Over her career as a business executive, Norwegian Anita Krohn Traaseth became a seasoned mentor for emerging professionals, guiding them through the complexities of navigating promotions, salary negotiations, and leadership development. Recognizing the demand for accessible and practical advice, she leveraged her expertise into various channels, including podcasts, books, and eventually clothing - encapsulating her wisdom in the form of discreet t-shirt messages worn under professional attire. As her innovative approach gained traction, Traaseth expanded her vision, designing a signature red suit intended to inspire confidence and self-assurance in the wearer. The KROHN ""slow fashion"" house was born. This engaging case study examines the foundations of KROHN's success through the lens of Blue Ocean Strategy. Professors seeking to enrich their classrooms with a captivating, real-world example of entrepreneurial innovation and strategic execution will find it to be a valuable resource for discussions on personal branding, unconventional marketing strategies, and the art of creating differentiation at low cost.

The case is about the future of Dyson's foray into wearable technology with the planned introduction of the Dyson Zone that enable speople to breathe purified air while tuning out unwanted noise. Since no other device like it yet exists on the wearables market, its inventor Jake Dyson is stepping into unknown waters - another risk for a company that has taken several, including James Dyson's failed attempt to diversify into the automobile market with the introduction of an electric vehicle in 2017. Will the Dyson Zone be different? The case does not pretend to answer this question but rather looks at the business strategy of a firm that has a reputation for developing innovative products.

The director of the INSEAD Virtual Reality Immersive Learning Initiative, Daniel Landau, must decide what brand of VR headsets to buy for the school and its four campuses. It comes down to a choice between VR devices made by Oculus or PICO Interactive: which is better suited for his small team to create content and deploy it from their hub? Since each brand is embedded in a unique ecosystem, Daniel must evaluate their respective roles and contributions to the goal of delivering an optimal immersive learning experience.

The case discusses different steps which Mastercard has followed in its digital transformation journey. They involve opportunity framing, creating innovation pathways, finding digital transformation opportunities, and innovation with partners within adaptive ecosystems. With the objective to stop competing with other payment processing firms (like Visa or Amex) and start competing with cash, Mastercard has moved from an undifferentiated processor of payments to a builder of unique technological platforms. The case has two parts, A and B.

Managers struggle to understand what digital transformation actually means for them in terms of which opportunities to pursue and which initiatives to prioritize. It's not surprising that many of them expect it to involve a radical disruption of the business, huge new investments in technology, a complete switch from physical to virtual channels, and the acquisition of tech start-ups. To be sure, in some cases such a paradigm shift is involved. But the authors' research and work suggest that wholesale disruption is often quite unnecessary. Some companies have successfully responded to the digital challenge by making major changes to their manufacturing processes, distribution channels, or business models, but many others have fared equally well using a more incremental approach that leaves the core value proposition and supply chain essentially unchanged.

The case provides a strategic overview of one of the UK's fastest-growing household goods companies, Dyson Ltd. Starting out in the early 1990s as sole vendor of bagless vacuum cleaners in the UK market, Dyson would ultimately become the market leader before its competitors finally woke up. The case tracks founder James Dyson's global ambitions over an 18-year period until his entry into the electric vehicle market, and a move of corporate headquarters to Singapore (2019), with Asia now accounting for the majority of revenues. It offers insights into the multi-faceted vision of the founder, who combines inventiveness and a love of engineering and design with a rigid respect for lawful business practice.

As digital disruption expands, many legacy businesses seek partnerships with tech companies to maintain competitiveness in the digital sphere. But instead of a centralized "hub"partnership, some companies find greater success through an adaptive ecosystem model, where partners develop significant projects or innovations together. This type of strategy requires imagination and flexibility.

The case discusses different steps which Mastercard has followed in its digital transformation journey. They involve opportunity framing, creating innovation pathways, finding digital transformation opportunities, and innovation with partners within adaptive ecosystems. With the objective to stop competing with other payment processing firms (like Visa or Amex) and start competing with cash, Mastercard has moved from an undifferentiated processor of payments to a builder of unique technological platforms.

This case illustrates the key role played by a local distributor in the luxury goods industry in the Middle East. By partnering with the Chalhoub Group, western firms have built a competitive advantage across the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). While not typical of western luxury brands selling to global markets other than the Middle East, their alliances with the Chalhoub Group offer access to a vast network of 650 stores in prime locations in the GCC, many in new shopping malls. Chalhoub has retail outlets in 14 countries in the MENA region. Since its establishment in 1955, the Dubai-based Chalhoub has developed partnerships with Christian Dior, Sephora, Louis Vuitton, Fendi and many others. In so doing it has laid the foundations for the creation of own-concept stores, where it sells its own branded products.

Fifty years ago fashion and luxury goods were all about family businesses and entrepreneurial designers. Today most of the best-known brands belong to a diversified group like LVMH, Richemont, or Kering. The success of such groups contradicts the management notion that a focus on one core leads to superior returns--and that diversification adds little value. An analysis of the performance of 350 fashion houses suggests that group affiliation does add value, say INSEAD's Andrew Shipilov and Frederic Godart. They found that the fashion collections of group brands were more successful, and judged more creative by industry buyers, than those of independent brands over a 10-year period. How do luxury groups get this edge? Through the way they groom their designers and managers. The groups exploit the variety of their businesses by setting up internal talent markets that offer rich learning opportunities. Rising stars are thus less tempted to leave the organization, and cross-group job moves help spread knowledge and best practices. Group watchmaking companies, for instance, have been able to boost their sales by hiring experts in marketing and CRM from their groups' fashion and cosmetics firms. Worldwide operations give groups another advantage, because spending time overseas is critical to executive development. This is especially true in the luxury field, where international experience exposes designers to creative influences and executives to new but fast-growing customer segments. However, it isn't just in their approach to internal talent that groups excel. They prime the entry-level pipeline by sponsoring educational programs and offering apprenticeships to promising students, as well as recruit external functional know-how more effectively than the independent brands do.

This case shows 1) the strategic importance of talent management 2) the best practice of LVMH in this regard. It illustrates how LVMH extracts synergies across maisons ("houses").

This case explores the career development of professionals with strong leadership potential within an international business group - LVMH. It follows the career progression of an MBA graduate, her exposure to networks and mentors, and her international mobility.

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.

The head of Tupperware Nordic faces high turnover and low motivation of the sales consultants. He seeks to understand how to use social media in innovative ways to address these challenges and to modernize the image of Tupperware. Instead of making significant investments in IT infrastructure, he uses existing social media tools and focuses on building emotional capital inside Tupperware.

The head of Tupperware Nordic faces high turnover and low motivation of the sales consultants. He seeks to understand how to use social media in innovative ways to address these challenges and to modernize the image of Tupperware. Instead of making significant investments in IT infrastructure, he uses existing social media tools and focuses on building emotional capital inside Tupperware.