In 2015, the Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship (CSE), the largest business incubator in Denmark, was admitting 100-125 new start-ups each year and attracting external funding of US$33 million from both public and private sources-all with an annual budget of US$435,000, funded exclusively by the Copenhagen Business School. Like most business incubators, CSE worked to provide entrepreneurs with training, mentorship, and investors, and to enhance their visibility in the market. It required all admitted start-ups to participate in a screening/selection tool and a set of incubation activities over three specific stages. The school measured success in terms of the number of incubator participants who had both a business customer and a sustainable business model at the end of a nine-month incubation period. In 2015, CSE's success rate was 53 per cent. At this point, CSE's leaders recognized a need to question how they measured the benefits of the program. How should the 53 per cent success rate be compared to the Copenhagen Business School's investment? What changes could the CSE leadership make to create more value for Danish society?
In September 2016, the leadership team at KritiKal Solutions Private Limited, a software product research and development company in Noida, India, was facing several challenges. The company provided product design and development services in computer vision and image processing, embedded systems, and the Internet of things, as well as web, software, and mobile applications. It was highly regarded by its clients and employees for its research orientation and technical competence. However, the leadership team was struggling with options for strategic growth and product mix. How much time and effort should go into services and how much into new product development? What kind of structure and funding would work for the company as it expanded? The chief executive officer needed answers to these questions in order to make the leap to high growth.
For 30 years, Mazda Motor Corporation (Mazda) partnered with Ford Motor Company (Ford), helping Ford in small-car engineering and lean manufacturing in exchange for finance and marketing know-how; however, this alliance was terminated due to the global financial crisis in 2008. In 2015, Mazda entered into another long-term partnership to share technologies and cope with cost pressures-this time with Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota). According to its 2016 Structural Reform Plan, Mazda aimed to achieve a global sales volume of 1.65 million units, an operating income ratio of at least 7 per cent, an equity ratio of at least 45 per cent, and a dividend payout ratio of at least 20 per cent by 2019. Given the highly competitive domestic and global automotive markets, to what extent could the partnership with Toyota and the Structural Reform Plan allow Mazda to achieve these goals? Would Mazda need to make any changes to its competitive strategies to keep the company driving forward?
In today's global economy, what are the factors that go into production location choice? This case is set in the world's largest automotive glass producer as it expands from China into the United States. To meet a very aggressive cost target, management is faced with the alternatives of fulfilling the contract from its new Ohio factory, which can only produce above the target cost currently because it is still on a learning curve, or it can fulfill from its Tianjin, China factory which can produce below the cost target but will incur extensive shipping costs and require a far great amount of inventory holding. This case examines a core question facing managers who want to produce physical products for world markets.
PFA Pension was the biggest commercial pension provider in Denmark. At the end of 2015, the company had decided to boost its investments into the alternative asset class, an area where it was lagging behind its competitors. The aim was to privilege direct investments and co-investments rather than allocations through funds. One year later, PFA could count on an expert alternative investment team, a defined investment process and a number of successful direct investments. Still, a number of questions remained: How could PFA better access attractive deal opportunities? Should PFA try to build a formal deal sourcing model? What resources and skills would be necessary to add to the alternative investment team?
In August 2017, Cumplo's Founder Shea and CEO Kirberg meet to discuss growth and strategy issues faced by this Chilean fintech startup. What sales and marketing strategy will best foster the compny's growth? Are changes needed in the product lineup? How and when should Cumplo begin to expand beyond Chile, to other countries in Latin America? The company raised $1.4 million in its first three years, mainly from individual investors, and then issued new shares for $3 million in 2015. By June 2017, Cumplo was debt-free, had achieved break-even, and had raised an additional $2.3 million.
This case is based on the real-life events of Mr Alan Chua, Executive Director of Concorde Security Pte Ltd, a private security firm based in Singapore. The case details his observations made during his many years of being in the industry. Excesses, inefficiencies and legacy practices that he felt no longer applied in today's changing security landscape bore the brunt of his dissatisfaction with the industry. Having seen first-hand the poor working conditions that front-line security officers (SO) had to go through, Alan was additionally motivated to make their lives better, primarily through the adoption of technology. However, the industry game changer lies in the complete revamp of the business model that private security operators are currently utilising. Having a good idea is usually not good enough. Alan faced negative reactions from his peers in the industry. Regulations by the authorities also did not help his cause. He sought to overcome these challenges and picked up some innovation awards in the process. He has seen far greater profit margins with his new approach. Although his revenue has taken a hit, it is projected that in the foreseeable future, as more organisations adopt his technologies, he will surpass his former successes.
