In November 2017, the chief executive officer of Sony Corporation was preparing to announce the company’s release of its rebooted robo-pup, the Aibo—a robot equipped with sensors and actuator technologies, and powered by artificial intelligence that allowed this virtual pet to behave like a real dog. Sony Corporation, the 70-year-old iconic Japanese manufacturing company, had diverse businesses. After significant restructuring since 1999 to address its financial troubles, the company was expected, in March 2018, to post a record operating profit for the first time in two decades. How did a virtual pet business, especially one that had already proved unviable in the past, fit into such a restructuring exercise? Was Sony Corporation's Aibo an intelligent decision?
Charagh Din sold premium men's shirts in Mumbai, India, to elite customers. It had been in business for three generations, dating back to 1949, and had evolved from a small tailoring shop to a multi-storied showroom. The brand was recognized for its unique designs and outstanding customer service. However, unlike its competitors, Charagh Din did not have in-house manufacturing. The business model worked well when India was a regulated economy, but, after the 1990s, aggressive national and international competition that catered to the apparel needs of the entire family began eroding Charagh Din's market share. In 2017, the owner was considering how to target growth while being able to maintain family control over the company.
In May 2017, The White Dog Cafe (White Dog) had been under new ownership for seven years, had opened two new locations, and had continued most of the initiatives that had made it one of the most well-respected and sustainably run restaurants in the United States. But the restaurant was still relatively unknown. How could White Dog’s director of marketing convince owner Marty Grims that a brand management agency could help the White Dog brand evolve to meet the expectations of an increasingly sophisticated marketplace?
Anna Amphlett, a financial analyst with Tasmanian LLC, gathered information about Castlight Health, Inc., a company whose shares Tasmanian was considering acquiring for its cloud infrastructure portfolio. Castlight provided a cloud-based health solutions platform to its customers for an upfront subscription fee. Castlight experienced substantial growth in revenues over the last five years, but the company had not yet reported a bottom-line profit since its initial public offering (IPO) in 2014. Castlight Health was one of many companies that provided cloud-based computing services and were often referred to as software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. Castlight Health sold substantially all of its services through its direct sales organization which paid its sales force commissions for acquiring customer contracts. Tasmanian's portfolio manager had asked Amphlett to scrutinize the company's accounting methods, particularly its revenue and expense recognition methods. Upfront revenue recognition and capitalizing and amortizing some indirect outlays were well-known methods for enhancing a company's bottom line. Castlight Health had become quite wary of companies such as salesforce.com, ADT, and Pre-Paid Legal Services, which experienced significant stock price declines after popular press articles criticized their accounting policies. In some cases, the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) had launched an investigation into a company's accounting practices following the critiques. These critiques invariably questioned management's integrity while an SEC investigation distracted management's time and energy from the running the business.
Best-selling author and regular on the Thinkers50 ranking of the world's most influential management thinkers, Daniel Pink discusses why timing is everything. He describes the bi-modal pattern that we all experience each day; the effects of these 'peaks' and 'troughs' on an organization; and why beginnings, mid-points and ends are so important to us. He then provides some practical advice for leaders that incorporates these lessons.
The authors argue that a thriving environment for innovation contains eight characteristics, and that assessing them properly sets the stage for a start-up to flourish. After describing the eight characteristics, they use them to compare Toronto with Silicon Valley as a location for start-ups to thrive. In the end, they show that ignoring the eight factors may lead founders to pick the wrong location, resulting in difficulty attracting the necessary funding, talent, suppliers, partnerships and customers.
Leadership pioneer Peter Drucker once said, "You cannot manage other people unless you manage yourself first." The authors agree, and they argue that more specifically, leadership starts with your mind. They explain four principles that every leader should know about their mind: You do not control your mind; you are not rational; your mind creates your reality; and you are not your thoughts. The then show how embracing these principles and being mindful leads you on the road to self-awareness, resulting in happiness and strong leadership.
At some point in their careers, most-if not all-executives aspire to become the CEO of their organization. And why not? These individuals tend to be highly ambitious. However, as with most things in life, aspiration is one thing, and execution is another. The author, who has worked closely with CEOs for 30 years as a board director, describes what it takes to be a CEO today. He shows that any would-be CEO must develop four particular 'directional' skills: upwards, downwards, outwards and outside-in, which enable him/her to be a Chief Relationship Officer, Chief Strategic Officer, Chief Communications Officer and Chief External Officer for the organization.
