個案總覽

The case is about Ecoalf, a Spanish sustainable fashion brand that manufactures garments, sneakers and accessories from recycled materials. By providing information on Ecoalf's products and initiatives, while simultaneously illustrating the difficulty of balancing social and financial goals, this case introduces an interesting real-world setting that touches upon various issues related to social innovation, entrepreneurship, strategy, CSR and ethics. Particularly, the case offers insights on the delicate phase in the growth of a firm in which sales are booming and the company is expanding, while the company still does not make a profit and its long-term continuity is still uncertain. The case confronts students with questions such as 'What strategic decisions should be made to ensure Ecoalf's long-term profitability?' and 'How should social and financial objectives be balanced?', and allows them to explore these questions using real company and market information.

Suk Shah, the chief financial officer at Avant, needs to consider the marketplace lender's future relationship with traditional banks: might Avant and the banks be able to work together as complementors to offer loans to consumers, or must they always be competitors? The case describes Avant's operation, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages that marketplace lenders, and more generally fintechs, have relative to traditional financial institutions. Shah's decision must take into account the challenges marketplace lenders face in terms of customer acquisition costs as well as in terms of attracting investors to its platform. Avant faces competition from other marketplace lenders, like LendingClub, as well as competition from banks. Regulation also has an important effect on Avant's ability to directly compete with banks and its need to cooperate with them.

Yulife is a digital-first life insurance and rewards company that is seeking to disrupt the centuries-old life insurance market. Its founders are a combination of insurance industry veterans and executives in finance, wealth management and gaming. The challenge the company faces is that it cannot go to market alone: it has to work in some capacity with industry incumbents to achieve the growth it seeks. The case provides detail on yulife's goal of transforming the industry by focusing on the consumer; on improving their health. It also provides an overview of the life insurance industry which, in many ways, has been unchanged since its founding over four centuries ago. The challenge for yulife is how it can navigate the relationships and requirements in the industry so as to allow its consumer- and technology-focused offering to thrive.

Vista Outdoor Inc. was a publicly traded company that competed in both Shooting Sports markets (e.g., firearms and ammunition) and Outdoor Products markets (e.g., hydration systems, sports helmets). Weak performance resulted in the initiation of a comprehensive strategic review of the company's business portfolio in November of 2017. This review was ongoing in February of 2018 when a 19-year-old former student entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida with a semi-automatic AR-15 style rifle and killed 14 students and three educators. Surviving students at the school rallied the nation and asked for more action to prevent gun violence. On March 1, in response to customer petitions, both Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) and Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) announced they would stop ordering and stocking Vista Outdoor brands like CamelBak and Bell because the company also manufactured guns (including semi-automatic, AR-15 style rifles similar to the one used in the Parkland shooting) and because they didn't believe that Vista Outdoor was doing enough to advance the national conversation on responsible gun ownership. As the case concludes, students are put in the shoes of Vista Outdoor CEO Chris Metz who must decide how to respond to the actions taken by its retailers and whether the current national debate about guns and gun control should be factored into the ongoing strategic review of the company's business portfolio.

This research-based case uses the circumstances surrounding Virginia-based Smithfield Foods' (Smithfield's) buyout offers from multiple foreign firms to examine the political and cultural constraints of a regionally rooted global firm in pursuing its strategic objectives. Smithfield's senior leadership receives offers from three firms, ShuangHui International (ShuangHui), JBS S.A. (JBS), and Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF), based in China, Brazil, and Thailand, respectively, to acquire all of Smithfield's outstanding assets and liabilities. Smithfield's history was one of aggressive growth through acquisition, skirting government regulations, and truculence with respect to labor and environmental activists. However, as revenues plateaued, the firm faced increasing investor pressure to either trim costs or sell off portions of the company to improve shareholder value. Though the company's operations crossed continents, its identity and brand were tied to southeastern Virginia. Would it be best for the company or its shareholders to sell? If so, to whom? What risks would the firm face, politically and culturally, if it decided to do so? Because of its many details, the instructor teaching this case can approach the content from a number of strategic or leadership perspectives.

A few Chinese companies recently have challenged the R&D strategies of foreign companies and offered lessons on how to make ideas commercially viable. But another, less obvious force to be reckoned with in China are the thousands of innovative companies that are quietly disrupting numerous industries and developing new products and new business models.

Judgment bias has long been recognized and studied, particularly in the context of decision-making about hiring. Whether it's a one-time decision or something that recurs, limiting decision-making bias is a clear benefit to the outcome. The authors suggest a practical, broadly applicable approach to reducing errors in strategic decision-making: the Mediating Assessments Protocol (MAP).

Many decisions about strategy require that senior executives make evaluative judgments on the basis of extensive, complex information. A disciplined, sequential approach can mitigate common errors and improve the quality of both one-off and recurrent decisions in an array of business domains. The process described in this article is easy to learn, involves little additional work, and (within limits) leaves room for intuition.

Prioritizing process improvement, redefining performance, and committing to digitization, DBS Bank revitalized its performance management strategy and turned itself into one of the world's most successful global digital banks.

Although most manufacturers are beginning to flirt with digital technologies, not one has successfully pulled off a digital transformation. CEOs still have to figure out its art - and science - forcing them to draw up their game plans on the fly, which inevitably leads to tension and trauma. But they are learning. Here's how GE has navigated its own digital transformation process.