In early 2012, the chair of the board of directors of Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) had to determine how to respond to demands made by the company’s largest shareholder, Pershing Square Capital Management (Pershing), an activist hedge fund. Pershing’s chief executive officer (CEO) claimed that CP was underperforming, and expressed his desire to replace two board members and appoint a new CEO. The chair of the board of directors had to determine the best means to fight the proxy battle and serve the interests of shareholders. Pershing was not likely to back down easily. With a shareholders’ meeting expected to occur in the next few months, the chair had to resolve the matter quickly. Because shareholder activism was relatively new in Canada, the outcome of this conflict would send a message to other activists interested in Canadian organizations.
In 2017, Ivey Publishing, a publisher and distributor of cases for the academic market, struggled with widespread copyright infringement, which affected its revenue stream. The digital revolution, which had an impact on so many other creative industries, including music, film, and computer software, had also affected the publisher.<br><br>Ivey Publishing’s sales team leader made a call to a business professor to elicit his support in encouraging his students to purchase cases from Ivey Publishing (rather than copying them from other students). Having failed to persuade this professor and others, the sales team leader reflected on what else she could do to strengthen Ivey Publishing’s financial performance.
OrganiGram Holdings Inc. (OrganiGram), a New Brunswick-based company, was a licensed producer of medical cannabis in Canada. On April 20, 2016, the Canadian government announced that legislation to legalize recreational cannabis would be introduced in the spring of 2017 with the intention of having it become law in the spring of 2018. The announcement triggered expansion activities at all of Canada's largest licensed producers of cannabis. However, there were many unknowns in terms of how the legalization of recreational cannabis would happen. What would the timeline be? Who would be allowed to grow cannabis? In anticipation of regulatory changes, OrganiGram needed to analyze the Canadian cannabis industry and engage in a scenario-planning exercise. How could OrganiGram move through this time of uncertainty, while both creating a strategy for the anticipated recreational cannabis market and continuing to work on its medical cannabis sales?
Overview of theoretical approach of HBS MBA Course "Building and Sustaining a Successful Enterprise"; distinguishing theory based on correlation from theory based on causal driver.
It is a major global health challenge to get life-saving vaccines to children in hard-to-reach parts of Africa and Asia. These vaccines must stay cool during transport, yet it is not always possible to prevent heat exposure. Historically, health workers had no means of determining whether such heat exposure had damaged the vaccines and caused them to lose potency. But Vaccine Vial Monitors, or VVMs, changed that. A VVM is a small temperature monitor, no bigger than a dime, that adheres to a vaccine vial to indicate whether the vaccine has been rendered ineffective by excessive heat exposure. The benefits of using VVMs are two-fold: children only receive viable vaccines, and health workers do not discard viable vaccines because they are uncertain about heat exposure damage. VVMs were first developed in 1990, and by 2017, over 6.6 billion VVMs had been used. However, VVMs had a long and uncertain journey that spanned almost 30 years between 1979, when the World Health Organization (WHO) put out a call for such a technology to be invented, and 2007, when there was mass adoption by vaccine manufacturers. This case focuses on the efforts made, and challenges faced, by the many public, social, and private sector partners who collaborated to take this relatively simple social innovation to global scale. These partners included international governmental health bodies such as WHO and UNICEF; the non-governmental organization PATH, which spearheaded and guided the efforts; and TempTime, the private company that invented the technology. Though sometimes at odds with each other, the partners had to convince the many different vaccine manufacturers to buy and use the VVM product. This required continually adapting technology design, reshaping business partnerships, and rethinking cost/pricing models. VVMs had saved over 160,000 children's lives by 2012 alone, but success had in no way been a sure thing.
Radio Mirchi is the flagship brand of Entertainment Network India Limited (ENIL). ENIL is the largest private FM radio broadcaster in India. ENIL was able to gain a stronghold in the market due to its strengths of innovativeness and creative content, large operating network, reach among listeners, high quality studio and strong advertisement sales capabilities. The case discusses Radio Mirchi's entry into the Kolkata market in 2003 amidst the competition from three other players --Red FM, Aamar and Power. Kolkata occupied a prime place in the company's growth plans. The case discusses the dilemma faced by the company on developing the entry strategy. Its top management has to decide on the market segment(s) it should target, and the design of the product.
