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SparkPlace is a two-year-old business with a hot new product: software that manages and measures the effectiveness of permission-based marketing campaigns for social media. The company is in the process of deciding on which of two customer segments to focus its strategy. Each segment has demonstrable advantages, but developing the product for and marketing to both segments simultaneously could pose big challenges. Is the argument against being "all things to all people" a valid one? If so, which customer segment should SparkPlace target? Or is there a single strategy that can capture the potential value of both types of customers without draining the company's resources? These questions are at the heart of this fictionalized case by Jill Avery, of the Simmons School of Management, and Thomas Steenburgh, of the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Expert commentary comes from regular HBR contributor Roger Martin, of the University of Toronto, and from Mike Volpe, chief marketing officer at HubSpot, the company on which SparkPlace is based.

SparkPlace is a two-year-old business with a hot new product: software that manages and measures the effectiveness of permission-based marketing campaigns for social media. The company is in the process of deciding on which of two customer segments to focus its strategy. Each segment has demonstrable advantages, but developing the product for and marketing to both segments simultaneously could pose big challenges. Is the argument against being "all things to all people" a valid one? If so, which customer segment should SparkPlace target? Or is there a single strategy that can capture the potential value of both types of customers without draining the company's resources? These questions are at the heart of this fictionalized case by Jill Avery, of the Simmons School of Management, and Thomas Steenburgh, of the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Expert commentary comes from regular HBR contributor Roger Martin, of the University of Toronto, and from Mike Volpe, chief marketing officer at HubSpot, the company on which SparkPlace is based.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Many people in the information technology world believe that "big data"will give companies new capabilities and value. But companies have been dealing with an exponentially increasing amount of data, and much of it in forms that are impossible to manage by traditional analytics. "Big data"includes information such as call center voice data, social media content and video entertainment, as well as clickstream data from the web. The authors posit that organizations that are learning to take advantage of big data are beginning to understand their business environments at a more granular level, are creating new products and services, and are responding more quickly to change as it occurs. These companies stand apart from those with traditional data analysis environments in three critical ways. First, rather than looking at data to assess what happened in the past, these organizations consider data in terms of flows and processes, and make decisions and take actions quickly. In addition, organizations already involved with big data are taking a lead on hiring -and training -data scientists and product and process developers as opposed to data analysts. And finally, advanced organizations are moving analytics from IT into their core business and operational functions. As big data evolves, a new information ecosystem is also evolving, a network that is continuously sharing information, optimizing decisions, communicating results and generating new insights for businesses.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. In this article, the authors show that although the use of social media can be an extremely valuable way to enrich a company's culture and enhance its productivity, it isn't a sure thing. Based on a survey of 1,060 executives about their experience with social media and a number of indepth qualitative case studies, the authors argue that the main reason some social media initiatives fail to bring benefits to companies is because the initiatives don't create emotional capital, which they define as a strong emotional connection between stakeholders and the company. In the end, social media is still media -that is, mediums of communication -and those new mediums can be used as badly and counterproductively as any traditional mode. To show how companies can create a winning strategy, the authors contrast the experiences of two companies -an unnamed technology company and Tupperware Nordic, the Scandinavian branch of the kitchenware company. The technology company focused on software to facilitate social networking, not on using those new tools to build communities. It also tended to communicate in ways employees found insincere. Between insincere messages from the executive team and easier communication with other disgruntled employees, the initiative had no real positive effects for the company. Tupperware, by contrast, used the technology to help the company convey community spirit to its sales associates and took advantage of social media's unique ability to foster better vertical and horizontal communication.The authors conclude that although social media can help create closer and more dynamic stakeholder relationships, success with an online community requires a leader who can build emotional capital and who values community building as a means of creating economic value.