When a business is growing fast, decisions can get lost in the fray - especially if it's unclear that a decision even needs to be made. People in the workplace bring recommendations to four audiences: a manager or top executive (those who approve a recommendation), and peers or a broader set of stakeholders (those who execute a recommendation). To sell an idea and get others to take action, you have to understand what your particular audience needs to hear.

Many people have come to view disruption as a synonym for innovation. This single-minded focus leads companies to overlook an alternative path to growth: the nondisruptive creation of brand-new markets where none existed before. It's time to embrace the idea that companies can create without destroying - and expand the conversation about the problems they can solve and the opportunities they can seize.

PERTH, AUSTRALIA, September 2016. Torsten Ketelsen's history, for the last 30 years, had been deeply intertwined with that of garnet, the hardest industrial sand. He very much created a market for it, then brought GMA Garnet to a market leader position with a 40 per cent global market share. GMA Garnet's success was based on the exceptional quality of the product and on the company's complete control over the whole production and distribution cycle, from mining to processing, logistics, shipping and distribution to the final user world-wide as well as reprocessing and recycling. The industrial success story also benefited from the support of its controlling shareholder, Jebsen & Jessen Family Enterprise, a true master of entrepreneurial partnerships. But how did the Jebsen & Jessen Family Enterprise's overarching legacy, values, governance, business model and growth strategy contributed to the success of GMA Garnet? How will this relationship support or hamper the ambitious goals set for the company's future? What were the implications of the family firms' commitment to environmental mining practices and a circular economy in that context?

The year 2013-14 was very significant for Raychem RPG Ltd (RRL) - a joint venture between RPG group, India and TE Connectivity, USA. The sales were looking up and order book was promising. Newly restructured units were working well and business in new segments was picking up. There were several initiatives undertaken by the CEO in last five years of his tenure. His team had achieved the desired stability and turnaround was successful. A high-growth future in a slowing global economic scenario had to be converted into a more profitable opportunity. However, he faced several questions. Was the strategic transformation journey that he embarked on four years ago complete? Could he have done something different? Which were the areas where the next focus should be? Did RRL have the required competences to succeed in those areas? How would RRL manage the changing expectations of the two JV partners?

In February 2018, the co-owners of Trafalgar Ales, Meads & Distillery, based in Oakville, Ontario, were eager to take on a wide range of new opportunities. In the 18 months since their purchase of the brewery, the two co-owners had devoted great efforts to transforming the company, creating and launching several new and successful beer brands. Contract brewing was de-emphasized, and the layout of the brewery was reset. The owners became involved in the industry at the brewers association level. What they needed, it seemed, was a better understanding of the opportunities in front of them. The co-owners had to decide where they should focus their attention and their resources. Their challenge was how to grow the brewery-do more of the same, or launch products in other categories?

On September 30, 2017, the general manager (GM) of Uber Technologies Inc. (Uber) for sub-Saharan Africa, arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, and paid for his Uber service with cash. This functionality of the Uber app represented a new business model for Uber. The GM had to convince global management of the business case for offering cash payment options in Africa; he did so by conducting experiments and showing data that indicated rider numbers had tripled with adoption of the cash payment option. Uber's driver-partners were concerned about safety when they transported passengers who paid by cash, both because credit card payments offered Uber rider identification and because the driver-partners were concerned about driving around with large amounts of cash. In spite of their concerns, the rationale for introducing a cash payment option was relevant, and it had to be considered carefully in the context of African locations with high crime rates. The GM considered various initiatives for utilizing data from their technology platform to safeguard their riders and drivers. They needed to address local needs in Africa while adhering to global Uber standards.

Gun control is an important issue in American politics. In 2014, in light of recent gun violence, gun control advocate organizations lobbied retailers to prohibit customers from carrying guns into their stores. The organizations had successfully lobbied Target Corporation, then turned its attention to The Kroger Co. (Kroger), petitioning it to change its store policy allowing customers to carry guns where state law permitted it. However, Kroger elected to maintain its existing policy. Gun violence increased in the United States over the subsequent years and gun safety advocates increased their lobbying efforts, raising the question of whether Kroger should revisit its position from 2014, allowing customers to carry guns in its stores, and if so, what position it should take.

In January 2018, the chief executive officer (CEO) of logistics company Supergroup Limited (Supergroup), considered the ideal weighting of Supergroup's offshore activities given a weak South African rand and slow growth in the country. The company had nearly become bankrupt in 2009, and the CEO had been hired as the "turnaround" leader who headed its steady recovery, stabilizing the company and building its initiatives toward growth. Now that Supergroup had made a successful recovery, shareholders were asking the CEO whether Supergroup should be focusing its investment strategy outside Africa. The CEO, too, was concerned about the group's concentration in Africa. Although he and the executive team preferred organic acquisition growth to dividends, they were grappling with the question of what their future focus of acquisitions should be.

Waste Management Inc. (WM), a company listed on stocks-to-watch in 2018 in North America - is a top provider for integrated environmental solutions. The waste management industry overall is transforming as more and newer waste treatment methods are deemed necessary to deal with growing populations and growing amounts of trash. The CEO at Waste Management Inc. (WM) is considering how to make the best use of the changing industry landscape. What direction should he take going forward to create shared value with societal constituents such as government agencies, communities and non-profit organizations? What investment should be made in technology, assets, and human resources? This case is useful for teaching strategic perspectives (e.g. external environmental variables) of the waste management industry or the company, WM. It includes an evaluation of WM's social, economic, and environmental impact on society. The discussion focuses around the exploration of environmental sustainability and green energy companies as prime models of corporate social responsibility (CSR).