This case study explores the opportunities and challenges of the digital transformation journey of French wine and spirits company Pernod Ricard. As part of the transformation, the company launched four key digital programs (KDPs) aimed at using data and artificial intelligence to automate processes and drive data-driven decision-making. The case primarily focused on two of these: D-STAR, a sales recommendation system, and Matrix, a tool that optimized the allocation of advertising spend across brands. The company's future direction with the KDPs depended on addressing resistance, providing effective training and support, aligning with strategic goals, and overcoming logistical and data-related hurdles. The company needed to find a way to expand the KDPs further into new markets while reinforcing adoption where the KDPs had already been launched, and the decisions made would shape the path forward.
By May 2023, Boortmalt was the word's leading producer of malt, with a production capacity of 3 million tonnes, 15% of global market share, and 27 malting plants across five continents. It had recently acquired a major competitor and had sustained an EBITDA growth of 17% per annum over the past ten years. Despite this success, Yvan Schaepman, Boortmalt's charismatic and eco-conscious CEO, was aware of the rapidly evolving malting industry, marked by changing consumer preferences, technological advancements, and shifting climate dynamics. Schaepman was considering various strategies to sustain growth amidst these headwinds, including greenfield investments, exploring new acquisitions, and expanding into the food sector. This case study explores Boortmalt's growth trajectory, and assesses different strategies for sustaining and enhancing growth. Additionally, it dives into the unique world of malting, the company's culture and sustainability efforts, and the challenges and opportunities of acquiring a competitor.
In 2013, Aoibheann O'Brien and Iseult Ward founded FoodCloud, a non-profit social enterprise that aimed to address food waste and food insecurity issues. Through its technology platform, Foodiverse, FoodCloud connected surplus food from retailers with community groups in need. By 2022, the company had partnered with Tesco Ireland and Tesco UK, and was rolling out its solution in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. O'Brian and Ward were eager to scale their solution globally, but funding the growth of a non-profit posed a challenge. Options included spinning off Foodiverse into an investment-seeking entity or retaining non-profit status to raise a social impact bond. The founders also sought to amplify their impact in Ireland to position the country as a leader in food waste reduction. The co-founders wondered whether to focus on developing an exemplary local sustainable food system or expand their proven technology solution globally, and where to find the funds for their chosen path.
In Spring 2023, SECO CEO Massimo Mauri had the ambition to grow the €200 million revenue technology company to a €1 billion company by 2030. Founded in Italy in the 1970s, the family-owned company had gone through a period of growth and internationalization, facilitated by private equity funding (in 2018) and an IPO (2021). Its corporate governance had also evolved, but Mauri was eager for even more change at the board level. He wished to create a board that would partner with him in shaping the company's strategy and in challenging himself and his team on SECO's performance. What kind of board should that be and what steps should he take to make it happen?
At the end of 2019, Ignacio Galán, the Chairman and CEO of the world's third largest utility, Iberdrola, relected on his almost 20 years at the company. He managed a portfolio of three very different businesses, each with their own specific opportunities and challenges. From the outside, the Renewables business appeared to be the flagship business, with engineering projects constantly increasing in scope and size. Less high profile but no less strategically important was the Networks business, which was characterized by its regulated nature and provided a stable financial base for the company. Finally, the Wholesale and Retail business developed customized and innovative solutions for customers. Iberdrola had invested early in renewable technologies to position itself as a leader in driving the electric industry's role in the fight against climate change. Over time, Iberdrola had honed the skill of constantly monitoring new technologues and strategically deciding when to make its move. Faced with the decision to invest in green technology, heralded as a key technology in the fight for net zero, Galán and his team were weighing up their options.
Lilium is a German company focused on developing electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOLs) that can be used to offer air taxi services. The company went public in September 2021 through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deal, raising more than $800 million. While Daniel Wiegand (the co-founder and CEO) is confident about the design of the company's latest seven-seater aircraft, he is still struggling with the business model. Lilium has three main options. First, it can offer air mobility services to passengers, i.e., become a full-service B2C company. Second, it can become an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), selling its jets to other companies that offer mobility services (B2B option). Third, Lilium can choose a hybrid option, offering air mobility to end-users in certain markets while selling its jets to other air mobility service providers.
In 2020, the three cofounders of Holaluz, a newcomer to Spain's electricity retail market, are preparing to launch a new offering: installing and managing solar panels on households' roofs at no extra cost for the consumer, who would still benefit from the energy savings stemming from the panels' production. Holaluz would fund the installations via a special purpose vehicle and use the surplus energy to power neighboring Holaluz clients at lower costs. There were many challenges in the new venture, like how to market the offering and if investors would buy into the new business. And what if Holaluz went a step further, got rid of all its tariff offerings and disrupted the market with a monthly "unlimited" flat rate for electricity consumption like telecom operators did with mobile phones bills? Was the market ready?
A new environmental regulation known as IMO 2020 was creating what one industry analyst called "the biggest shakeup for the oil and shipping industries in decades." According to the new regulation, all ocean-going ships would have to limit their sulfur emissions by January 1, 2020. Senior leaders at Hapag-Lloyd, one of the world's largest shipping companies, were evaluating three ways their ships could comply with the new regulation: use low sulfur fuel, use high-sulfur fuel but install scrubbers to clean the exhaust, or convert ships to use liquid natural gas (LNG) as fuel. Each of the options had its advantages and disadvantages, and the most attractive option depended on not only the values of key parameters (e.g., future fuel prices and equipment costs), but also the strategies adopted by the owners of the other 60,000 ocean-going ships subject to the regulation. For the industry as a whole, annual compliance could cost as much as $60 billion; for Hapag-Lloyd, annual compliance might cost as much as $1 billion or more. For a company with net income of $34 million (€28 million) in the prior year, and losses in two of the past four years, getting this decision right was of the utmost importance. Senior executives at Hapag-Lloyd had created a proposed compliance plan and were scheduled to present it to the firm's supervisory board for approval in June 2018. Whether the team had the right plan and whether the board would approve it are the key questions in the case.