With the growth of social media, influencing consumer preferences and purchase decisions through online social networks and word of mouth is an increasingly important part of every marketer's job. Companies such as Geico, Dell and eBay are adapting the traditional one-way advertising message and using it as a stepping-stone to begin a two-way dialogue with consumers via social media. Marketers know that theoretically, social media should be a powerful way to generate sustainable, positive word-of-mouth marketing. If marketers can only select the right social media platform, design the right message and engage the right users to spread that message, their campaign should be a success. But until now, that's been a big if. The authors propose a seven-step framework for success in social media marketing campaigns. Their framework involves identifying social media users who are not only influential but also particularly interested in the company's product or service category and then recruiting and incentivizing those influencers to talk about the company's product or service. The authors describe the implementation of their seven-step framework at Hokey Pokey Ice Cream Creations, an upscale ice-cream retailer with more than a dozen outlets across India. Hokey Pokey's social media campaign resulted in substantial increases in brand awareness, social media ROI and sales revenue growth rate for the company. The authors also explain three new metrics they developed for use in social media marketing campaigns: the Customer Influence Effect, which measures the influence a social media user has on other users in the network; the Stickiness Index, which helps identify social media users who actively discuss the company's product or service category; and Customer Influence Value, which helps measure the monetary gain or loss realized by a company in social marketing campaigns by accounting for an individual's influence on purchases by other customers and prospects.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. In a recent data and analytics survey conducted by MIT Sloan Management Review in partnership with SAS Institute Inc., the authors found a strong correlation between the value companies say they generate using analytics and the amount of data they use. Combining the responses to several survey questions, they identified five levels of analytics sophistication, with those at Level 5 being most sophisticated and innovative. These analytical innovators in Level 5 had several defining characteristics. First, they tended to use more data than other groups. In fact, they were three times more likely than the 8% of those respondents who fell into the Level 1 category to say they used a great deal or all of their data. Second, there was a strong correlation between driving competitive advantage and innovation with analytics and how effective a company is at managing what the authors term "the information transformation cycle."This cycle refers to the process of capturing data, analyzing information, aggregating and integrating data, using insights to guide future strategy and disseminating information and insights. Respondents who fell into the Level 5 category also had a stronger need for speed than other survey respondents. Eighty-seven percent reported that the ability to process and analyze data more quickly was very important. Utilizing speed fell into three separate areas: customer experience, pricing strategy and innovation. Another intriguing finding from the survey involved the cultural impact on organizations. Some respondents reported that the use of analytics is shifting the power structure within their organizations. Analytical innovators, as a group, tended to be more likely than other groups to say that analytics has started to shift the power structure in their organizations.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Planning for post-merger integration typically focuses on operational issues, such as harmonizing product lines and financial and human resource information systems, and determining which employees are retained and which ones are let go. Attention is also paid to the identity of the merged enterprise in a superficial sense. The name of the acquirer may be retained, or a new logo may be created or a new name found. But for organizations to achieve the psychological synergies required to realize economic synergies from mergers and acquisitions, the authors argue that executives need to attend to a more complex, deeper set of identity issues. These issues define the essence of the entity and give employees a clear answer to the question "Who are we?"and external stakeholders a clear answer to the question "Who are they?"The first question refers to an organization's members'view of what makes it unique among all other organizations. The second question captures what external audiences believe is the essence of the organization. Left unattended, these deeper identity issues will diminish engagement and will inevitably affect the performance of the merged entity. Operational integration post-merger is a necessary but not sufficient condition for successful performance. Careful attention to identity integration is also essential for success. The authors argue that there is no "one best way"and that in fact there are four distinct paths that can be followed to achieve identity integration: assimilation, federation, confederation and metamorphosis. Each of these paths represents a particular combination of the answers to two questions that managers must confront in anticipation of a merger or acquisition: What should be done with the identities that the parties to the merger bring with them (in other words, their historical identities)? And how should a common identity for the future be built?

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article.

The case documents a board room scenario where the Directors of PEN, a not-for profit organization, have met to re-consider an important decision; either wait for the city government's approval regarding allotment of government schools or consider other options, such as building own schools. Having completed several rounds of unsuccessful negotiations with the City District Government of Lahore (CDGL) the founders are feeling agitated and disappointed. Hence, at this point, the members are considering the organizational models of CARE and TCF; two well-known NGOs of Pakistan, and aim to finalize the strategic decision, based on the assessment of the two organizational models, given PEN's mission, vision, organizational, human resource, and financial capabilities.

