In mid-2015, India-based Titan Company, a joint venture between Tata Group and Tamil Nadu Development Corporation, was active in several retail businesses: watches; jewellery; eyewear; and youth accessories (e.g. backpacks and helmets). As of July 2015, Titan Company operated 1,300 of its own stores in 240 Indian cities and towns, and its products were being sold abroad through 2,300 third-party retail outlets in 32 countries. Titan Company's board of directors had developed an ambitious target—revenues of INR300 billion by 2020. The chief executive officer and his team needed to outline a strategy to achieve this goal. In particular, they needed to decide whether Titan Company should continue to launch new businesses or instead focus on consolidating its existing businesses.
In 2015, TELUS Corporation (TELUS) needed to decide whether to either ignore the concerns of the local community and power up its newly installed cellphone tower-located 84 metres from the University of Calgary's child care centre-or relocate it farther from the centre. Both TELUS and the University of Calgary claimed that the cellphone tower would emit radio frequency waves at a level well below the safety threshold according to Health Canada's Safety Code 6. However, parents of children at the centre were not satisfied with this claim. TELUS and the University of Calgary decided to hold a public consultation meeting to address the issue. What options did TELUS have? Was the socially responsible solution the best way to address the situation?
When we introduce macroeconomic models, we assume that goods and services are exchanged within a single country but not across countries. This assumption is useful for understanding some of the primary determinants of output, inflation, and interest rates. In reality, however, economies trade with each other, and the presence of international markets has implications for national economies. In this note, we incorporate international markets to understand how changes in one country can affect other countries.
This case is a role-play exercise intended to give participants an opportunity to experience board meeting dynamics and logistics, determine how to scale a nonprofit for maximum impact, learn about governance best practices, and become generally familiar with nonprofit financial statements, dashboards, and new board member recruitment strategies. There is no right answer or correct outcome to the exercise; the value lies in participants' analysis of the situation, dialogue with one another, and post-meeting self-reflection.
The one day a year when consumers not only tolerate but actually eagerly anticipate ads is during the NFL's Super Bowl. In sharp contrast to their behavior on the other 364 days of the year, consumers watch an average of 89 commercials per Super Bowl game for an average of 46 minutes. Why are consumers willing to spend 3.5x more time watching commercials on the Super Bowl than on any other day of the year? Perhaps because they have come to expect the best, most creative, most engaging storytelling of the year from advertisers. With one out of every three Americans glued to the game, advertisers know they have a captive audience and they go to great lengths to stand out in what is somewhat akin to a battle of the brands. However, at a cost of more than $5 million for a 30-second spot, is Super Bowl advertising worth it? And, which types of Super Bowl stories are more and less likely to "win" on the Super Bowl?
The case tells a story of young European female manager joining a startup operating in Southeast Asia and facing challenges in adjusting to the work and life in a new environment. The protagonist finds it difficult to cope with a work situation where self-imposed expectations of excellence are difficult to achieve and with a life situation where social support is missing. The case culminates in the protagonist's breakdown in an office meeting due to perceived failure to deliver on work tasks and to meet the expectations of the boss she respects and admires.
Founded in 2012, DraftKings helped change the fantasy sports landscape by popularizing daily fantasy sports (DFS), or short-term fantasy sports tournaments that offered big cash prizes to winners. The company's valuation exceeded $1 billion by 2015, but DraftKings soon faced intense scrutiny from government agencies about whether its business model violated federal laws preventing sports betting and online gambling. Then, in May 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal law that had prohibited states from legalizing sports betting. Now that states could legalize sports betting, what should DraftKings' next steps be?
Malaysian palm oil company IOI Corporation Berhad (IOI) developed from a plantation company in Malaysia to become a vertically integrated manufacturing company with a range of higher value manufacturing businesses across Asia, Europe, and the United States. The rapid expansion into what the chief executive officer (CEO) called a “mini-multinational” placed greater demands on IOI and its leadership. The CEO had struggled to simultaneously achieve growth, innovation, control, and coordination, and the company had experienced a sustainability crisis in 2016. In early 2017, the CEO needed to decide whether to approve an ambitious growth strategy—proposed by IOI’s specialty oils and fats team, which led most overseas operations and handled IOI’s most innovative products—to be achieved by 2025. While he was eager to expand IOI and strengthen its position as a widely admired Asian family multinational, he also needed to weigh the constraints. He could not risk growing the company faster than the leadership’s ability to control it.
