個案總覽

In this wide-ranging interview, Unilever CEO Paul Polman describes how his company is putting the world's biggest problems-from sanitation issues to poverty to youth self esteem-at the very core of its business model. He describes the company's Sustainable Living Plan, which aims to reduce environmental impact, improve health and well-being and enhance livelihoods around the world. He shows that this approach not only makes enormous sense for shareholders and brings costs down, it drives up employee engagement levels and enables a company to embrace new business opportunities.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Category labels are not the same as company brand. Brands create unique relationships between customers and your particular company. Category labels, however, are a way to identify a product's commonality with others of its type. For example, Tesla Motors markets and maintains its distinctive "Tesla"brand, but the category label the company uses to introduce its products is "electric cars."Categories, like brands, matter in ways that are subtle and profound. New industries are characterized by an early period of confusion and uncertainty about product use and meaning. The industry that we know today as "cloud computing"started decades ago under labels such as "utility computing,""time sharing,""application services provider,"and "software as a service."While the category label "smartphone"is ubiquitous today, in the late 1990s, Samsung once called a product of that type a "camera phone,"others called it a "PDA phone"and Nokia called it a "gaming deck." Contrary to popular opinion in the business press, the first-mover advantage of entering a new market very early can be a disadvantage. But when should companies launch a product in a nascent industry? In a nascent industry or sector, the introduction of the dominant category label marks the start point of the ideal window of opportunity for entry. Before the introduction of the dominant category label, most consumers are reluctant to commit, which often results in a difficult time period for early-entry producers, who must try to convince customers to try their products. The end point of the ideal window for entry is the introduction of a dominant product design into the market; after that, companies need to conform to customers'expectations for the product category.

In the summer of 2014, the founder and sole owner of F.P. Journe, a maker of luxury watches, sat in his Geneva headquarters and wondered about the future. Founded in 1999, the private company had 125 employees and a strictly limited production of 850 to 900 watches per year. It was a well-respected brand that was distributed globally through a network of company-owned boutiques and third-party jewellery stores. Its exclusively designed and individually manufactured products were prized by collectors and had won many awards and distinctions. However, the “haute horology” market had become increasingly competitive. Was producing 95 per cent of all watch components in-house a good idea? Should he scale up his business through mergers and acquisitions or by increasing the company’s online presence? Or should he rest on his laurels and preserve the status quo?

The case considers the evolution of the Indian pulses market and the ensuing opportunity in the branded pulses segment. India was the world's largest producer, importer and consumer of pulses because of the high percentage of vegetarians in the local population. The Indian food industry is expected to reach US$65.41 billion by 2020 owing to the rise in middle class income, changing urban lifestyle and modern retail trade. Agro Tech Foods, the Indian arm of ConAgra Foods, USA has an opportunity to enter in the Indian branded pulses sector. The decision that Agro Tech has to make was whether to go ahead and gain the prime mover advantage or wait for the other players to cultivate the market and reap the benefits later. Company also required to see whether the Indian market was demographically, economically and psychologically ready to make investments in branded pulses and to pay a premium for the same.

Mahindra and Mahindra Financial Services Limited is a non-banking finance company in India whose product portfolio includes vehicle loans, used vehicle financing, housing finance, personal loans, fixed deposits, mutual fund distribution, insurance broking, gold loans and loans for construction equipment. Catering to the rural poor across India, the company has close to 6,600 employees, mostly hired locally to serve local needs. Because it focuses on future cash flow projections and not on past credit history, and takes into consideration the integrity and character of the customer - primarily farmers, small traders and vehicle operators but also some small and medium enterprises - as well as the projected business plan, it is a good fit for poor rural Indian consumers. It bridges the gap between moneylenders, who charge exorbitant interest, and public sector banks that require collateral. In 2013, the manager of the Bijnor branch is approached by the owner of a transport firm who requests a loan to buy two more trucks to expand her business of moving goods for small pharmaceutical companies. Given that the prospective borrower has been rejected by a competing bank, should the loan to her be sanctioned?

Mahindra and Mahindra Financial Services Limited is a non-banking finance company in India whose product portfolio includes vehicle loans, used vehicle financing, housing finance, personal loans, fixed deposits, mutual fund distribution, insurance broking, gold loans and loans for construction equipment. Catering to the rural poor across India, the company has close to 6,600 employees, mostly hired locally to serve local needs. Because it focuses on future cash flow projections and not on past credit history, and takes into consideration the integrity and character of the customer — primarily farmers, small traders and vehicle operators but also some small and medium enterprises — as well as the projected business plan, it is a good fit for poor rural Indian consumers. It bridges the gap between moneylenders, who charge exorbitant interest, and public sector banks that require collateral. In 2013, the manager of the Bijnor branch is approached by the owner of a transport firm who requests a loan to buy two more trucks to expand her business of moving goods for small pharmaceutical companies. Given that the prospective borrower has been rejected by a competing bank, should the loan to her be sanctioned?

