Pho Hoa is a traditional, family-owned Vietnamese restaurant in Dorchester, Massachusetts that opened in 1992. As he approached retirement in recent years, the founder-owner has scaled down his involvement in the day-to-day operations, leading to a number of operational and financial issues, including variable food quality and deficient wait staff service. The restaurant is about to transition from 1st to 2nd generation ownership, Tam Le, the son of the founder, realizes that major operational and financial changes are required to maintain the restaurant's long-term viability.
Approximately 1.1 billion residents of India (99% of the population) had a unique biometric identity-Aadhaar-by 2017. In six years, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) had achieved an unprecedented milestone in emerging and developed markets. The stated objective was to create a corruption-proof social security infrastructure that enables the disenfranchised to access benefits without any diversion to middlemen and unscrupulous elements. While initially voluntary, this scheme was made mandatory in 2017 by the GOI (Government of India). What are the positive and negative implications of this, specifically related to economic development of the majority and the privacy of the individual?
In January 2017, the owner of Re-Matt Inc. (Re-Matt), a mattress recycling operation, was considering the way forward for the business he had developed in the city of Calgary, Alberta. Re-Matt was a unique enterprise in Alberta where municipalities, both urban and rural, had been categorizing mattresses as waste, and sending them to landfills for disposal, for decades. Re-Matt’s business was diverting used mattresses from landfills and recycling them by routing their individual components back into the economic streams and recovering value. The company had reached an annual revenue of CA$500,000 in just two years. Its owner was now weighing his options with respect to scaling up Re-Matt’s operations, as well as trying to identify ways of differentiating Re-Matt from its potential competition.
COLIN, a producer of garment care products headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, was working with a large U.S. retailer to produce the Bristol, an innovative garment steamer that the retailer wanted to launch for the 2017 U.S. Thanksgiving season. To meet that deadline, COLIN would have one month less than was typically needed to launch a new product. This launch date left COLIN with limited time for research and development, manufacturing, and marketing. Several managers at COLIN met to discuss the project, including how to choose the suppliers, whether to continue with an original equipment manufacturer model or move to an original design manufacturer model, how to ensure the product could be launched on time, and whether to use any of COLIN’S own core technologies. To make their decision, the managers needed to analyze several complicated issues.
In 2010, RBC Financial Group (RBC), a banking and insurance company headquartered in Toronto, Canada, had implemented a new loan program. The program targeted clients who were seeking loans for the installation of electricity-generating solar panels on their property under a new government-sponsored green power program, the Micro Feed-In Tariff Program (microFIT). For RBC, the loan program was an excellent fit with the company’s strategy to support environmentally-focused initiatives. However, by October 2010, microFIT was encountering problems. Once the banking business unit at RBC had sold the loans to a client and the client had installed the solar panels, the insurance business unit at RBC was then cancelling the client’s insurance policies due to the increased risk posed by the installations. Customers were confused and upset. How should RBC handle this difficult situation? How could the company prevent similar problems with future program implementations?
This case was a runner-up in the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI) 2017 case competition. Anna Pessah, process engineer at Summit Funding (Summit), a mortgage-loan-processing company, is reflecting back on her year at the company. Pessah had been hired to improve operations at the firm-to make the core operations cheaper, faster, and of a higher quality. She had addressed two key operations: loan closings and verifications of employment (VOE). Her next tasks involved improvements at the 28 branches and reaction to a corporate-wide improvement program entitled "Project Ninja." Pessah had implemented a system called "pods," similar to manufacturing cells, in order to address loan closings. Data is given for the student to analyze the implications of this approach and suggest alternatives. Data is also given for analyzing the VOE process and deriving an approach to the branch productivity problem. Finally, the Project Ninja memo is given, and students are asked to evaluate this initiative.
