On April 1, 2016, fashion house Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) announced the departure of its creative director who had been responsible for successfully reviving the struggling YSL brand since 2012. Three days after this surprising departure, the company announced that its next creative director would be a relatively inexperienced, 36-year-old designer. After decades of leadership turmoil and financial instability at YSL, the incoming creative director was facing increasing pressure from stakeholders to build off the success that his predecessor had achieved. The global luxury fashion industry had become increasingly competitive, with multiple brands competing for the industry’s estimated value of €265 billion in 2017. Had YSL made the right decision in selecting this young director? To help YSL remain one of the top brands in the fashion industry, should the new director implement a strategy that builds upon the successful foundation created by his predecessor, or should he develop new strategies?
Curana BVBA was a small family-owned company in Belgium. In the 1990s, it was producing mudguards and fenders as an original equipment manufacturer for the European bicycle industry. As Curana BVBA faced increasing competition in 2009, it needed to make a strategic turnaround. The company focused on the top segments of the market and introduced innovative and design-based bicycle accessories. The company didn't have the competency to develop these new products itself, so it built and relied on an open innovation strategy that included several partners who could develop and manufacture the original products. As the network matured, Curana derived new competencies from the partners, which ultimately allowed Curana to embark on a proactive innovation process, spawning entirely new product designs more rapidly than anyone else in the industry.
Bali Hai Cruises had grown from a start-up company in 1990 to become a thriving multimillion-dollar business in 2017 that employed 460 people on the Indonesian islands of Bali and Lembongan. This solid and consistent business development took place despite a business environment and government that had not always been friendly and positive toward foreign investors. What critical factors brought success to this tourism-based company in such a challenging market? What behaviours and strategies had Bali Hai Cruises followed to build trust, deliver on performance, and resolve challenges in developing this vertically integrated company? The company now faced new challenges in terms of an aging leadership and workforce, the continuing need to manage and maintain its working relationships with the Indonesian government and the harbour authorities, the rapidly developing information technology capacity of the marine tourism industry, and the potential of growing competition. What strategies could Bali Hai Cruises implement to continue its success and growth in 2018 and beyond?
Maha Research Labs Private Limited was a growing pharmaceutical company. It ended 2016 with sales worth ₹508.4 million at 31.2 per cent growth over the previous year. The company’s ambitious goal was to achieve 38 per cent growth and a net revenue of ₹700 million in 2017. In May 2017, on receiving a call from a friend in Turkey suggesting he explore the Turkish pharmaceutical market, the managing director of the company was considering doing so. However, he had some doubts, and wondered what the best way to enter the market in Turkey would be. Was his product range suitable for the Turkish market? What were the possible risks?
In 2015, the owner and the founder of a restaurant business in Dubai was concerned about the company's future expansion and growth. Although it was doing well in terms of profitability, a financial forecast was required for the following year, particularly in light of tough competition in the restaurant business in Dubai.
Precia Pharma Private Limited was considered one of the fastest growing companies in the highly competitive Indian pharmaceutical industry. An email from the company’s star performing executive in March 2017, highlighting sales pressures and unethical practices in the industry, forced the managing director to face the reality of how the ills plaguing the pharmaceutical sector might affect his company. He wondered what he must do to maintain the company’s ethical code of conduct while striving for a healthy balance between ambitious targets and good selling practices. The case explores the strategies of the company for managing the different ethical issues in a pharmaceutical setting.
On 15 May 2001, the first Apple retail store was opened to the public at Tysons Corner, Virginia, and the same day a second store was opened in Glendale, California. With retail branded experiences virtually unknown in the industry at the time, the decision to launch the Apple retail programme was greeted with scepticism. However, within the first week they welcomed 7,700 visitors, with sales of almost $600,000 - testimony to its undoubtable success - and went on to roll out another 24 stores. Fifteen years on, there are over 450 Apple stores globally, with higher sales per square foot - $5009 - than any other retail location in the United States. Even today, people still wonder what made them so successful and how it can be replicated. Having successfully designed a brand-defining experience for Apple retail that created immense value, Eight Inc. had to decide how this level of success could be replicated for other potential clients. The case describes the relationship between Apple and Eight Inc., who were initially hired by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs to work on first the MacWorld tradeshows. It traces the steps in the process, from establishing the case to each minute detail in the design process. The case describes how the team built not just a store but a breakthrough branded customer experience.
