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Spreadsheet supplement for case IMB781

La Colombe Coffee Roasters was founded in 1994 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with the notion that "America deserves better coffee." The company provided attractive cafés and an online coffee subscription program to its customers. It supported ethical trade in the sourcing of its products and coffee innovation, which had led to the Draft Latte cold coffee, a ready-to-drink product available both at La Colombe Coffee Roasters cafés and in a variety of retail outlets. The company hired a customer experience consulting firm to design its virtual presence and provide a seamless experience for consumers both through its cafés and online. It operated in a high-margin competitive industry with a high rate of company shutdowns, making customer interface and product innovation essential. With new equity invested by a highly-successful venture capitalist, the company had to now decide whether to scale up into a mass market company or continue to serve a niche segment through its artisanal cafés.

In 2016, a social entrepreneur founded Even Cargo in Delhi, India to provide last-mile logistics by employing only women. Even Cargo trained and provided employment opportunities to women from underprivileged backgrounds, usually as their first job ever outside the home. The company encountered various challenges, including resistance from patriarchs and gender bias. The founder remained persistent in his goal to establish Even Cargo as a successful social enterprise in Delhi and eventually expand into smaller Indian cities. However, a prevalent patriarchal mindset and gender inequality were deeply ingrained in these areas, which would make this goal considerably more difficult to achieve. What strategies could the founder consider to realize his business growth and expansion objectives?

After succeeding long-time CEO Maurice Levy as top leader of the world's third largest advertising, marketing, and communications company, headquartered in France, Arthur Sadoun accelerates digital transformation through a new platform drawing on talent from any of the formerly autonomous agencies and completes a reorganization to integrate the company by geography rather than brand. With Levy's mentoring, Sadoun must maintain morale during the COVID-19 pandemic and continue navigating change. This is the latest in a series of cases tracking milestones in the building of Publicis Groupe.

In 2016, a social entrepreneur founded Even Cargo in Delhi, India to provide last-mile logistics by employing only women. Even Cargo trained and provided employment opportunities to women from underprivileged backgrounds, usually as their first job ever outside the home. The company encountered various challenges, including resistance from patriarchs and gender bias. The founder remained persistent in his goal to establish Even Cargo as a successful social enterprise in Delhi and eventually expand into smaller Indian cities. However, a prevalent patriarchal mindset and gender inequality were deeply ingrained in these areas, which would make this goal considerably more difficult to achieve. What strategies could the founder consider to realize his business growth and expansion objectives?

In this article, we argue that the occurrence, trajectory, and impact of consumer activism are in large part driven by the political environment in which firms operate, particularly by their country's level of polarization and the political makeup of their core customer base. In environments characterized by low levels of political polarization, companies are embroiled in a relatively small number of political controversies, and as a result are rarely the target of consumer activism. Conversely, in highly polarized environments, people's political sensibilities are easily offended, which leads to a relatively large number of political controversies. These controversies tend to arise along party lines, meaning they elicit a consumer boycott exclusively from one side of the political spectrum. Such partisan boycotts lead people on the other side of the political spectrum to rally around the company at the center of the controversy and to purchase more of its products. Whether a company's sales end up decreasing or increasing depends on the nature of the issue at the heart of the controversy as well as on the political beliefs of its core customer base. We conclude by describing how companies can successfully navigate this complex interplay between political polarization, consumer activism, and customers' political preferences.

As organizations accelerate digital transformation with mobile devices, cloud services, social media, and Internet of Things services, cybersecurity has become a key priority in enterprise risk management. While improving cybersecurity leads to higher levels of customer trust and increased revenue opportunities, rapidly evolving data protection and privacy regulations have complicated cybersecurity management. Against the backdrop of rapidly rising cyberbreaches and the emergence of novel cybersecurity technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, this article introduces a cyber risk management framework, discusses a cyber risk assessment process, and illustrates a continuous improvement of cybersecurity performance and cyberinvestment cost analysis with a real-world cybersecurity example.

