Set in March 2024, this case asks students to take the perspective of Oli cofounder and CEO Sathish Gangichetty as he approaches an impact investor for seed funding. Oli is an app that draws on artificial intelligence (AI) to improve users' mental hygiene through short daily interactions. The case describes Gangichetty's inspiration for creating the app and provides an overview of the app's features. The case promotes a discussion of the benefits and drawbacks of AI wellness programs at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. A feature that will be a benefit for some stakeholders may be a weakness for others. There is a tension between AI user privacy and organizational or societal safety. Therefore, individuals involved in AI development, implementation, and use must make tradeoffs about which features-and stakeholders-they will prioritize for a given product. This analysis provides a framework for evaluating an AI tool's impact on different stakeholders, and highlights the factors that business leaders must consider when implementing a new AI product in their organization. At Darden, this case is taught in "Minds and Machines," an elective course for second-year MBA students. The course draws on research from psychology and AI to teach students how to responsibly use AI in their future careers as business leaders. The course assesses AI's impact on individuals, organizations, and society, and highlights both the opportunities and the risks involved in AI development and implementation. This case would also be suitable for MBA and executive education courses on leadership and technology, AI and organizational culture, and ethics and technology.
This case, a follow-up to "Matteo Hill at Drawn, Inc. (A)" (UVA-OB-1293), continues the debate about sharing the raw responses from employee pulse surveys. The decision becomes more complicated after the company releases a new round of raw survey results that contain three wildly different opinions about Drawn, Inc.'s, DEI efforts. The new results highlight the challenge of summarizing or editing the raw survey data, yet also make it clear that the raw survey data will continue to contain divisive and potentially offensive remarks. At the conclusion of the case, Drawn's leadership team remains divided about the best path forward.
This case provides an overview of a sales transformation in the industrial automation division at Belden, a hardware manufacturer. While Belden historically sold products such as cables, wires, and other networking devices, EVP of Industrial Automation Ashish Chand recognized that IT vendors were threatening to enter the hardware market. Thus, Chand initiated Enhanced Solutions Delivery (ESD), which pivoted Belden from selling products to selling solutions to optimize customers' networks. ESD required Belden to change its sales cycle, its approach to hiring, pricing model, and compensation structure. The case explores how Belden's leadership team implemented these changes, and how Belden navigated its changing relationship with channel partners and distribution partners.
This case describes the efforts of City Football Group (CFG) to purchase Esporte Clube Bahia (Bahia), a Brazilian professional soccer club. CFG's strategy was to acquire under-performing clubs worldwide, invest money in high-profile players, and improve the teams' performances. The company also aimed to develop young players on its lower-tier teams and then funnel them to Manchester City, its highest-performing team, once they matured. CFG instructed the teams to follow a similar style of play and, in some cases, changed teams' jerseys and names to conform to CFG's brand. Purchasing Bahia presented the opportunity to gain a foothold in Brazilian soccer, an under-monetized market poised for rapid growth. Yet Bahia was a mid-tier team with no star players. It was also unclear whether Bahia's fans and players would meld with CFG's culture and expectations. At the conclusion of the case, CFG CEO Ferran Soriano discovers that the price for Bahia is significantly higher than reports had initially indicated. Is the club worth the price?
In June 2021, Kim T. Folsom, the founder and CEO of revenue-based financing firm Founders First Capital Partners (FFCP), must decide whether to issue another loan to OnShore Technology Group, an up-and-coming software validation company. FFCP provided revenue-based financing (RBF) to small businesses, with a particular focus on diverse entrepreneurs. OnShore Founder Valarie King-Bailey had previously taken an RBF loan, and had requested a second round of capital from FFCP. The case provides an overview of the advantages and disadvantages of RBF - specifically relative to bank loans and merchant cash advances - and challenges readers to decide whether a second RBF loan would be appropriate for OnShore.
