Two brothers who founded a successful company in Côte d'Ivoire must make a decision about how to bring their daughter and niece-educated in Paris and currently working there-into the family business, a company founded in 1988 and now one of West Africa's most successful conglomerates. She has surprised them with an ultimatum: She will come back, but only as COO, in charge of some grand expansion plans. Two experts-both with deep expertise in African family businesses-offer their advice in accompanying commentaries.
Two brothers who founded a successful company in Côte d'Ivoire must make a decision about how to bring their daughter and niece-educated in Paris and currently working there-into the family business, a company founded in 1988 and now one of West Africa's most successful conglomerates. She has surprised them with an ultimatum: She will come back, but only as COO, in charge of some grand expansion plans. Two experts-both with deep expertise in African family businesses-offer their advice in accompanying commentaries.
Two brothers who founded a successful company in Côte d'Ivoire must make a decision about how to bring their daughter and niece-educated in Paris and currently working there-into the family business, a company founded in 1988 and now one of West Africa's most successful conglomerates. She has surprised them with an ultimatum: She will come back, but only as COO, in charge of some grand expansion plans. Two experts-both with deep expertise in African family businesses-offer their advice in accompanying commentaries.
Tropical rain forest covers about 80% of the West African nation of Gabon, part of the Congo Basin and the "lungs of the world." Gabon is one of the first nations to earn revenue from carbon sequestration...as long as the rain forest remains intact. There are economic pressures for logging (and also the shared global threat of illegal logging). The federal government, along with private investors, is striving to both preserve the rain forest and also to create more jobs and capture more export value from the forest products industry as the nation transitions away from extractive industries including oil. The venture needs to bring almost all of the supply chain from logging camps to bark processing to plywood manufacture to international wholesaling in this series of public private partnerships. What are the conditions precedent for this to be feasible? What are the capital, policy, and operational decisions and inputs needed to execute this strategy successfully? What risks need to be borne by whom to get the supply chain in place and attract other capital sources? This is more than just a special economic zone with some tax and energy benefits. Among other tools, Gabon has adopted sophisticated techniques to geo-tag lumber from stump to ship, and to track the chain of custody for certified forest products. What other decisions need to be made and resources committed? Can this model grow to scale and be replicated with other agricultural or renewable value chains, in other nations? When?
Allianz Turkey is a property casualty insurance company operating in a region experiencing increasing losses from natural catastrophe events related to climate change, for example hail, wildfire, and flooding. There are also substantial other natural catastrophe exposures including earthquakes. The operating environment includes high inflation and worsening exchange rates, both of which make it challenging to set premiums and to resolve claims when those milestones can occur years apart. In many ways the existence of these natural and financial pressures and the high awareness among the population of natural catastrophe hazards makes Turkey a precursor to what might occur in Europe and North America in the face of possible increasing perils related to climate change. The company has a dilemma at the time of the case regarding how to satisfy customers and settle claims from a hailstorm without historic precedent, which damaged tens of thousands of automobiles as well as other assets. How should the company satisfy these customers today? Should it avoid writing policies in higher risk areas in the future? Are there other ways to identify and manage risks in addition to contracts? The "B" case discusses the earthquake of 2023 and the "C" case discusses information technology, sensors, and predictive analytics that the company now uses to help manage the onset of and response to natural catastrophe situations.
Allianz Turkey is a property casualty insurance company operating in a region experiencing increasing losses from natural catastrophe events related to climate change, for example hail, wildfire, and flooding. There are also substantial other natural catastrophe exposures including earthquakes. The operating environment includes high inflation and worsening exchange rates, both of which make it challenging to set premiums and to resolve claims when those milestones can occur years apart. In many ways the existence of these natural and financial pressures and the high awareness among the population of natural catastrophe hazards makes Turkey a precursor to what might occur in Europe and North America in the face of possible increasing perils related to climate change. The company has a dilemma at the time of the case regarding how to satisfy customers and settle claims from a hailstorm without historic precedent, which damaged tens of thousands of automobiles as well as other assets. How should the company satisfy these customers today? Should it avoid writing policies in higher risk areas in the future? Are there other ways to identify and manage risks in addition to contracts? The "B" case discusses the earthquake of 2023 and the "C" case discusses information technology, sensors, and predictive analytics that the company now uses to help manage the onset of and response to natural catastrophe situations.
