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Instructor Spreadsheet to accompany product 8B19M109.

Student spreadsheet to accompany product 9B19M109.

In 2013, CEO Frida Polli was contemplating the next steps for her start-up business, pymetrics. After receiving her PhD in neuropsychology and MBA from HBS, she was determined to put her scientific and academic knowledge to work to build a business solving real world problems. To this end, her team at pymetrics had adapted a set of robust neuroscience-based computer exercises designed to measure a number of elements of brain functionality and apply these exercises to the world of talent assessment. In just about 25 minutes, these tests compiled a powerful cognitive, social, and emotional profile of the individual that could match the output of experienced interviewers or much longer psychometric testing programs. And the added benefit was that these tests, unlike interviews, discussion panels, or self-reported questionnaires, were hard to "game" because the underlying brain function and rate of learning showed through. Frida believed that her exercise suite would be invaluable to recruiters and had demonstrated to a hedge fund and a major consulting firm that it was much more cost effective than their traditional approaches and could be used to broaden their search for the best talent. As she got out of the cab at LaGuardia to catch the plane for Boston, she wondered what the Harvard Business School class she was about to address would think of her ideas and how they might suggest she implement them.

In March 2013, pymetrics CEO Frida Polli visited Harvard Business School to listen to a section of MBA students from the class of 2013 to discuss her business plan and provide feedback on the tests they had taken to identify career opportunities. Polli had developed a series of neuroscience-based tests to measure brain function and map this to the profiles of successful executives. She believed that these could collect much more data than conventional psychographic tests in much less time, and it would be much more difficult for the candidate to "game" the system. Polli's goal was to help companies recruit more effectively. In preparation for the class, the MBA students had all taken the tests. She looked forward to discussing the results.

In August 2018, pymetrics, a solution offering neuroscience-based recruiting tests, closed a $40 million funding round that valued the business at $160 million. Over 60 companies around the globe were using pymetrics tests in their recruiting process, including Unilever, Hyatt, and Accenture. Clients were seeing real impact, including time and cost reductions-75% reduction in time-to-hire and 25% reduction in recruiting costs, as well as significant increases in diversity (in some cases over 100%)-and new-hire performance through metrics like retention. In addition, 1 million job candidates around the world had played pymetrics games to obtain career guidance. pymetrics tools offered significant advantages over traditional personality tests such as Myers Briggs because they measured brain function rather than responses to self-administered questionnaires. They also collected a lot more data very quickly and measured critical brain functions associated with effective executives, ranging from analytical capacity and risk aversion to attentiveness, resolve, ability to interpret emotions, speed of learning, and capacity for trust. In early 2021, the company was expanding rapidly. It employed nearly 100 people and operated out of four offices around the world. CEO Frida Polli was contemplating next steps. What should the priorities be? Was it more important to add more clients or develop more services to build current clients? How many global offices should the company operate, and how should these be organized? And could the company make more of its bias-free recruiting processes in a world where regulation against discrimination was becoming increasingly important?

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.

This case looks at the deal-making process between Celgene, a large publicly traded pharmaceutical company, and Agios, an early-stage biotech company. The framework of a potential deal is explored and the potential road-blocks to Agios' profitability are discussed. The relationship between a fledgling biotech company and an established pharmaceutical company as well as the expectations from both sides regarding their deal are examined.

Spreadsheet to accompany product 8B19M084.

In October 2018, Tesla, Inc. (Tesla), an American automotive and energy company, received an approval from Shanghai’s mayor to acquire a plot of land to build a new electric-vehicle (EV) factory, which was expected to produce its first cars in three years, and to have initial capacity of about 250,000 vehicles a year. This move was in response to a significant rise in the Chinese EV market and the additional tariffs imposed by the Chinese government during its 2018 trade war with the United States. Since 2013, Tesla had partnered with Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic)—the consumer electronics company and a world leader in battery technology—to build Gigafactory 1 and Gigafactory 2 in the United States for manufacturing Tesla’s batteries. The Chinese automotive market was a business environment much different from any that the Tesla–Panasonic partnership had previously experienced. Given the Chinese government’s regulations, requirements, and incentives, what should be Tesla’s growth strategy in the world’s largest automotive market—China. Should Tesla continue its partnership with Panasonic in China or should it look to derive more potential benefits from other suppliers?

