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One of the biggest logistics services providers in Colombia, Servientrega started out as a one-man courier operation on the streets of Bogota in 1982. Jesus Guerrero, an enterprising messenger boy, set up his own delivery service at the age of 18. After attracting more clients than he could handle, he persuaded his sister Luz Mary to join the company and invest her savings in exchange for half of the shares. Before long, Servientrega was growing so fast that they employed other siblings. Jesus gave one brother a 5% share in the business, expecting his sister to do the same. However, she held on to her 50% and used her majority shareholder position to take over, forcing her brother out of the CEO job. Jesus began acquiring new logistics operations that he consolidated into the Guerrero Group, which today has 39 subsidiaries (including Servientrega) and employs 28,500 people. The lawsuits that plagued the former partners and put their venture at risk ultimately prompted Jesus to launch a competitor to Servientrega, RedServi.

By 2017, pervasive mobile connectivity and the rise of the on-demand economy resulted in an explosion of businesses attempting to fulfill immediate consumer demand in the food delivery market. A broad, secular shift was occurring: Online or mobile orders were rapidly replacing the traditional method of picking up the phone to call in takeout and delivery orders. Still, concerns began to arise as market participants struggled to raise funding amid an uncertain investing climate in 2016. Meanwhile, despite rapid consolidation amongst industry players, the market remained highly competitive with up to a half-dozen players vying for customer attention in some locations. In addition, the arrival of logistics platforms, Uber and Amazon, into the food delivery space posed a serious competitive threat, while companies in segments not in direct competition, such as local delivery platform Postmates, continued to chip away at market share. As a result, questions arose regarding the long-term profitability of food delivery businesses. Specifically, observers wondered whether the businesses could make money, who was best positioned in the marketplace, and what aspects of each business model would prove to be an essential competitive edge. This case examines the challenges facing the on-demand food delivery market. It provides a brief history of food delivery, an industry overview, a summary of predominant food delivery models and predominant U.S. food delivery companies, an in-depth look at industry trends, and a brief view toward the future of online food delivery.

In early 2017, camera manufacturer GoPro stunned investors by reporting its first recorded annual profit loss and a revenue forecast that sharply missed analyst estimates. What had once been widely heralded as one of the biggest initial public offerings of 2014, tripling in price in just over three months following the June IPO, the stock had tumbled 90.7 percent by the end of 2016. A series of camera pricing mistakes, altered product release schedules, and lower marketing spend, set against a backdrop of relative market saturation, negatively impacted demand for GoPro cameras. In fiscal year 2016 alone, units shipped and revenues both declined by nearly 30 percent, a remarkable reversal from the early days, when revenues more than doubled each year following the company's 2004 launch. While sales of GoPro cameras declined, its brand remained one of the most revered in the world. As a result, Tony Bates, director and former president of GoPro, mulled over ideas for leveraging the brand beyond the camera. For Bates, this meant potentially launching a new product using the existing GoPro brand in a different category. While it seemed easy enough, GoPro had to consider where to extend the business in a way that made sense for the company's core demographic. GoPro also had to determine whether to license the brand to others or partner with another company. Given the consumer-centric roots of the company and the evolution of the brand, there was a lot to consider. This case examines the challenges facing GoPro in the face of falling sales, and how best to leverage its increasingly popular brand. It provides a brief background of the company, the evolution of the brand, a description of early attempts to grow the brand, models for licensing the brand, how best to implement a licensing model, the need to protect the brand, as well as two case studies using Red Bull and Virgin Group as examples of successful brand extensions.

From Canada to Australia, Denmark to Singapore, governments are embracing insights from Behavioural Economics to improve the lives of their citizens. The authors describe the basics of 'Choice Architecture' and show that testing different 'nudges' with users provides an outlet to review the status quo and improve interactions with the public.

Behavioral Economics pioneer Richard Thaler, the co-author of the best-seller Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, talks about the origins of the field, his key findings over a 40-year career and the importance of 'nudging for good.'

Every organization is in the same business: changing peoples' behavior. Do you want your customers to do something specific? Make it easy! The author, who heads up the UK's Behavioural Insights Unit-widely recognized as the world's most advanced practitioner in this arena-shows why governments are slowly embracing this proven principle; and other organizations should, too.

When looking to assess the impact of radical technological change, the key is to ask yourself, What is this reducing the cost of? Only then can you determine what might really change. The authors-key players in the University of Toronto's Creative Destruction Lab-argue that in the case of Artificial Intelligence, the answer is prediction. They show how this is posing a slew of new challenges for managers and employees alike.