David Liniger, cofounder of RE/MAX, LLC., wondered if his business was prepared to exploit the next wave of business opportunities in the real estate market. This industry had moved from one in which broker/owners controlled all of the consumers' access to information, to an industry in which the agents were empowered as independent contractors with a fee-based obligation to the brokers, to an industry in which the buyer and seller have direct access to and control of information. Could RE/MAX use the next wave of IT to support its agents while also reaching out to today's well-informed and tech-savvy home buyers and sellers? Would a shift towards direct consumer support jeopardize RE/MAX's franchise sales and agent recruitment and retention?

The management of Germany's Brainlab AG, a leading provider of software-driven oncology and surgery solutions, needs to evaluate strategic options for proceeding without an exclusive hardware partner in its most profitable business segment.

This case is used in Darden's required EMBA first-year Marketing course. It can also be used in course modules covering Pricing or Brand Management. In the case. a financial analyst considers a presentation by an investor in J. C. Penney and the implications of the company's turnaround strategy. This case provides an alternative approach to the market positioning discussion in the two-part case, "J. C. Penney: Reinventing Fair and Square Deals (A and B)" (UVA-M-0835 and UVA-M-0836). It includes the views of the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, who holds more than 18% of the company's stock and believes the company is poised for a major turnaround.

Danshui Plant No. 2 in southern China has a one-year contract with Apple Inc. to assemble 2.4 million iPhones. In the first three months of the contract, the plant is unable to assemble as many phones as expected and is operating at a loss. The plant manager must analyze the budget and prepare a summary of monthly operations to help identify the source of performance problems. The plant has had difficulty hiring enough workers despite raising wages over 30%. In addition, the assembly process for an iPhone is complicated, with 140 steps involving over 100 components. The plant manager considers whether a flexible budget would be more useful for uncovering problems than the static budget currently being used. Students must perform break-even and flexible budget analyses and calculate price and usage variances as they consider solutions for the plant's problems with the iPhone contract. This case, which explores the challenges of outsourcing manufacturing, can be used as an introduction to managerial accounting.

This is one exercise in a 4-part series entitled Job Offer Negotiation Exercises. This exercise gives participants the opportunity to act as the Maximum Motivation candidate in a job offer negotiation. The purpose of this role-play case series is to give participants the opportunity to experience a job offer negotiation as both the job candidate and the employer. The exercise involves two distinct negotiation scenarios, allowing participants the opportunity to play both roles and to practice and apply concepts and skills learned in the first negotiation session. If desired, only one of the two scenarios can be negotiated if only one hour is available for the activity. One negotiation occurs for a job with a company called Maximum Motivation (A and B cases) and the other is for a job with a company called People Power (C and D cases). Participants work in pairs, with one playing the role of the job candidate and the other playing the role of the company representative. In both scenarios, the company considers the candidate to be the top applicant and would like to finalize the hire. Also in both scenarios, the job candidate has an acceptable alternative - another job offer from a rival company called PerformanceMax - and needs to accept or decline the PerformanceMax offer the next day. Thus, it is important that both sides reach an acceptable employment arrangement during this negotiation, or the candidate will not be hired. When both sides have negotiated an acceptable agreement, or when either partner decides to end the negotiation, the negotiation is over. After group discussion, participants find a different partner who last played the opposite role, switch roles, and complete the second negotiation scenario.

Supplement for case W12227,

Supplement for case W12227 and W12228

Supplement for case W12227, W12228 and W12229

Valuation of a pre-revenue biotech company at IPO using probability trees and real option techniques. Company is based in Massachusetts and lists in London on AIM. Products are genetically-modified fast-growing salmon for fish farmers and disease-prevention drugs and diagnostic kits for farmed shrimp.