個案總覽

This note can be used at the undergraduate or graduate level to accompany a case on strategy or international business. It is especially helpful when analyzing an emerging market company expanding into developed economies and the challenges associated with this.

In December 2017, during the celebrations of the third anniversary of his company, the founder and president of Dami Technology Co. Ltd. (Dami) reflected on the success of his entrepreneurship efforts since 2014. Using mobile Internet, Internet of things, and artificial intelligence technologies, Dami implemented a new rice supply chain from farm to table by developing smart kitchenware, such as rice buckets and rice cookers. Dami was the first company to accomplish this goal in the Chinese rice industry. By the end of 2017, Dami had created its own market in more than 30 of China’s major cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. Having achieved great success, Dami had two main options for its next phase of growth: (1) build a complete smart kitchen ecosystem using all available resources, or (2) partner with a Chinese home appliances giant and join a smart kitchen ecosystem.

By August 2015, Swiggy, an on-demand food delivery start-up, had been operating for almost one year in Bengaluru, India. The exponential growth of the business was expected to persist. However, Swiggy was incurring a loss, or a cash burn, on each delivery it was making. The company’s current cash reserves were also drying up, and its chief executive officer had been unsuccessful in attracting new venture capital funding to finance the cash burn estimated for the next four quarters. Swiggy must figure out how to pursue its growth without the injection of any fresh funds.

Founded in 1969 as a small operation, Otsuka Kagu, Ltd. became Japan’s largest furniture retailer and was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1980. A membership program in 1993 managed to revitalize the company’s sales at a time when Japan was in a recession. Years later, after sales began to decline and the founder was convicted of insider trading in 2008, the presidency was transferred to the founder’s daughter, who applied a more customer-centric model to the business. This change infuriated the founder, who removed his daughter from the company’s leadership. After persistently poor performance, the company’s board of directors reinstated the founder’s daughter; she then launched a notorious public battle for control of the company. Despite new environment-responsive strategies, revenues continued to decline to the point of the company declaring its biggest loss by the end of 2017. In August 2018, the company reported a net loss of ¥2.3 billion, with the company’s shares trading at their lowest level ever. Facing financial distress, the company had to look both inward and outward to determine its next steps.

In January 2017, the founder of Sunton Manufacturing in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China, boarded a flight to Cambodia. He had to tackle the performance issue of the company’s garment manufacturing joint venture (JV) there—after two years in operation, it had run out of cash. After meeting with his JV partner, he concluded that the existing JV in Sihanoukville was beyond repair. He now needed to decide whether to exit Cambodia or to remain there, albeit in a different city and with a new partner. A new factory would require further investment. If he quit Cambodia, could his company survive and develop in the future?

In 2015, the corporate affairs executive of the leading Swiss agribusiness company Syngenta Crop Protection AG (Syngenta) and founder of the next-generation innovation platform Thought for Food, faced a dilemma about whether to register Thought for Food as an independent non-governmental organization, or to keep it housed within Syngenta. The choice had implications for Thought for Food’s potential for future growth and for its impact on global food-security challenges. To grow within Syngenta, Thought for Food would have to close the gaps between its open innovation practices and Syngenta’s traditional operations. To grow independently, it would have to develop a business plan that assured financial security. In either case, Thought for Food had to continue growing in relevance to its non-financial stakeholders, like the student participants and expert judges in its annual innovation challenge and summit.

This note addresses the key concepts of food security and sustainability, non-linear innovation, and open innovation models such as incubators and accelerators.

In January 2017, the online cake company Ohmycake.in, which was started two years earlier by a young entrepreneur in Kerala, India, ran into trouble after a series of successful experiments. Adding to the company’s problems, customers were becoming more demanding and the competition was catching up. The entrepreneur had hired a new operations executive to help solve the company’s business strategy and scalability issues, including a current problem: whether to accept or reject demanding custom orders that were appearing in the company’s online order management system.

Shortly after entering the kombucha market in Calgary, Alberta, True Büch Kombucha (True Büch) experienced significant growth. True Büch was sold from reusable kegs and in single-serving bottles at local markets and retailers. However, with such high demand for its product, True Büch was struggling to keep up. The reusable kegs that were on site at retailers required maintenance and refilling, and the maximum output of the homemade bottling line was only 1,000 single-serving bottles per day. In addition, True Büch’s production space was at capacity, and the owners had nothing left to invest. They had yet to take on any additional financing, but they knew some capital would be required to keep up with demand. In 2017, three years into the business, the owners were at a crossroads and contemplated the best approach to maintain their growth and expand.

Since its founding in 1989, Mejzlík Modellbau, a propeller manufacturing company based in the Czech Republic, had gained high visibility in the remote-controlled plane market. It had achieved a strong position by maintaining product quality and providing excellent customer service. The company had a strong cash position and an excellent credit rating; however, by mid-2018, the market for remote-controlled planes was reaching its saturation stage, as evidenced by Mejzlík Modellbau’s declining profits. If the company continued to rely solely on the remote-controlled plane market, it might soon face bankruptcy. The founder decided to explore various other markets wherein he could utilize his expertise of making high-quality carbon fibre propellers. But how would he strategically determine which market to pursue?