Blockchain has the potential to fundamentally transform the healthcare ecosystem, impacting all healthcare participants. In this article, we study the potential impact of blockchains on patient-centered care delivery by looking at the ecosystem of blockchain-based solutions being developed for key stakeholders: patients, pharmaceutical firms, hospital systems, and insurance providers. Building from our interviews with senior managers, our actual experience in the healthcare industry, and our academic research, we outline how blockchain will transform healthcare, and we provide guidance as to how those in healthcare need to start thinking about engaging with blockchain technology.

This conceptual article explores how mindfulness can be successfully integrated in the strategy tool kit of organizations. The likely global reconstruction in the aftermath of COVID-19 can be effective if organizations reexamine their existing philosophies and business practices. Against this backdrop, mindfulness is a time-tested practice that has the potential to transcend all functions in a company's value chain and to create a sustainable competitive advantage. This article uses a strategy lens to examine mindfulness in organizations, which has implications for researchers and practitioners. First, I discuss the theoretical frameworks of mindfulness, the performance improvements that individuals can expect from consistent practice, and how these improvements translate to organization-level performance. Next, I summarize the methods and tools for workplace application and the steps for implementing mindfulness strategies in organizations. Finally, I describe implementation challenges and offer assessment tools for mindfulness.

Ben Van Weelden, Manager of Scenic Floral, was considering providing direct-to-door delivery to Northern Ontario stores for its main customer, Metro Inc. Scenic was looking for ways to increase sales and profit, but also had its eye on providing coast-to-coast delivery of cut flowers in Canada, with the help of its partner-shareholder, Petals West. However, it would need to be advantageous for both Scenic and Metro to make this a viable option.

Presentation to accompany product W25218.

HSBC Commercial Banking was a key business for HSBC Holdings plc, contributing one-third of the bank’s profit in 2019. In 2016, the regional head of Commercial Banking, Asia Pacific, began initiating a series of open innovation programs in Hong Kong. The programs aimed to embrace collaboration in the innovation and technology ecosystem to co-create value for Commercial Banking’s small and medium-sized customers.<br><br>Now, in 2020, the regional head of Commercial Banking and his innovation team leader were discussing their innovation initiatives. They reviewed what they had achieved in the last four years. What value had they created for not just the small- and medium-sized customers but also the ecosystem stakeholders? What challenges had they met, and how well had they resolved these? Had the proper culture and talents been in place to meet these challenges? Had they measured the performance of the team properly to keep their colleagues motivated about sustainable innovation? They also explored a few critical areas for future growth. The regional head of Commercial Banking wondered what more they could do in Hong Kong, and how they could replicate the success they had achieved in Hong Kong in other emerging markets in Asia.

In April 2012, Qingke Facilities Leasing Ltd. (Qingke), a technology-based real estate management company, was founded to provide a long-term apartment rental service to young professionals in Shanghai and some other cities. The goal was to rent constructed but vacant apartments on the Shanghai market by leveraging information technology resources for all operations and by employing a model of standard apartment renovation.<br><br>A decentralized long-term apartment rental model was introduced to China’s market in 2014 by leading Internet-based companies and was booming by 2017. At the end of 2018, Qingke was one of the top ten brands in the long-term apartment rental market, running 100,000 renting units in coastal cities in China with revenue of ¥1.2 billion that year. However, to sustain rapid market growth and create a large-scale Internet economic model, Qingke would have to overcome many uncertainties and challenges, including capital acquisition; strong competition; constraints to its financial resources, team building efforts, work force development, and sustainability; and extension of the business model.<br><br>By the beginning of 2019, Qingke had come a long way; the US$100 million in funding he received in 2018 signified a major accomplishment in Qingke’s progress since its establishment in 2012. However, competitors were targeting Qingke with the aim of overtaking its market share. How could the recent funding strengthen Qingke’s position in the housing rental market and gain sufficient market share? Should Qingke increase investment in information technology to upgrade its data processing abilities and capacity, or should it build its brand to promote market exposure and awareness?