In 2018, a new challenge confronted the executive director of the Inside-Out Center in Philadelphia, who was also the founder of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, an international network of educators providing university courses in prisons for both incarcerated individuals and university students. Despite the program’s many success stories, to gain new funders, the founder needed to communicate the program’s impact through measurable effects. Assessing long-term impacts seemed nearly impossible because of difficulties in tracking the participants as they graduated from their university programs or completed their prison sentences and returned to the outside world. The measurement effort was also controversial because although the use of quantitative measures would help to raise funds, it could also challenge the value of the program’s well-established practices and could change the relative roles and influence of various key stakeholders. Whose definitions of “impact” should be prioritized, and how could the program’s impact be measured and communicated?

In the summer of 2018, after over 25 years of leading AREUFIT Health Services, Inc. (AREUFIT), the founder and president of assessed her company’s position in the evolving health services market. She had grown AREUFIT from a sole proprietor start-up to its current position as the Philadelphia region’s award-winning provider of preventive health and biometric screenings, corporate health and disease prevention programs, and wellness services, with annual revenues that exceeded US$1 million. The founder had spent the last three years working with an outside consultant in preparation for the next stage in the life cycle of her company. When a competitor approached her with an offer to buy AREUFIT she knew she had to make some tough decisions, while remaining true to her values and business practices. She wanted to preserve the company and culture she had built, protect her key employees, and ensure that the brand reputation of AREUFIT would endure.

A management science professor had an unpleasant experience with a hotel she stayed at in New York City. Consequently, she wanted to figure out if hotel ratings were enough to recommend a hotel, or if customers' text reviews could be used as more important and accurate indicators of customers' hotel experiences. The exercise serves as an introduction to the topic of text analytics-specifically, sentiment analysis-and introduces the concept of text mining and the importance of dealing with unstructured datasets. Much of the exercise focuses on the method and rationale behind document indexing and the subsequent weighting of the indexed terms through term frequency-inverse document frequency. Textual data from customers' hotel reviews are provided to apply the text mining techniques and to provide insight for a better decision-making process that would help the professor in her next hotel booking.

This case describes how Ali Sabancı and his sister Emine Sabancı Kamışlı, shareholders of Esas Group, one of Turkey's largest family-owned investment firms, worked to grow and professionalize the business. While their father Şevket Sabancı, played an instrumental role in launching the group in 2000, he soon stepped back and let his children drive the business forward. In 2009, the first of the third generation of family members entered the business, prompting Ali and Emine to start putting formal processes in place for the onboarding and integration of the next generation. By 2019, the family office had several billion dollars of assets under management, diversified across various asset classes, both inside and outside Turkey. Emine's two sons had recently entered the business. Ali and Emine's biggest priority was establishing strong governance for the family office. They were taking several steps to professionalize the group and bring in more nonfamily members. Ali and Emine recognized that these actions would mean relinquishing certain privileges and freedom, somewhat shifting from their underlying ethos, which focused on protecting shareholders' individual rights. Shareholders had been offered liquidity and treated like customers, having the option to invest elsewhere if they so desired. To date, the family members had kept their capital within the group. Would this continue to be the case in the future? How could they keep the family together and make sure everyone was financially satisfied? How could they ensure to continue growing the net worth of their assets?

In 2017, the new chairman of A. P. Møller-Maersk confronted one of the worst cyberattacks in history, which crippled the company's vast global shipping network that accounted for nearly 20 per cent of global container shipping. NotPetya was a particularly virulent strain of ransomware that, within seconds, destroyed Maersks’s servers and personal computers around the world. Maersk's senior system administrators had warned the company that its network was vulnerable, but the necessary upgrades were never completed. How can the company recover from this devastating event? And how can it protect itself from cyberattacks in the future?

