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Business projects with very long time horizons--such as those involving product R&D, workplace design, and total compensation planning--have to contend with a crucial question: What will be the needs, demands, and desires of consumers and employees decades from now? If you think the answer is "Just more of the same," you're in for a surprise. Howe and Strauss, the authors of "Generations", "The Fourth Turning", "Millennials Rising", and other books, have studied the differences among generations for some 30 years. Their extensive research has revealed a fascinating pattern--one so strong that it supports a measure of predictability. On the basis of historical precedent, they say, we can foresee how the generations that are alive today will think and act in decades to come. Three of those generations will still be vital forces in American society 20 years from now: Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials. Their attitudes and behaviors will have profound effects on the economy, the workplace, and social institutions in general. For example, as aging Boomers eschew high-tech medicine in favor of holistic self-care, natural foods, and mind-body healing techniques, some hospitals are opening new wings featuring alternative medicine and spiritual counseling. Gen Xers, having grown up in an era of failing schools and marriages, will remain alienated, disaffected, and pragmatic as they enter midlife. Already the greatest entrepreneurial generation in U.S. history, they will be highly effective at pushing innovation, efficiency, and mass customization. In contrast, young adult Millennials will favor teamwork, close family relationships, job security, and a bland popular culture. Their unprecedented digital empowerment and talent for organizing will create a political powerhouse and may even revitalize the union movement.

Day-to-day management is challenging enough for CEOs. How do they manage for the long term as well? We posed that question to four top executives of global companies. According to Maurice Levy, chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe, building the future is really about building the present and keeping close to the front line--those who deal with your customers and markets. He also attributes his company's success in large part to knowing when to take action: In a market where clients' needs steer your long-term future, timing is everything. UPS Chairman and CEO Mike Eskew emphasizes staying true to your vision and values over the long run, despite meeting obstacles along the way. It took more than 20 years, and many lessons learned, to produce consistent profits in what is today the company's fastest-growing and most profitable business: international small packages. Wulf H. Bernotat, CEO of E.ON, examines the challenges facing business leaders and politicians as they try to balance energy needs against potential environmental damage. He calls for educating people about consumption and waste, and he maintains that a diverse and reliable mix of energy sources is the only way to ensure a secure supply while protecting our environment. Finally, Marianne Barner, the director of corporate communications and ombudsman for children's issues at IKEA, discusses how the company is taking steps to improve the environment and be otherwise socially responsible. For example, it's partnering with NGOs to address child labor issues and, on its own, is working to help mitigate climate change. IKEA's goals include using renewable sources for 100% of its energy needs and cutting its overall energy consumption by 25%.

In an economy where the only certainty is uncertainty, the one sure source of lasting competitive advantage is knowledge. Yet, few managers understand the true nature of the knowledge-creating company--let alone know how to manage it. According to this 1991 article by Japanese organizational theorist Ikujiro Nonaka, the problem is that most Western managers define knowledge--and what companies must do to exploit it--too narrowly. They believe that the only useful knowledge is "hard" (read "quantifiable") data. And they see the company as a kind of machine for information processing. Nonaka shows us another way to think about knowledge and its role in business organizations. He uses vivid examples from highly successful Japanese companies such as Honda, Canon, NEC, and Sharp. Managers at these companies recognize that creating new knowledge is not simply a matter of mechanistically processing objective information. Rather, it depends on tapping the tacit and often highly subjective insights, intuitions, and ideals of employees. The tools for making use of such knowledge are often "soft"--such as slogans, metaphors, and symbols--but they are indispensable for continuous innovation. The reasons Japanese companies are especially adept at this holistic kind of knowledge creation are complex. But the key lesson for managers is quite simple: Much as manufacturers worldwide have learned from Japanese manufacturing techniques, companies that want to compete on the knowledge playing field must also learn from Japanese techniques of knowledge creation.