The Berlin-based start-up, Lytt, was founded in late 2019 with the aim of offering employees a means to speak up about misconduct at work through a digital assistant, which enabled them to communicate difficult topics safely and anonymously. Lytt wanted to help companies understand their working climate and sustainably promote their employees’ satisfaction and health. In August 2020, the owners of Lytt had to develop the right go-to-market strategy, keeping in mind the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their decisions.

Do you-as leader, an individual within an organization, or running your own business-know when to say yes and when to say no? How do you make decisions about your own career and life? How do you counsel others who ask you for career and life insights? Owusu-Kesse is not only a new CEO of a nonprofit organization changing the lives of tens of thousands of children and young adults, but he also took this position while the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the world, and more specifically in the streets and homes of Harlem, New York. Now the newly selected CEO has a major decision to make, one which could change the trajectory of his own career, the organization he is tasked to lead, and make a meaningful difference in the lives of children and young adults beyond Harlem. A group of philanthropic organizations have asked Owusu-Kesse to take the lead in coordinating the scaling of the Harlem Children's Zone place-based model nationally, beginning in a dozen major U.S. cities. What should the response of the CEO be to this extraordinary request? How should he make the decision? How does he think about the children and families within Harlem who already require his full attention amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and the racial reckoning, renewing a sense of urgency to address rampant inequalities? How does he think about inspiring and leading his organization of 1,800 professionals who are already tired and depleted? Should he seriously take on a national effort at this time?

The Case describes how Penny Wise, the newly appointed managing director of 3M Canada, drew on her personal leadership style, experience and character to keep the Canadian organization strategically relevant through a significant restructuring and the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March 2021, online education platform edX considers how to achieve financial sustainability without compromising its mission to provide universal access to high-quality education.

There is an important constraint that can be used to regulate mobility in competitive labor markets - the existence of a deeply felt rivalry between employers. Rivalry denotes a stable antagonistic relationship between companies, as exemplified by Apple and IBM in the 1980s. Analyzing data from the Palio di Siena (an ancient horse race in Siena, Italy), this article shows that direct moves between rivals are rare, accounting for less than 2% of all career moves in this context between 1743 and 2011. Rivalry constrains not only direct but also indirect moves to the ally of a rival or the rival of an ally. This article presents a framework describing how managers can harness rivalry: mapping rivalry, managing rivalry to capitalize on its positive aspects, and leveraging rivalry to adjust the level of competitive intensity.

The case series presents the governance and leadership challenges and opportunities the Royal Dutch Rowing Federation (Koninklijke Nederlandse Roei Bond, or KNRB for short), which is a not-for-profit top sports federation. The series presents eight years of the KNRB's history starting with the aftermath of the Bejing 2008 Olympics, then reviews the preparation to the London 2012 Olympics and concludes with the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics. The much improved results obtained by the rowers in Rio confirm that, by that time, the KNRB was back to effective functioning and great performance. A detailed account of how an organizational turnaround is led by the board, let alone by the board of a major sports federation, is rare. Given the problems faced by major sports federations over the last decades the case shows that these problems indeed have their roots in governance failure.

The case series presents the governance and leadership challenges and opportunities the Royal Dutch Rowing Federation (Koninklijke Nederlandse Roei Bond, or KNRB for short). The KNRB is a not-for-profit top sports federation. A series of astonishing scandals have afflicted top sports federations over the last number of years (International Cycling Federation, Russian Ministry of Sports and the FIFA scandal which led to Sepp Blatter's infamous demise). The case series illustrates the role played by poor governance in allowing and being ultimately responsible for such scandals, good governance considerably reducing the probability of their occurrences. The series presents eight years of the KNRB's history starting with the aftermath of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, then reviewing the preparation to the London 2012 Olympics and concludes with the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics. The much improved results obtained by the rowers in Rio confirm that, by that time, the KNRB is back to effective functioning and great performance.