The DNA of Leadership: Creating Healthy Leaders and Vibrant Organizations is a 9-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by professional coaches Myron Beard and Alan Weiss. It is the result of the authors' work with thousands of executives; Beard and Weiss reviewed these executives and identified what is needed for high levels of success. They provide readers with powerful and practical ways to change their behavior in order to become outstanding leaders. Each chapter has a "Coach's Corner" that outlines the lessons of the chapter and challenges executives to identify behaviors they need to change to become better leaders. The book then encourages readers to create "Personal Goal Plans" to achieve their goals. In Chapter 1, Beard and Weiss identify several causes for leadership failures, focusing on executives who have been recently promoted into their role. These failures include the inability of leaders to move into strategic-thinking roles, identify priorities, move from working in the business to working on it, relinquish control of some tasks, and engage colleagues. At the end of the chapter, the authors provide four tips for avoiding leadership implosion, which include migrating to leadership, changing your vision, changing your focus, and making the relational leap.
The DNA of Leadership: Creating Healthy Leaders and Vibrant Organizations is a 9-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by professional coaches Myron Beard and Alan Weiss. It is the result of the authors' work with thousands of executives; Beard and Weiss reviewed these executives and identified what is needed for high levels of success. They provide readers with powerful and practical ways to change their behavior in order to become outstanding leaders. Each chapter has a "Coach's Corner" that outlines the lessons of the chapter and challenges executives to identify behaviors they need to change to become better leaders. The book then encourages readers to create "Personal Goal Plans" to achieve their goals. In Chapter 2, the authors highlight the importance of understanding your business's strategy to guaranteeing its success. They identify three business issues that leaders should understand in order to most effectively lead their organizations: understanding a company's business model, translating strategy into tactics, and measuring success. They go in-depth on each business issue, outlining cases that illustrate the issues and behaviors/practices that leaders can use to show that they understand them.
The DNA of Leadership: Creating Healthy Leaders and Vibrant Organizations is a 9-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by professional coaches Myron Beard and Alan Weiss. It is the result of the authors' work with thousands of executives; Beard and Weiss reviewed these executives and identified what is needed for high levels of success. They provide readers with powerful and practical ways to change their behavior in order to become outstanding leaders. Each chapter has a "Coach's Corner" that outlines the lessons of the chapter and challenges executives to identify behaviors they need to change to become better leaders. The book then encourages readers to create "Personal Goal Plans" to achieve their goals. In Chapter 3, the authors describe a leader's responsibility to set goals for their organization and guide it to achieve them. They outline different leadership responses to this challenging role in the form of the timid leader, the overbearing leader, and the goldilocks leader. They write that effective leaders are able to harness several keys to successful vision development: managing feelings, collaborating, setting agendas, working on the strategy, and managing outcomes. They then describe effective leaders as acting as periscopes for their organizations, constantly surveying markets and other external factors. They continue to describe specific ways to set a corporate vision and communicate this vision to both internal and external stakeholders.
The DNA of Leadership: Creating Healthy Leaders and Vibrant Organizations is a 9-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by professional coaches Myron Beard and Alan Weiss. It is the result of the authors' work with thousands of executives; Beard and Weiss reviewed these executives and identified what is needed for high levels of success. They provide readers with powerful and practical ways to change their behavior in order to become outstanding leaders. Each chapter has a "Coach's Corner" that outlines the lessons of the chapter and challenges executives to identify behaviors they need to change to become better leaders. The book then encourages readers to create "Personal Goal Plans" to achieve their goals. In Chapter 4, the authors describe ways leaders can effectively delegate responsibilities to maximize productivity and develop subordinates. They identify the obstacles leaders face as they decide to delegate responsibilities. They first instruct leaders to assess their team in order to effectively delegate and then go over what prevents leaders from delegating even when they want to/know how and what successful delegation looks like.
The DNA of Leadership: Creating Healthy Leaders and Vibrant Organizations is a 9-chapter book published by Business Expert Press in 2017 and written by professional coaches Myron Beard and Alan Weiss. It is the result of the authors' work with thousands of executives; Beard and Weiss reviewed these executives and identified what is needed for high levels of success. They provide readers with powerful and practical ways to change their behavior in order to become outstanding leaders. Each chapter has a "Coach's Corner" that outlines the lessons of the chapter and challenges executives to identify behaviors they need to change to become better leaders. The book then encourages readers to create "Personal Goal Plans" to achieve their goals. In Chapter 5, the authors discuss business issues and ways to address them. They separate these issues into three categories: minor annoyances, issues that affect business performance but are neither illegal nor a violation of regulatory statutes, and issues that put the business at risk. They describe each case and the increasing accountability that employees have to report and discuss them as they become more serious. They outline considerations that employees must make before reporting an issue and provides ways to weigh the risks and benefits. They define three managers that ineffectively approach performance discussions: the shirker, the pleaser, and the bruiser.