In 2014 Laureate Education, Inc. (Laureate) was the largest for-profit post-secondary education company in the world, with almost one million students enrolled in more than 50 institutions across 20+ countries. During that year, this multinational corporation (MNC) was considering modifying its legal status to become a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) in Delaware (U.S.) and completing the certification process to become a certified benefit corporation (B Corp). They had also decided to file an initial public offering (IPO). The IPO was planned for late 2015, so Laureate could potentially become the largest PBC and the first one to go public in the world. The case presents Laureate's founder and CEO, Doug Becker, in late 2014, evaluating the long-term value of the B Corp certification. To evaluate the decision, students must first understand what the B Corp certification and PBC legal status are and assess if they are helping the organization to fulfill its mission and to manage stakeholders' interests within the context of soon to be a publicly traded company. To do so, the case describes Becker's entrepreneurial background, Laureate's history, and critical developments up to 2014. The case highlights key points in the evolution of the for-profit higher education industry from the late nineties through 2014, as well as an introduction to the B Corp certification and its B Impact Assessment (BIA). The case also clarifies the difference between the B Corp certification and the legal statute of the same name adopted in 27 states by the end of 2014.

After working at his family's coat manufacturing company for a few years, the author realized that high-end coats made in Canada could become a luxury product globally. Targeting European consumers first, he introduced the brand and then marketed it in innovative ways, including outfitting polar explorers and TV and film crews who were shooting in remote cold-weather locations. Perhaps most important, he committed to domestic manufacturing and opened factories across Canada along with training centers for sewers. This paved the way for phenomenal growth and a successful IPO. Today the company has stores in 12 cities around the world and runs an international e-commerce business. Its focus on delivering an exceptional experience inspired the creation of "cold rooms" in the stores where shoppers can test products in temperatures as low as -25 Celsius before they make a purchase. As Canada Goose expands organically and through acquisition, Reiss says, the company will continue to make its coats in Canada and other products wherever it can get the highest-quality products at the scale it needs.

Human beings are categorization machines, taking in voluminous amounts of messy data and then simplifying and structuring it. That's how we make sense of the world and communicate our ideas to others. But according to the authors, categorization comes so naturally to us that we often see categories where none exist. That warps our view of the world and harms our ability to make sound decisions--a phenomenon that should be of special concern to any business that relies on data collection and analysis for decision making. Categorical thinking, the authors argue, creates four dangerous consequences. When we categorize, we compress category members, treating them as more alike than they are; we amplify differences between members of different categories; we discriminate, favoring certain categories over others; and we fossilize, treating the categorical structure we've imposed as static. In the years ahead, companies will have to focus attention on how best to mitigate those consequences.

Whether you're a boss, a colleague, or a friend, you can help the people around you make important life-enhancing changes. But the way to do that isn't by setting targets for them and fixing their problems; it's by coaching with compassion, an approach that involves focusing on their dreams and how they could achieve them. Instead of doling out advice, a good coach will ask exploratory, open-ended questions and listen with genuine care and concern. The idea is to have coachees envision an ideal self (who they wish to be and what they wish to do), explore the real self (not just the gaps they need to fill but the strengths that will help them do so), set a learning agenda, and then experiment with and practice new behaviors and roles. The coach is there to provide support as they strive to spot their learning opportunities, set the groundwork to achieve change, and then see things through.

Head of a culinary empire that now includes 16 ventures, Boulud talks about his boyhood on the family farm, where "everything on [the] table was 95% grown, raised, or made by us"; key lessons from the chefs he trained with; and how he balances being an artistic chef with being a businessman.

The Chairman of Google's parent company, Alphabet has been called the Godfather of Silicon Valley. In a wide-ranging interview, he discusses his leadership style, his company's varied initiatives, the best approach to innovation, and why Google is so unbelievably successful. He also touches on the importance of addressing bias in AI and Google's bold plan to bring the benefits of AI to everyone, everywhere.