個案總覽

Narayana Hrudayalaya (NH), a leading cardiac hospital network with many firsts to its credit, has revolutionized heart care in India. It has a market share close to 15 per cent in the cardiac sector, has successfully completed 70,000 surgeries and has given insurance to over four million farmers through its microinsurance scheme. Its motto, “caring with compassion,” is its guiding philosophy and the telemedicine network set up at NH has been able to provide treatment for over 50,000 cardiac patients free of charge. The case highlights the evolution of NH and the vision of its founder, and outlines his ambitions and struggles in seeking to increase the number of cardiac surgeries performed each day. How can he retain the top surgeons and fulfill his mission to offer affordable heart care while the compensation of doctors is rapidly increasing?

This two-part case focuses on how to identify and manage strategic uncertainties in an innovative, entrepreneurial start-up company. In the (A) case, students learn about Quiet Logistics, an e-commerce fulfillment company working with high-end apparel retailers such as Bonobos, Gilt Groupe, and Zara. What distinguishes the company from its rivals is its use of Kiva robots which collect customer items within the warehouse and bring them to the appropriate work station for employees to package and prepare for shipment. Processing up to 8,000 orders per day, the robots help make Quiet Logistics a highly-efficient firm and free its workers to complete additional value-added services such as handwritten thank-you notes. The company has also developed proprietary software to collect data on productivity measures, resulting in 99.99% accuracy in its inventory system and completing orders on-time. At the end of the (A) case, students are asked to list the strategic uncertainties that should be keeping the two co-founders awake at night as they consider growth opportunities for their company. The one-page (B) case reveals a surprising strategic twist that throws their plans into disarray. Students are asked to figure out how to respond.

This two-part case focuses on how to identify and manage strategic uncertainties in an innovative, entrepreneurial start-up company. In the (A) case, students learn about Quiet Logistics, an e-commerce fulfillment company working with high-end apparel retailers such as Bonobos, Gilt Groupe, and Zara. What distinguishes the company from its rivals is its use of Kiva robots which collect customer items within the warehouse and bring them to the appropriate work station for employees to package and prepare for shipment. Processing up to 8,000 orders per day, the robots help make Quiet Logistics a highly-efficient firm and free its workers to complete additional value-added services such as handwritten thank-you notes. The company has also developed proprietary software to collect data on productivity measures, resulting in 99.99% accuracy in its inventory system and completing orders on-time. At the end of the (A) case, students are asked to list the strategic uncertainties that should be keeping the two co-founders awake at night as they consider growth opportunities for their company. The one-page (B) case reveals a surprising strategic twist that throws their plans into disarray. Students are asked to figure out how to respond.

The vice-president and general manager for Michigan Plastic Inc.’s Shelby Division (Shelby) is faced with various options. Shelby specializes in thermoforming plastic gasoline tanks for global automotive companies such as General Motors, Ford and Toyota. The vice-president is looking at ways to restart growth at Shelby, a division that has been the subject of a turnaround effort from 2007 to 2010. In fact, the vice-president has committed to his chief executive officer to double sales in the next five years. This case looks at the competitive environment – competitors and the state of technology – and the vice-president's challenge in selecting the growth option.

Near the end of November 2013, Lululemon Athletica (Lululemon) became the subject of a viral firestorm after a series of negative events seriously ruptured the company's reputation. The company found itself facing its worst quality control problem to date, with a recall of 17 per cent of its Luon pants due to issues with sheerness. In addition, the company’s chief executive officer had stepped down. Was Lululemon destined to follow Blackberry as another example of a failed Canadian company, or could it resurrect its former glory by facing its critics head on?

By the spring of 2014, the founder of EarthWear Face & Body is in desperate need of part-time employees to help run her successful skin care retail business, which she runs out of her home in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. After eight years of hard work, she has turned her part-time hobby making all-natural skin care products into a thriving business. She sells her products online, through retail stores, at craft and trade shows and at the Saskatoon Farmers' Market. But her successful business has become too much work for her to manage on her own. A failed attempt to bring on a part-time employee made it clear that she needs to develop a targeted recruitment strategy. How can she effectively communicate her corporate culture to attract the best candidates? See supplement 9B14C046.

