Economist and entrepreneur Magnus Resch was on a mission to make the art market more transparent. To that end, in 2014, he began building the Magnus app, which catalogued the price and transaction history of millions of works of art. Users could download the app, take a photo of any flat artwork, and the app would display that piece's price along with other pertinent information. Resch believed that such radical transparency would grow the small, rather insular, network of serious art collectors. By May 2018, the app had garnered strong user engagement, with over 10,000 new downloads per month. But Resch was not yet generating revenue from the Magnus app, which was free for users to download. The case explores Resch's options for monetizing the app, as well as the benefits and drawbacks of each option.
On August 5, 2016, Governor Charlie Baker signed into law Massachusetts' first statewide regulations on ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft. The law was a monumental victory for the ride-sharing companies given that a few years earlier state officials tried to ban the startups from doing business in Massachusetts. The outcome was a major defeat for the taxi industry, whose drivers and license holders argued that their livelihoods were severely threatened by this new competition. They also believed that the competition was unfair and not in the public's best interest because taxi drivers and vehicles still had to meet stricter safety- and security-standards than ride-sharing services.
The case describes China's bicycle-sharing industry at a time of unrest. Following a period of potentially unsustainable, rapid expansion, the industry began to receive a lot of media and public scrutiny. Bluegogo first drew attention to the so-called 'bike-sharing bubble' in late 2017, when news broke of the firm's financial difficulties. A few months later, Didi Chuxing, the ride-hailing giant, acquired part of Bluegogo's assets. Then in spring 2018, Meituan Dianping bought Mobike, for a sizeable USD 2.7billion. As industry leaders, ofo and Mobike need to find ways to assure stakeholders that Bluegogo's difficulties will not go on to infect the entire, nascent industry. Meituan Dianping needs to be able to justify having paid the USD 2.7billion for Mobike to its own stakeholders. Using China's bike sharing industry as an example, this case can be used to explore the valuation of companies that constitute the emergent, global sharing economy
This technical note explores the many different forms of equity compensation. Equity compensation, defined as compensation that provides for the delivery of equity securities, aligns employees' incentives with shareholder value driven by a company's stock price. Equity compensation is used extensively to attract and retain key employees. However, the types of equity compensation differ in their effects on incentives, dilution, net income, corporate cash flow, and income taxes.
TEKCOM Corporation (TEKCOM) was one of the largest exporters of film-faced plywood (FFP) in Vietnam. The company experienced double-digit growth in its FFP trading business from 2005 to 2011. In 2012, TEKCOM ventured into FFP manufacturing. However, after building strong brand equity in both local and foreign markets as a mid-range FFP producer, TEKCOM faced a major constraint to its growth ambition. Veneer, a key raw material for making FFP, was in short supply in Vietnam. Sourcing veneer from overseas suppliers was expensive. Furthermore, the domestic FFP market was becoming increasingly competitive. An escalation in the company's orders backlog, due to a severe shortage in veneer, led TEKCOM's chief executive officer to review his company's business model and strategy to sustain growth. In June 2017, TEKCOM was considering various options to address the supply shortage and the prospect of market expansion with new products. However, there were major risks associated with all available options.
TEKCOM Corporation (TEKCOM) was one of the largest exporters of film-faced plywood (FFP) in Vietnam. The company experienced double-digit growth in its FFP trading business from 2005 to 2011. In 2012, TEKCOM ventured into FFP manufacturing. However, after building strong brand equity in both local and foreign markets as a mid-range FFP producer, TEKCOM faced a major constraint to its growth ambition. Veneer, a key raw material for making FFP, was in short supply in Vietnam. Sourcing veneer from overseas suppliers was expensive. Furthermore, the domestic FFP market was becoming increasingly competitive. An escalation in the company’s orders backlog, due to a severe shortage in veneer, led TEKCOM’s chief executive officer to review his company’s business model and strategy to sustain growth. In June 2017, TEKCOM was considering various options to address the supply shortage and the prospect of market expansion with new products. However, there were major risks associated with all available options.
Beeplus, a designer and operator of co-working spaces, was founded in 2015 by a group of enterprising college students led by Robert Jia. It currently has five co-working space projects in Zhuhai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou. This case maps the journey taken by Beeplus and its management team in its foray into the highly competitive co-working space industry, and offers a greater understanding of the critical success factors for a company operating in an aggressive market in China.
This case study focuses on a professional services firm ("Performance Improvement Consulting") and its sales calls on Hi-R-Me, a potential client. The case is supplemented by videos showing the initial contact call, a follow-up discovery call, and a face-to-face meeting. Then, students view alternative ways of making each call. The materials are intended to build skills and awareness relevant to personal selling and, in particular, to the role and importance of "up-front contracts" in structuring productive sales calls.