The Opportunity Hub was a cloud-based platform that enabled managers to market projects they were working on and associated resourcing needs as 'Opportunity Owners' and employees, or 'Opportunity Seekers', to browse these statements of need and engage when they had interest and availability. The premise was that the commitment would be no more than 20% of an employee's time, and could be much less, but it would be highly transparent. The Opportunity Hub was intended to offer a solution to Shell's business challenge of lacking digital capability. The core objective was to organize and dynamically access internal talent to get work done in a more automated way and at pace.
During the period 2011-2016, CEO and Chairman of Greek telecommunications company OTE Michael Tsamaz guided the company through a much needed transformation with a multi-pronged strategy.
Agriculture was Ireland's largest indigenous industry. Its agri-food sector was export-driven, with almost 90% of production exported. Bord Bia was the Irish government agency charged with the promotion, trade development and marketing of the Irish food, drink and horticulture industry. Bord Bia's CEO, Tara McCarthy, was shaping the government agency's new strategy amid a volatile socio-political environment (with Brexit and other cross border trade issues) and in light of consumer trends in the macro food and drink industry.
In late 2010, Michael Tsamaz was appointed CEO and Chairman of Greek telecommunications company OTE. OTE still exhibited many traits of a large incumbent organization, with high personnel costs, crippling bureaucracy, lack of customer-centricity, a dull brand, and eroding profitability. Tsamaz was taking over the reins at a time of deep economic crisis in Greece, which would impact the options available to him to transform the company.
Vodafone was operating in the fast-moving telecommunications market where innovation and scale were key. Faced with an onslaught of technological advances-big data, automation and artificial intelligence-CEO Vittorio Colao reflected on how he should change the organization to incorporate these advancements to improve the way the functions work, how to incorporate machine learning and artificial intelligence that de facto improve productivity and slash costs and what can he could do to give back to society and make sure that new opportunities were created for the new generation.
Supplement to HBS Case 818-077. Together with the agile methodology, innovation at ING was an enabler for the company's purpose of empowering people to stay a step ahead in life and business. The case explores ING's innovation priorities and strategy, as well as the related challenges ahead.
In December 2017, Vincent van den Boogert, CEO of ING in the Netherlands, was reflecting upon the company's "agile" transformation, a reorganization of work which had been critical to respond to and exceed rapidly changing customer expectations. Launched in 2015 at the head office, agile had spread to the rest of the Dutch organization, from client services to the branch network, and permeated the overall company culture. It was now time to rollout the transformation to other units of the ING Group, but some questions remained: could agile be as successful in other countries as it had been in the Netherlands? How fast should ING roll out the transformation? How could they build on the experience acquired so far to improve their methodology?
Leaders of the mid cap buyout group at Ardian, the Paris-based private equity firm led by Dominique Senequier, have been asked to review and assess the governance model the firm uses for majority-owned companies in its portfolio. The case describes the governance model and then shows how it has worked in practice at two companies: Italy's orthopedic implant maker Lima Corporate and French chemical company Novacap. For each company, the case describes how Ardian decided on the investment and established a board of directors, and details the deliberations around some of the critical decisions made by each board during Ardian's tenure as majority shareholder. Through the two examples of Lima and Novacap, the case invites students to evaluate Ardian's approach to corporate governance in its portfolio companies and to recommend possible changes or improvements.
In February 2014, Amsterdam became the first city to issue new regulations specifically to allow home-sharing. Airbnb's Molly Turner, Global Head of Civic Partnerships; her colleagues at the San Francisco based home-sharing platform; and her counterparts in Amsterdam's city leadership now had to make the new rules function well. By the summer of 2014, the question of how exactly to do that remained unsettled. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that Airbnb was negotiating with Amsterdam officials to supplement the new home-sharing rules was not materializing. Turner was hearing that the company's proposed commitments that spanned education on regulations, enforcement-assistance, and tax collection might not be enough to secure what would be Airbnb's broadest partnership with any city anywhere. Nanette Schippers was Amsterdam's Advisor on the Sharing Economy in its Innovation Office, and its lead at the negotiating table that summer. She was worried by the stand-still, too. A primary reason for the impasse in the negotiations was that Amsterdam wanted access to Airbnb's data in order to enforce the new laws more easily, while Airbnb sought to protect user privacy. For Airbnb, privacy, precedents and platform principles were at stake. For Amsterdam, it was a matter of making sure that the historic city did not become "Venice, or Florence, or 'Disneyland'"; that it wasn't overrun by visitors and that locals weren't crowded out. Could the two parties now find dry land?
In December 2014, the City of Amsterdam and Airbnb announced an MOU to promote responsible home-sharing and to simplify the payment of tourist tax for hosts in the City. It was the most comprehensive agreement that Airbnb had with any city in the world. It's final provision read, "The parties trust that theirs will be a fruitful cooperation." However, both sides were uncertain about how the agreement would be received. Molly Turner, Airbnb's Global Head of Civic Partnership and Tanja de Coster, an Airbnb lawyer in Europe, were unsure how Airbnb's hosts would react. As were their Airbnb colleagues. Laila Frank, who had been an advisor to the Deputy Mayor in Amsterdam, heralded the reputational gains from the agreement for the city, "We were worldwide news. In that way it worked out really well." But she acknowledged that there were also skeptical points of view. "The only immediate result was the tax agreement, which we were really happy about. But the rest had to be proven."