In 2017 Edward Jones, the largest brokerage firm in the U.S., is deciding whether and how to implement a new "solutions" business model to replace its traditional "product" or "transactional" approach. Many of the required changes appeared to violate some of the tradeoffs that had made the previous approach successful. Was this the right way forward for Edward Jones? Where did this leave the classic strategy with its reliance on the one financial advisor office as the sole channel of distribution?
Kaizen, meaning change for the better in Japanese, is a set of activities directed at improving standardized work, equipment, and procedures for carrying out daily production or other business operations. It was popularized by Toyota as an integral part of its Toyota Production System. This note provides describes some of the underlying practices, and a simple outline for conducting a kaizen event.
In early 2014, Paul Bills, CFO of Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), sat down with David Wan, the company's CEO, to discuss budget preparations for the coming year. Bills noted that the performance of Corporate Learning, one of HBP's three business units, would be affected by a business model change for its largest product that required a change in the timing of revenue recognition. Corporate Learning was in the process of revamping its flagship product, Harvard Manage-Mentor (HMM) from version 11.0 (HMM11) to version 12.0 (HMM12). The revamped software would be hosted exclusively on HBP's server rather than on its clients' servers, allowing updates to take place continuously. Given the change, accounting standards required HBP to change the recognition of revenue from the date of software delivery (for HMM11) to ratable recognition over its contract life (for HMM12). As Bills and Wan discussed the accounting change, they recognized that its impact on Corporate Learning's and HBP's performance could be material and would have to be reflected in the budget. In addition, they wondered how the new accounting would affect the company's policy for awarding sales incentive compensation on HMM, as well as how they communicated with employees and the firm's sole shareholder, the Harvard Business School.
In early 2018, Toys "R" Us, an iconic toy retailer, filed for liquidation due to intense competition, heavy debt, poor store merchandise, and a non-user-friendly website. Some experts believed that if Toys "R" Us had filed for bankruptcy after the holiday season, its turnaround efforts would have been more successful. However, a toy maker and founder of MGA Entertainment made a bid to purchase Toys "R" Us, but his offer was denied on the grounds of the value being less than the threshold liquidation value. In April 2018, as he continued in his efforts to buy Toys "R" Us and turn it around, industry experts worried about the future of the toy industry. Was the toy industry likely to suffer due to the exit of such an iconic brand? How would the changing consumer preferences for online games affect the future of toy makers and retailers? Could the current chief executive officer of Toys "R" Us have saved the company and if so, where should he have focused his turnaround efforts?
In the summer of 2018 in the United States, Wendy's faced an important decision related to its international markets. The company had a small international presence; of its 6,537 restaurants worldwide, only 637 restaurants were located in international markets. The company was faced with a saturated and stagnating U.S. market and fierce competition from a number of fast food rivals, including McDonald's Corporation, Burger King Corporation, and Carl's Jr. Restaurants LLC, and the surest path to growth seemed to be an expansion into foreign markets, where fast food was still growing. Wendy's chief executive officer needed to determine which international market(s) to target and how many restaurants to open in each international market.
In 2010, EPCOR Utility Inc.'s application to implement new metering technologies was denied by the Alberta Utilities Commission. By 2014, however, several key changes had taken place in regulations and in the cost of smart meters. With another application to the Alberta Utilities Commission due in just four months, the director at EPCOR Utility Inc. was contemplating several options, all of which involved carefully considering the interests of many different stakeholders and the development of a thorough and thoughtful implementation plan.
In 2018, Neat and Clean Solutions (Neat and Clean), a cleaning services start-up in Gurgaon, India, had grown steadily in its 10 years of operations. Its founder realized the importance of building trust with clients and knew that modifying the cleaning process to suit Indian market conditions and the skill set of his team was critical to outsmarting the mounting competition in his industry. However, with an increase in population and the number of residential complexes in the business's target area, there was a huge market of potential clients available. Although Neat and Clean had managed over the years with the same set-up, its founder wanted to expand so that he could have an office, buy new equipment and more vehicles, operate in multiple strategic locations, and employ more people. Unfortunately, he lacked the necessary funds to make these changes himself. Now he must decide whether to expand the scale of his operations and who to approach for the necessary funding.
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?
This case examines a series of challenges facing the Wikimedia Foundation as it sets its strategic course for the next decade. Topics include mission alignment, non-profit revenue models, technology evolution, regulation and the freedom of knowledge, and building and managing web ecosystems.