Supplement to 9B14C045.

Near the end of November 2013, Lululemon Athletica (Lululemon) became the subject of a viral firestorm after a series of negative events seriously ruptured the company's reputation. The company found itself facing its worst quality control problem to date, with a recall of 17 per cent of its Luon pants due to issues with sheerness. In addition, the company's chief executive officer had stepped down. Was Lululemon destined to follow Blackberry as another example of a failed Canadian company, or could it resurrect its former glory by facing its critics head on?

If you want to create change in public education but are not a school principal or other traditional public education leader, what do you need to do? This long, integrated background note examines the inspiring models and stories of individuals who are improving outcomes for low-income students through innovative social ventures. It shows how small innovations that start outside the traditional public education establishment get off the ground and overcome obstacles; how, if properly set up and tended, they can scale to multiple sites to move inside the "school building" for greater impact. They demonstrate the advanced leadership skills, tools, and principles that courageous education innovators everywhere can use to guide their thinking from outside the school building in.

The chief executive officer (CEO) of GENICON is at a crossroads. The private medical device manufacturing business he started over 15 years ago has several acquisition offers as the industry starts to consolidate ahead of changes to the U.S. healthcare system. He can sell it now and make millions for himself and his investors or he can grow the business for a couple more years and, assuming a constant multiple of acquisition price to revenue, make millions more since his business is in fact growing. However, the business needs capital to grow and the CEO does not want to take on more debt. Should he sell the whole company and start his next venture? Or sell it and continue to help the acquirer grow the business? Or sell a part of the company and lose some autonomy and control? The CEO knows he is in a fortunate position but he still has to make a decision and soon.

A health services company is planning for an initial public offering. Its new business model is the farming of body parts to feed into the organ supply chain in developed economies to help reduce the waiting lists for organ transplants.

This case is used in Darden's "Economics of Water" course elective. Suzanne Apple, senior vice president of private sector engagement at World Wildlife Fund-United States (WWF), was preparing for an important meeting with her counterpart at The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC). The two companies had formed a tremendously successful partnership several years earlier that focused on freshwater conservation and other environmental issues. With the original agreement set to expire, Apple needed to draft recommendations for a new agreement, ensuring that WWF's priorities aligned with TCCC's, and vice versa. But what should the scope and goals of the new partnership be? This case is supported by a teaching note for instructors.

SNA Educa (previously known as Codesser) is a non-profit organization which was created by the National Association of Farmers (Sociedad Nacional de Agricultura, SNA) in Chile. Its mission included improving the living conditions of people associated with rural activities. One way of doing this was by offering agricultural and technical education to low-income students in rural areas. SNA Educa currently manages around 20 high schools in different regions of Chile. In the early 2000, SNA Educa made a major decision: to buy a school to provide primary and secondary scientific humanistic education, a field in which the organization had neither previous educational experience nor managing skills. Even though the investment decision had proven financially convenient, several issues cast some doubts about the suitability of the decision: inadequate mission fit, low educational test scores of the school, the troublesome political environment related to school reform, child abuse in the school, , among others. After ten years of the acquisition, the board is now debating whether it should reverse its previous decision and sell the school.

This note considers common legal pitfalls associated with the launch of new products. A series of questions are presented that companies poised to launch a product should keep in mind. Questions about advertising, pricing, and branding are explored, as well as who in a product's supply chain might bear liability if the product is faulty.

NuScale Power, an entrepreneurial venture in Portland, Oregon, has designed the leading modular nuclear reactor in the United States. This Reactor will be safest and simplest ever built. Started in 2007 as an entrepreneurial venture, the company is now two years away from applying to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a License certification. While the NRC considers their application, the company will finish designing a nuclear plant to use 12 of their modular reactors. If the company can mitigate the substantial risks facing it, 2021 will see their first of several hundred planned sales.

