This article applies the Biosphere Rules--a biomimicry-inspired management framework for circular economy initiatives--to the emerging field of additive manufacturing and three-dimensional (3D) Printing, which are revolutionizing industrial sectors from medical devices to spare parts. They are also potentially keys in the emergence of a true circular economy that will bring about environmentally sustainable manufacturing. This article lays out an established strategy that can guide managers and policy makers in pursuit of a cradle-to-cradle economy.
Three-dimensional (3D) printing has been widely identified as an emerging disruptive technology. This study examines how this technology could enable the circular economy by disrupting the existing materials value chain. Specifically, could this novel technology be used to locally manufacture new goods from local sources of recycled plastic waste, thereby offering benefits for the efficiency and effectiveness of materials cycling? This article uses the London metropolitan area--where system conditions already exist in the form of material flows, technology policy, and facilities--in order to assess 3D printing's viability as an enabler of a circular economy at the local level. An analysis of stakeholder perceptions identifies economic, technological, social, organizational, and regulatory barriers to mainstream implementation, and their likelihood of being overcome.
China's moves to introduce a Circular Economy have attracted wide attention as a solution to severe problems of resource inefficiency and lack of resource productivity. This article highlights the distinctive strategy of focusing such efforts on existing industrial parks, turning them into eco-industrial parks. It provides three case studies and highlights the management issues involved as overcoming reverse salients and capturing network advantages. China is an especially instructive case because it starts well behind the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and thereby has much to gain by adopting comprehensive policies.
Beef production is not sustainable, but it can and should be. Large scale commercial beef farming imposes tremendous negative impacts on the environment by polluting the air, water, and soil. In contrast, sustainable farming uses responsible practices that protect the environment for future generations. But, are consumers really interested in sustainable beef? When consuming sustainable beef products, most reactions by consumers are: they taste great; they are produced without destroying the environment or threatening public health; and their sales support responsible farmers who choose to use sound agricultural practices. Thus, if a sustainable farm wanted to promote one of its beef products, and it had to choose between "grass-fed", "pasture-raised" or "organic" beef, which one would it choose, at what cost, and at what risk? Such a decision is difficult without knowing analytics. So, can business analytics be used to evaluate such a business decision? This case is about making hard decisions involving sustainability products, for which business analytics can play a significant role. The intent is also to educate the reader about sustainability and sustainable beef. The case introduces an entrepreneurial start-up that consistently and successfully promotes sustainable farming, and it's their emphasis on sustainability that makes the company unique and successful. The decisions involve the sustainability "stamps" assigned to beef products. One may recognize some of these stamps, such as the "organic" brand. The farm in the case produces a variety of sustainable products, but it is thinking about a marketing campaign to promote one of its product stamps. But, which one? That is a hard decision, and it is where business analytics can play a role. Before we launch into the "meat" of the case, some background on sustainability and sustainable beef would be useful.
Esporte Interativo (EI) successfully launched and competed in the Brazilian sports television market for over 12 years. EI basically created the category (e.g., ESPN of Brazil) and came to prominence by televising the Champions League for European soccer, the National Basketball Association (NBA), and other sports content property. Since its founding, other television entities have recognized the potential for sports broadcasting which has dramatically driven up the cost of securing sports content. Edgar Diniz and Leo Lenz Cesar, co-founders and the CEO and CFO of EI, were pondering how to continue to compete and grow in an increasingly competitive space. The main decision point was whether to accept an offer from Turner Broadcasting Corporation to acquire EI.
In early 2017, 15 years after being launched, DMart was India’s second-largest and most profitable food and grocery retailer. To achieve its stellar growth, the company had followed a no-frills, limited assortment model and had restricted itself to limited geographies within the country. The company was listed in the capital market and attracted very favourable views from investors. As a listed company, DMart might be expected by shareholders to expand to new locations and develop an online presence. Would DMart be able to meet the challenges of exploring new geographies and new formats? What strategies would it need to adopt to remain competitive?
Alice Monroe, a 30-year-old married mother of two, was an admissions officer at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She was just completing her first year of service at Northwestern and qualified for the university's 403(b) retirement plan. It was early October 2017, and she had until the end of the month to decide if and to what extent she would participate in Northwestern's retirement plan--that is, how much of her salary should she put into the retirement plan, and into which mutual fund or funds should she allocate her savings? The case includes background on defined contribution and benefit plans as well as mutual funds. It goes into detail about Northwestern's retirement plan, including data on the performance of 15 of the plan's core mutual funds. The case also provides each fund's strategy, Morningstar Rating and Morningstar Category, expense ratio, assets under management, turnover rate, and historical performance for the last 10 years. Using modern portfolio theory (diversification and risk-return trade-off) and with an understanding of mutual fund fees and the tax advantages of retirement savings, students will decide how much Alice should invest and in which mutual funds.
