In May 2015, the new director at Schneider Electric's plant in Rudrapur, India, faced a challenging situation. The company had an ongoing struggle with quality issues and consistently missed its production targets. From a human relations perspective, employee engagement and morale were low and the shop-floor workers had very little respect for the plant's management team. The new director quickly launched a program of human resource initiatives aimed to turn the plant around, but in the midst of his efforts, a sister plant submitted a high-volume order that seemed well beyond Rudrapur's production capabilities. Against the advice of his superiors, and in the face of some resistance from his staff at the plant, the plant director accepted the order and used an adaptive leadership approach to implement several plant-level changes in the production processes at Rudrapur. While the team had made a lot of progress in improving the overall function of the Rudrapur plant, there was still a long way to go and a huge production hurdle to be crossed. Were the director's interventions likely to succeed? Should he adopt a different approach to meet the challenges?
Impex, a division of the South Indian firm KCM Appliances, dealt with kitchen, household, and home entertainment appliances. KCM's managing director needed to decide on a year-end sales promotion for Impex. One option was direct-response advertising in the Times of India newspaper, which could potentially help Impex expand its reach in India. This option was in contrast to the previous year's promotion, which involved collaboration with distributors and retailers in the Kerala region of South India. Deciding between the two options required a quantitative analysis to estimate the incremental volume and sales revenue gained from the previous year's promotion. Those gains could then be compared with the break-even volumes required to cover the costs of the promotion with the Times of India. Impex also needed to consider a qualitative analysis by examining the tensions created by the two options, including channel relations versus brand awareness, an existing market focus versus a future market focus, and product management versus sales management. Should Impex repeat the previous year's tried-and-tested promotion, or pursue the Times of India offer, whereby it could sidestep its local channel partners and directly sell to consumers?
In 2015, the Indian retail industry contributed around 10 per cent to India's gross domestic product, and online retail had a growth rate of 85 per cent. In the same year, food and grocery made up 60 per cent of the Indian retail market, and the online grocery segment was estimated at US$600,000. To capture its share of this market, Amazon India launched its own online grocery arm, KiranaNow, with a marketplace model. As it set out to carve out a space for itself in the online grocery market, KiranaNow faced challenges related to merchandising, managing human resources, customer perceptions, and technology hurdles, including the question of whether its chosen business model was sustainable. The company needed to overcome these challenges to find success in the Indian online grocery market.
Who doesn't want the ability to wield influence, and build or possess some sort of power? The A case describes the ascent of a blogger at the top of the list of the most influential luxury fashion writers worldwide. He had made his way to front-row seats at fashion events, created a signature pose, garnered the attention of those who mattered in the high-end fashion business, lived lavishly, and was deemed a de facto representative of the Philippines. Yet Bryanboy seemingly had no boundaries on pitching a message of individualistic narcissism and misbehavior alongside his designer goods. People responded to him in a variety of ways, ranging from hostility to apathy to engagement. How did Bryanboy achieve the power to define for the world what's stylish, beautiful, elegant, and inspiring? And why did so many people loathe him? The single paragraph B case, to hand out in class, shares that despite evidence that allegations made against Bryanboy in the A case were true, powerful people in the industry continued to admire and defend him.
PharmAccess is an Amsterdam based NGO working to support the development of the private health care market in Africa. This work is critical as over 50% of care is delivered through the private sector, but well-intentioned efforts to address global health through the public sector have the unintended consequence of crowding-out capital formation in the private sector. PharmaAccess is working to crowd-in funding instead through the development of a three-pronged effort in Kenya. They are working to address supply through efforts to improve the quality of health care facilities through education and through a micro-lending program. At the same time, they are working to address demand through the development of the M-TIBA mobile health wallet. The critical question for this case is whether these efforts, in essence the development of a novel platform simultaneously addressing supply and demand, will be enough to change the dynamics of the private health care market. The case provides a background on private health care in Africa and in Kenya.
Anyone who has recently travelled, gone shopping, or tried to have a problem solved may have little recollection of the experience. Worse yet, some are frustrated by the lack of responsiveness or empathy that they encountered. The reality is that most customer experiences are mediocre, forgettable and some are plain awful. But once in a blue moon, an experience is so great that it leaves positive memories for years. Why do some product or service experiences have that undeniable "wow" factor, while others lack that pizzazz, relegating them to either being loathed or erased from memory? This case prepares participants for an in-class exercise in which they discover design principles that make experiences great. The exercise uses two methodologies: LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP) and Storytelling. It requires the purchase of special purpose LEGO® elements.
As the largest company, by revenue, in the world, Walmart has been a lightning rod for criticism. However, in an attempt to stay ahead of traditional and digital retailers, and keep customers satisfied with evolving demands, the company is strengthening its competitive advantage by creating Shared Value. Current CEO, Doug McMillon outlines his strategy for fending off competition, navigating a challenging retail landscape, and positioning Walmart as a leading retailer for today and the future.
Canadian Arrow Mines Limited (CRO) had a promising nickel property, the Kenbridge deposit, located 70 kilometres southeast of Kenora, Ontario. The spot had been the site of significant exploration in the past. Further exploration by CRO had indicated that it could be profitable. CRO had spent close to CA$10 million on redevelopment, and needed a further $3 million for the final feasibility study before going into full operation. In 2007, nickel hit a high of $27 per pound, but by 2009, prices had dipped to under $8 per pound, which severely curtailed the firm's ability to raise the final $3 million. CRO turned its attention to other projects to raise money in the hope of a recovery, but the trend had been negative until mid-2016. To save the property, CRO had laid off all of its employees and reduced expenses to the minimum required. With a small recovery evident, CRO management wondered if CRO should hang on further and wait for nickel prices to rise enough to support the final feasibility study. The team wanted to know what nickel price was required to run a profitable operation. Were there any indicators about which direction this price would take in the future?