The standard economic view suggests that people will commit to an action if the expected benefits outweigh the costs. But the authors show that this model is incomplete in an important way: It overlooks how actions come to mind. Before you weigh the costs and benefits of an action, what cognitive processes lead you to think of it in the first place? They show that, if we can understand what leads people to consider a particular action, we can design interventions that lead them to think of different possibilities.

In our daily lives we frequently face a tension between what we want to do (i.e. what we desire) and what we believe we should do. The authors summarize the key findings on 'want/should conflict' and discuss a series of interventions that policymakers, organizations, and individuals can use to promote more future-oriented, should choices. In the end, they show that the better we understand want/should conflict, the more successful we will be at designing effective interventions that shift behaviors in societally-beneficial directions.

Eric Kirzner interviews two of North America's leading value investors-Charles Brandes and Kim Shannon-about the current value investing environment, market efficiency, and how some things-like human behavior-never change.

When we want to learn a new skill in life, we try out a new behaviour. Some behaviours fulfill their intended purpose; others do not. Feedback-signals from the environment that tell us whether or not the behaviour we produced had the intended effect-is essential to changing, adapting or modifying human behaviour. That's what learning is all about. Learning theorists and practitioners agree that feedback is a prime enabler of learning. Yet in higher education, it is spotty, ill-timed or utterly missing. The authors-who head up the Self-Development Lab at the University of Toronto-show what can be done about it.

By embracing a vigilant mindset as a 'default state' and employing four tools-including 'asking lots of questions' and 'attending to artful dodges'-managers in any industry can develop a keen ability to notice unethical behaviour. The authors show that this is a critical step towards reducing both 'bounded ethicality' and 'bounded awareness' in today's organizations.

Consumer-facing companies in developed economies have experienced little to no growth since the global recession of 2008. As a result, the smartest of the bunch are now increasingly looking outward, trying to spur growth by turning to new sources of customer insight-including 'implicit' data such as biometrics, 'structured' batches of Big Data such as online behaviour and 'unstructured' data such as social media and call centre conversations. They provide advice for re-wiring the customer insight function in an organization.

Sembcorp Industries, a Singapore conglomerate with assets of over S$22 billion, was undergoing a change in leadership. Tang Kin Fei retired as group president and CEO in April 2017 after 30 years with the company. Overseas operations accounted for 63% of their Utilities business' net profit, which formed the bulk of group earnings in 2016. Sembcorp's global power portfolio had doubled in the last five years. Rapidly developing economies, hungry for energy to fuel growth and urbanisation, were their key targets. There were growing concerns on the execution risks of developing a project pipeline in these markets and the environmental, social and governance (ESG) challenges involved. Sustaining their growth path might not simply be a matter of building on past success and replicating their business model overseas. How would they manage the inherent risks and complexities of the emerging markets, namely India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and China, albeit ripe with opportunities?

In the fall of 2016, with the January 2017 deadline to file bills fast approaching, State Senator Jason Lewis was contemplating the details of a sugary drink legislative proposal in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Senator Lewis had a particular interest in legislative efforts to contain healthcare costs and prevent chronic disease through prevention and wellness approaches. He was particularly concerned about the rising levels of sugary drink consumption and associated conditions of obesity, diabetes, and dental caries, considering such drinks "a uniquely toxic food." As an experienced legislator he knew he was facing a tough battle and wanted to take an approach that would give the bill the best chance of succeeding. Senator Lewis explained, "Massachusetts should be leading the legislative effort to reduce sugary drink consumption in the Northeast. Significant opposition from the beverage industry is expected, but we have a real chance of making progress at the local and state levels."

Delta Plastics of the South developed a new software product, Pipe Planner, which was complementary to its core product, Polytube, used by farmers to irrigate crops in the delta region of Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Pipe Planner helped farmers by calculating, for any particular field, the size of pipe needed, how to punch holes in the pipe and how long to irrigate. Using the software could lower the farmer's cost of irrigating by up to 25 percent particularly through savings of fuel and time. It also conserved water, an important issue for delta farmers. The software was a significant improvement to PHAUCET, a similar but free government program already in limited use in the delta. Company leadership was sure that the product would have a strong market, but sales were discouraging with fewer than 200,000 acres (less than three percent of the market) under Pipe Planner management after three years of development efforts. Company leaders must decide if Delta Plastics should continue to invest money and resources in Pipe Planner, and if so, how to market and encourage use of the Pipe Planner program software by farmers. In this case the students can study the initial failure of diffusion of a market innovation and analyze the factors that led to that failure in a particular social context-farmers in the delta region. The case is suitable for use in a class on communication, or product innovation and marketing, for upper level undergraduates or graduate students. Students use the diffusion of innovation analysis to propose and evaluate options for Delta Plastics regarding next steps in the marketing and promotion of Pipe Planner within its core market.

