A bank manager is thinking about how to manage the new private banking advisers (PBA) practice in her region. For that she needs to determine how many PBAs she needs, where they should be located, and to which branches each of them should be assigned. This three-case series exposes students to the underlying sequence of analytical tasks, which culminate in solving an integer-programming optimization model-a main tool of prescriptive analytics. The assignment part of the problem (e.g., given the home-base locations of advisers, how should branches be assigned) is solvable in Excel, but the higher-level problem of where the PBAs should be located is beyond the scale of the built-in Excel solver. The case's teaching note recommends the Gurobi solver (which is available to students for free), that is controlled through a Python interface (which is on track to becoming world's most popular programming language). The (A) case presents the problem and data ""as they are."" The (B) case focuses on the descriptive analytics task of visualizing the branch locations to gain intuition. Tableau software is used with default and advanced mapping functionality. The (C) case focuses on the predictive analytics task of estimating travel times between branches. Python code for that is provided, which repeatedly calls Google Maps to obtain the travel times-a task known as the application programming interface (API). By following the A-B-C sequence, the students will have all they need to build the optimization model. With A-B, they have a lot of intuition but still need to estimate travel times. With just the A case, the situation is mostly open ended: it is up to the students to decide what to do, in addition to how to do it. The case is suitable for advanced undergraduate or MBA electives on analytics, or for fast-growing Masters in Analytics programs.
A bank manager is thinking about how to manage the new private banking advisers (PBA) practice in her region. For that she needs to determine how many PBAs she needs, where they should be located, and to which branches each of them should be assigned. This three-case series exposes students to the underlying sequence of analytical tasks, which culminate in solving an integer-programming optimization model-a main tool of prescriptive analytics. The assignment part of the problem (e.g., given the home-base locations of advisers, how should branches be assigned) is solvable in Excel, but the higher-level problem of where the PBAs should be located is beyond the scale of the built-in Excel solver. The case's teaching note recommends the Gurobi solver (which is available to students for free), that is controlled through a Python interface (which is on track to becoming world's most popular programming language). The (A) case presents the problem and data ""as they are."" The (B) case focuses on the descriptive analytics task of visualizing the branch locations to gain intuition. Tableau software is used with default and advanced mapping functionality. The (C) case focuses on the predictive analytics task of estimating travel times between branches. Python code for that is provided, which repeatedly calls Google Maps to obtain the travel times-a task known as the application programming interface (API). By following the A-B-C sequence, the students will have all they need to build the optimization model. With A-B, they have a lot of intuition but still need to estimate travel times. With just the A case, the situation is mostly open ended: it is up to the students to decide what to do, in addition to how to do it. The case is suitable for advanced undergraduate or MBA electives on analytics, or for fast-growing Masters in Analytics programs.
In April 2017, the co-founder and vice-president of Hitch Health in Minneapolis Minnesota was faced with an intriguing but challenging strategy decision. Hitch Health had been created as part of Upstream Health Innovations at Hennepin County Medical Center to improve transportation services for its many vulnerable patients. By using human-centred design, Hitch Health had succeeded in developing a system of ride sharing and sophisticated information technology that met its initial goal of reducing missed appointments. However, the development of Hitch Health had also presented a new opportunity to engage patients in many aspects of their own care. The co-founder realized that she had to make a key strategy decision. Was Hitch Health just a practical solution to Hennepin County Medical Center’s transportation problem? Could it solve transportation problems at similar hospitals across the country? Could it be an idea big enough to serve as a platform with the potential to disrupt health care delivery?
In 2014, Guccio Gucci SpA (Gucci), a flagship brand of the Kering group, was struggling with its operating profit and human resources. By December 2014, the company had experienced three consecutive quarters of declining profits. In addition to the company’s financial issues, its president and chief executive officer (CEO) and its creative director had abruptly left the company. On January 15, 2015, a new CEO took over and faced several decisions. He needed to decide whether or not to reposition the brand and whether to hire internally or externally for a new creative director—related decisions that would strongly influence the brand’s position in the market and its appeal in the future.
SF Express Group Co. Ltd. (SF Express) was a leading express delivery and logistics solutions provider in China. In May 2017, SF Express became involved in a dispute with the logistics-tracking platform Cainiao Network Technology (Cainiao), which was controlled by Alibaba Group Holding Limited. SF Express and Cainiao were the two largest players in China’s express delivery market. The dispute, which involved an SF Express–affiliated smart package locker company that declined a data-sharing request from Cainiao, caused SF Express and Cainiao to sever their ties over proprietary data and cybersecurity. This severance caused significant disruption to China’s e-commerce sector. After regulatory intervention, both parties agreed to resume sharing data for the time being and had to negotiate a resolution to their data dispute within 30 days. The chief information officer of SF Express needed to come up with an immediate solution to the dispute as well as a long-term data strategy for SF Express.