The power of a company with leaders who inspire at every level up and down the organization is hard to overstate. These are the companies that consistently pull off innovative or heroic feats in business because so many of the people who work there are motivated to make them happen. The authors-consultants at Bain and Co.-describe their five-year research study, which uncovered 33 distinct and tangible attributes that are statistically signiï¬cant in creating inspiration in others. The good news: Having just four of these attributes is sufï¬cient to make someone highly inspiring.
The author, a senior partner with the Boston Consulting Group, set out to answer the question, 'Is strategy still relevant?' He found that not only is it relevant, but doing things in a differentiated way is more important than ever. The trick is to figure out three characteristics of the environment you operate within: unpredictability, malleability and harshness. Ranking a business on these factors leads to one of five strategic approaches: classic strategy; adaptive strategy; the visionary approach; the shaping approach; or strategic renewal. In the end he shows that you can generate value by engaging with each opportunity with the right framing and awareness.
Research indicates that 40 per cent of Americans report feeling anxious during the work day. On the one hand, anxiety can conjure up distressing thoughts and have detrimental effects on performance; but on the other, anxiety can drive actions and have positive effects on performance. The authors set out to create a theory of workplace anxiety that reconciles the positive and negative effects of anxiety, covering dispositional anxiety, situational anxiety, job characteristics and more. Their findings have important implications for personnel selection practices, promotions, goal-setting initiatives and work-life integration programs.
Anti-bias training is extremely popular in Silicon Valley, where tech titans like Facebook and Google mandate it, but a similar trend is on the rise among Fortune 500 corporations. To help root out bias, the authors developed ACE, a framework that codifies employee potential and can be used to analyze bias in assessments of potential. They describe the six elements of the ACE model and go on to provide a three-part strategy for uprooting bias in every organization.
A young, college-aged entrepreneur seeks to launch a business around a set of interactive video games she has designed to help teens experiencing severe anxiety. She considers three possible business models, each of which targets a different customer segment with distinct value propositions, while remaining true to her vision of supporting teens with anxiety disorders. After doing basic research on each, she feels unsure which business model to pursue, and what her next steps should be. The case allows students to examine the process through which entrepreneurs develop and evaluate business models, while also highlighting a critical problem for many start up entrepreneurs - the need for focus. As students determine their recommendations for next steps, they come to understand the importance of the kind of disciplined research entrepreneurs must undertake to test the hypotheses embedded within their incipient business models.
In the fall of 2016, the Pleasant Ridge Habitat for Humanity Second Chance Home Supply (SCHS) store added an assistant manager in order to expand the hours the store was open and increase the store's presence on social media. The store, which sold donated building materials and some household items, was operated to generate funds for the organization's core mission of building homes for those in need in the local area. The case is set in July of 2017. The organization's executive director and the store's manager and assistant manager have reviewed the store's financial performance and discovered that both the store's sales and contribution to the organization have declined over the past year despite being open significantly longer hours. Students are placed in the shoes of the store's managers and must wrestle with why sales and contribution have declined and what they should do in response.
Nick Barr was the Personnel Manager for National Processing Inc. -- an 80-year old company and one of Canada's leading industrial processors. Barr, a recent graduate in Industrial Relations Management with very little job experience, was hired to manage National's 530 unionized employees. In his first year on the job, Barr encounters a particularly challenging case involving a sexual harassment complaint. One day a young, male employee went to Barr's office and reported that his female co-workers were sneaking up behind him and grabbing his testicles. After learning about this concerning behavior, Barr must decide what to do. A number of things factor into his decision including the safety and psychological welfare of the employee and his co-workers as well as Barr's responsibilities to the company and his personal reputation and job security. In Case A, the employee's experience is described. In Case B, it is revealed that Barr decides to conduct an informal investigation and finds that the employees are playing a 'grabbing' game. Barr is shocked to learn this and has to decide how to proceed with the complaint.
In December 2016, Jodi Butts, executive director of Rise Asset Development (Rise), sat at her desk pondering whether to take a more aggressive, strategic, and proactive approach to scaling the organization throughout Canada. While an aggressive expansion would ensure that Rise would serve many more people with mental health issues, it required a significant increase in resources and carried many risks to the viability of the organization. Located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Rise offered microcredit loans, training, and mentorship to people experiencing mental health and related poverty issues. The organization encouraged entrepreneurship among its clients to ease their transition from isolation and poverty to productive work and self-sufficiency. Rise currently operated in four cities in the Province of Ontario: Toronto, Ottawa, London, and Kingston.