On October 5, 2017, the chief executive officer of Sony India Pvt. Ltd. (Sony), in Mumbai, India, was concerned about the future of the television show Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah (TMKOC), which aired on the television channel Sri Adhikari Brothers Television (SAB TV), a general-entertainment channel owned by Sony. TMKOC was a flagship, family-friendly comedy show that had enjoyed top ratings for years. However, new comedy shows that featured more hard-edged and less family-oriented content, with jokes at the expense of characters rather than at situations, were gaining new viewers. Current viewers were also using mobile devices rather than traditional television sets to watch content. The chief executive officer wondered how he could sustain SAB TV as a market leader, despite the growing popularity of less family-friendly content from new comedy shows and emerging digital platforms.

When Stefan Oschmann became CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, in 2016, the company had started its transformation from a mid-tier traditional German industry player to a global modern science and technology player. The restructuring and portfolio overhaul led by Oschmann's predecessor Karl-Ludwig Kley since 2007 had been approved by the Merck founding family in its 13th generation, which still owned the majority of the shares. Its intermediate results had been encouraging. After three large acquisitions (Serono, Millipore, and Sigma-Aldrich) that broadened its reach from healthcare and pharmaceuticals into life sciences and performance materials and an internal optimization program, revenues and profitability had doubled in the decade leading up to 2016. But more needed to be done. Preparing for the company's 350-year anniversary in 2018, Oschmann had kept up the pace of change, and announced further divestments and restructurings, sparking reactions from employees who expressed increasing exasperation about the new measures. In the fall of 2017 Oschmann and his Executive Board had to decide on the best strategic option for the company's consumer health division. Should they divest a division that lacked scale but that with its consumer brands in pain and cold remedies was viewed as a symbol of the company's origins? Was more change too much change in such a short time?

Big Hit Entertainment, a Korean-based producer of popular music content, was promoting its hit "idol group," BTS, as a serious entry in the world’s mainstream musical entertainment business, alongside global performers such as Justin Bieber. The "K-pop machine" represented a complex set of practices for producing performances, many of which were unique to Korea and criticized as being "overly manufactured." The case raises questions about the extent to which processes and institutions designed to generate commercially valuable creative outcomes could be developed into a reliable, repeatable, or standardized form. Could a formula be used to generate successful and creative products?

Big Hit Entertainment, a Korean-based producer of popular music content, was promoting its hit "idol group," BTS, as a serious entry in the world's mainstream musical entertainment business, alongside global performers such as Justin Bieber. The "K-pop machine" represented a complex set of practices for producing performances, many of which were unique to Korea and criticized as being "overly manufactured." The case raises questions about the extent to which processes and institutions designed to generate commercially valuable creative outcomes could be developed into a reliable, repeatable, or standardized form. Could a formula be used to generate successful and creative products?

In 2014, Shenzhen Bauing Construction Holding Group Co. Ltd. (Bauing Group) decided to expand internationally, and successfully established subsidiary companies in several Southeast Asian countries. Based on this success in Southeast Asia, Bauing Group decided in 2016 to expand further by entering the US market. However, doing so entailed some challenges and difficulties, including cultural and regional differences, language barriers, and the need to become familiar with different construction standards and laws. Bauing Group also needed to address a pressing issue: determining its market entry strategy. Should it enter the market through licensing, greenfield projects, franchising, business alliances, exporting, turnkey projects, joint ventures, or acquisitions?

TokenFunder Inc. (TokenFunder) was a Canadian blockchain start-up focused on developing a platform to help companies perform token offerings in a legal and compliant way. The Ontario Securities Commission had granted the firm a sandbox that permitted it to bypass certain securities regulations for a brief window to test out its business model. TokenFunder's chief executive officer and chief operating officer knew that potential partnerships with various accounting firms, legal firms, incubators, and venture capitalists could be incredibly beneficial to the business. TokenFunder thus had to decide whom to partner with and how to get firms into its ecosystem.

The chief executive officer of Bamboos Health Care Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. (Bamboos) started her entrepreneurship journey in 2005 with a telephone and a fax machine. She created a platform to match the demand from patients or their relatives with the supply of services from health care professionals. After 12 years in operation, following one consistent business model, Bamboos was listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Despite several challenges in its early years, the Bamboos business model proved to be sustainable in Hong Kong and became resistant to change. In early 2018, the founder was considering entering the health care market in mainland China and changing the company’s business model for the first time. Could the current business model in Hong Kong be modified to enter mainland China and other countries? What changes would be required with respect to strategy and management?

In April 2017, the co-founder and vice-president of Hitch Health in Minneapolis Minnesota was faced with an intriguing but challenging strategy decision. Hitch Health had been created as part of Upstream Health Innovations at Hennepin County Medical Center to improve transportation services for its many vulnerable patients. By using human-centred design, Hitch Health had succeeded in developing a system of ride sharing and sophisticated information technology that met its initial goal of reducing missed appointments. However, the development of Hitch Health had also presented a new opportunity to engage patients in many aspects of their own care. The co-founder realized that she had to make a key strategy decision. Was Hitch Health just a practical solution to Hennepin County Medical Center’s transportation problem? Could it solve transportation problems at similar hospitals across the country? Could it be an idea big enough to serve as a platform with the potential to disrupt health care delivery?