Describes how Royal DSM NV, an $8 billion dollar global corporation, leveraged information technology to enable a major corporate portfolio transformation between 2000 and 2006.

Hong Kong Disneyland was the Walt Disney Company's third theme park outside America, after Tokyo and Paris. From conception to opening, the government joint venture was subjected to the absolute scrutiny of the Hong Kong public. There was skepticism towards the equity of partnership and politicians accused the administration of selling Hong Kong's interest cheap. Negative publicity plagued the Hong Kong theme park leading up to the opening. Green groups asked the park to ban shark's fin soup from the resort's wedding banquet menu. District councilors accused Disney officials of discrimination for refusing to switch to the more environmentally friendly fireworks technology they used in California. Local unionists attacked the poor working conditions and long hours at the park. If those were only the tip of the iceberg, the ticketing fiasco during Chinese New Year hammered home the message--the Disney formula was not working. In September 2006, the Hong Kong theme park announced it had missed its first year attendance target of 5.6 million. Often criticized as the smallest Disneyland in the world, the Hong Kong theme park had been tipped as a "stepping stone" for the American company's entry into mainland China. If it was indeed to serve as a prototype for another Disneyland in China, it would be critical for the management of Hong Kong Disneyland to come up with a recovery plan and realign its strategy to improve its image, boost attendance, and deliver its revenue target. Explores what could be done to enhance the smooth delivery of the American fantasy in the alien culture of the Middle Kingdom.

Hong Kong was facing problems from traffic congestion in the northern part of the island. To solve this issue, the government proposed building a new road. But the plan was strongly opposed, in particular from environmental groups. The government then considered the different arguments and the option of road pricing as an innovative way to solve congestion problems. Reviews Hong Kong's prior attempt at implementing electronic road pricing, as well as electronic road pricing as implemented by various cities globally. Solutions to the congestion are considered, in particular, road building and road pricing.

In September 2003, Jeff Immelt challenged the business leaders at GE to come up with "Imagination Breakthroughs," innovative new projects that would serve as the centerpiece of GE's organic growth initiative. Follows the company as these changes are driven through the business units, focusing on GE Transportation as it launches a series of groundbreaking, green products--from the Evolution Locomotive to the Hybrid Locomotive. The growth process transforms the culture within GE Transportation, leading to a redefinition of the marketing role, the implementation of a "growth leader" profile and new decision-making processes to encourage innovation and risk. Finally, presents a critical decision point, as Transportation executives must decide whether or not to support the high-risk Hybrid Locomotive project.

<p style="color: rgb(197, 183, 131);"><strong> AWARD WINNER - Dark Side Case Writing Competition</strong></p><br>This case examines how the Tanzania government intends to address a pressing deterioration in the infrastructure and services of Dar es Salaam's Water and Sewage Authority. The decision process unfolds in the spring of 2002, on the heels of the Cochabamba uprising in Bolivia and an increasing dispute over the involvement of the International Finance Corporation and the World Bank in other water development projects in Ghana, Mauritania and South Africa. At that time, the World Bank was already sponsoring similar projects in Angola, Benin, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Rwanda Sao Tome and Senegal, despite some vocal local opposition. This multi-part case series is ideally suited for core or elective courses in strategy and sustainability to illustrate the types of ongoing tensions and divergent decision angles that influence the formation and performance of public-private partnerships and managing in a global context. It also provides a rich and graphic account of the special threats and opportunities in the water sector - a wealth of complementary teaching resources can also stimulate larger debates by juxtaposing the case decision with a broader crisis of confidence in for-profit solutions to water and sewage provision in Africa and in Latin America.

This is a supplement to City Water Tanzania (A): Water Partnerships for Dar es Salaam, product #9B07M025. It details the terms of the lease contract with an international operator, Biwater, and discusses the alternatives that were considered and discarded, the bidding process, and the roles and motivations of the parties. The key questions revolve around a) the adequacy of the decision, b) the responsibility for the next steps and c) the milestones and metrics to gauge the success of the privatization.

