個案總覽

Haier had come a long way since Zhang Ruimin took it over as a failing Chinese Collective-Owned Enterprise in 1984. Since then, he'd been able to transform it into one of the world's leading appliance manufacturers, known for quality and innovation. Haier was also noted for its bold geographical expansion, which had included buying iconic European brands, such as Candy, and, in 2016, the venerable General Electric Appliances (GEA), one of the world's most established white-goods firms. Along the way, Haier pioneered a new managerial philosophy: RenDanHeYi, a policy of staying close to the user (a term Haier preferred to "customer") where employees were encouraged to act as entrepreneurs and held accountable for their actions. More recently, it had put the digital agenda at the heart of its approach, leading a revolution in household appliances and aspiring to be the leading ecosystem brand in the Internet of Things (IoT) - a distinction duly conferred on it by BrandZTM in 2019.

Ecosystems offer a new way to bring multiple firms together in order to deliver new value propositions. By working together, the hub firm and its complementors can create innovative 'product plus service' bundles that span traditionally separate industries to offer an experience that simply wasn't available before. Such experiences can delight customers and give firms a powerful point of differentiation against competitors.

In the traditional strategic-planning model, managers attempt to forecast how markets will evolve and competitors will respond, and then define a multiyear plan to position their company to win in this future state. That worked well when markets were more stable and the primary factors influencing future growth and profitability were easier to forecast. But the world is now changing so quickly that no business can plan for every eventuality. And fewer than a quarter of large organizations employ the most notable tools and frameworks for strategy development under uncertainty: scenario planning, Monte Carlo simulation, and real options analysis. Executives say that those tools require data that is impractical to gather and analysis that is too expensive to execute routinely and that their output can be counterintuitive and complicated to explain to senior leadership and the board. In this article the authors offer a new approach and mindset for making strategic decisions, along with a new model for managing strategy development and performance monitoring. They describe what it takes to produce great results in uncertain times and propose a practical model for strategy development that they have seen succeed at several leading companies.

Despite heightened attention to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, surprisingly few companies are making meaningful progress in delivering on their commitments. Most firms are not integrating ESG factors into internal strategy and operational decisions and are giving investors little to no explanation of the impact of ESG performance on corporate earnings. To integrate ESG efforts into their core business models, firms should take these steps: (1) Identify the ESG issues material to the business; (2) factor in ESG effects when making strategic, financial, and operational decisions; (3) collaborate with stakeholders; (4) redesign organizational roles; and (5) communicate with investors.

This case illustrates the efforts of the Mahindra Group's Agri Business and Farm Equipment divisions to drive sustainability-oriented action aimed at improving the lives of rural communities and preparing them to adapt to the impacts of climate change. It briefly describes the far-reaching consequences of climate-related disasters in terms of loss of food and nutrition security; livelihood; crop production; and losses in manufacturing, especially in developing countries such as India that are highly reliant on agriculture. The approach adopted by the Mahindra Group to tackle challenges in agriculture, such as water scarcity, food wastage, and energy-intensive practices, through affordable and energy- and resource-efficient technology is discussed. There are intense deliberations among the leaders of the Mahindra Group businesses about the way forward and concerns regarding climate-friendly innovations, which, from the perspective of the Chairman, ultimately translates into creatively reconciling the conflict between environmental goals and profitability goals. The Chairman and the Chief Sustainability Officer are firm in their belief that there are immense business opportunities in aggressively implementing sustainable practices. The leadership of the Mahindra Group is deliberating on how they can collaborate with rural communities and devise ways to improve farm-to-market linkages, reduce the costs of farm inputs, and scale up energy-efficient technology.

Impact Kommons was initiated by New World Development (NWD) as the first start-up accelerator in Hong Kong targeted at achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs). As one of the leading property developers in Hong Kong, NWD has developed its connected business ecosystem, covering property development and investment, retailing, transportation, infrastructure development, health care, insurance, and logistics. With "creating shared value" as its corporate vision, NWD wants to achieve business sustainability by both bringing significant returns to shareholders and responding to the community and stakeholders' different needs. Impact Kommons was designed to facilitate business integration between the start-ups and NWD's business units with the aim of developing innovative solutions to solve NWD's clearly defined problems and achieve the relevant sustainable development goals of the UNSDGs. Impact Kommons can not only accelerate the business growth of start-ups but also raise their awareness of sustainability issues in the early stages of business development. This case describes how NWD initiated and developed Impact Kommons to pursue its sustainability goals, what the program achieved in cohorts one and two, and what problems it faced during the implementation process. The case shows the value and challenges of using accelerator programs to help start-ups to grow while enabling well-established companies to address sustainability issues. The case enables students to realize the importance of corporate social responsibility to companies and raises their awareness of the UNSDGs. After studying this case, students will become familiar with developing and implementing accelerator programs. This case also encourages students to seek innovative solutions to address sustainability issues.