Allianz Turkey is a property casualty insurance company operating in a region experiencing increasing losses from natural catastrophe events related to climate change, for example hail, wildfire, and flooding. There are also substantial other natural catastrophe exposures including earthquakes. The operating environmnent includes high inflation and worsening exhange rates, both of which make it challenging to set premiums and to resolve claims when those milestones can occur years apart. In many ways the existence of these natural and financial pressures and the high awareness among the population of natural catastrophe hazards makes Turkey a precursor to what might occur in Europe and North America in the face of possible increasing perils related to climate change. The company has a dilemma at the time of the case regarding how to satisfy customers and settle claims from a hailstorm without historic precedent, which damaged tens of thousands of automobiles as well as other assets. How should the company satisfy these customers today? Should it avoid writing policies in higher risk areas in the future? Are there other ways to identify and manage risks in addition to contracts? The "B" case discusses the earthquake of 2023 and the "C" case discusses information technology, sensors, and predictive analytics that the company now uses to help manage the onset of and response to natural catastrophe situations.
To address an aging population and sales declines, a major Japanese homebuilder considers pivoting to provide and support an in-home health detection platform, in competition with tech companies. This case considers the point of view of major builders regarding how aggressively to adopt smart home technologies as the nature of demand changes and as they navigate the digitalization of a very traditional bricks and mortar industry. The company has to consider its core business of building and selling homes, which is now under pressure in Japan as the creation of new households is slowing and the population is aging. Should the company incorporate smart home components, particularly regarding health monitoring and early response to health crises, and establish an ongoing service relationship with the occupants? How will major building products manufacturers like Toto and Panasonic respond? Health insurance companies? Can the company's health detection service compete with voice recognition offerings like Alexa and Siri from Amazon and Apple? With respect to serving this aspect of an aging population, will expertise in the tangible real property aspects of homes be a stronger or weaker influence than digital services in this evolution of business and global society?
BUA Group must decide between investments in cement, road building, power generation, or sugar. Private businesses are important to economic development in Africa. Students must assess the competitive nature of each of these industries, the magnitude of capital investments and recurring costs and revenues, and the skills required to lead in each of these sectors. Additional considerations include federal and government policy to either regulate or stimulate each of these industries, the competitive set, and the relative size and impact of risks and uncertainties in each industry.
Construction of buildings and infrastructure is one of the largest industries in the world in terms of volume. It is also one of the most physically risky, financially uncertain, and politically impacted. The industry is highly fragmented since there are few economies of scale, substantial location advantages, and almost all of the work is site built from unique plans. In order to achieve long term above average returns on effort and on invested capital, it's crucial that firms plan with intent with respect to markets and clients served, services provided, roles played in the industry value added system, and the matching of skills and assets to opportunities. The longest lived firms also determine which markets, products, customer types, and roles to avoid even when there might be attractive short term opportunistic contracts to be pursued. This note covers both the idiosyncratic nature of this industry that makes many classic strategic planning tools unhelpful, and also details the specific steps strategists should follow to gain the benefits and avoid the pitfalls of competition in this industry.
mPharma pioneered electronic prescriptions in Ghana, and aimed to increase drug affordability and accessibility in Africa, but the company remained unprofitable. Following investor concerns about mPharma's business, CEO Gregory Rockson considered alternative business models and services that could increase mPharma's profitability and impact.
mPharma pioneered electronic prescriptions in Ghana, and aimed to increase drug affordability and accessibility in Africa, but the company remained unprofitable. Following investor concerns about mPharma's business, CEO Gregory Rockson considered alternative business models and services that could increase mPharma's profitability and impact.
Healthy buildings and superior air quality are increasingly important since people now spend so much time indoors. Indoor spaces drive performance and productivity. Commercial real estate landlords and investors are responding to the demands of sophisticated tenants and end users by making investment choices around indoor air quality and certification, and related expectations for increased rent or increased occupancy. It's anticipated that these learnings will extend to other situations including offices, schools, hospitals, factories, and homes. This case investigates the tradeoffs in several engineering, marketing, and finance decisions. The setting is a billion dollar premier new office building on Park Avenue in New York City, designed by the eminent architecture firm Foster + Partners. The decision factors in the case include health information from CogFX and 9 Foundations of Healthy Buildings research from the T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health.
