A year after Norwegian grocery chain REMA 1000 adopted Workplace, Facebook's corporate social media network, CHRO Tore Hoylie is asked to evaluate its impact on company culture and communication. Almost 90% of the workforce is engaged with the platform, which they use to communicate with colleagues across the decentralized chain of independent outlets. However, there are some concerns that the site is overloaded with information and difficult to navigate. Hoylie must decide whether to try to improve the platform or look for an alternative. If REMA keeps Workplace, how can REMA improve the way employees interact with it?
This note explains how several retail and service organizations use a practice described here as "structured empowerment" to balance control and flexibility as they grow. I define structured empowerment as a practice that grants employees both (a) the power to make choices from narrow sets of options on a set of inputs and processes and (b) the responsibility to deliver results according to the company's value proposition. This lets a company control operations-by standardizing the options frontline employees can choose from to drive results-and adapt to diverse markets-because combining choices from the options makes a large number of service offerings and routine sequences possible.
In the summer of 2017, after completing his third year of business school, a student was eager to apply his newly developed business and technology skill sets at his father's company during his four-month summer position. His father's business, Custom Closet Contractors, designed and manufactured custom home organization solutions for home builders and individual clients. In the past year, the successful company's sales growth had slowed, while expenses as a percentage of sales had increased. The company had experienced operational problems leading to higher expenses, and the student had found that part of the problem was the lack of data organization, which led to miscommunication between the front office and the production staff. To solve the problem, he proposed to design a centralized database and set to work trying to understand the business processes in order to design a data model.
AM-Pharma is a biotech company developing a medicine for patients with acute kidney injury. The case describes the company's journey from inception in 2001 to a large deal with Pfizer in 2015. The aim is to discuss the value creation of AM-Pharma through its strategic decisions over time. It highlights the patient journey, company challenges, market size potential, and how the management team was able to raise multiple financing rounds from venture capitalists. It further provides the readers with a unique insight in the key risks and operational challenges of a biotech company and the value of an experienced management team backed by strong investors. The drug development process is inherently risky, long and expensive and the probability of commercializing a new drug is very low. The company's CEO is the protagonist and the case is split in three parts to provide the readers with surprises and open strategic questions which are time related. The case is semi-chronologically and a patient story is intermingled to provide a different perspective on clinical trials, ethical dilemmas and the high unmet medical need for new therapies. The case ends with a valuation simulation, in which the readers can negotiate the AM-Pharma/Pfizer deal themselves. Learning objective: The aim of the case study is to evaluate the value creation of AM-Pharma strategic decisions over time. 1/ The strategy diamond and Porter's Five Forces will be applied as a tool for understanding the industry and the company's strategy. 2/ The key success factors are also assessed for this challenging setting of a biotech startup. 3/ Role of Serendipity and management vision in opening new doors. 4/ Different exit options are discussed, highlighting pros, cons and what actually happened. 5/ How clinical outcome, and exit timing highly impact the valuation. The case will trigger discussions on the strategic options listed, and engage the students into exit negotiations simulation.
In 2015, activist hedge fund Sachem Head Capital, led by founder Scott Ferguson, launched an activist campaign at (computer aided design) CAD software maker Autodesk. The activist campaign, waged mainly in private, was over Autodesk's lacklustre financial performance, with Ferguson thinking that Autodesk's performance could improve with better cost management. Facing a proxy contest, Autodesk added Ferguson and two others to its board in exchange for a standstill agreement. Following two years of significantly improved performance, Ferguson eventually stepped down when longtime Autodesk CEO Carl Bass announced his retirement in February 2017. The case illustrates how even companies with stellar products can underperform and how benchmarking and financial analysis can help identify drivers of firm performance. The case describes how boards and investors can engage to improve governance and ultimately achieve sustainable performance objectives.
The case recounts the development and implementation of the first social media campaign at La Protectora de la Infancia (La Protectora), a centenary, Chilean non-profit organization offering education and social assistance to children in need. With a large number of non-profits operating in several domains across the country, competition for volunteers and donations was high in the sector. However, Chile had one of the most engaged social media markets worldwide, and it had the highest rate of broadband connection in Latin America. In March 2016, the marketing team was planning the next fundraising campaign with the help of a social media marketing consultant. They needed to decide how the organization could use social media and the fundraising campaign to engage volunteers and donors, creating a stronger and more positive image for the institution.
As the end of 2016 approached, the managing director of AmorePacific Hong Kong (APHK) was setting the media mix and budget for APHK’s four makeup and skin care brands: ETUDE HOUSE, LANEIGE, Sulwhasoo, and AMOREPACIFIC. Tourists shopping in Hong Kong from mainland China comprised over half of the company’s sales. However, in the face of a declining number of tourists and the shrinking of luxury goods spending, the managing director had to consider the marketing tools in the customer decision journey; competitive positioning; and the distribution of the marketing budget between traditional and digital channels in the upcoming bi-monthly campaigns. She needed to strike an appropriate balance between recruiting new customers and retaining existing customers within APHK’s overall strategy for Greater China.
In September 2016, a senior consultant at the Indore campus of the Central Institute of Management and Consulting (CIMC) was busy preparing some documents for a meeting on a transportation problem the organization was facing. CIMC Indore’s chief operating officer had requested his assistance to resolve the transport department’s issues. Management was incurring substantial yearly costs for maintenance related to the drivers that operated the various vehicles of the organizations. There was also a need to rationalize the workload of the drivers to avoid dissonance among employees. Following his meeting with the chief operating officer, the senior consultant saw an opportunity to reduce the annual cost of drivers, while addressing some of the dissatisfaction that was present among drivers concerning their schedules and workload.
This case profiles the early career choices faced by three McKinsey associates. The A case profiles the dilemma faced by each individual and sets up the class discussion. The B case outlines the choices made by the associates in real life and the consequences of such choices.
This case profiles the early career choices faced by three McKinsey associates. The A case profiles the dilemma faced by each individual and sets up the class discussion. The B case outlines the choices made by the associates in real life and the consequences of such choices.