Trust: Creating the Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries is a four-chapter book with an introduction published by Berrett-Koehler Publisher in 2018 and written by Tarun Khanna, professor at Harvard Business School. Entrepreneurs in developing countries with great ideas cannot rely on the usual foundations for an efficient business climate-laws, regulatory oversight, and government protections-as they might in the developed world. As a result, these entrepreneurs must not only create, but also create the conditions to create. One important lesson of this book is that obstacles to entrepreneurship and the necessary creation of trust in businesses in the developing world must be tackled holistically. The problems facing entrepreneurs in the developing world can neither be easily modularized nor tackled in bits and pieces. Professor Khanna shares many insights with readers on how to build and develop that trust. In the Introduction, Trust, Entrepreneurship and the Developing World (26 pages), Khanna argues that good ideas from the developing world can easily morph into failed ones-coupled with acrimony and mistrust-if an entrepreneur inadvertently presumes on the sustenance of trust-enhancing societal foundations that are much more robust in the developed world. In this context, the entrepreneurial solution is to embrace the situation and to explicitly focus on nurturing trust in myriad ways as a complement to whatever business or societal problem the entrepreneur intends to solve.
Trust: Creating the Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries is a four-chapter book with an introduction published by Berrett-Koehler Publisher in 2018 and written by Tarun Khanna, professor at Harvard Business School. Entrepreneurs in developing countries with great ideas cannot rely on the usual foundations for an efficient business climate-laws, regulatory oversight, and government protections-as they might in the developed world. As a result, these entrepreneurs must not only create, but also create the conditions to create. One important lesson of this book is that obstacles to entrepreneurship and the necessary creation of trust in businesses in the developing world must be tackled holistically. The problems facing entrepreneurs in the developing world can neither be easily modularized nor tackled in bits and pieces. Professor Khanna shares many insights with readers on how to build and develop that trust. In Chapter 1, The Why's and How's of Trust (36 pages), Khanna compares the dairy industries of China and India to reveal the why's and how's of trust. Why? Because trust weaves together in a web all those needed for productive enterprise-and because, when this web is torn, there's a dramatic fall from grace. How? There are many ways to weave this web of trust, even in the same prosaic context-the production of milk. The Chinese solution emphasizes speed and high technology. In this chapter, Khanna profiles an entrepreneur borrowing tricks from California's technology industry to make his cows "happy"-while the Indian solution is a slow-but-rock-solid, community-based solution developed over decades and anchoring the future. The disparate entrepreneurial paths to the same high-productivity goal share the emphasis on trust that cocoons everyone, from dairy farmer to end consumer.
Trust: Creating the Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries is a four-chapter book with an introduction published by Berrett-Koehler Publisher in 2018 and written by Tarun Khanna, professor at Harvard Business School. Entrepreneurs in developing countries with great ideas cannot rely on the usual foundations for an efficient business climate-laws, regulatory oversight, and government protections-as they might in the developed world. As a result, these entrepreneurs must not only create, but also create the conditions to create. One important lesson of this book is that obstacles to entrepreneurship and the necessary creation of trust in businesses in the developing world must be tackled holistically. The problems facing entrepreneurs in the developing world can neither be easily modularized nor tackled in bits and pieces. Professor Khanna shares many insights with readers on how to build and develop that trust. In Chapter 2, The Mindset Change (26 pages), Professor Khanna argues that in the developing world, entrepreneurs must evolve their mindsets to look at problems as parts of an interconnected set that need to be addressed simultaneously. The entrepreneur rarely has the luxury of focusing only on a single aspect of a complex problem. Of course, this means that she faces a heavier burden than those in a more developed country setting. The story of a surgeon-entrepreneur, Dr. Devi Shetty, shows how this mindset change both elicits and contributes to the web of trust. Trust helps the entrepreneur create the conditions to create.
Trust: Creating the Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries is a four-chapter book with an introduction published by Berrett-Koehler Publisher in 2018 and written by Tarun Khanna, professor at Harvard Business School. Entrepreneurs in developing countries with great ideas cannot rely on the usual foundations for an efficient business climate-laws, regulatory oversight, and government protections-as they might in the developed world. As a result, these entrepreneurs must not only create, but also create the conditions to create. One important lesson of this book is that obstacles to entrepreneurship and the necessary creation of trust in businesses in the developing world must be tackled holistically. The problems facing entrepreneurs in the developing world can neither be easily modularized nor tackled in bits and pieces. Professor Khanna shares many insights with readers on how to build and develop that trust. In Chapter 3, Building on Existing Social Norms (36 pages), Professor Khanna shows that entrepreneurs will find it far easier to weave their webs of trust in the developing world if they capitalize on constructive, preexisting social norms and practices. These have often been in place for decades, if not centuries, in long-running, thriving societies. In this chapter, this web of trust can be seen playing out on a nationwide scale with entrepreneurs trying to develop financially and socially sustainable microfinance firms in both Mexico and India, while in the process propelling millions of their clients-mostly poor women-out of their subsistence existence.