This is a supplement to City Water Tanzania (A): Water Partnerships for Dar es Salaam, product #9B07M025 and is a two-part role-play. In this part (A) role-play, students take the position of Edward Lowassa, Tanzania's Minister of Water.

This is a supplement to City Water Tanzania (A): Water Partnerships for Dar es Salaam, product #9B07M025 and is a two-part role-play. In this part (B) role-play, students take the position of Cliff Stone, Biwater's former director of sales for Africa and now chief executive officer of City Water's management.

This is a supplement to City Water Tanzania (A): Water Partnerships for Dar es Salaam, product #9B07M025. This case summarizes the decision of the negotiation: the break up of City Water Tanzania and its aftermath, including litigation and forgone opportunities to meet the needs of the local residents.

In 2005, e-business was on the rise again, and one of the companies that was doing well was eBay, the most successful online auction website. In addition to generating revenue, transactions on eBay also produced a substantial amount of data about purchases, prices and products. The chief executive officer (CEO) of the 18-month-old company, Advanced Economic Research Systems, Inc. (AERS) analyzed this data for consumers and businesses interested in maximizing their return from eBay. Recently, AERS had earned the rights to license eBay data in North America. Now the CEO must decide how to capitalize on the data license agreement without cannibalizing his company's business of selling the results of analysis to large and small eBay sellers.

The Internet goose has laid countless golden eggs, along with a growing number of rotten ones. But it's the rotten ones that now tempt commercial, governmental, and consumer interests to threaten the Internet's uniquely creative power. The expediently selected, almost accidentally generative properties of the Internet--its technical openness, ease of access and mastery, and adaptability--have combined, especially when coupled with those of the PC, to produce an unsurpassed environment for innovative experimentation. Those same properties, however, also make the Internet hospitable to various forms of wickedness: hacking, porn, spam, fraud, theft, predation, and attacks on the network itself. As these undesirable phenomena proliferate, business, government, and many users find common cause for locking down Internet and PC architecture in the interests of security and order. PC and Internet security vulnerabilities are a legitimate menace. However, the most likely reactions--if they are not forestalled--will be at least as unfortunate as the security problems themselves. Consider the growing profusion of "tethered appliances"--devices whose functions cannot readily be altered by their owners (think TiVo). Such appliances take Internet innovations and wrap them up in a neat, easy-to-use package, which is good--but only if the Internet and PC can remain sufficiently in the center of the digital ecosystem to produce the next round of innovations and to generate competition. People buy these devices for their convenience or functionality and may appreciate the fact that they are safe to use (they limit the damage users can do through ignorance or carelessness). But the risk is that users, by migrating to such appliances, will unwittingly trade away the future benefits of generativity--a loss that will go unappreciated even as innovation tapers off.

Companies seeking new ideas or product concepts from outside sources may find the "innovation bazaar," with its wide array of choices and methods of acquiring them, a confusing, chaotic place. Nambisan and Sawhney have crafted a conceptual guide for managers who understand the importance of going outside their firms for innovation but are uncertain about how to do it. The authors' "external sourcing continuum" shows at a glance how shopping for, say, raw ideas compares with shopping for market-ready products in terms of cost, risk, multiplicity of options, and speed of commercialization. Raw ideas, whether acquired directly from the inventor or through a patent broker, licensing agent, or some other intermediary, tend to be low cost but high risk and take a long time to bring to market. Market-ready products, often acquired as stand-alone businesses through a venture capitalist or business incubator, are more expensive and narrow one's choices, but they can be launched quickly and with less risk. Between these two approaches lies a third, facilitated by the "innovation capitalist." This new kind of intermediary provides client companies with access to a broad range of innovative product or technology ideas that are nearly market ready, thereby mitigating early-stage risks and lowering the time to market without significantly increasing acquisition costs. The authors compare the advantages and disadvantages of using intermediaries associated with the three approaches and provide a checklist of factors to consider when placing your company on the external sourcing continuum. If you've been oriented toward one end of the continuum or the other, you can increase your options and your flexibility by expanding into the middle.