Private companies were being turned to for potable water in the world's megacities due to impacts of climate change including droughts and flooding. Mexico City had endured several water-related crises, with its population suffering from floods, droughts, water shutoffs and disease. Although some access to piped water services was practically universal for Mexico City residents, services were limited or discontinuous. An accommodation that most households had made was in purchasing and installing a water holding tank on the roof or in the ground, with Rotoplás, a Mexican based water product and services provider, enjoying more than 55% of tank market share in Mexico. Rotoplás had ventured into wastewater treatment and recycling in 2016 with the acquisition of Sytesa, a design, construction, financing, operation, and maintenance business for wastewater management for industry and businesses. Market segments included lighter corporate users like shopping malls and heavy users like food processors or mining companies, and maybe "water as a service" would also end up as the place to be to supplement and assist homeowner associations and even municipal governments. However, services revenue was today a tiny fraction of overall cash flow at Rotoplás. The presence of larger competitors like Suez and Veolia and as well as unfavorable pricing and regulations could potentially slow down future growth. Could Rotoplás services be part of the solution to the water crisis in the nation's capital? Or was the situation too intractable for even this local champion company to tackle? What pricing and regulatory changes might lead to financial and technical solutions for Mexico City's water crisis?
This case describes Amandla Capital, a fledgling company in Cote d'Ivoire, facing three opportunities in the real estate and hospitality industries in Africa. It introduces students to several concepts: decision making and cost-benefit analysis in real estate, corporate strategy selection, management of stakeholders with varied needs and levels of sophistication, dealing with conflicts of interest, basics of hospitality and hotel management industries.
Can Singapore urban design, policy continuity, and system of laws be exported outside of Singapore to accelerate the effective development of new urban agglomerations? Nina Yang, CEO of Sustainable Urban Development at Ascendas-Singbridge, a large real estate company based in Singapore, was considering whether to build residential or commercial space in one of its sustainable urban development projects, Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City. Could such a long-gestation urban development project be commercially viable? What were the partnership issues working with the Guangzhou government? Could Singapore livability concepts, planning expertise, safety for capital, and comfort for multinational corporations be successfully exported outside of Singapore into large urban agglomerations on a repeated basis?
As a result of Mexico's pension industry deregulation, pension funds were able to invest in energy and infrastructure projects through a variety of financial instruments, particularly through Capital Development Certificates (CKDs), an asset class that served as a vehicle for investing in unlisted companies. By the end of 2017, pension funds had invested more than $16 billion in infrastructure, with CKDs as the primary investment vehicle for this sector. Motivated by increased domestic liquidity and opportunities for investment, Rodrigo Jair launched Jair Infrastructure Investments, a specialized fund with the majority of its capital raised from pension funds. Jair was approached by Felipe Duarte, head of Banorte´s Infrastructure and Energy Group, who offered him a short-term credit line to increase the fund´s liquidity during its investment phase. Jair had to decide whether he should deploy this line or rely exclusively on capital calls from his investors to fund his pipeline. Was it worth paying the commitment fees to achieve increased liquidity? What risks should he consider when making this decision? What are the upsides and downsides of relying on equity or debt for a fund like Jair Infrastructure Investments? Will techniques like this bring significantly more capital into infrastructure investing?
Almost 500 million people are without electricity in sub-Saharan Africa. Governments and public utilities are challenged to bring generation and distribution to most of them. Considerable promise exists in "off-grid" or "mini-grid" technologies, notably using renewable energy from wind and photovoltaics in areas that have plentiful supplies of both yet limited access to traditional fuels due to other infrastructure constraints. Cross-Boundary is an experienced consulting firm and transaction facilitator run by several Harvard and Stanford MBAs, some with recent military experience. In the case, the company needs to analyze and select which of two nations in Africa to enter next (Tanzania or Ghana) based on many aspects of each nation, has to decide which kinds of customers to serve who will compensate it directly for electricity, and whether to partner with developers and contractors or build that capability in-house. Critically, the company has to evaluate as it matures whether it should be a) an aggregator of capital from multiple investing and lending sources, investing in a vendor agnostic manner into multiple energy developers and projects which it identifies from afar; or b), whether to be primarily a large scale multi-national competitive energy developer and project delivery company needing to attract capital from many sources, all of whom are selecting between several other developers and investment opportunities. What is their key value added and where can they build a defensible strategy? Which one best accomplishes the goal of matching up money and projects to help illuminate Africa?
CEO of high profile new economic city in Saudi Arabia must decide how to allocate limited investment funds across projects under duress. Issues include understanding core economic drivers, planning infrastructure investment and return, attracting multinationals, energy policy, sustainability, urban planning, government incentives and regulations. Students must allocate limited funds, or accept outside investors at distress terms, with respect to city center, retail, resort, residential, education, utilities, commercial sale or leased land, worker housing, and a potential seaport.
This technical note discusses the potential of Blockchain technologies in Africa, particularly to overcome institutional voids in trust and transactions.