Founders are pivotal to the success of any new business. Founders bring the original business idea to the table, and influence the organizational culture and values and goals of the initial managers and employees. This book covers a variety of topics about founders, beginning with an overview of the motivational traits of prospective entrepreneurs, the role that entrepreneurs play in launching new businesses, the personality traits and skill sets of those who seek to form new business, and a discussion of some practical issues relating to founders with respect to their preformation duties and liabilities, particularly their relationships with prior employers, and their relationships and agreements with other members of the founding group. The book also examines the influence that founders have on the organizational culture of their firms and the positions that founders occupy if and when their firms complete an initial public offering of their securities. This book is a "must have" guide for prospective entrepreneurs. It is also an excellent resource for attorneys and other professionals advising their clients, as well as academics teaching entrepreneurship classes. Chapter 1 examines the motivational attributes of entrepreneurs. It considers such factors as the need for achievement, risk tolerance, locus of control, and belief in self efficacy, among others.
Founders are pivotal to the success of any new business. Founders bring the original business idea to the table, and influence the organizational culture and values and goals of the initial managers and employees. This book covers a variety of topics about founders, beginning with an overview of the motivational traits of prospective entrepreneurs, the role that entrepreneurs play in launching new businesses, the personality traits and skill sets of those who seek to form new business, and a discussion of some practical issues relating to founders with respect to their preformation duties and liabilities, particularly their relationships with prior employers, and their relationships and agreements with other members of the founding group. The book also examines the influence that founders have on the organizational culture of their firms and the positions that founders occupy if and when their firms complete an initial public offering of their securities. This book is a "must have" guide for prospective entrepreneurs. It is also an excellent resource for attorneys and other professionals advising their clients, as well as academics teaching entrepreneurship classes. This chapter offers an overview of how organizations come into existence and identifies what roles the entrepreneur plays in that process, the activities that the entrepreneur might be engaged in during the process, and the skills that the entrepreneur should acquire in order to be effective in that process.
Founders are pivotal to the success of any new business. Founders bring the original business idea to the table, and influence the organizational culture and values and goals of the initial managers and employees. This book covers a variety of topics about founders, beginning with an overview of the motivational traits of prospective entrepreneurs, the role that entrepreneurs play in launching new businesses, the personality traits and skill sets of those who seek to form new business, and a discussion of some practical issues relating to founders with respect to their preformation duties and liabilities, particularly their relationships with prior employers, and their relationships and agreements with other members of the founding group. The book also examines the influence that founders have on the organizational culture of their firms and the positions that founders occupy if and when their firms complete an initial public offering of their securities. This book is a "must have" guide for prospective entrepreneurs. It is also an excellent resource for attorneys and other professionals advising their clients, as well as academics teaching entrepreneurship classes. Chapter 3 explores some of the research that has been done on the personality traits of founders and most of the work in this area has been done by researchers interested in the overall phenomenon of entrepreneurship. Founders start businesses for numerous reasons, and it is difficult to identify a set of personality traits that can associated with everyone who starts a new business. In fact, a fair number of businesses are started for reasons not chosen by the founder, such as when the founder loses his or her job with an employer.
Founders are pivotal to the success of any new business. Founders bring the original business idea to the table, and influence the organizational culture and values and goals of the initial managers and employees. This book covers a variety of topics about founders, beginning with an overview of the motivational traits of prospective entrepreneurs, the role that entrepreneurs play in launching new businesses, the personality traits and skill sets of those who seek to form new business, and a discussion of some practical issues relating to founders with respect to their preformation duties and liabilities, particularly their relationships with prior employers, and their relationships and agreements with other members of the founding group. The book also examines the influence that founders have on the organizational culture of their firms and the positions that founders occupy if and when their firms complete an initial public offering of their securities. This book is a "must have" guide for prospective entrepreneurs. It is also an excellent resource for attorneys and other professionals advising their clients, as well as academics teaching entrepreneurship classes. Chapter 4 considers a founder's duties and liabilities in founding a business. Much of the planning for a new business occurs before a new legal entity, such as a corporation, has been formed and founders need to understand that even though a legal entity does not exist, they still have important duties and are subject to potential liabilities to one another, to the new entity and to investors and other outsiders.