The challenges of coming up with fresh ideas and realizing profits from them are different for every company. One firm may excel at finding good ideas but have weak systems for bringing them to market. Another organization may have a terrific process for funding and rolling out new products and services but a shortage of concepts to develop. In this article, Hansen and Birkinshaw caution executives against using the latest and greatest innovation approaches and tools without understanding the unique deficiencies in their companies' innovation systems. They offer a framework for evaluating innovation performance: the innovation value chain. It comprises the three main phases of innovation (idea generation, conversion, and diffusion) as well as the critical activities performed during those phases (looking for ideas inside your unit; looking for them in other units; looking for them externally; selecting ideas; funding them; and promoting and spreading ideas companywide). Using this framework, managers get an end-to-end view of their innovation efforts. They can pinpoint their weakest links and tailor innovation best practices appropriately to strengthen those links. Companies typically succumb to one of three broad "weakest-link" scenarios. They are idea poor, conversion poor, or diffusion poor. The article looks at the ways smart companies--including Intuit, P&G, Sara Lee, Shell, and Siemens--modify the best innovation practices and apply them to address those organizations' individual needs and flaws. The authors warn that adopting the chain-based view of innovation requires new measures of what can be delivered by each link in the chain. The approach also entails new roles for employees--"external scouts" and "internal evangelists," for example. Indeed, in their search for new hires, companies should seek out those candidates who can help address particular weaknesses in the innovation value chain.

Spreadsheet supplement for case KEL300.

Biocon Limited was facing significant pricing pressure in their cash cow business, that primarily consisted of manufacturing Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). To combat this commoditization, Biocon's leadership had chosen an innovation-led strategy. This new strategy consisted of licensing and developing proven molecules from strategic partners to leapfrog competition and create large molecule biologics in India. The company understood that its transition from an API to an innovation-led company focused on new biologics would require patience and a risk-taking mindset. Although there was some commonality in the bioprocessing aspects of both approaches, the regulatory approvals, product development paths, and market-access timelines were dramatically different--almost diametrically opposed. Analyzes Biocon's strategic decisions, as well as the risks and challenges associated with migrating from a manufacturing to an innovation-led enterprise. How would they balance short-term pragmatism versus long-term vision? Do they have the appropriate human resources to scale and innovate? Is their India-centric strategy appropriate, since 86% of their end-market demand is in the U.S., Europe, and Japan? Fortunately, early indications with their innovation-led strategy were showing positive signs and demonstrable results--such as their biogenetic insulin and monoclonal antibody launch in India. Their lead oral insulin project, with a planned $100 million budget, was meeting its milestones and deliverables. Many critical business challenges are detailed in this case. Nevertheless, given their fully integrated business model and significant manufacturing base, the odds are in Biocon's favor to overcome these challenges and lead India's biotechnology revolution.

Examines the life, career, and leadership style of John Meredith, the group managing director of Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH). Meredith established the company in 1972 based on his vision for more efficient global trade. Under his leadership, the company grew to become the world's largest container port operator. HPH grew from owning and managing a single container port to owning and managing 45 container ports by May 2007. Also looks at the importance of leadership at all levels of organizations. When a company grows quickly and sets up operations around the world, it must constantly train new leaders. However, HPH had difficulty finding and training enough leaders who were willing to lead the company's new port operations in far-off destinations. Reviews HPH's actions thus far and asks what other measures may be appropriate in the future.

This technical note focuses on risk management in a project-based organization. Risk management is discussed at the organizational and project levels. Three components of risk management are mentioned: risk assessment, risk management plan, and risk monitoring. Recent thinking in risk management has gone beyond financial risk management and incorporates enterprise risk management (ERM). Finally, the technical note links risk management to strategy, and notes the importance that the implementation of both has on the performance of the firm.