In 2013 and 2014, eBay deployed several sets of large, interactive touch screens and related technologies in shopping malls and retail stores. These "connected technologies" were used in a variety of ways intended to benefit both shoppers and retailers. In one case, screens served as "digital storefronts" in four locations throughout New York City for a new fashion brand, Kate Spade Saturday. Shoppers could evaluate products using the screens, and transfer the transaction to their smartphone for completion. The company used these screens to launch its brand in New York, and to gather information about the best location for a physical store. In a shopping mall application, large screens were installed in vacant storefronts. In addition to providing shoppers with information about products, and the opportunity to buy, sensors collected detailed information about the flow of traffic near the screens, which could be used by the store or mall. This data included the number of people that passed the screen, looked at it, stopped at it, and interacted with it. This can be contrasted with online advertising, where page views are counted, but there is no way of knowing whether the person even noticed the advertisement. In another application, Rebecca Minkoff's first U.S. retail stores incorporated large touchscreens for browsing and selecting items to be taken to a fitting room. The fitting room mirror was also a touch screen, which the shopper could use to communicate with a sales associate, evaluate accessories or alternate colors, and view selections in different lighting conditions. This case describes technical innovations, and a potential vision for the future of retailing made possible by those innovations. It asks students how eBay should attempt to monetize these innovations, how the data collected should be packaged and utilized, and the implications of eBay's vision for retailing's future.

Louis Dreyfus Commodities (LDC or Dreyfus) is the D of the ABCD grain-trading giants. The case describes how their business works and details the strategy by which management turned the company around in recent years. The case presents a number of issues facing the company: a sense of volatility in grain markets is getting lower, recent attempts by China to forward-integrate into grain procurement, and changes in ownership. A related question is the degree to which they should emphasize pure trading or participate in value-added activities.

JBS is a Brazilian protein company that started in beef, but has quickly expanded into pork and chicken, and around the world. The company has many critics who say it has expanded too quickly and that it is overextended financially. The case allows the reader to form their own opinion and consider whether the success/failure of the company is due to the personal style of the CEO, Wesley Batista. A current issue is the recent expansion of the company into value-added protein products in a division called JBS Foods.

Muñoz Group, which supplied supermarket chains and food distribution chains around the world with fruit, flowers, juice and ice cream, was at a strategic crossroads in 2014. CEO Alvaro Muñoz had to choose the best way to achieve profit goals and provide his company with a sustainable competitive advantage. The company had already developed innovative citrus, grape and flower breeding units in efforts to keep its product pipeline on the cutting edge. The company also worked to integrate vertically-to own or control every viable piece of the supply chain-in an effort to manage the flower and produce businesses from plant to retailer. The company's stronghold was its UK and European markets, but it had expanded into North America and also eyed new opportunities in Asia. Muñoz had to decide where to focus his efforts against a backdrop of margin squeezes in the food business, competition for product from the developing world, ever more stringent quality, sustainability, and environmental standards from clients, and perennial hiring challenges.

Kellogg’s is exploring the possibility of launching gluten-free Corn Flakes in India. The company must examine the gluten-free market in India and explore strategies for entering this market. Kellogg’s must assess its competitors in India’s growing breakfast cereal market, where a growing economy and increasing health awareness is pushing Indian consumers to look for healthier options. Questions remain whether Kellogg’s should enter the promising gluten-free segment to take advantage of this potential opportunity in India, consumers’ evolving preferences and the current industry trends.

This technical note proposes some useful strategies for improving spreadsheet design. It urges students to think of spreadsheets as communication tools whose sole purpose is to deliver a clear message to the reader. Thus, spreadsheets should not be seen simply as technical tools but as stories meant to engage the reader and, ultimately, drive a response. To this end, we gather inspiration from writers and journalists – story experts whose processes can be put to use in the creation of “story spreadsheets.” We supply 12 principles of spreadsheet creation that are useful in maximizing effective communication of the message, and we urge readers to use these principles when designing their own story spreadsheets.

