個案總覽

In May 2020, Benjamin Chua, the founder of Spic & Span, a cleaning company with a stated social mission to employ marginalized Singaporeans, was reviewing the company’s strategic goals. Since its founding in 2017, the start-up had become an award-winning company, and with the introduction of its new cleaning technology, Speco, in September 2019, new job opportunities had been brought to the table for cleaners and management staff alike. The company’s workforce had effectively doubled in size in less than a year. Spic & Span was expanding its services from condominiums and offices to schools, restaurants, hotels, transportations, hospitals, and homes. While the new technology had opened up new job opportunities for marginalized Singaporeans, it had also increased the level of job complexity. As a consequence, the turnover rate of newly employed staff had increased. Why were the cleaners not motivated by the new job opportunities? How could Chua motivate cleaners to stay with the company?

本文以大同世界科技公司 (以下簡稱：大世科) 跨部門整合以提供整合型服務方案的實際案例，探討企業領導人在面對數位轉型的衝擊下進行跨部門整合時，可能碰到的問題，以及所需要審慎考量的各項決策與影響因素。並透過 Teece (2007) 的動態能力理論架構來剖析企業面對環境劇烈改變下所需要採取的應變處理階段與必要作為。更具體來說，也就是探討企業面對環境改變時，如何透過感知(Sensing)來瞭解與回應外部所帶來的變化，與抓住機會(Seizing)進行策略配套的能力，最後並透過增強、組合、保護、重新配置企業的無形和有形資產以及跨部門的整合 (Transforming)，來維持/提升競爭力。

In mid-2017, a supply constraint analyst at General Motors (GM) was working on two electric vehicles: the Chevrolet Bolt EV for the US market and a similar Buick model to be marketed in China. GM had chosen to work with only one supplier for the vehicles’ lithium-ion battery: Morningside Power Storage of South Korea. However, since making that decision, consolidation in the freight shipping industry had led to higher shipping costs, and China had introduced regulations to restrict and discourage the importation of batteries. The supply constraint analyst needed to decide where the battery cell manufacturing and battery pack assembly should be located and the production levels necessary to meet, at the lowest cost possible, the needs of both the Chevrolet Bolt EV in the United States and the Buick version in China.

In 2019, the clinical director of the South East Grey Community Health Centre was conflicted about whether to proceed with presenting the chief executive officer with a proposal to expand the health centre's primary services to a satellite location in the neighbouring community of Port Elgin. The clinical director recalled the challenges she and her colleagues had faced in 2018, during the satellite expansion to Dundalk. As a nurse practitioner, she understood the pressing need for services and the moral imperative to put the patient's needs first. However, as a key member of the Centre's management team, she also knew what this proposal would entail operationally, and what internal pressures and risks were involved. The clinical director wondered how, in an environment of static or declining budgets, the Centre could build on its successes and challenges to date to address the emerging demand for further growth. Should she present the proposal to expand to another neighbouring community during a time of fiscal constraints?

In November 2016, the secretary of Mannarkkad Rural Service Co-operative Bank Ltd. (MCB) based in Kerala, India, learned that the prime minister of India had announced that large-denomination currency notes would be invalid as of midnight November 8. This demonetization move was to eradicate unaccounted for “black money” from the nation. Co-operative banks like MCB were excluded from the purview of India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, and as a primary agricultural credit society providing short-term credit to rural borrowers, MCB stood out from similar institutions by providing best-in-class banking services and constantly innovating to meet its vision of providing “the pleasure of personal banking” to its customers. MCB was the only bank in India to provide 24/7, 365-day banking operations through its overnight counter, and through a series of innovations, it had successfully pushed the boundaries of a rural co-operative bank to provide maximum convenience to its customers. The secretary of MCB now had to make some critical decisions: How should MCB handle the demonetization crisis with its existing and potential customers? Should MCB keep its overnight counter open? Should the secretary alert the bank’s micro-ATM agents? Would MCB’s parent bank provide funds? How could he address these concerns in a way that would maintain the goodwill MCB had built up among its customers over the past 27 years?

