and most visited museum in 2017. Its President Director Jean-Luc Martinez had since 2013 spearheaded its development and launched large-scale renovation projects with the sole objective to better welcome all visitors, be they French or international, art connoisseurs or tourists, of all ages and backgrounds. With the visitor numbers at the state-owned museum trending upwards in 2018, Martinez had to decide on his priorities for his second mandate. He wanted to further improve the visitor experience but also had to balance the Louvre's public service mission of cultural education, which was increasingly hard to fulfill given the variety of visitors whose expectations had become more diversified. Which audiences, if any, should he put at the center of his attention and how could he best serve them to ensure the future success of his iconic museum?
Having already made 10 acquisitions of competitors in the last decade, the CEO and Senior Vice President of Arrow are evaluating the acquisition of another small competitor to boost sales, become #1 in a niche market segment, and achieve economies of scale. They are struggling with whether the deal makes strategic sense given forecasts that this niche segment is declining, whether the price is too high given the competitor's lack of profitability, and how to integrate the company into Arrow to maximize its value if he does the deal. Provides information to permit valuing the acquisition and developing a post-merger integration strategy and plan.