The case focuses on Irene Rosenfeld's tenure as CEO of the global snack food company Mondelēz International. Beginning in 2006, she had led the company through many acquisitions, including France's LU Biscuit and British confectionery company Cadbury, before, in 2012, boldly splitting the company into two: Kraft, a North American grocery business, and Mondelēz International, a global snack food company.
In 2017, True Fruits, a German smoothie company, was operating in three European markets. The company had developed flash pasteurization, which was an efficient and gentle production process that made their product one of the highest quality smoothies in the world. The company successfully exported its product to premium Austrian and Swiss supermarkets, and was planning further expansion within Europe. True Fruits had strong brand loyalty, and a noteworthy, healthy lifestyle-oriented product. True Fruits' owners were convinced that entering other European markets would fuel the company's growth.
Based in 2016, this case presents the dilemma faced by Tiffany & Co. (Tiffany), the luxury jewellery and specialty retailer, about embarking upon an omni-channel retail (OCR) strategy. Although Tiffany had a strong social media presence globally, it offered e-commerce solutions only in a few select markets. Online sales accounted for just six percent of its total sales, and there was limited integration between its brick-and-mortar outlets and online presence. While the company recognised the growing significance of OCR, as a luxury brand it struggled with the idea of embracing the online medium wholeheartedly. Luxury brands, synonymous with being superior, elusive and premium, endeavoured to provide a sensory-rich experience meant for a privileged few, while the online world was a mass media platform representing low cost, democratisation and a ubiquitous experience for all. The fashion-oriented and affluent Singapore market, with its high levels of internet usage and mobile penetration, provided a perfect opportunity for Tiffany to experiment with a fully integrated omni-channel strategy. However, it raised significant concerns too: What did implementing such a strategy mean in terms of investment in resources and capabilities? What would be the key factors to success? How would this strategy enable the brand to differentiate itself from other luxury brands? How would it impact Tiffany's product lines, pricing strategies, store designs-physical and digital, service initiatives, and above all its brand equity?
In 2017, the Financial Times ranked INSEAD's MBA programme #1 in the world for the second year in a row. The Dean of INSEAD, Ilian Mihov, commissioned a large-scale study to understand the shool's brand equity compared to its peers. The goal is to optimize INSEAD's positioning, value proposition and communication, to attract the best MBA students. Case A asks students to develop a survey that will measure the strengths and weaknesses of the INSEAD brand compared to its key competitors. They must select the performance measures, relevant competitors and the relevant sample. Case B provides results from a survey of 4,000 GMAT-takers who rated 18 business schools. Students analyze the data to measure the strength of the INSEAD brand and its image compared with its competitors. To optimize the school's positioning, students must identify the most important attributes used when choosing an MBA programme. Please visit the dedicated case website "https://cases.insead.edu/who-is-number-one" to access supplementary material.
Supplement to case IN1415. In 2017, the Financial Times ranked INSEAD's MBA programme #1 in the world for the second year in a row. The Dean of INSEAD, Ilian Mihov, commissioned a large-scale study to understand the shool's brand equity compared to its peers. The goal is to optimize INSEAD's positioning, value proposition and communication, to attract the best MBA students. Case A asks students to develop a survey that will measure the strengths and weaknesses of the INSEAD brand compared to its key competitors. They must select the performance measures, relevant competitors and the relevant sample. Case B provides results from a survey of 4,000 GMAT-takers who rated 18 business schools. Students analyze the data to measure the strength of the INSEAD brand and its image compared with its competitors. To optimize the school's positioning, students must identify the most important attributes used when choosing an MBA programme. Please visit the dedicated case website "https://cases.insead.edu/who-is-number-one" to access supplementary material.
Flagship Pioneering, located in Cambridge, MA, was founded in 2000 to create ventures focused on solving unprecedented problems in the life sciences. While the company used a venture capital model to raise capital and fund ventures, it was not a venture capital company in the traditional sense. Flagship Pioneering produced and funded its own ventures.