Rakesh Sarna, MD and CEO of the Indian Hotels Company ltd (IHCL) was faced with the challenge of leading and embedding changes in IHCL to turnaround its trajectory. IHCL and its subsidiaries, headquartered in India, were a venerable hotel chain, collectively known as Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, and colloquially referred to as Taj Hotels. Taj Hotels, revered across India for their values and renowned for their hospitality, had been plagued with performance challenges since Dec'08. It was August 2016, nearly two years since Sarna had been recruited from the Hyatt Hotels Corporation, with a mandate to revive the flagging fortunes of Taj Hotels. Having introduced a number of changes, Sarna reflects on progress made and next steps required.
For the last 50 years, the Economic Development Board (EDB) has been one of the key pillars of Singapore's economic success. The story of EDB's strategies through each period of Singapore's development is well documented. However, much less has been written about EDB the institution - the EDB strategy, leadership, culture, and mindset that allowed EDB to make the necessary shifts to innovate and create economic value for Singapore. This case study describes the development of EDB the institution, against the backdrop of Singapore's economic development.
Social media company Buffer wanted to establish clear company values early in its growth. One of these values was a commitment to transparency in its company practices. Buffer openly shared its business strategies and fundraising decks, among lots of other information. Even when they were hacked, the company live-blogged updates to keep their users informed as the situation unfolded. Having internally released each employee's salary and equity details with no pushback, the company now contemplated sharing compensation information transparently with the general public.
Buffer decided to release its salaries and compensation calculation formula to the public, and the public reaction was greater and more positive than they would have imagined. The company experienced both an increase in volume and a change in the kinds of inbound applications they received. As the company continued to grow, Buffer's senior leaders continued to revise the compensation formula based on feedback both internally and from the public. Particularly, they hoped to strengthen the link between pay and performance, which in the current version of the formula was incorporated using a loosely defined "experience level" component. However, defining clear performance metrics and experience levels was not an easy task.
In 2007, Jody Greenstone Miller founded Business Talent Group (BTG), a company that connected top independent professionals, including consultants and executives, with global companies for project-based work at a lower cost and with more precision than traditional consulting. From BTG's inception, Miller and cofounder Amelia Warren Tyagi believed that the way people work - and the way companies use talent - was changing for several reasons. High-end business professionals were growing weary of the commonly accepted notion that in order to succeed in one's career, it was necessary to work 60 to 80 hours per week. In addition, the increasing scope and complexity of business around the globe meant that firms were competing across multiple industries and geographies, with products and services launching at a faster pace than ever before. As such, companies demanded human capital with targeted skills and knowledge, as well as workers who could take on specific, time-sensitive projects. Moreover, improvements in technology, including the widespread use of e-mail, smartphones, cloud computing, and video conferencing, allowed individuals to work effectively from almost anywhere in the world. Given these trends, BTG's mission was "to bring together the world's top companies and independent professionals to enhance business performance and improve people's lives." Although BTG encountered some early resistance from companies that were skeptical about the idea - and quality - of independent talent, it did not take long for the BTG model to gain traction. Companies were increasingly convinced of the value proposition associated with utilizing high-end, independent business talent, and the market for independent professionals grew rapidly. Not surprisingly, this growth attracted an influx of new competition. "Business Talent Group: Growing the Market for Independent Business Talent" explores the challenges BTG faced as it pioneered the market for high-end business talent in
Webasto Roof Systems, Americas, the North American subsidiary of Germany-based Webasto Group, limped into 2014 in poor financial and operational shape. The company's early optimism emerging from the financial downturn had proven naive, and now, five years later, the company was consistently losing money, and was battling severe operational challenges affecting quality and threatening customer relationships. Furthermore, senior leadership had completely turned over three times in the five year period. Now, the new--and young--leadership is attempting to navigate that crisis, and repair the organization, with an organization full of skittish and disengaged employees. Philipp Schramm, the new CFO, must figure out how to enact positive change with a team of unenthusiastic employees, and a near-toxic culture.