On January 18, 2016, the chief executive officer and chief technology officer of Geosoft Inc. (Geosoft) met in Toronto, Canada, with the company’s executive team and regional directors for a critical three-day strategic planning session. Geosoft was a privately held, employee-owned, mid-sized global company that worked to help earth scientists and explorers make discoveries through innovative data solutions and services. The focus of the meeting—a new technology strategy to protect Geosoft from the impact of a global economic downturn affecting its primary markets—was pivotal to Geosoft’s current and future growth. This new strategy, known within Geosoft as the digital intimacy strategy, would radically change the way the company communicated with its customers. Geosoft’s customers were located in five major geographic regions: Latin America, Africa, Australia (including Asia), Europe, and North America. Rolling out the strategy demanded seamless communication of change to multiple stakeholders in vastly differing cultures across five continents. The new digital intimacy strategy was planned for rollout in September 2016 with implementation in 2017. For the new strategy to work, communication was crucial.
This module note for students outlines an approach to help managers deliver on their responsibilities in relation to society. The approach frames these responsibilities in terms of potential harms to third parties beyond investors, customers, and employees. The approach aims to help managers identify relevant harms, analyze their responsibility for harms, and determine an appropriate response. The approach also considers limits on how far managers ought to go to address these harms, emphasizing respect for boundaries relating to political legitimacy and legal authority. The module note was written for students in the first-year course Leadership and Corporate Accountability.
Huayi Compressor Barcelona, S.L. was founded in 2013 when Huayi Group (Huayi), a Chinese state-owned enterprise, acquired Cubigel Compressors, S.A., a bankrupt Spanish industrial enterprise. While labour complications and other difficulties developed during the acquisition process, Huayi successfully managed the transition in May 2013. Despite this initial achievement, challenges related to the recovery of productivity, markets, and profitability continued. In January 2014, the general manager of Huayi Compressor Barcelona, S.L., who managed the transition, received a request to return to Huayi headquarters in Sichuan, China. From his Barcelona office, he grew concerned about several challenges: Who would be the right successor for his position? What strategy did Huayi need to consolidate its internationalization process? What knowledge could he transfer to China for future international strategies?
In late 2013, an analyst at WNG Capital LLC, Wenbo Su, must recommend whether the terms of a sale-and-leaseback deal are value adding for WNG. WNG was an operating lessor of used commercial aircraft manufactured by Airbus Group and Boeing Corporation. The lessee in the deal was a small private airline based in the United Kingdom. The essence of the transaction was to transform the airline from being the owner of certain aircraft in its fleet to being the lessee of the aircraft for the ensuing 12 months. The airline would have full use of the aircraft, but would not own the aircraft or have use of the aircraft after the end of the lease. The cash flows to all parties were complicated, and Su planned to conduct a thorough analysis of the proposed lease terms before making a recommendation to WNG's CEO, Michael Gangemi. The student's challenge is to assume Su's role and develop a discounted cash flow analysis to estimate the NPV to WNG Capital. The broader discussion of the case prompts students to answer how the airline benefits from the deal. This analysis and discussion form the basis of understanding the value of leasing as a value-adding financial product.
Navas Meeran, the Chairman and Managing Director of Eastern Condiments Private Limited (ECPL) had been instrumental in the growth and professionalization of ECPL by bringing in non-family professionals, introducing state-of-the-art systems and processes in manufacturing, and nurturing the values of compassion and loyalty that his father had instilled across the organization. In 2014 he had taken a sabbatical and handed over the company operations to his younger brother Firoz. ECPL, the flagship company of the INR 8 billion, family managed Eastern Group headquartered in Kochi, India, was engaged in manufacturing and marketing spices, blended spice powders, pickles, breakfast staples and beverages in both domestic and international markets. The company began as a small shop set up by their father M.E. Meeran in 1961. It had grown to record revenues of INR 5.60 billion in 2014. Though Navas was pleased with the company's 2015 business performance under Firoz's leadership he was uncomfortable with the pace and execution of major organizational changes brought in by Firoz. He was worried about Firoz's aggressive approach; the speed of the internal changes Firoz had made to tap external market opportunities had resulted in 10 -15% attrition at all levels in the organization. Was it right for a traditional family run business bred on a culture of compassion and loyalty to make a sudden shift to a metrics-based performance culture? Would Firoz's efforts to transform the company into a professional organization ultimately sustain the growth of the business? Was there a need to both cultivate professionalism and reward loyalty across the ECPL value chain? Could a company based out of a Tier 2 city such as Kochi be able to attract high-quality talent easily? These were some of the questions that worried Navas.
The case describes opportunities for and barriers to collaboration between the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and Harvard Business School as SEAS prepares to move two-thirds of its faculty and classes to a new campus in Allston, 1.5 miles from its current Cambridge location. Companion cases ("SEAS in 2016," 817-063, and "HBS in 2016," 817-062) provide background on the two schools.
Corey Thomas, CEO of the company Rapid7, must decide if it is the right time to take the 15-year old startup public, as it stood poised to capitalize on what appears to be the next frontier for digital technology markets - cybersecurity. In spite of positive industry trends, there are some nagging concerns that this might be a risky time in the public capital markets. The company had just completed an acquisition and he had additional concerns that the public markets may not tolerate the inevitable early losses involved with the new acquisition. Moreover, the company's principal financiers are venture capital investors and an IPO or sale will represent an investment exit for them and their goal is return maximization.