This note on warfare summarizes treatises by Chinese (e.g., Sun Tzu, The Art of War, ca. 500 BC) and Japanese (e.g., Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings, 1643 AD) warriors, reviews their philosophies and leadership lessons, and offers modern applications.
In mid-2015, the managing director of Feed Green Ethiopia Exports PLC (FGE), one of Ethiopia's leading export companies, faced a pivotal decision. FGE specialized in herbs and spices, and the price of one of FGE's major products, paprika, had skyrocketed in the past six months. As a result, FGE had sustained a massive loss. This problem had taken a toll on FGE's profitability, and the company's future was on the line. The managing director needed to mitigate this problem and prevent it from occurring again. He saw three alternatives: FGE could maintain the status quo, operate its own farm in one of two locations, or purchase its spices directly from local farmers. Maintaining the price and quality of the products and providing excellent customer service were the company's main priorities, regardless of which option it chose.
In May 2017, the owner and operator of Master Decker, a deck restoration business, had an opportunity to expand his business by adding to the company’s current service offerings. His three expansion alternatives were offering deck building, marketing an exclusive line of stains, and manufacturing deck cleaning chemicals. He planned to analyze the costs and benefits of each alternative. He wanted to continue growing the business but wondered which of these options, or combination of options, would provide the best return on investment for his company. Because he had no set timeline, he wanted to move forward with at least one of the options immediately.
In 2018, Mellody Hobson, President of Ariel Investments, the largest minority-owned investment firm in the U.S., was considering how best to divide her time and use her position and personal characteristics to push for positive change at her firm and in society at large.
In February 2018, the Remuneration Committee together with the full Board of Directors of the Scotland-based engineering company The Weir Group had to decide whether to seek a shareholder vote at the upcoming Annual General Meeting in April on a proposal to reform the company's executive remuneration system. The stakes were high: two years earlier shareholders had so roundly rejected a proposal to reform the company's executive pay arrangements that the result had hit the headlines. A new pioneering proposal had been put together-one that, if successful, would not only mark a dramatic change for the company but would also serve as a test case for executive pay reform in the whole United Kingdom. Should they go ahead? How a second failure to get shareholders' approval would be recorded in the chronicle of a company soon to celebrate its 150th anniversary?
Supplement to HBS Case 319-046. The case describes the events that took place in the run-up to the 2018 Annual General Meeting, the voting outcome, key perspectives on success factors, and the challenges that The Weir Group faced in the near future.
Kurt Meyer, chief risk officer of Swissgrid, the Swiss national electricity transmission system operator, reflects on the risk management system he installed after the deregulation and liberalization of the European energy market. With 41 connections to other European networks, a failure in Swissgrid's network could interrupt the supply of electricity in Switzerland and much of Europe. Meyer describes the periodic interactive risk workshops conducted at each business unit to identify, assess, and mitigate risks. Executive Risk Workshops of the CEO and the company's leadership team discuss the business units' risk profiles and risks that cut across the units, such as safety, weather, and regulatory changes. New and emerging risks are discussed at Extraordinary Risk Workshops. Meyer recently deployed an app on employees' smartphones for them to easily report anomalies or concerns. Reports from the app are embedded in a new real-time crisis management platform used by several Swiss companies, federal authorities, and the Swiss Army. Despite a full array of risk management tools and processes, Meyer remains concerned about risks yet to be identified.
This technical note gives students an overview of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in order to help them understand how these fields can contribute to the future of marketing. To provide context, students are first introduced to the history of AI and the basic parameters of AI, ML, and deep learning (DL). The differences between ML and statistical modeling are also described to help students understand that collaboration between these two fields results in better decision-making. The note also provides a description of descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics and how various ML tools span those categories. In order to illustrate AI's applications and the many ways managers can use it to promote their brands, real-world examples are provided, including: (1) 1-800-Flowers' collaboration with the Facebook messenger platform to process orders through chatbots (using DL), (2) Facebook's use of DeepText to determine the meaning of words within their contexts (using DL) and then direct users to related products; and (3) online educator Udacity's use of an ML algorithm to create a bot that advises salespeople on successful words and phrases, but also allows the humans to answer more obscure customer questions, among others. As students consider how AI advances are helping brands such as these market their goods and services to new customers online, students also must consider the ways that AI will continue to shape marketing in the future.
On September 15, 2014, the chief executive officer and the vice-president of the start-up Phenicoptere Ltd. were heading home to Poland. They were returning from a meeting with Armelle S.A. in Marseille, France about selling their innovative product-a makeup-removal glove called GLOV, in Armelle S.A.'s global retail chain. "Isn't it exciting?" asked the chief executive officer, how often does such a small firm get a chance to talk to the buyers of a global retail chain?" The vice-president of the company was not so enthusiastic. "It's great we could talk to them," she said. "But I'm not sure if this partnership is such a good idea. And I don't only mean the exclusivity terms. There is also something else. We can't afford to wait another year to start selling internationally." The two entrepreneurs sat back and wondered whether partnering with Armelle S.A. was the best way to take Phenicoptere Ltd. global.