Shopee has become the largest e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia as of early 2022. Led by CEO Chris Feng, Shopee began its expansion beyond the region to the Americas, Europe and India. India is expected to surpass the U.S. to become the second largest e-commerce market in the world by the 2030s. Shopee entered the Indian market in mid-2021 to harness the opportunities stemming from favourable technological, socio-cultural, political and economic environments. Shopee consistently deployed its resources and capabilities from its playbook of strengths to catch up with incumbents such as Amazon India, Walmart-owned Flipkart, Tata Group and Reliance Industries. However, Shopee faced severe challenges - logistical issues, consumer distrust arising from rampant e-commerce fraud, difficult transition to digital payments, cut-throat competition, suspicions over its indirect ownership structure for market entry, resistance from local retailers and a tough legal and geopolitical landscape. CEO Chris Feng had had a tough choice to make - whether to stay or to go. Just months after entering India, Shopee announced in March 2022 that it would be closing its Indian operations. This case shed light on the trade-offs of this market exit and offers insights into international expansion to emerging markets amid environmental uncertainty.

Nord Stream 2 was an offshore pipeline project of the Russian energy company Gazprom to transport natural gas to Europe. The US government was skeptical about this project as it believed that Russia would use the pipeline to increase its influence in Europe. The Russian annexation of Crimea and reported Russian support to the secessionist groups in Eastern Ukraine further complicated the situation. The events in Ukraine resulted in the United States and European Union imposing economic sanctions on the Russian government, institutions, and specific individuals. The pipeline construction was completed amid continued hostilities, repeatedly imposed sanctions, and political transitions in the US and Germany.<br><br>Nord Stream 2 AG, the Swiss-based subsidiary of Gazprom which was created to operate the pipeline, applied to the German national energy regulator for pipeline certification but was refused until Gazprom created a German subsidiary to operate the pipeline. Such a condition would require Gazprom to dilute its stake and control over its critical asset; however, not meeting the regulator’s conditions would ensure that the pipeline remained inoperative and that the company’s US$11 billion investment to complete the project would be held up until Gazprom could mount a legal, diplomatic, and geopolitical campaign to overturn the regulator’s decision.

This case is a roleplay simulation of the negotiations between the Colombian government of President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC-EP, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (henceforth FARC), leading up to and after the peace agreement of 2016. The peace agreement put an end to an armed conflict that lasted for more than 50 years and cost more than 200,000 lives. The negotiations cover six Negotiation Topics: i. laying down arms & safety guarantees; ii. social integration of FARC; iii. justice & trial of war crimes; iv. political participation of FARC; v. rural reform; and vi. drug production. Students assume the roles of six participants in the negotiation, forming two delegations. One represents the Colombian Government and the other represents FARC.

Latam Airlines (henceforth, Latam) was born from the merger of the Chilean airline LAN, owned by the Cueto family, and the Brazilian airline TAM, owned by the Amaro group, in 2012, which consolidated it as the most important airline group in South America. The present case relates the financial problems that motivated Latam to sign a strategic agreement with Delta, which if materialized, would cause the Cueto family (Latam's controlling group) to relinquish its ownership interest in the company.The agreement between Latam and Delta was announced on September 26, 2019 and established that Delta would acquire a 20% stake in the South American airline. A day later, Ignacio Cueto, the decision maker in the case, member of the controlling family and Chairman of Latam's Board of Directors, reflected on the benefits and disadvantages of the strategic agreement with Delta in an interview with a Chilean media outlet. Cueto predicted that the agreement would offer solutions both to the expansion problem the company was facing and to the consequences that this problem had generated in the company's financial position and performance. However, Ignacio was concerned about the changes that this alliance would cause in Latam's management and ownership. He could not stop thinking about other alternatives for creating corporate value in the long term without giving up ownership interest in the company.

Spreadsheet supplement for case CL0019.

Joint ventures make meaningful contributions to corporate revenue and can enable new growth strategies, but they increase their shareholders' risk exposure, often in ways that are hard to manage. The authors see a clear statistical correlation between good governance and the medium-term financial and strategic performance of JVs. To build a foundation for good governance, JV owners must reach clarity and alignment on the JV's purpose and operating model.