Founded in 2004, Redfin envisioned a light-touch model in which clients self-served using the digitized platform in exchange for a significantly lower fee than traditional agents. Realizing the narrow appeal of its initial model, Redfin had made significant changes to its strategy while maintaining some key distinctive choices. As of 2016, Redfin served in more than 80 markets throughout the U.S., employed over 700 full-time agents, and had grown over 40% annually since 2014. With additional capital raised through an IPO, Kelman faced decisions on how to allocate these resources in order to grow. Should Redfin adjust its advertising strategy? Should it reconsider the policy of hiring lead agents only as full-time employees? Should Redfin purchase homes and hold inventories?
In response to its shrinking domestic market, Japanese liquor company Suntory Holdings Limited acquired American liquor conglomerate Beam Inc. in 2014 to expand into the promising U.S. market. Although the acquisition price was high, executives of both companies were confident in the deal. However, as the new combined entity, Beam Suntory Inc., began the integration process, it encountered significant friction, particularly from its separate corporate cultures. By 2016, the new entity had not integrated to a satisfactory level. The high acquisition price had left the parent company with monumental debt, while the consolidated operations struggled to establish trust and efficiency. Had Suntory Holdings Limited made a wise decision in acquiring Beam Inc.? How should it cope with the monumental debt? How should the combined entity resolve conflicts and integrate to realize potential synergies?
Founded in 2008 in Singapore and China, ActSocial was a social marketing company that initially provided brands with word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing services. The firm then adjusted its model to focus on providing online social media and digital content marketing services. After significant success from 2013 to 2015, ActSocial was fully acquired by Linkfluence, a leading global social media monitoring and research company. As part of this larger company, the new leadership team at Linkfluence Asia now needed to decide how to proceed and wondered if they would have influence over the direction of their product, hiring decisions, team-building, and growth plans.
Ashton Thyme's, an upscale furniture boutique in Athens, Georgia, has been granted exclusive territory to sell antique-reproduction furniture from Country Market Collection. But a customer has found the same Country Market Collection products Ashton Thyme's carries for a lower price online. The customer offered Ashton Thyme's the opportunity to match the online price, which the manager declined. This situation prompts an angry call from the manager to the owner of Country Market Collection, arguing that sales to websites infringe on Ashton Thyme's exclusive territory rights.
In response to its shrinking domestic market, Japanese liquor company Suntory Holdings Limited acquired American liquor conglomerate Beam Inc. in 2014 to expand into the promising U.S. market. Although the acquisition price was high, executives of both companies were confident in the deal. However, as the new combined entity, Beam Suntory Inc., began the integration process, it encountered significant friction, particularly from its separate corporate cultures. By 2016, the new entity had not integrated to a satisfactory level. The high acquisition price had left the parent company with monumental debt, while the consolidated operations struggled to establish trust and efficiency. Had Suntory Holdings Limited made a wise decision in acquiring Beam Inc.? How should it cope with the monumental debt? How should the combined entity resolve conflicts and integrate to realize potential synergies?
Every manager faces the problem of motivating employees to show up to work, focus on the assigned task, and work hard. In the absence of strong motivations to work or close monitoring by managers, employees tend to shirk, a phenomenon that economists call 'moral hazard'. In view of this problem, the worker's employment contract should be designed so that a part of the payoff (both monetary and non-monetary) is conditional on performance. In tasks where the manager can directly observe and monitor the worker's effort, designing such a conditional contract is easy. For example, a salesperson is offered a bonus directly depending upon the number of items he sells. However, when the effort is not so easily observable, overcoming potential moral hazard becomes harder. Using different policy experiments conducted with teachers in India, Kenya and United States, this case study explores how to motivate school teachers to turn up for class, teach well and put in maximum effort towards educating their students.
In September 2016, Loblaw Companies Limited (Loblaw), Canada's largest grocery retailer, was facing disappointing financial results, with net income in the previous quarter down 14.6 per cent from 2015. The chairman of Loblaw, needed to evaluate how to move forward in an increasingly competitive industry. With Sobeys Inc. at a close second to Loblaw's market share and with food inflation significantly affecting the prices of produce, the chairman needed to consider how to approach the grocery retail industry using a method that would appease both his frequently price-sensitive consumers and his bottom line.