Founders are pivotal to the success of any new business. Founders bring the original business idea to the table, and influence the organizational culture and values and goals of the initial managers and employees. This book covers a variety of topics about founders, beginning with an overview of the motivational traits of prospective entrepreneurs, the role that entrepreneurs play in launching new businesses, the personality traits and skill sets of those who seek to form new business, and a discussion of some practical issues relating to founders with respect to their preformation duties and liabilities, particularly their relationships with prior employers, and their relationships and agreements with other members of the founding group. The book also examines the influence that founders have on the organizational culture of their firms and the positions that founders occupy if and when their firms complete an initial public offering of their securities. This book is a "must have" guide for prospective entrepreneurs. It is also an excellent resource for attorneys and other professionals advising their clients, as well as academics teaching entrepreneurship classes. Chapter 5 considers some of the various issues that founders need to consider when they begin a venture. Such questions include the form of legal entity for their new business (e.g., corporation, partnership, or limited liability company); the relationships among cofounders with respect to ownership, management, and control of the business; and the amount of time each cofounder will spend on the venture. When properly discussed, answers to these questions will protect the rights of each founder while creating incentives to help the business grow.
Founders are pivotal to the success of any new business. Founders bring the original business idea to the table, and influence the organizational culture and values and goals of the initial managers and employees. This book covers a variety of topics about founders, beginning with an overview of the motivational traits of prospective entrepreneurs, the role that entrepreneurs play in launching new businesses, the personality traits and skill sets of those who seek to form new business, and a discussion of some practical issues relating to founders with respect to their preformation duties and liabilities, particularly their relationships with prior employers, and their relationships and agreements with other members of the founding group. The book also examines the influence that founders have on the organizational culture of their firms and the positions that founders occupy if and when their firms complete an initial public offering of their securities. This book is a "must have" guide for prospective entrepreneurs. It is also an excellent resource for attorneys and other professionals advising their clients, as well as academics teaching entrepreneurship classes. Chapter 6 examines the role of the founders in creating a venture's organizational culture.
Founders are pivotal to the success of any new business. Founders bring the original business idea to the table, and influence the organizational culture and values and goals of the initial managers and employees. This book covers a variety of topics about founders, beginning with an overview of the motivational traits of prospective entrepreneurs, the role that entrepreneurs play in launching new businesses, the personality traits and skill sets of those who seek to form new business, and a discussion of some practical issues relating to founders with respect to their preformation duties and liabilities, particularly their relationships with prior employers, and their relationships and agreements with other members of the founding group. The book also examines the influence that founders have on the organizational culture of their firms and the positions that founders occupy if and when their firms complete an initial public offering of their securities. This book is a "must have" guide for prospective entrepreneurs. It is also an excellent resource for attorneys and other professionals advising their clients, as well as academics teaching entrepreneurship classes. Chapter 7 considers the various roles founders play and how these roles evolves as their ventures grow and reach the stage where they have an initial public offering.
300cubits is a blockchain application that aims to solve the no-show problem in the cargo shipping industry. Its founders, Johnson Leung and Jonathan Lee, are two HKUST alumni with experience in banking and shipping. They have identified a pain point, in the cargo shipping industry which does not require a pre-shipping cash deposit, results in no-show and cargo roll-over problems. They developed a new Ethereum based cryptocurrency, TEU, to serve as such collateral. They then conducted an initial coin offering (ICO) pre-sale in September 2017, and an official ICO in April 2018. However, the ICO failed to raise a lot of capital. However, the uptake of TEU tokens was very slow in the industry. They are now pondering the next steps forward.
Recommendation engines are an easy way to reach new customers, but marketers may encounter unintended consequences due to the inherent biases in the algorithms.
Faced with mounting challenges and pressure from governments, nongovernmental organizations, investors, and employees to be more aware of the environmental and social impacts of business activities, many companies are attempting to tap into the creativity and entrepreneurial potential of their employees, encouraging them to develop new products, services, or business models that create value for both the company and society.
In this article drawn from his new book, How Behavior Spreads, UPenn professor Damon Centola explains how the thinking about social networks is changing. Recent research reveals that depending on long-established concepts such as "weak ties"and "long bridges"to drive the adoption of new innovations and organizational change can be a prescription for failure.
Scholars have argued for years that high levels of diversification harm company performance and value creation. But multi-business companies can do quite well. Those that thrive tend to do three things: They limit the number of business models in their portfolio and support them with a cohesive operating model. They tailor the corporate parenting strategy to the needs of individual business units. And they allocate resources according to the role played by each business unit.