Soulpepper Theatre Company (Soulpepper) underwent a significant transformation under the leadership of its new co-leaders. The co-leaders not only navigated the aftermath of a crisis in 2018 that saw the immediate resignation of a well-known artistic director accused of sexual harassment but also steered the company towards a bright future aligned with an ambitious five-year strategic plan. The plan, endorsed by the board of directors, was a crucial step towards recovering from the tarnished reputation and elevating Soulpepper to global recognition, rooted in the excellence of its productions and celebration of Canadian creativity. However, as the theatre was laying down the building blocks for renewal, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, causing significant disruptions in the Canadian theatre scene and necessitating a re-evaluation of the co-leaders' strategic approach.
Soulpepper Theatre Company (Soulpepper) underwent a significant transformation under the leadership of its new co-leaders. The co-leaders not only navigated the aftermath of a crisis in 2018 that saw the immediate resignation of a well-known artistic director accused of sexual harassment but also steered the company towards a bright future aligned with an ambitious five-year strategic plan. The plan, endorsed by the board of directors, was a crucial step towards recovering from the tarnished reputation and elevating Soulpepper to global recognition, rooted in the excellence of its productions and celebration of Canadian creativity. However, as the theatre was laying down the building blocks for renewal, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, causing significant disruptions in the Canadian theatre scene and necessitating a re-evaluation of the co-leaders' strategic approach.
This experiential exercise is designed to teach students how joint ventures can entail inherent tensions that resemble a real-world prisoner's dilemma. In the context of a (hypothetical) international collaboration in the global bicycle industry, students are put in the position of the parent firms' decision-makers and must decide between accessing the other's knowledge versus wanting to acquire (i.e., own) it. Students are thereby incentivized to act in self-interest, which ultimately leads to worse outcomes than if they had acted in the interest of the group. The exercise provides a lively, visceral learning experience and is complemented with an in-depth discussion of assumptions and implications as described in this teaching note.
In February 2023, a prominent retail investor was contemplating selling his investment in Narayana Hrudayalya Limited, one of India's leading health care companies, when the stock price reached an all-time high of ₹800. The investor had initially bought the shares in 2017, when the price was ₹350 per share. On February 6, 2023, he came across an article about the company that discussed its future prospects, which prompted him to investigate the company's financials and other key aspects more closely. As he delved deeper into the company's financial details, the investor discovered various diverse opinions in various reports. To gain some clarity on the company's financial situation, he asked for the professional advice of his nephew, who was an investment analyst at a prominent stockbroker firm. The analyst knew the importance of conducting a thorough analysis of a company before offering an informed conclusion and investment recommendation to his uncle. He also saw his analysis as an opportunity to provide valuable insight to his own current and prospective clients.
The role of marketing in any organization is to improve performance by establishing and nurturing worthwhile relationships (for companies, “worthwhile” usually means profitable) with customers, clients, sponsors, or other stakeholders. The professional practice of marketing, however, is more complicated than the unfortunate media-created stereotypes of fast-talking salespeople and manipulative advertisers. Indeed, marketers have many ways to win. This note explains the major choices that all marketers face and the ways in which marketing decisions can be made to obtain winning relationships with stakeholders.
In August 2022, Anthony Tan, co-founder and CEO of Flirtual, a virtual reality-based dating platform was deciding whether to hire a new employee or work with a consultancy to complete a major rewrite of the platform’s code. Flirtual had experienced high user growth, resulting in performance issues among some of its users. Tan wanted to decide how to continue growing its users while addressing these challenges.
In August 2022, Pinduoduo Inc., one of the fastest growing and largest e-commerce companies in China, faced several challenges. Alongside intensified competition from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and JD.com Inc., as well as weakened consumer spending due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Pinduoduo had reached a potential growth ceiling within the domestic market. To explore new growth avenues, Lei Chen, the company’s chairman and chief executive officer, would need to evaluate the potential opportunities and challenges Pinduoduo might encounter in its overseas e-commerce business expansion.
One afternoon on January 10, 2020, Zhengting Chen, the chief executive officer of Sichuan Zhiyuan Digital Finance Information Technology Co., Ltd. (Zhiyuan), was reading an internal report on the company’s performance. Founded in 2013 in Chengdu, Zhiyuan was one of the first platform companies to provide traditional supply chain financial services in southwest China. Zhiyuan had experienced a decrease in both annual revenue in 2019 and year-over-year growth rate of membership. So, Chen wondered how the Zhiyuan’s digital transformation could help attract customers and sustain the company's long-term growth by ensuring the authenticity and transparency of transactions.