In June 2018, Toys "R" Us, Inc. officially closed its doors in the United States and left the US retail landscape, marking the demise of the former "category killer." Although Toys "R" Us (Canada) Ltd. had survived eight months of bankruptcy protection, it found itself fighting two concurrent battles: clarifying the confusion regarding its lack of inclusion in the closure of the 735 US locations, and addressing the desperate need to rebrand in a changing retail landscape that continually placed more value on digital operations and sleek, experiential store designs. How should Toys "R" Us (Canada) Ltd. position itself to address the growing online threat and prevent itself from following in the footsteps of its American counterpart?
Jana Partners, a well-known "activist" hedge fund has announced the launch of a new fund Jana Impact. The basic premise is that the fund will be able to generate superior returns by using Jana's activist approach with companies that are underperforming on ESG metrics. The case examines the history of activist investing and Jana's proposed approach in unlocking ESG value.
On November 20, 2015, the chief financial officer of Pfizer Inc. (Pfizer) was preparing to make a recommendation about whether to proceed with or stop merger talks between Pfizer and Allergan plc (Allergan), a pharmaceutical company with headquarters in New Jersey but tax residence in Ireland. Informal talks had been going on for almost a month, but both sides were rapidly approaching the pre-arranged deadline. The two teams had less than a week to either formally agree to proceed with a merger or walk away. Formalizing the agreement meant activating a US$400 million breakup clause that would make it costlier to call the deal off at a later date. Allergan’s Irish tax residency made this merger both attractive and concerning. While it provided the opportunity to lower Pfizer’s worldwide tax rate, the U.S. Treasury Department had recently announced regulatory changes targeting mergers that relocated a company’s tax residence to a low-tax country (called “tax inversions”). Pfizer’s legal team members were confident that the announced changes would not affect the proposed merger with Allergan. However, they were less certain about if—and when—the U.S. Treasury Department might make changes again.
In April 2017, the Indian government announced the country would be free of fossil fuel cars by 2030. Maruti Suzuki was the market leader in India’s conventional passenger car segment, and did not agree that electric cars should be forced on the average consumer. Electric cars were very expensive and had limited mileage, making them a poor fit for Indian consumers, who were generally budget-conscious and mileage-obsessed. It would be very difficult to replace fossil fuel cars quickly, especially with largely non-existent infrastructure for the operation of electric cars. Maruti Suzuki wondered if it should wait for the uncertainty in the country to clear, while other car manufacturers took their chances on India’s electric car market, or if it should expedite the process of building electric cars and keep its market leadership position intact.
In August 2017, a memo written by an engineer at Google LLC (Google) was leaked to the public, revealing fractured communication and leadership at Google. Labelled an "anti-diversity manifesto" by its detractors, the memo set off a public controversy over the causes of gender disparities in tech and the limits of free speech within organizations. With ideological divisions across the company, open disdain expressed between colleagues, and the credibility of leaders at a low, the new vice-president of diversity needed to establish trust and candour among the employees and move the company forward.
In 2012, Griffiths Energy International Inc. had secured the land leases needed to begin drilling for oil in Chad and was preparing for an IPO. During the due diligence, the company's lawyers found consulting contracts that appeared to be payments to a public official to gain a business advantage. While bribing officials was not uncommon in Chad, it was a criminal offence in Canada. The company's senior executive team was new, and the founder and former chairman, who might have been able to explain the contracts, had died in a boating accident. The directors needed to decide what to do: continue with the IPO and deal with disclosure if the matter did surface at some point later or report the findings to the authorities now and bear the consequences.
The head of an R&D unit in a high-tech firm in India faces a tough decision about whether to recommend firing and replacing or investing even larger amounts of time and resources into training employees who have come up through India's "reservation system." Similar to "affirmative action" policies in the United States and Brazil (where the focus is on race), the reservation system in India is meant to counteract inequalities resulting from the historic oppression of "lower" castes in the country. The question faced by the protagonist in this case is whether and how a middle manager can address problems in her team that result from much larger, systemic problems in her country. The case is designed to surface and explore students' instinctive decision-making tendencies around a complicated problem. Thus, it is short enough to be read and responded to in class. Students are assigned readings and assignments related to the case after class discussion in which they are encouraged to reflect on their initial responses. The case is quite flexible and would work in any course that deals with leadership, ethics, difficult conversations, decision-making, organizational behavior, human resources, and related topics. It is appropriate for a range of levels and audiences, including undergraduate, MBA, and executive education.