Leaders of the mid cap buyout group at Ardian, the Paris-based private equity firm led by Dominique Senequier, have been asked to review and assess the governance model the firm uses for majority-owned companies in its portfolio. The case describes the governance model and then shows how it has worked in practice at two companies: Italy's orthopedic implant maker Lima Corporate and French chemical company Novacap. For each company, the case describes how Ardian decided on the investment and established a board of directors, and details the deliberations around some of the critical decisions made by each board during Ardian's tenure as majority shareholder. Through the two examples of Lima and Novacap, the case invites students to evaluate Ardian's approach to corporate governance in its portfolio companies and to recommend possible changes or improvements.
The case explores the challenges facing Massachusetts General Hospital concerning the adoption of a new infection control policy, which promises to improve operational performance, patient safety, and profitability. The new policy requires coordination between different departments within the hospital, namely the Emergency Department, the Infection Control Unit, and Admission Services. Students are initially asked to assess the operational, financial and clinical implications of the new policy. They are then asked to examine different approaches to its implementation. Objective: The case allows readers to examine a setting where internal coordination across different departments provides significant aggregate benefits for an organization. Coordination in this case, however, also leads to inequitable allocation of costs and benefits across the different departments, which then provides students with an opportunity to explore various implementation challenges and strategies.
In the fall of 2016, the senior leadership team of Boston Public Schools prepared a report indicating that costs were expected to grow faster than revenues for many years to come. They faced questions about whether the projections would be believed and about how to present, prioritize, and implement potential reforms that would help balance the budget.
The case is based on Ocean Park Corporation (OPC), which manages Ocean Park Hong Kong (OP), the 12th most popular theme park in the world in 2013. Known as "Hong Kong people's park", OPC successfully completed a HKD5.5bn Master Redevelopment Plan in 2012. By mid-2014, it had achieved impressive results: growing attendance by over 10% annually and reaching a surplus of nearly HKD130mn. Its customer profile has become more international, with visitors from Mainland China, in particular, representing an increasing share. The focus on growth led OPC to decide that OP should become an international resort destination, aligned with global industry trends, by developing additional attractions such as an all-year water park, and three hotels. To become a resort destination, the key question was how the management team could ensure that its brand identity was aligned with its entertainment, education, and conservation missions.
This exercise teaches participants how to generate ideas and brainstorm and helps to remove the perception that idea generation is a process that only "super-creative people" can do well. It not only shows participants how to generate valuable ideas, but also highlights barriers to doing so. Suitable for students in either full-time or executive MBA programs as well as executive education programs, this exercise can also be used in any setting aimed at exposing students to the benefits of idea generation by providing some structure for the process. Most commonly, this exercise is used in classes aimed at teaching product development, design thinking, and innovation processes. It has been used in classes focusing on entrepreneurship as well as those focused on innovation within large organizations.
Two life-long friends, one a doctor and one a business professional, joined forces to set up Eye-Q Super Specialty Hospitals in 2007. Driven by their shared goal of bringing superior quality eye care to places where such services were desperately needed, the partners chose to operate in the small towns and cities across India. Both men believed in a vision that combined a socially driven business model with a commercially viable enterprise, and they had experienced great success with this model during their first seven years of operation. In January 2014, as they charted out Eye-Q Super Speciality Hospitals' plans for growth, the partners decided to expand the organization's reach from 30 to 125 hospitals over the upcoming five years. Was this growth expectation realistic? What strategy would best suit this objective?
Ajay Hasia and few others failed to secure admission to Regional Engineering College, Srinagar. They challenged before the Supreme Court that the admission process was arbitrary and violative of the Fundamental Right of equality in Article 14 of the Constitution. The right, however, is available only against the 'state' as defined in Article 12. The definition of 'state' includes 'other authorities. The term 'other authorities' has been subject to judicial interpretation and come to include instrumentality or agency of the government. The Ajay Hasia Case consolidated the developing law and formulated that not only the bodies created by an Act but also bodies created under a law, like societies under the Societies Registration Act can be 'other authorities'.
As a global energy generating company, AES frequently faces challenges from political changes and instability. This is exacerbated by the fact that in many instances AES' primary customer is the government, which is also in charge of law-making. For example, AES' management team has encountered expropriation risks in Venezuela, collection problems in the Dominican Republic, and regulatory changes in the United States that have led to asset impairments. More recently, the Bulgarian energy regulator announced its intentions to seek a 30% price reduction on a power purchase agreement signed over 10 years ago with AES. Accordingly, AES' management is evaluating whether the renegotiation will lead to any asset impairments and the overall effects on its financial statements.