The case describes the nature of the challenges facing Osman Arbee, CEO of Motus Holdings Limited (Motus) and his executive committee (exco) as they led the business through the challenges inherent in the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the South African government’s initially stringent response to it. Arbee and other exco members explain the competing interests of different stakeholders and highlight the urgency with which they needed to act to ensure the long-term viability of the business. Motus is an integrated automotive holding company based in Ekurhuleni, near Johannesburg, South Africa. Its four divisions include Import and Distribution, Retail and Rental, Motor-Related Financial Services, and Aftermarket Parts.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Niagara (BBBSN) was a not-for-profit (NFP) organization that offered mentoring and other programs for children and youth. The organization recruited and deployed volunteers in a variety of positions, including those available through its mentoring program, thrift store, bingo halls, and periodic fundraising events. However, while demand for BBBSN’s services was increasing, the number of people willing to volunteer their time was declining. Since BBBSN was a newly amalgamated organization that had combined three Niagara-region Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) agencies over the past two years, the fundraising and events coordinator of BBBSN also had to develop an integrated volunteer recruitment and fundraising program that would create a stronger voice for BBBS in the whole Niagara region.
In 2020, TDC NET, a subsidiary of the Danish telecommunications company TDC Group, established the Innovation Hub, a new organizational unit, together with its partner Ericsson Denmark. With the Innovation Hub, TDC NET sought to explore the business opportunities that the rollout of 5G, the fifth-generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks, offers in areas such as Industry 4.0 or the Internet of Things. TDC NET was proud to offer Denmark's best mobile network but margins in that business were low and competition was fierce. Offering value-added services around the implementation of 5G seemed much more attractive. But that would require the Innovation Hub to succeed with pilot projects in areas and industries that the employees working at the Hub had little knowledge about. How could they achieve this goal during the next two years? And, given the complex challenges, was the current setup of the Innovation Hub the right one or should it be organized differently?
Founded in 1874, Chr. Hansen (pronounced Christian Hansen) is a global biotech corporation specialized in the development and manufacturing of food cultures, enzymes, probiotics and natural colors for business customers in the food, pharmaceutical, agricultural and nutritional industries. Chr. Hansen has a long history as a traditional manufacturer selling to rather conservative customers, especially dairies and farms. At the time of the teaching case, the corporation just took note of the importance of digital transformation to meet its strategic goals. Installing a high-level digital transformation team, the corporation started to experiment with digital business models. A central part of the transformation was to learn how to use data as a strategic asset, which began with implementing so-called Master Data Management (MDM) as a corporate-wide capability. This would allow for a unified view on all aspects of the business based on reliable, high-quality data, which could then be used to innovate more data-driven business models. While initial experimentation in that direction delivered promising results, an audit by Ernst & Young showed that Chr. Hansen still had a long way to go in its efforts to establish MDM. As a first but decisive step, the Global Master Data unit was charged to develop master data about the customers. And it was then up to the head of the unit, Nina Bækbo Andersen, to take this challenge on and help Chr. Hansen to digitally transform from a traditional manufacturer to a data-driven business ready for the 21st century.
In 1954, Elise Sørensen, a home-care nurse, met with the plastic-packaging manufacturer Aage Louis-Hansen to discuss a new idea she had developed: a disposable ostomy bag made of the new wonder material, plastic. Aage was reluctant to become involved, but his wife convinced him to give Elise and her idea a chance. This was the beginning of a billion-euro global success. In 2022, the resulting company, Coloplast, had around 12,000 employees worldwide and turnover of more than EUR 2.5 billion from different medical products, with the ostomy bag as the core product. However, in the 1950s, Aage and Elise were just two people making decisions in a world of uncertainty where no one could predict the future. In short, they were in precisely the same situation as many of those working with start-ups in the 2020s. The case is untraditional, as it is not about a dilemma. Instead, it is designed to spur broader discussions about innovation and entrepreneurship. However, one dilemma that could be considered based on the case is plastic as a wonder material that makes life better versus plastic as problematic waste and part of an unsustainable petroculture. The ostomy bag made life better for millions, but was it also a good innovation from a global environmental perspective? Nevertheless, this dilemma is not the main focus of the case, where the history of Coloplast is told as a start-up story taking place in the mid-1950s. Students follow how Elise got the idea, how she met Aage, and how production began.