In 2016, Dalmia Bharat Cement Limited (Dalmia Cement) and its agency, the Dalmia Bharat Foundation, worked in the areas of sustainability and corporate social responsibility. It worked with communities in the neighbourhoods of its plants and with rural communities in many other areas, focusing on soil and water conservation. In 2016 there was a growing concern that its water harvesting structures and methods of soil protection and improvement were no longer good enough. A measure that valued water in financial terms was required to help justify the foundation's targets and funding. The company tasked interns from a well-known management institute with searching for such a measure.
In 2015 there was a public outcry over the price increase in Daraprim (pyrimethamine) by Turing Pharmaceuticals AG (Turing). Daraprim was a drug that was widely used by a small population of U.S. patients to treat toxoplasmosis. Soon after Turing acquired its commercialization rights in August 2015, the company increased the list price of the drug by over 5,000 per cent. The increase led to consumer protests in the United States, and the media vehemently condemned Turing's action of raising the price for the decades-old drug that had gone off-patent in 1970. Later, the U.S. Congress stepped in, demanding that Turing's officials clarify how they could justify the high price of Daraprim. How should Turing respond to the public outcry? Should Turing stand by the increased price for Daraprim? How could it handle the outcry from the patient groups that needed Daraprim?
In 2017, significant changes were sweeping the global automotive industry: the rapid growth of electric vehicles, the race to develop commercially reliable autonomous cars and the ride-sharing phenomenon. Those trends were magnified by technological advancements around connectivity between drivers and their vehicles, as well as changes in consumer preferences, especially related to waning interest in car ownership. Additionally, China's increasing influence in the global markets and aggressive push for automotive innovation were shaking the industry. Daimler, manufacturer of Mercedes-Benz cars and one of the long-standing industry pioneers, started to react in order to preserve its leadership. Wilko Stark was made CEO of a new business unit called CASE, in charge of developing solutions to address the new trends. The multifaceted efforts in research, product development, strategic planning and technology investments faced several challenges, however. Notably, issues emerged regarding need for new talents and skills, relationship with labor unions, brand preservation, experimentation with new sales and distribution models and intense competition from traditional and new players.
In July 2016, the founder and president of Lockbox Social Inc., an American social media management company for real estate agents, was contemplating whether to offer search engine optimization (SEO) as a new product. He needed to decide whether to pivot his business to pursue SEO exclusively, include SEO with the current product mix, or stay with the status quo and reconsider SEO at a later date. How would the two products—social media management and SEO—meet his customers' needs? Would they provide a good fit with his business and personal goals? He also needed to determine how much to charge for SEO and whether the company's current pricing model was appropriate for social media management.
The semester-long small business management class at Southern New Hampshire University had incorporated into the course a food truck under the brand name "Munchiez" as a catalyst for students to integrate and apply the concepts they learned about in various business classes. As such, Munchiez was a vital teaching tool at the school. However, with an 80 per cent turnover rate each semester, knowledge transfer and financial stability quickly became critical issues for the Munchiez team to assess. As of December 2016, Munchiez was operating at a deficit. Some team members suggested that Munchiez may need a general manager. In order to continue receiving financial support from the university, Munchiez's management had to answer some difficult questions: How should Munchiez increase the transfer of knowledge from semester to semester? What strategies should be used in order to break even? Would the business benefit from a general manager? If so, how could the team find the right person for this position?
On December 5, 1791, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton presented to Congress his "Report on the Subject of Manufactures," which proposed significant government support for nascent American industry through tariffs, subsidies, and other incentives. It seemed that Hamilton's politico-economic vision for America had substantial political momentum, yet James Madison and his circle viewed Hamilton's proposals with alarm, and a financial panic in August-September, 1791, raised new anxieties about the rapid political and economic changes occurring in the United States. In the face of these concerns, would Congress sustain its support for Hamilton's vision?