In 2017, bike sharing was one of the hottest technology trends in China. Since its inception two years earlier, Mobike had quickly become one of China’s leading bike on-demand companies because of its bicycles’ superior quality, and the company’s intelligence capability, open innovation, alliance strategies, and big data applications. Mobike expanded aggressively to take advantage of opportunities in this emerging market and the need for efficient, green, and sustainable solutions to short-distance urban transportation. However, Mobike's aggressive expansion faced tough challenges, including shared bicycle operations and management, competition from rivals, and government regulations. By late 2017, several bike-sharing services had gone bankrupt. How could Mobike avoid the same fate, generate profit, and continue to prosper?
The case study on HackerEarth traces the evolution of an open innovation management platform, the different enterprise issues related to innovation management or new product introduction that it could help address and the challenges that still persist when it comes to organizations embracing open innovation. The case also illustrates how a two-sided platform that started out with the recruitment assistance model evolved into one that could assist organizations to more seamlessly connect with external innovators who could help bring about breakthrough innovations. It helps the reader understand how the platform moved up the value chain by leveraging the same two sides, but by helping address higher order challenges wherein enterprises needed new ways of keeping up with the demands for innovation in products and services. The case can be used to teach the basics of multi-sided platform business models, the different actors in the platform business and the concept of network effects. It should help the students appreciate the differences between the pipeline and platform business models, and how a platform business model can bring in additional competitive differentiation to enterprises that leverage its services.
Airports Authority of India (AAI) was constituted as a Statutory Authority under the Airports Authority of India Act 1994, with main functions of control and management of Indian air space. As of March 2017, AAI managed a total of 125 airports, which included 11 international airports, 08 customs airports, 81 domestic airports and 25 civil enclaves at defense airfields. Until 2005-06, AAI airports handled 100% of the passenger traffic in the country. The share dropped to slightly less than 60% in 2006-07 and further to 40% in 2008-09 due to handing over of a few airports to private players. Over the years, AAI had been concerned about its reduced market share and the possibility that more and more airports would be developed outside their control. Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) was increasingly encouraging state governments to develop airports, and where possible in the public private partnership (PPP) mode. AAI participated as a bidder in the bidding for Mopa airport, Goa. It lost the bid to GMR Airport Limited (GAL), which is part of GMR Group. A bid for another airport at Bhogapuram, which would serve Visakhapatnam, in Andhra Pradesh was on the cards. This airport was to replace the existing civil enclave in the Visakhapatnam naval airport. This case focuses on whether AAI should bid for Bhogapuram or not. Lessons can be drawn from the experience of bidding process for Mopa.
This case illustrates the perils of implementing top-down, macro economic reform measures at the local level, in response to curbing national fiscal deficits, without taking into account the local, meso/micro or technical ground level realities in the process of implementation. It details a specific instance of economic reforms during the post-90s economic liberalization of India. This case depicts what went behind one such reform in the mining sector - the closure/abandoning of the copper mines of Hindustan Copper Limited at Ghatsila, East Singhbhum district, Jharkhand. The closure was dictated by an extract in a report of the Government of India's Committee on the Tax Reforms (Chelliah Committee) recommending the closure of uneconomic mines in the eastern sector, in its push towards lowering import duties on refined copper. Continual low LME (London Metal Exchange) prices of copper precipitated this decision. With the LME prices picking up towards early 2000 and the predictable growth in the demand for copper, a decision was taken to re-open these mines. Since these mines were summarily abandoned and sealed, this process turned out to be extremely difficult and costly. The case gives the points of view of the stakeholders on the ground - the local management at the mines during the time of closing and the mining trade union workers along with technical experts.