In 2022, food prices around the world were rising rapidly, and the war in Ukraine was threatening supplies of fertilizer and grain. In addition to this looming food crisis, in 2019 the EU had passed the European Green Deal with the objective of transforming the EU into a modern, resource-efficient, and competitive economy. The Green Deal included the Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy, which aimed to make food systems healthy and environmentally friendly. The objectives of the F2F strategy included reduced dependence on pesticides, antimicrobials, and fertilizers; increased organic farming; improved animal welfare; and a reversal of biodiversity loss. The F2F strategy was expected to significantly reduce European grain production and increase prices. It was also expected to lead to more locally produced protein crops in Europe and reduced imports of protein crops (mainly soybeans) from South America.
The case focuses on the competitive dynamics of the fast fashion industry and the strategic approaches adopted by major competitors within the domain of ultra-fast fashion. Set against the backdrop of major events that are reshaping fashion retailing, the case explores the business model adopted by Shein, the world's largest online fashion retailer, which in October 2022 was rumored to be on the cusp of an IPO. In 2021, Shein had sales of more than USD 15 billion, shipped clothing to more than 150 countries, and was one of the most famous clothing brands in the world. In addition, its shopping app was the world's most used, reaching roughly 17.5 million screens, more than twice the downloads for e-commerce giant Amazon.
Doubble is a Danish dating app founded in October 2021 by Dennis Rosenlund, a bachelor's student at Copenhagen Business School. Challenged by the Covid-19 pandemic and restrictions placed on in-person events, the first-semester student developed an app to facilitate "double dates." Users signed up for the app and connected to their friends. Then they looked for other pairs with which to have double dates. This made it easier to initiate contact by chat and reduced the awkwardness of first dates. Doubble's first users were Dennis's fellow university students. However, over time, network effects facilitated growth beyond this initial niche. The case allows for a discussion of effectuation principles at the earliest stage of venture development and the financing needs of new ventures, especially those with a platform-business model.
DNB Asset Management (DNB AM), which is based in the Nordic region, has introduced responsible investment strategies across its asset classes. In addition to funds and investments that follow responsible investment standards, DNB AM offers clients an assortment of sustainability-themed funds, including funds that invest in businesses tackling climate change. In May 2020, DNB AM introduced a new theme-sustainable oceans-which focused on eight sectors: Aquaculture & fisheries/seafood, Offshore oil & gas, Renewable marine energy (e.g. wind), Marine transport & shipping, Ship recycling & marine operations (inc. port acctivities), Deep-sea mining & marine-based biotechnology, Marine & costal tourism and Land-based activities with a significant influence on the oceans (e.g. mining, agriculture, chemicals, waste management and urban development).
On a fine winter morning in January 2021, in an office in downtown Copenhagen, Henrik Isaksen, the founder of GreenMobility, pondered the future of his company and his role in it. GreenMobility, a pioneer in electric vehicle (EV) car sharing, had established itself as an industry leader in Denmark and had taken the first steps towards globalizing its business. The company was operating in seven cities in four countries. Moreover, it had recently been listed on Nasdaq Copenhagen's Main Market and had plans to unroll operations in major European markets. However, Isaksen found himself at a crossroads. Despite some early success, the path to globalization had been fraught with challenges. GreenMobility did not have a proven business model. It had struggled with leadership challenges, with five different CEOs in as many years. The global pandemic, which started in 2019, had placed unprecedented strain on the entire transportation industry. GreenMobility needed a new strategy, not only to weather this turbulent period but also to continue expanding into new markets and establish itself as the global leader in the EV car-sharing segment. What approach to internationalization would best enable GreenMobility to achieve its ambition? Was Isaksen the person best suited to lead the company through the next stage of internationalization?
The Closet was founded as a subscription-based model in 2015. By 2022, it had almost 2,500 members and 8 stores, which the founder, Louise K. Liokouras, ran in collaboration with two franchisees and a diverse group of around 180 volunteers. The members had access to all eight stores, which were located across Denmark, and they could swap as much second-hand clothing in the stores as they wished. The vision was to reduce clothing-related waste, a vision that most of the volunteers felt very passionate about and were dedicated to. Despite the volunteers' engagement, it was difficult to ensure that they handled the daily tasks at the stores in the right way and were committed to completing their assigned shifts. As the numberof volunteers increased, so did the organizational-control issues. The informal and personal management style was becoming difficult to maintain. The founder therefore asked the volunteers about their motivation and wanted to integrate that information into potential solutions to the various issues.