In 2010, EPCOR Utility Inc.’s application to implement new metering technologies was denied by the Alberta Utilities Commission. By 2014, however, several key changes had taken place in regulations and in the cost of smart meters. With another application to the Alberta Utilities Commission due in just four months, the director at EPCOR Utility Inc. was contemplating several options, all of which involved carefully considering the interests of many different stakeholders and the development of a thorough and thoughtful implementation plan.
In 2018, Neat and Clean Solutions (Neat and Clean), a cleaning services start-up in Gurgaon, India, had grown steadily in its 10 years of operations. Its founder realized the importance of building trust with clients and knew that modifying the cleaning process to suit Indian market conditions and the skill set of his team was critical to outsmarting the mounting competition in his industry. However, with an increase in population and the number of residential complexes in the business’s target area, there was a huge market of potential clients available. Although Neat and Clean had managed over the years with the same set-up, its founder wanted to expand so that he could have an office, buy new equipment and more vehicles, operate in multiple strategic locations, and employ more people. Unfortunately, he lacked the necessary funds to make these changes himself. Now he must decide whether to expand the scale of his operations and who to approach for the necessary funding.
In early 2018, Toys “R” Us, an iconic toy retailer, filed for liquidation due to intense competition, heavy debt, poor store merchandise, and a non-user-friendly website. Some experts believed that if Toys “R” Us had filed for bankruptcy after the holiday season, its turnaround efforts would have been more successful. However, a toy maker and founder of MGA Entertainment made a bid to purchase Toys “R” Us, but his offer was denied on the grounds of the value being less than the threshold liquidation value. In April 2018, as he continued in his efforts to buy Toys “R” Us and turn it around, industry experts worried about the future of the toy industry. Was the toy industry likely to suffer due to the exit of such an iconic brand? How would the changing consumer preferences for online games affect the future of toy makers and retailers? Could the current chief executive officer of Toys “R” Us have saved the company and if so, where should he have focused his turnaround efforts?
In the summer of 2018 in the United States, Wendy’s faced an important decision related to its international markets. The company had a small international presence; of its 6,537 restaurants worldwide, only 637 restaurants were located in international markets. The company was faced with a saturated and stagnating U.S. market and fierce competition from a number of fast food rivals, including McDonald’s Corporation, Burger King Corporation, and Carl’s Jr. Restaurants LLC, and the surest path to growth seemed to be an expansion into foreign markets, where fast food was still growing. Wendy’s chief executive officer needed to determine which international market(s) to target and how many restaurants to open in each international market.
In 2008, Starbucks was in crisis as a result of undisciplined growth and loss of focus, and its stock declined almost 70%. In August of that year, Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, came out of retirement to take over as the CEO. The company regained its footing by refocusing on its core and driving strong organic growth. By 2014, the stock price had reached $40, an all-time high. To prevent history from repeating itself, Schultz wanted to ensure that Starbucks' growth strategies not only addressed market opportunities, but also were aligned with the company's brand image, assets, and capabilities. Starbucks announced a five-year growth plan in December 2014 with ambitious goals that included nearly doubling its revenues from $16 billion to $30 billion, doubling operating income, and expanding its footprint to more than 30,000 stores globally by 2019. The growth plan consisted of seven specific growth strategies, one of which was the New Occasions strategy. The objective of New Occasions was to drive growth by diversifying Starbucks' revenues beyond breakfast to the lunch, afternoon, and evening dayparts. Starbucks created specific offerings for each daypart, called the Lunch, Sunset, and Evenings programs. The case focuses on evaluating these three occasions-based growth opportunities and identifying the best path forward.
Since its founding in 2004, Facebook has built a phenomenally successful business at global scale to become the fifth most valuable public company in the world. The revelation of Cambridge Analytica events in March 2018, where 78 million users' information was leaked in a 2016 U.S. election cycle, exposed a breach of trust/privacy among its user community. In the past, growth at any costs appeared to be the de facto strategy. Now many voices such as regulators, advertisers, ethicists, shareholders and users argued for a more responsible approach to addressing their concerns. Mark Zuckerberg (CEO/Chair/Founder) and Sheryl Sandberg (COO) mapped out their six-point plan to address this existential threat. Could they continue to grow and rectify the breach of trust/privacy? Did other stakeholders have some greater responsibility too? In addition to issues of privacy and trust, there is a growing chorus of concern about "content moderation"-not for the easy topics like spam or copyright material-but for the hard things revolving around political points of view, hate speech, polarizing perspectives, etc. How will Facebook strike the balance between free speech and corrosive content across billions of users and dozens of languages? Are they the arbiters of truth/censorship in the digital world?