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The case describes KKR's Green Portfolio Program, one of the firm's environmental initiatives, which has achieved $160 million in cost savings. While pleased with its progress in achieving greater energy efficiency and reduced carbon emissions, the firm is looking for other ways to expand its sustainability initiatives, such as in its supply chain and incorporating sustainability into its due diligence and deal making processes.

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This case showcases key decisions in promoting the re-launch of Brisk, a ready-to-drink iced tea by Pepsi-Lipton. The decisions are: creative, media and metrics selection. It also deals with budget allocation to traditional (Super Bowl, television) and new (viral ads and social) media.

The note explains how bundled health care payment differs from fee-for-service payment; provides examples of the difference between the two; describes early innovators in bundling and their results; provides guidance on how to make it happen; and elucidates the legal issues bundling raises. Bundled payment will replace virtually all other health care payment formats. This note explains how and why.

This case is set inside IBM Research's efforts to build a computer that can successfully take on human challengers playing the game show Jeopardy! It opens with the machine named Watson offering the incorrect answer "Toronto" to a seemingly simple question during the championship match. Was the answer a reflection of a strategic weakness, or was it actually consistent with design principles established by the development team? The case seeks to expand students' view of the product development process. Traditional software development projects begin with the gathering of requirements and analysis of the problem, and the writing of a detailed specification. The Jeopardy! problem is different - it requires a probabilistic approach where there is no closed form solution. Instead statistical patterns in the data are important and there is no obvious mapping to the way queries are expressed. Such problems are increasingly common in data mining, optimization problems, or Internet applications where the goal is to find an acceptably good solution in a short amount of time, when a deterministic approach might be less fruitful or impractical. We aspire for students to recognize that product development can take many forms, and that these are enabled by creativity and the right organizational flexibility and mindset. The case highlights the key role of performance metrics in building a flexible system that could be refined through experimentation and testing, steadily improving performance with the incorporation of new algorithmic ideas and new data sources. The case then delves extensively into the analysis of the "Toronto" failure and why the answer that Watson produced was a rational product of a sound strategy. This leaves students to judge the generality of the strategy and its applicability to important business problems.

West Ham United are an English football team that competed to win the right to move their games to play in the stadium being constructed for the 2012 London Olympics. They secured financial support from the local government and the backing of the U.K. athletics. West Ham's rival bidder, Tottenham Hotspurs, presented a strong business case for the move and required no public support. West Ham despite this, won the right to move. The case focuses on ensuring fan acceptance of the move.

Suitable for both MBA- and undergraduate-level courses such as integrated marketing communications, this case traces a product from idea to established, successful brand. A spirits industry executive perceives a gap between the under-$10 and the $25-and-up "prestige" vodkas. In this case he explores whether he could quantify the financial value of the awards his product has won. Would that be a good basis for the design of future campaigns: Decisions on pricing, target, distribution, branding, and promotion are considered in the A case (UVA-M-0774). The B case (UVA-M-0775) presents the results, which include the important benchmark of one million case sales by 2006. It also presents the founder's assessment of which initial decisions were most critical and explores the new choices he faces, including changes to the distribution channels and additions to the product line.

This note provides information on Six Sigma and business improvement at Dominion Resources, Inc., including many examples of the CEO Tom Farrell's personal commitment and support. It can be used in executive education leadership programs and business courses in operations management in discussions about Six Sigma program elements that help sustain a culture of continuous improvement and deliver extraordinary business results. Ten years after its launch at Dominion Resources, Inc., Six Sigma, is one of the nation's most widely recognized initiatives having been cited for audited hard savings, integration into corporate culture, percentage of employees trained, sustained management support, and employee recognition.

An industry adage held that "there are two types of rental car companies: those that lose money and Enterprise." The company that would become Enterprise Rent-A-Car was started in 1957 in St. Louis, Missouri, by Jack Taylor. Taylor set up Enterprise offices in neighborhoods rather than at airports because he believed that Americans would welcome a local option for renting cars when their own vehicles were being repaired. In 2010 Enterprise had more than 6,000 rental locations in the United States and a fleet of 850,000 cars in service. Its parent, Enterprise Holdings (comprising Enterprise, National, and Alamo brands) accounted for nearly half of the car rental market and was more than twice the size of Hertz, the number two competitor. Enterprise's competitive advantage was the result of the combination of its practices in hiring, training, compensation, organization, customer service, IT, and fleet management, among others.

The manager of the Sony VAIO personal computer in China has been given two segmentation studies. One study is country-specific and product-specific. The other is a global segmentation study, which covers all regions and all of Sony's many consumer electronics. Which segmentation study should the manager rely on-or is there a way to rely on both? After deciding which study is best, which consumer should the manager target, and with what position?