Trust: Creating the Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries is a four-chapter book with an introduction published by Berrett-Koehler Publisher in 2018 and written by Tarun Khanna, professor at Harvard Business School. Entrepreneurs in developing countries with great ideas cannot rely on the usual foundations for an efficient business climate-laws, regulatory oversight, and government protections-as they might in the developed world. As a result, these entrepreneurs must not only create, but also create the conditions to create. One important lesson of this book is that obstacles to entrepreneurship and the necessary creation of trust in businesses in the developing world must be tackled holistically. The problems facing entrepreneurs in the developing world can neither be easily modularized nor tackled in bits and pieces. Professor Khanna shares many insights with readers on how to build and develop that trust. In Chapter 4, Working as a Team with the State (36 pages), Professor Khanna shows that the developing world is characterized by widespread mistrust of the state, with government seen as incompetent at best and corrupt at worst. Yet, Khanna contends, pillorying the state is pointless. In Brazil, the state made a successful push with conditional cash transfers to move people from poverty to subsistence. But would-be entrepreneurs there have stagnated, lacking a bridge to society's mainstream. If one thinks of the different parts of society as members of a team, the situation is much like the selecão-Brazil's fabled football team-which has fallen apart lately. In India, by contrast, an unlikely entrepreneurial partnership between technologists and the state has leapfrogged the world's tech leaders to provide a billion-plus residents a unique biometric identity where none existed earlier. Both Brazil and India spotlight the need to understand entrepreneurship as a team sport for it to have impact at scale.
RONA Inc. (RONA), a Canadian giant in home improvement retail, received an unsolicited offer of CA$1.76 billion from Lowe's Companies, Inc., (Lowe's) in 2012. Lowe's, a U.S. company, was already operating in the Canadian market through a subsidiary, and its goal in acquiring RONA was to rapidly upscale its operations. RONA's board of directors declined the offer. Lowe's came back in February 2016 with a second offer worth $3.2 billion. Negotiations followed, the deal was completed in March 2016, and RONA officially became part of Lowe's Canada in May 2016. One year later, the debate re-ignited. In October 2017, Lowe's Canada's president stated that he hoped to demonstrate within five years that this was the best option for RONA. Was it?
This case provides for a discussion about how retail banks provision for loan losses, and how to analyze the riskiness of loan portfolios and the adequacy of the allowance for loan losses. What is unique about the setting is that a smaller regional bank made a large loan based on an unsubstantiated appraisal. Students can observe how the loan moves to nonperforming status in one quarter, then is directly written off in the subsequent quarter without affecting the allowance for loan losses.
RONA Inc. (RONA), a Canadian giant in home improvement retail, received an unsolicited offer of CA$1.76 billion from Lowe’s Companies, Inc., (Lowe’s) in 2012. Lowe’s, a U.S. company, was already operating in the Canadian market through a subsidiary, and its goal in acquiring RONA was to rapidly upscale its operations. RONA’s board of directors declined the offer. Lowe’s came back in February 2016 with a second offer worth $3.2 billion. Negotiations followed, the deal was completed in March 2016, and RONA officially became part of Lowe’s Canada in May 2016. One year later, the debate re-ignited. In October 2017, Lowe’s Canada’s president stated that he hoped to demonstrate within five years that this was the best option for RONA. Was it?
In March 2017, Inderjit Baboota, head of Sales and Marketing at Genspec Lifesciences, was preparing to meet with his team to craft the brand launch strategy of the company’s product CQ Max. Although natural therapy was recognized in India for various ailments, few scientific formulations were available. Turmeric was used in various forms in India for the treatment and prevention of a variety of conditions due to its main active ingredient, curcumin, but there was no curcumin-based formulation readily available in the Indian market. In response to this opportunity, CQ Max, the first nanocurcumin product in India, was developed and pilot tested. Though the product played a role in the treatment of a variety of conditions, it primary target market was cancer patients. Now Baboota had to determine whether to position CQ Max as a prescription-based product or an over-the-counter product. He also faced the challenge of an underdeveloped market for cancer wellness products in India.
IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer, entered the Chinese market in 1998; however, it did not turn a profit in the first 10 years. Although anticipating lower profits, IKEA did not anticipate that Chinese customers would be confused about IKEA’s value proposition. After 2007, IKEA adopted several strategies to adjust for the Chinese market and achieve a better performance. These adjustments made IKEA more profitable in the Chinese market. IKEA accelerated its expansion in China with a plan to open three stores every year for a total of 40 stores before 2020. Still, in 2017, the Chinese market presented IKEA with challenges, such as cheap imitations from competitors and increasing interest in e-commerce by consumers. Could the strategies IKEA used to improve its performance in the past sustain the company in the years ahead?