During the rapid growth of China's commercial health insurance industry in the 2010s, many third-party administrators (TPAs) emerged to provide administrative services to primary insurers. However, most of these TPAs were small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) that offered poor-quality services and were often short-lived. This made them incompatible with the long time horizons and high risk management requirements of the insurance sector. There were also additional structural, institutional, and technical obstacles that primary insurers had to overcome to collaborate with TPAs. To address these pain points, in 2010, Steve Zhang, then Managing Director of Munich Re Life China, and Eric Zhao, general manager of the operations department responsible for insurance innovation, established HAP (Healthcare Assistance Platform) with a view to creating a one-stop solution for the customers of primary insurers by integrating top TPAs under one roof. After a decade of growth, by 2020, the company offered more than 30 services through this platform. It had also developed a set of criteria used to screen and evaluate TPAs, ensuring the quality of its services, which earned the platform recognition from primary insurers. As direct competition in the health insurance market intensified, and insurers became increasingly aware of the importance of customer service and data collection, many primary insurers started to develop their own service platforms, while reinsurers and TPAs also began to experiment in this direction. HAP was originally launched as a supporting service for Munich Re, so it wasn't placed under pressure to grow by the company. However, as HAP's operations matured and market competition intensified, Zhang began to entertain the possibility that the platform might grow its user base from three million to ten million in three to five years or perhaps even become a future profit center for Munich Re. However, he needed to carefully consider how this objective

In the traditional offline context, the mental health industry suffers from poor local demand and a lack of trustworthy supply. Emerging digital platforms can solve this problem to a large extent by building network effects. How to build network effects is a primary issue for mental health platforms. This article explores this problem by investigating two cases from China. Platform firms can design mechanisms to increase user scale, multiply user roles, facilitate user engagement, and enhance user trust on platforms. The pioneer platform and the later entrant can implement different strategies for building network effects.

By the end of 2020, Ambuja Cement Foundation, the corporate social responsibility arm of Ambuja Cements Ltd., based in Mumbai, India, had been uplifting its communities through social development goals for the past 25 years. The specific focus of its activities had been water harvesting, agriculture development skills training, health, and education. However, the foundation faced the consistent challenge of measuring the impact of its corporate social responsibility projects with reference to the social development goals selected by the company in terms of performance or improvement at the village level. In December 2020, the vice-president of Ambuja Cement Foundation needed to determine which measurement the foundation should use to measure the performance of its community development programs and its alignment with the social development goals. Should it go along with the existing measurement tools or adopt a new model to measure performance and impact?

While India had made significant progress against diseases like polio and tetanus, the pandemic revealed marked differences in COVID-related illness and death among the country's most vulnerable. Urban-rural and other societal divides added to long-time disparities in access to health care, and public resources could be overwhelmed. Could a new national health plan and digital health mission allow India to innovate on health care, with the goal of creating high-quality affordable health care for all? This case explores a multi-stakeholder, collaborative approach to understanding and leveraging new technologies that could integrate a complex, fragmented health care system. This ambitious effort would involve harnessing mobile technologies and expanding broadband access to provide critical digital health solutions for India's large rural population. And this effort would capitalize on best practices and lessons elsewhere in the digital health ecosystem-allowing India to leapfrog the shortcomings of national health information systems that had emerged elsewhere in the world.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W27116.

Multi-sided platforms (MSPs) are becoming increasingly important in contemporary economies. This special issue of California Management Review aims to stimulate collective discussion among researchers and practitioners on advancing diverse types of MSPs and on better understanding their future development. This article analyzes five contributions to this special issue and explores the growth trajectories of MSPs. There are three types of platforms: born-platform, platform-born adjacent, and incumbent-born. And they rely respectively on three market entry strategies: market creation, market broadening, and market deepening. This article also spotlights the coopetition dynamics of the platforms.

Multisided platforms are new organizing forms that can boost innovation in the healthcare sector by empowering patients as innovators and facilitating the commercialization of innovations by and for patients. However, applying the playbook script for the platform model from other sectors may prove challenging given the distinctive nature of the healthcare services. Drawing on the case of a leading healthcare innovation platform in Europe, this article examines the platform's role in identifying and enabling the development and diffusion of patient innovations. This involves three main roles (community organizer, market matchmaker, and innovation manager) and corresponding orchestration activities.