In 2021, the HBS Impact Investment Fund student team met with entrepreneur Teresa Maynard, who had applied for a $25,000 impact investment loan. The students thought the former Harvard Data Scientist's bakery business, Sweet Teez Bakery, showed promise. Maynard had bootstrapped the business, growing it from a small-scale venture to a point where she now considered expanding her corporate clientele and possibly opening a brick-and-mortar location. Alas, funding for such small businesses had been sparse, and Maynard needed working capital to take her business to the next level. The student team was eager to evaluate her financials and submit a recommendation to the investment committee. However, Maynard had taken meticulous records of her financial transactions but had yet to compile them into comprehensive financial statements, meaning that Sweet Teez's financial health was difficult to parse. The HBS student team wondered: How could they best build a reliable financial model from the currently fragmented historical information?
In fall 2021, Aliana Piñeiro, impact director at Boston Impact Initiative (BII) discovered that an entrepreneur the organization was considering for an investment had failed to disclose pre-existing debt with another lender. Although the business scored highly on BII's criteria for investment, Piñeiro and her colleagues had to reevaluate its risk profile in light of the additional debt. They also had to decide how to manage their relationship with the entrepreneur. The BII team determined an entrepreneur's creditworthiness through a series of in-depth conversations rather than using a one-size-fits-all application form. They also did not perform criminal background checks or credit checks. Nevertheless, they were disappointed that the entrepreneur had not disclosed his previous debt, and wondered why he had failed to bring it up in their previous conversations. At the conclusion of the case, Piñeiro and her team must decide whether to move forward with the investment and if so, how to address the issue with the entrepreneur.
In 2021, the HBS Impact Investment Fund student team had found a promising impact investment in the co-operative trouser manufacturer, Southwick Social Ventures. Their 100% immigrant workforce sought to pave the road to transforming Lawrence, Massachusetts, a city that was once a manufacturing hub that had recently seen less economic investment than other U.S. cities. The student team was then charged with recommending a set of terms to their investment committee. They needed to determine how exactly to strike the right balance between providing an acceptable return to the fund while providing founder-friendly terms to Southwick Social Ventures.
In fall 2021, a team of students from the HBS Impact Investing Fund considered Neurologic Optimal Wellness Physical Therapy (NOW PT) for a potential investment. Dr. Banks, the founder of NOW PT, drove to visit patients. She sought an investment from the fund to open a brick-and-mortar clinic. However, the students believed that Dr. Banks might be more successful if she continued providing mobile PT services. At the conclusion of the case, the students must perform due diligence to test their hypothesis. What should their priorities be as they begin the due diligence process?
This (B) case examines the results of the HBS Impact Investment Fund student team's diligence on Neurologic Optimal Wellness Physical Therapy (NOW PT). After examining Springfield's demographics, anticipated PT demand, local competition, and NOW PT's financial statements, the students realized that NOW PT would be more successful if it opened a brick-and-mortar clinic. The case appendix provides the students' Investment Committee deck, which readers can reference as an example of a thorough due diligence process. The conclusion of the case reveals the students' investment recommendation and its results.
This case continues the themes discussed in "Pricing at Netflix" (Case 521-004). Following the conclusion of the original case, Netflix developed new, high-profile original content, added millions of subscribers, and introduced another price increase in January 2022. Yet Netflix struggled to grow as streaming rivals such as Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max captured market share and the global pandemic was winding down. The case describes actions that Netflix considered to remain competitive, such as developing video games, charging users for sharing passwords, and, particularly, rolling out an ad-supported tier at a cheaper price than the other plans it currently offered. The case describes other streaming platforms' ad-supported tiers and asks readers to consider whether and how Netflix should design its own ad-supported plan; as well as whether raising subscription prices yet again on its existing plans was advisable.