Supplement to case KE1056. Alice Monroe was an admissions officer at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. It was early January 2017 and Alice had enrolled in Northwestern's 403(b) retirement plan two months earlier. After spending a considerable amount of time examining the mutual funds available through the university's retirement plan, Alice had picked two to invest in: a large-cap equity growth fund and a mid-cap equity fund. (See the related case "Selecting Mutual Funds for Retirement Accounts (A).") Her initial allocations were 50% of her investment dollars in each fund. Upon further reflection, however, she realized these initial allocations were somewhat simplistic. She recalled, from an investments class she had taken at college, the topic of modern portfolio theory, which held that by adding more funds to her portfolio she might be able to achieve greater diversification and thereby reduce the overall risk of her portfolio and/or achieve a higher expected return. Alice now was considering adding an intermediate-term bond fund and a real estate fund to her retirement account. She hoped to use modern portfolio theory to prove that these new funds would indeed help her diversify her portfolio. If they did, she would also reassess her portfolio weights to determine the optimal allocation.
Re-framing a technological advance as a shift from scarce to abundant or from expensive to cheap is invaluable for thinking about how it will affect your business. Computers made arithmetic cheap, with vast implications for industries whose products could be digitized, such as photography and music. Artificial Intelligence, the authors argue, will be economically significant because it will make something very important a lot cheaper: prediction. The challenge will be to identify situations in which prediction will be valuable, and then figure out how to benefit as much as possible from that prediction.
The amount of value in any given product will always lie in the eye of the beholder. Yet universal building blocks of value do exist. Two senior Bain & Company experts describe the 'elements of value' for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business products. They explain how they have organized these elements (30 for B2C and 40 for B2B) into a hierarchical pyramid inspired by Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs-with basic value offerings at the bottom and aspirational offerings at the top. Apple's iPhone, for instance, covers 11 of the 30 possible elements of value for consumers. The challenge for leaders today, they argue, is to compare their value offerings to their competitors; seek to close value gaps; and come up with innovative new combinations of value.
As consumer touchpoints increasingly migrate online, it is important to understand how human nature manifests itself in a digital environment. The authors-including the head of the University of Toronto's Behavioural Economics in Action research institute-describe five behavioural biases brought on by a digital environment and present their research findings on three characteristics of digital behaviour: the 'screen effect'; the choice-engine effect; and the connectivity effect. They make it clear that online decision making is not merely the digitization of decision making in a brick-and-mortar world: It is a playing field with completely different rules.
The authors argue that innovation is a social process tied to human emotions and reliant on inexact methodologies in which humans collaborate and solutions emerge over time. The authors argue that Design Thinking is a key part of 'innovation 2.0'-a new approach to innovation that involves a different set of participants in the process and uses a different approach. For example, in Innovation 2.0, the focus is on developing previously-unseen possibilities rather than starting out with existing options. They provide examples of organizations that are embracing innovation 2.0 and show what it looks like in practice.
Impact investments-those that seek a specific social or environmental impact alongside financial returns-continue to grow rapidly. As investor interest grows, many investment firms are building capacity in this area. The author argues that in a world of low interest rates and a desire to increase returns and decrease uncertainty, real assets-investments in real estate or infrastructure projects such as low-cost rental housing and seniors' facilities-are a great starting place to try out impact investing.
Despite the increase in AI-enabled applications, significant adoption of AI in business remains low: According to a survey by the Boston Consulting Group, only 1 in 20 companies has extensively incorporated AI. Nevertheless, every industry includes companies that are ahead of the pack. The authors-all senior BCG consultants-present a wide variety of uses, from marketing to operations to support functions, that demonstrate just how effective AI can be in creating value.
Investors have long relied on information intermediaries-from financial analysts and advisors to the business press, credit rating agencies and auditors-to acquire timely and value-relevant information regarding the prospects of stocks. However, with the rise of the Internet and social media, individual investors are increasingly relying on each other as peer-to-peer sources of information. The author describes his research, which indicates that Twitter is another embodiment of the wisdom of crowds and that the aggregate opinion from individual tweets does help to predict earnings.
The authors argue that three forces are creating a profound shift in the very nature of work: technology, demographics and the power of pull-which has made customers in every industry more powerful than ever before. After discussing each force in detail, they describe how technology will reshape every job and how alternative work arrangements will continue to grow. They then describe the key implications of all of this for individuals (including 'engage in lifelong learning'), organizations (including 'implement new models of culture and rewards') and public policy (including 'transition support for income and healthcare'). Their hope is that their framework will help people proactively navigate the future of work and come together to make the transition as productive and smooth as possible.
Even with impressively large data sets and the best analytics tools, we are still vulnerable to a range of decision-making pitfalls, especially when information overload leads us to take shortcuts in reasoning. As a result, in some instances, data and analytics actually make matters worse. The authors show that leaders need to be aware of three common data-related decision making pitfalls: the confirmation trap, the over-confidence trap and the over-fitting trap. They describe each in detail and provide practical tips for overcoming each type of bias.