The case is set in December 2017, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and describes the journey of a mobile financial service (MFS) provider called SureCash in Bangladesh, and the various facets of the MFS industry in the country. The MFS industry in Bangladesh is perceived to be oliogopolistic. While this is a difficult market for a new entrant to get into, it is not yet a saturated marketplace. This is primarily because a considerable part of the population in the country still remain 'unbanked'. Amidst two significantly large players in the MFS market in Bangladesh, smaller players like SureCash have tried to create a niche by associating themselves with education fee collection initiatives, salary disbursement programs and government led projects like the Primary Education Stipend Program (PESP) launched by the Government of Bangladesh. While associating with large scale projects like PESP has its own advantages, taking up such large scale creation of MFS accounts has several challenges as well. The case on SureCash encapsulates this story by elaborating on the difficulties faced by the company in digitising the PESP initiative and opening accounts for more than 10 million mothers. This had helped the company to promote Financial Inclusion in rural Bangladesh for a section of the demographic who were less likely to have access to formal financial services than their male counterparts. Notably, Bangladesh is a country where a significant percentage of the total population still remained 'unbanked'. What remained to be seen was whether SureCash could keep the mothers engaged in their MFS platform over the long run? Also what could be the best strategy for SureCash to grow their presence in Bangladesh?
Zilingo, a play on the word 'Zillions', is an online e-commerce platform for selling fashion products and was founded by Ankiti Bose and Dhruv Kapoor in Bangkok in 2015. Established with the vision of providing the small seller in South East Asia with an efficient online platform to sell their products, Zilingo had grown 25% month-on-month in its second year of operation. The Zilingo e-commerce platform is driven by data analytics-driven research tools to enable small sellers to target demand from customers and drive sales efficiently. Reports generated by the platform encompass buyer statistics, supplier statistics, fashion trends and buyer preferences. Suppliers can manage logistics through third-party logistics partners available on the platform, and better sell their products by using the myriad tools available on the mobile-friendly app to upload images of their products, manage inventory, schedule pickups, track orders, consult on price-setting, and even liaise with third-party loan providers. Zilingo had also built a significant consumer base by December 2017, with seller hubs in Hong Kong, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and China. The company had also proved to be one of the fastest growing e-commerce businesses in South East Asia and had been able to raise substantial funding (US$27 million) within its first two years of operation. In April 2018, the company had raised US$ 54 million in funding, making it among the top ten funded startup companies in Singapore. The company has also launched its B2B product in the US market in line with its market strategy of quickly growing its customer base as well as its geographic base.
Structo is a technology start-up conceived by Huub van Esbroeck and six other mechanical engineering undergraduates from National University Singapore (NUS) in 2014. The founding team at Structo had built a prototype of a 3D printer which could print four times faster than the 3D printers available in the market within the same price bracket. After building their proof-of-concept machine, the team had approached 3D printing service bureaus to sell their product. They discovered that their printer had to be heavily customised to meet the diverse needs of various printing jobs performed by service bureaus. Structo was a small start-up with limited funding and resources, and hence building customised printers was a nonviable business model for the firm. The company had to either find a new target customer base or identify large funding partners to sustain its business. Coincidently, the Structo team received a phone call from a dental practitioner in Singapore and discovered that their printer could meet the needs of dental practitioners with virtually no customisation. The 'Eureka' moment provided a new burst of enthusiasm. However, Structo soon discovered that unlike its first customer, most dental practitioners approached dental labs for their 3D printing needs. The Structo team pivoted their business model to suit the needs of dental labs, and the business took flight. By 2018, Structo's business had grown significantly. The company had also forayed into 3D printing materials business and started building its material. However, the company's medium-term goal and primary focus were to grow in the dental market. Structo was gradually transitioning from start-up phase to a growth phase in its entrepreneurial journey. Van Esbroeck now wondered how Structo could scale its business rapidly. How could Structo prepare itself as an organisation for the next stage of growth?