個案總覽

Many CEOs don't seem to care about organic growth. They either give up on it, in the belief that their companies will inevitably become low growth, or they cede responsibility for it to the operating units. Those are big mistakes. In an uncertain business environment, all corporate leaders need to be actively engaged in organic growth. Four rules can help them support the operating units in the quest for the best opportunities: 1) Keep an eye on the big picture by setting standards and assembling data that steer the company toward promising areas, nurturing an enterprisewide organic growth capability, and looking across markets and businesses for small opportunities that can be bundled. 2) Fight the short-term pressures of the business cycle by earmarking local cost savings for local investment and demonstrating, through a special corporate fund, that good ideas can always attract resources. 3) Resist typecasting some units as "growth engines" and others as "cash cows." Those labels shape beliefs about growth and affect the operating units' behavior. 4) Create a language for organic growth that helps the company clarify its priorities and develop a coherent, high-performing pipeline of opportunities.

Paul Rice knew that Fair Trade could do more, much more. While the model had benefited approximately 10 million people in developing countries, they were a small percentage of the 2 billion people worldwide who lived on less than $2 day. Fair Trade was not charity. It was a certification model that had started around coffee and ensured that money flowed back to the people who grew the coffee, giving them a "Fair Trade" price. As president and CEO of Fair Trade USA (FT USA), the leading third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the United States, Rice had reason to be proud. Since its founding in 1998, the nonprofit had grown Fair Trade CertifiedTM coffee from 0 to 5 percent of the U.S. coffee market. Fair Trade coffee had made tremendous inroads with large roasters such as Starbucks and Green Mountain as well as mainstream brands like Dunkin' Donuts. Rice, however, was not satisfied with 5 percent of the U.S. coffee market. He wanted to take Fair Trade to scale-widespread adoption in terms of volume, market share, consumer awareness, and impact for farmers. And Rice was confident that he knew how to get there. This case explores FT USA's market based approach and philosophy for increasing the reach and impact of Fair Trade. It reviews the concept of Fair Trade and the three pillars of the "Fair Trade for All" strategy: expand Fair Trade to include certification for large coffee growing estates and independent smaller farmers, invest in cooperatives to make them more competitive, and increase consumer awareness. The case highlights the controversy that ensued from FT USA's 2012 split from the international certifying body and why Rice believes that this was the right decision.

The Harvard Business Review (HBR) Group was an early adopter of social media, boasting a robust presence on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Now the company is seeking to evolve the Group's efforts from social media to social strategy - and start moving both revenue generation and strategy integration into HBR's core. To that end the company created two parallel projects, each tasked with developing two concrete new offerings that leveraged social dynamics on social platforms, while at the same time creating revenues or slashing costs for HBR. Now it has to choose between four different projects.

Spreadsheet Supplement for Product #710429

In August 2008, Magic Technology ("Magic") launched an initiative to implement the balanced scorecard in its organisation. Alan Lo, the chief executive officer, oversaw the implementation of the balanced scorecard at the company's headquarters. Lo encountered both strategic and execution difficulties during implementation, such as too many strategic objectives, too many strategic performance indicators and a diverse focus of strategic action plans. Yet, such difficulties hinted at a more fundamental issue of too many formulated strategic directions in the first place. In late 2009, Lo was in the middle of the execution phase to push the implementation of the balanced scorecard towards the department level. How would the difficulties encountered influence the initiative of the implementation of the balanced scorecard at the department level?

Nike, which first started experimenting with social media and networking in 2004, has been consistently reducing its spending on traditional advertising. Yet, Nike has not pulled back on its overall marketing budget, instead opting to focus on "nontraditional" advertising through new mediums. In doing so, the team hoped to build online communities to foster a closer relationship with its consumers. By 2012 Nike had committed to a social strategy that linked product with experience. Soon the company will discover if this strategic jump will be reflected on the bottom line.

Wojciech Woziwodzki, co-founder, president, and CEO of Tequila Mobile SA, a mobile games developer, publisher, and service provider, had to make some important strategic decisions. Tequila Mobile SA had already decided to shift to a new "free2play" revenue model but needed to decide whether to focus on building its business in markets where penetration of smartphone devices was high and the economy was developed or in markets where the use of mobile devices was taking off but the economy was still developing. The other critical decision was whether to continue to invest in in-house game development or focus on being a platform providing tools for third-party developers. The mobile game industry had exploded in recent years with the introduction of smartphones, application (app) stores, and cell phone penetration into developing economies. It brought with it a significant increase in the number of mobile games being developed and published, and Woziwodzki wanted to differentiate Tequila Mobile SA from the growing number of players in the quickly evolving industry.

American Express has developed a number of strategic partnerships with Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter to improve their card members experience and lower its customer acquisition cost. The case details the history of these partnerships, examines American Express' own social platforms, and talks about American Express' future plans in the realm of social strategy. It then presents students with two options related to Amex's future options and asks them to pick one.

At 2:46pm on March 11th, 2011, a 9.0M earthquake shook the Tohoku (Northeastern) region of Japan. The epicenter of the earthquake was in the coastal waters of Tohoku and reverberations from the quake triggered a tsunami that ravaged the coastal shores of Eastern Japan. The tsunami was the greatest recorded wave in history, with its highest peak at 38.9m and waves higher than 10m hitting 530km of coastal Japan.