Dhamani started as a loose gemstone dealer in 1969 in Jaipur, India. By the 2000s, it was headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and had expanded into diamonds and retail. The family business was now in its second generation of leadership and aimed to become a top global jewelry brand within the next 10 years. The family had been successful throughout its various inflection points in the past-had it positioned itself well to soon begin competing with the global, high-end jewelry houses such as Cartier and Bulgari?

The ICA case describes digital signage as an innovation that the ICA grocery chain might introduce throughout its Nordic region stores. It details the research methodology used to examine the effectiveness of this innovation, then poses a dilemma by noting that the three research studies present conflicting results.

In 2005, Victorinox, the original producer of the Swiss Army Knife, acquired Wenger, including the fragrance label “Swiss Army Fragrance.” The acquisition of Wenger allowed Victorinox to become the only producer of the famous Swiss Army Knife as well as the key player in Swiss Army watches. Victorinox’s head of marketing was asked to design a business strategy that would successfully allow the company to enter the fragrance industry. How should Victorinox diversify into the fragrance business? Should it aim to transfer its existing brand attributes to fragrance products? Or should it adopt a strategy that would include the use of another brand to market the perfumes? The head of marketing had to present a plan to the CEO of Victorinox on how best to brand and position the product, and how to compete in the fragrance industry.

In 2005, Victorinox, the original producer of the Swiss Army Knife, acquired Wenger, including the fragrance label "Swiss Army Fragrance." The acquisition of Wenger allowed Victorinox to become the only producer of the famous Swiss Army Knife as well as the key player in Swiss Army watches. Victorinox's head of marketing was asked to design a business strategy that would successfully allow the company to enter the fragrance industry. How should Victorinox diversify into the fragrance business? Should it aim to transfer its existing brand attributes to fragrance products? Or should it adopt a strategy that would include the use of another brand to market the perfumes? The head of marketing had to present a plan to the CEO of Victorinox on how best to brand and position the product, and how to compete in the fragrance industry.

This article investigates the role of Facebook in the establishment of relationships between brands and their fans, extending the link between relationship marketing and online consumer behavior. We explore what drives a user to connect with a brand profile on Facebook, to participate and interact with the community, and to share content published by brands on their own personal walls. To understand this relationship, we employed both qualitative and quantitative research techniques. The qualitative study was based on in-depth interviews of online marketing specialists and on a focus group comprised of Facebook users who were brand followers. The quantitative study was based on a structured questionnaire, which gathered responses from 650 Facebook brand followers. Results show that while Facebook users are willing to connect to brands on Facebook, they do not seem to interact or to frequently share brand content themselves. As a consequence, brands must strategize to establish a relationship with their brand profile fans.

Changes in consumer behavior require firms to rethink their marketing strategies in the digital domain. Currently, a significant portion of the associated research is focused more on the customer than on the firm. To redress this shortcoming, this study adopts the perspective of the firm to facilitate an understanding of digital marketing and social media usage as well as its benefits and inhibitors. The second generation of Internet-based applications enhances marketing efforts by allowing firms to implement innovative forms of communication and co-create content with their customers. Based on a survey of marketing managers, this article shows that firms face internal and external pressures to adopt a digital presence in social media platforms. Firms' digital marketing engagement can be categorized according to perceived benefits and digital marketing usage. To improve digital marketing engagement, marketers must focus on relationship-based interactions with their customers. This article demonstrates how some firms are already accomplishing just that.

Companies' escalating investment in social media--in particular, in Facebook--has become reality. However, most firms still do not see social networks as a vehicle for cultivating and winning customer loyalty, but rather as a resource for creating brand awareness. In this article, we offer a different view. By examining fans and non-fans of the Zara brand on Facebook, we discovered that Facebook enhances the relations that increase loyalty via trust, customer satisfaction, perceived value, and commitment. Our results revealed that these relations are stronger for fans of the brand than for non-fans, and suggest that customer satisfaction is the strongest determinant of loyalty. This indicates a new opportunity for marketing managers to achieve customer loyalty: Facebook.

The social media space has become a common place for communication, networking, and content sharing. Many companies seek marketing and business opportunities via these platforms. However, the link between resources generated from these sites and business performance remains largely unexploited. Both managers and financial advisors can profit from the lessons learned in this study. We conceptualize four channels by which social media impacts financial, operational, and corporate social performance: social capital, customers' revealed preferences, social marketing, and social corporate networking. An empirical test of our framework shows that 'followers' and 'likes' positively influence a firm's share value, but only after a critical mass of followers is attained. Our estimates suggest that Twitter is a more powerful tool to enhance business performance than Facebook.