The case describes this health and wellness service company and poses the question: should RedBrick stay on the path of building out its product platform or should the RedBrick platform be launched directly to health insurers, ACOs, or directly to customers?

After spending a few years in the corporate world, in 2012, a young entrepreneur in India decided to start up his own venture developing mobile applications that supported interactive comic content. Called TodTales, the innovative e-comic would incorporate music, interactive games and augmented reality in a comic book format that would encourage young children to read. He had raised the initial seed funding from his own and his partner's personal resources and an angel investor. The prototype was ready for demonstration and received positive responses from parents during a focus group study conducted in Mumbai. With the hope of going commercial by the end of 2014, the founder knew that he should start the next stage of development by convincing prospective investors that his idea had commercial potential and would quickly find a market not only in India but around the world.

Pahalwan's was a chain of four outlets that offered sweets, snack food and fast food in Jammu, India. It had a major presence in the state of Jammu and Kashmir and was delivering products to other parts of India, such as Delhi. However, local, national and international food retailers had entered the market, increasing the competition. Changing consumer preferences had also started affecting the company. Pahalwan's did not believe in advertising its products and focused little energy on branding activities. Thus, there was a need to plan for an innovative and cost-effective communication strategy to boost its sales. Pahalwan's also needed to think about new products and new markets to stay in business.

In October 2013, Hasan Haider (28), CEO and co-founder of the Tenmou Angel Group in Bahrain, had doubled Tenmou's investment funds from Bahrain Dinar (BD) 1 million to BD2 million (to approximately $5.4 million). Since its founding in 2010, Tenmou had invested half of its capital-about .5 million BD-in 17 Bahraini startups. As of the time of the case, Haider and co-founder and Tenmou chairman Sami Jalal were anticipating the need for more capital in 2014. Haider was realizing that to have any long-term effect on Bahrain's entrepreneurship ecosystem and to position Bahrain as a magnet for the MENA's very best entrepreneurs, much more money would be needed. Haider was contemplating opening up a parallel effort to organize a $100 million fund, which would be the largest in the MENA region by far. He had given himself until the end of 2013 to decide. Notably, as currently structured, he would not receive any of the profits if Tenmou portfolio companies exited. The Tenmou case bridges two areas related to entrepreneurship. One is economic development policy. How can private investment initiatives be optimized for economic development goals, particularly in emerging economies? The second is entrepreneurial finance, in particular, programs and policies that encourage or discourage the flow of funds to entrepreneurial ventures. Thus, the Tenmou case may be used in graduate and undergraduate courses in public policy, entrepreneurial finance, economic development, social innovation, and the like. It may also be used in leadership training programs, such as the Harvard Kennedy School program, Innovation for Economic Development, MIT's Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program, or Babson's new program in "Driving Economic Growth through Entrepreneurship Ecosystems." The case can also be used in regional interventions in order to stimulate discussion about the role of family business in fostering entrepreneurship, as well as the limitations of government engagement.

Diversey, a leading global brand in the business-to-business cleaning industry, had entered the Indian market positioned as a total cleaning solution provider to institutional customers. It differentiated itself from the competition with its end-to-end solutions, superior products and service levels, research and development capabilities and value-based pricing. While it had some success in India, it felt that there was a huge untapped opportunity for growth. However, a developing country like India posed several challenges due to its social and cultural differences (e.g., local unorganized competition, customer price sensitivity, complex distribution channels, etc.) versus developed countries. The case provides an opportunity for students to apply a number of conceptual tools (i.e. Porter’s 5 forces analysis, 4C analysis, SWOT analysis, value- chain analysis and the stakeholder power/interest matrix) to analyze the current strategy and identify the best alternatives for Diversey to move forward with its growth objectives.