This case has been designed to explore strategic interactions among organizations with different business models. The case considers how a competitor successfully challenged the incumbent in a platform market defined by strong network effects and high switching costs. The case allows students to assess the advantages and disadvantages of eBay's platform business model in comparison to Amazon's retail business model; to evaluate business model performance when value loops of two industry players interact; to analyze how Amazon expanded its business model and overcame barriers to entry in a platform market that generates winner-take-all effects for first movers; discuss how eBay can respond to the new competitive dynamic, exploring both tactical and strategic interactions; and assess the strategic implications of eBay's 2011 acquisition of GSI Commerce.

A decade after BusinessWeek declared the competitive battle between eBay, Inc., and Amazon.com "a defining moment for e-commerce," Amazon established itself as the leader. eBay must decide what strategy to use in order to regain the upper hand: maintain its current platform business model or make a radical change by transforming itself into a services provider.

Google has been widely criticized for its data center energy usage. Google Energy, a recently created subsidiary, has successfully responded to this criticism but must now formulate an expansion strategy. If successful, the expansion is expected to strengthen Google's image as an industry leader in energy procurement, provide strong financial returns, and create a lucrative new market. However, this initiative has high risks. The team must evaluate: Were its current efforts enough, or were they just the baseline? How far should Google go to address the environmental impacts of its operations? This case was written under the supervision of Professor Andrew Hoffman by graduate students Benjamin Bunker, Jennifer Foster, Jason Levine, Rodrigo Sanchez, Gaurang Sethi, and Geroge Tan.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article.

Business is the engine of the developed economies that devour a disproportionate share of the world's nonrenewable resources and produce a disproportionate share of its emissions. We see it, therefore, as both a cause of and a solution to environmental degradation. But how, exactly, can business contribute? To answer this question, the authors explore two schools of thought. According to one, consumers and companies should do more with the resources they consume, become savvier about recycling and processing their waste, and dampen their appetite for consumption in general. This worldview achieved perhaps its clearest expression in the works of the 19th-century economist Thomas Malthus. Although the Malthusian view exercises a powerful influence, it is by no means uncontested. An alternative philosophy, which flows from the work of the 20th-century economist and Nobel Prize winner Robert Solow, appeals to our natural optimism by arguing that environmental and other problems can always be resolved through the exercise of human ingenuity. It's not hard to see that these two philosophies make uneasy bedfellows. The Malthusian view encourages a tendency toward regulation and restraint, while the Solovian view underlies much of the advocacy for deregulation and the promotion of growth. But if we are to make real progress in solving the world's environmental problems, the authors write, we will have to apply both philosophies.

Companies are starting to recognize that even as they spend millions to acquire and analyze customer data, many of their employees lack the skills necessary to effectively use that data in making decisions.

Innovation capabilities have long been central to U.S. competitive advantage, but the rate of innovative activity is increasing sharply in other countries. Some people see this as the greatest threat to America's economic leadership. The author is unconvinced.

Each of us possesses an inner force that enables us to be optimally effective in all aspects of life. The power of one is much more than an abstraction that animates our actions. It has practical applications for day to day life, from school to work, and throughout our personal lives. The power of one provides a way to converse with ourselves, to crystallize what is important, thereby enabling us to make coherent decisions. And because it emanates from the core of who we are and what we stand for, it allows us to identify and think through our priorities.

How do you make money when you tell your customers 'don't buy our stuff unless you really need it?'" This was the question that Yvon Chouinard, founder of the clothing company Patagonia, asked himself as he considered developing a new partnership with eBay in which customers would buy and sell used Patagonia gear on eBay rather than buy it new. As he considered this new partnership, Chouinard would have to balance the environmental priorities upon which Patagonia was founded with its financial well-being. This is a two-part case. Part A presents the decision which Chouinard is considering, while Part B presents the decision that Chouinard chose. The A and B cases were written by graduate students Allyson Johnson, Courtney Lee, Steven Rippberger, and Morgane Treanton, under the supervision of Professor Andrew Hoffman.

How do you make money when you tell your customers 'don't buy our stuff unless you really need it?'" This was the question that Yvon Chouinard, founder of the clothing company Patagonia, asked himself as he considered developing a new partnership with eBay in which customers would buy and sell used Patagonia gear on eBay rather than buy it new. As he considered this new partnership, Chouinard would have to balance the environmental priorities upon which Patagonia was founded with its financial well-being. This is a two-part case. Part A presents the decision which Chouinard is considering, while Part B presents the decision that Chouinard chose. This case presents the decision about a potential partnership with eBay that Yvon Chouinard, founder of the clothing company Patagonia, chose to pursue. The A and B cases were written by graduate students Allyson Johnson, Courtney Lee, Steven Rippberger, and Morgane Treanton, under the supervision of Professor Andrew Hoffman.

The Schon Klinik is a private, for-profit German hospital group trying to establish itself as a premium health care provider in a competitive German market. The case details Schon Klinik's founding, its early focus on measurement and improvement, and the design and implementation of a system-wide structure for measuring and reporting actual health outcomes. The case details the care cycle for eating disorder patients and highlights the role outcomes measurement has played in improving eating disorder care over time. It ends with a discussion of Schon's innovative bundled reimbursement models and challenges the reader to explore how to develop new pricing and care delivery models that encourage integration of care around patient medical conditions. The case also discusses the German health care system, its regulatory constraints, and Schon's attempts to change the paradigm of competition in the sector.