This is part of a case series. This case describes the strategic transformation of DESSO, a Dutch manufacturer of carpet tiles and flooring solutions. The first part of the case describes the difficult situation in which the company found itself in the early 2000s, following a series of changes in ownership. It focuses on the strategic vision developed by Stef Kranendijk, the company's new CEO, as he takes over the company in 2007. An important element of this vision is to make sustainability a key driver of DESSO's innovation strategy. The case highlights the process that led DESSO to consider a Cradle to Cradle(R) approach as well as the potential issues this new orientation raised for important stakeholders, including employees, board members, customers and suppliers. The second part of the case provides some updates as to DESSO's situation in 2010. It describes the short-term results of Kranendijk's strategic vision and how it transformed DESSO's business model. It also gives details on the implementation of the new strategy and the challenges still ahead.

Supplement to case LBS138

The case describes Nokia's spectacular rise and fall, shedding light on the combination of external factors and internal decisions that resulted in the company's handset business being sold to Microsoft in 2010. During the successful period of growth (roughly 1990 through to 2006), Nokia's focus on design and functionality gained it a worldwide reputation. It was acknowledged as the first smartphone manufacturer. Through the early-mid 2000s it was the undisputed leader in the global mobile phone business. The case traces the first signs of trouble and the company's subsequent decline over the period 2005 to 2010. Pressure in the early 2000s from low-end competitors led to early signs of problems. Then of course the game changed in 2007 with Apple's iPhone and a year later with phones powered by Google's Android operating system from HTC, Samsung and others. Nokia was initially dismissive of these new offerings but its proprietary OS, Symbian, was ageing badly and its App store (Ovi) was no match for Apple's. In September 2010 it was announced that American Stephen Elop, formerly of Microsoft, would become CEO. Not long afterwards a partnership with Microsoft was signed which subsequently led to Nokia's handset business being sold to Microsoft.

A few years back, a seminal report came out, warning that India and China were educating thousands more innovators per year than the Western world and urging the U.S. to focus more on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. While this movement has since gained in strength, the authors show that there is little evidence to support it. They argue that great innovators like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg embrace both the Sciences (how things work) and the Arts (how people work), and in addition, they learn to think in ways that enable them to build new models that connect the two spheres. Teaching the model-building skill of Integrative Thinking, they argue, entails going beyond both hysteria about STEM and nostalgia about the Liberal Arts. The central goal of modern education must be the building of an 'integrative capacity', and the country that builds it first and best will enjoy the prosperity benefits.

In this interview, the director of Lincoln Centre's educational initiatives argues that what we think is what we see: most of us interpret new information in ways that bend toward our preconceptions and confirm them, and this tendancy shapes how we move through the world as individuals. Unfortunately, this tendency is magnified exponentially when we join together in groups. He provides several tools for avoiding such 'path dependence'-- including thinking inside the box and 'making room for awe' -- and explains why imagination is our greatest renewable resource.

Businesses would look quite different if managers thought like designers, the authors argue. For one, they would always begin with empathy - a deep understanding of their customer. Secondly, they would view themselves as creators of new-to-the-world products and services. And third, they would be in the habit of iterating their way to a solution - 'learning as they go' and incorporating the new learning into the next iteration. While many managers appreciate the power of design, a formal process has been elusive; until now. The authors describe a four-step process for bringing design thinking to life that begins with asking, 'What if?' and ends with asking 'What Works?' - the launch and learn stage. In the end, they show that an unavoidable but healthy tension will always exist between creating the new and preserving the best of the present, and as a manager, your key challenge is to learn how to manage that tension.

The 2.6 billion global citizens living on less than $2 a day face considerable barriers to effective healthcare, including limited health insurance, low health literacy, and residence in slums or remote areas that are frequently underserved. The authors describe how some highly innovative private healthcare companies have considered these barriers in the design of their products or services. They show that organizations such as India's Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital achieve their innovations by addressing three functional areas concurrently: marketing, finance and operations. They describe the four shared characteristics of these business models and show how these 'innovative exemplars' can inspire innovation across industries.

The ancient Eastern concept of Zen represents an entirely different way of looking at the world. When most of us approach problems, we focus on what is there, and what to do, rather than on what isn't there, and what to stop doing. The author argues that by shifting to the Zen perspective, we realize that when it comes to a product, service, strategy or experience--what isn't there can often be as or more powerful than what is. He provides an introduction to the seven key Zen sensibilities and sketches their evolution from and incorporation into art, architecture and commercial and corporate design.

Few people will be surprised to hear that the number-one reason for customer complaints these days is poor service: long wait times, impersonal delivery, inconvenient hours and locations - the list goes on. Perhaps this is because everything from marketing slogans ("have it your way," "affordable luxury") to new technologies ("always-on," "on demand") has led us to believe that the customer is always right, no matter what. But the same trends that have led us to expect instant gratification are also enabling businesses to develop innovative models for accommodating customers' intensified demands. The authors introduce the concept of Collaborative Service and show how it provides an opportunity to discover what is truly meaningful to your customers and design category-changing service gestures that not only better serve people, but also make a strong statement about your brand.