In late October 2012 the board of directors of Spanish industrial conglomerate Inveravante (IV) were set to have a meeting to examine the situation regarding an investment IV had made in Venezuelan oil company Vetra, and to consider possible ways to divest said company. As managing director of Avantegenera, one of the business units of IV, Luis García was appointed to present realistic options for divesting Vetra to the board of directors of IV, offering a valuation of Vetra and recommendations for the future. He knew that the members of the board believed that it was time for a change and to finally make some profit from the investment in Vetra. Since the proposal to invest in Vetra had been made to the board by Mr. García some years earlier, he was very keen to bring the venture to a successful completion.

The CIO of Fintech, Inc. -a billing-and-payment processing service for the alcoholic beverages industry must choose a cloud services provider for a new application for Fintech's clients. The CIO sees this initiative as a useful first step to take before moving other resources and services into the cloud. His staff briefs him on three providers: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Each provider offers services which fit Fintech's requirements, yet with important differences. The Fintech case addresses the perspective of a company purchasing cloud computing services, as opposed to a vendor selling cloud computing services. It offers the added benefit of describing an important specialist intermediary in the highly regulated and complex US alcoholic beverages industry. The case has been tested in MIS and IT Management classes in undergraduate, MBA, MS-IT and DBA programs. It introduces cloud concepts (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS), and provides an opportunity for students to consider technical, economic, operational and strategic factors when making mission-critical IT decisions such as moving an important application to the cloud. Students can also consider how to mitigate risks associated with particular providers. The instructor can use it to introduce students to pilot testing and issues in vendor selection and ongoing management. After considering strengths and weaknesses of each provider and the provider selection process, the instructor can ask students to recommend a provider and/or other steps Kwo should take before making a final decision.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. To succeed in the long run, businesses need to create and leverage some kind of sustainable competitive edge. Although the authors say that advantages can still come from sources such as lower cost, intellectual property, motivated employees, and strategic leaders, they argue that in the knowledge economy, strategic advantages will increasingly depend on a capacity to make superior judgments and choices. Intelligent enterprises today are being shaped by two distinct forces. The first is the growing power of computers and big data, which provide the foundation for operations research, forecasting models, and artificial intelligence. The second is our growing understanding of human judgment, reasoning, and choice. Decades of research has yielded deep insights into what humans do well or poorly. In this article, the authors examine how managers can combine human intelligence with technology-enabled insights to make smarter choices in the face of uncertainty and complexity and thus gain a cumulative advantage in business. They note five strategic capabilities that intelligent enterprises can use to develop an advantage over competitors: 1. Find the strategic edge. In assessing past organizational forecasts, home in on areas where improving subjective predictions can really move the needle. 2. Run prediction tournaments. Discover the best forecasting methods by encouraging competition, experimentation, and innovation among teams. 3. Model the experts in your midst. Identify the people internally who have demonstrated superior insights into key business areas, and leverage their wisdom using simple linear models. 4. Experiment with artificial intelligence. Use deep neural nets in limited task domains to outperform human experts. 5. Change the way the organization operates. Promote an exploratory culture that continually looks for better ways to combine the capabilities of humans and machines.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Across the world, people today are living longer. Whether it is in the United States, China, or Rwanda, average human life expectancy has increased over the past few decades. There is growing awareness that increasing longevity will have major implications for how people manage their work lives and careers. Rising life expectancy means the level of savings required to provide a reasonable income for retirement at age 65 is becoming increasingly infeasible for many people. Given the average level of savings, the authors say, many workers in their mid-40s are likely to need to work into their early to mid-70s; many currently in their 20s may work into their late 70s, and even into their 80s. Although people are starting to recognize that they will have to restructure their lives and careers, corporations are unprepared. Few organizations have taken full account of the opportunities and challenges longevity brings to their own workforces. Most companies, especially those operating in the advanced economies, still view life in terms of three stages: full-time education, full-time work, and then a "hard stop"retirement around the age of 65. This is the life structure that emerged in the 20th century and continues to underpin much thinking about the workforce. But in the view of the authors, it cannot be stretched to support a healthy 100-year life and will need to be expanded to include more stages. Without change, the authors argue, employees will struggle to build a working life that has resilience over an extended period of time and that will support a healthy and prosperous longevity. For example, as working lives become longer, the need for lifelong learning will increase.