In June 2021, John Crain and Jonathan Perkins, the founders of SuperRare, a marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), contemplate whether to transform their company into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). Crain and Perkins founded SuperRare in 2018 to provide a marketplace for fine art NFTs. However, after experiencing rapid growth in late 2020 and early 2021, they believed it was time to transition control of the platform's governance, curation, and strategic direction to the SuperRare community. Under the DAO, the platform's revenue would shift from SuperRare's balance sheet to a community treasury. Breaking new ground for startups, the founders have a difficult set of choices. They could immediately transform SuperRare into a DAO, pursue a tapered option in which the revenue gradually transitioned to the community treasury, or stay the course as a private company. They considered which option was the best for SuperRare and its community of artists and collectors as well as the SuperRare investors and team.
In 2021, Gina Lucarelli, leader of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Accelerator Labs, prepared for a meeting with UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner. The two planned to discuss the future of the Accelerator Labs, a network of social innovation labs located in countries throughout the world. The labs discovered promising solutions to social problems within a specific local community and elevated their learnings to the lab network. The first set of labs launched in 2019 and had high levels of autonomy, essentially operating as startups. While Lucarelli was pleased with the progress of the first cohort of labs, she was uncertain whether Steiner would continue them beyond their initial three-year funding window. Lucarelli envisioned three paths forward for the labs. The labs could wind down and integrate their methodologies into UNDP country offices, secure independent funding and spin out from UNDP, or reintegrate with the central organization and operate within the UN's research and development division. At the conclusion of the case, Lucarelli must decide which would be the best option to advance UNDP's mission of promoting environmental sustainability and global well-being.
This case reveals the events that took place after the conclusion of the cases "Thinking Outside the Wine Box (A-B): Mekanism and the Franz for Life Campaign." After selecting a creative direction for the Franz for Life 2.0 campaign, independent advertising agency Mekanism must decide the campaign's influencer marketing strategy as part of the media plan. Mekanism Chief Social Officer Brendan Gahan must review a proposed roster of social media influencers and decide which are likely to be the best ambassadors for the Franzia brand. Gahan also needs to decide how many influencers to contract, how much to pay them, how many pieces of content to commission, and what guidelines to provide.
This case reveals the events that took place after the conclusion of the case "Thinking Outside the Wine Box (A): Mekanism and the Franz for Life Campaign." After reviewing Mekanism's pitches for the Franz for Life 2.0 campaign, TWG executives felt that the proposed storyboards were not the right direction for the campaign, and requested that Mekanism develop a second round of storyboards. At the conclusion of the (B) case, TWG leaders must decide whether to choose one of the new storyboard sets, revisit one of the previous ideas, or request yet another iteration of the pitch.
This case provides an overview of "Franz for Life," an advertising campaign that independent advertising agency Mekansim created and executed to revitalize the brand image of Franzia, a low-cost boxed wine. For several years, Franzia's popularity declined among Millennial consumers, many of whom abandoned the brand for higher-priced wines as they grew older. In 2018, executives at The Wine Group (TWG), Franzia's parent company, recruited Mekanism to change younger audiences' perception of the brand. Mekanism developed the "Franz for Life" campaign based on the insight that Franzia was a brand meant to be enjoyed with friends throughout all stages of the post-college journey. In 2020, TWG decided to renew its relationship with Mekanism and launch "Franz for Life 2.0," a second stage of the campaign that would build on the original campaign's momentum, as well as focus on Generation Z consumers. The case describes how Mekanism developed the 1.0 campaign's creative strategy, media budget allocation, influencer marketing efforts, and brand merchandising. At the conclusion of the case, the TWG team must respond to storyboards that Mekanism pitched to inform the creative direction for Franz for Life 2.0. Which, if any, of the storyboard represents the best path forward for Franzia? Should TWG executives request Mekanism to create additional options? Depending on the creative direction ultimately selected, how should Mekanism propose to allocate the 2.0 marketing budget across media options? More broadly, could Mekanism and the "Franz for Life" campaign help Franzia become an iconic brand?