In May 2019, the head of Organizational Development and Talent for Comair Limited (Comair), was contemplating the dilemma of stimulating higher buy-in for team coaching—a program in formal leadership development emphasizing collaboration and shared responsibility. The long-standing chief executive officer (CEO) had just resigned. He had focused over the last few years on enabling a leadership style of collaboration where departmental silos would be removed and management structures would evolve to reflect a new way of working along functional rather than departmental lines. The head wondered how she could promote team coaching to a new CEO, and specifically, how she could help stimulate more interest and buy-in for team coaching. What could be done to help the teams that had undergone team coaching to sustain the newly learned behaviours, especially when the pressure was high?

In early January 2016, the chief strategy officer and his team at Ippudo, an expanding ramen restaurant operation, were tasked to formulate both marketing and customer service management strategies for the company's first ramen shop in France, which was due to open in Paris in late 2016. Ippudo, a famous ramen brand in Japan, started its global expansion in 2008, when it successfully established its presence in New York City. When it entered the US market, Ippudo changed its marketing mix and customer service approach to follow a strategy that incorporated Ippudo's corporate values with both Japanese and New York culture and norms. Moving forward, how should Ippudo’s chief strategy officer position the new ramen restaurant in Paris? What marketing mix should Ippudo pursue? Should Ippudo change its product offerings to appeal to Parisians? And should Ippudo France’s website follow the same concept used in New York, where the website served only to convey information?

Huluwa Technology Co. Ltd. (Huluwa) was a small manufacturer of children’s smart watches in China. The company’s smart watches could be monitored by parents in real time through an application installed on their phones. The product design, application development, raw material procurement, and cloud service were all operated by Huluwa, while production was outsourced to a factory. Huluwa mainly relied on its offline channels to sell products. In April 2016, looking back at the first-quarter data for the year, the company’s operations director noted that Huluwa had sold and delivered 150,000 units to its distributors while it had produced 200,000 units. Puzzled by that gap, he was also worried about the production capacity stretch imposed on the contract manufacturer. How could the company manage continuing growth for the product?

In 2015, the management of Haier Group (Haier), a Chinese company that designed, developed, manufactured, marketed, and serviced home appliances, faced a dilemma. Established in 2007, Casarte, Haier’s high-end sub-brand, had sustained only a mediocre performance from 2007 to 2014, and its sales revenue had remained low. Had brand cannibalization occurred between Haier’s mid-range to high-end products and Casarte’s high-end offerings? Should Haier continue to develop Casarte, which would require more risk and investment? Or should it cut its losses and discontinue the business, which could hurt Haier’s ability to compete in the high-end market?

Founded in 1989, the Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Corporation Beijing (Ameco), the earliest and largest civil aircraft maintenance enterprise in China, was a joint venture between two of the world's largest airlines: Air China Limited (Air China) and Deutsche Lufthansa AG (Lufthansa). In response to a crisis in the domestic market after 2012, Ameco decided to enter the international market. After Ameco had considered several methods for implementing this strategy, it eventually formed a successful alliance with the Lufthansa subsidiary Lufthansa Technik AG (LHT). Ameco and LHT communicated with each other to solve existing problems and produced a successful design collaboration. In 2019, while this partnership was proceeding smoothly, the general manager of the business aviation modification department needed to decide on a strategy that would help the company also succeed in the areas of market development and technical capability.

Viral Nation, a six-year-old company based in Ontario, was North America's leading influencer marketing company. In March 2020, as the global COVID-19 pandemic struck, the founders of the company were assessing their venture's future growth prospects. Having just received three competing acquisition offers for their company, they needed to make a decision: Should they accept any of the offers, and if so, which one? Or, should they instead continue to grow organically in an increasingly uncertain market environment?

Vijay Sales Ltd., established in 1967, had become one of India’s leading retail chains in consumer electronics and appliances by 2020. The company sold products through 102 exclusive stores in northern, western, and southern India and had developed a loyal customer base across wide geographies, particularly among the 40-plus age group. However, the company faced challenges in attracting a younger demographic, specifically millennial customers. To secure its future, the company needed an effective marketing strategy to position it as millennial customers’ preferred retail brand for consumer electronics and appliances.

Eco Femme (EF) was a social enterprise founded in 2010. It developed re-usable cloth sanitary napkins and marketed towards those looking for sustainable products to manage their menstrual hygiene. The enterprise faced several challenges in reaching their target market of poor women in rural India. There was a taboo attached to menstruation and it was thus a difficult topic to discuss. Also, there were popular, commonly used, and easily available substitutes in the market, which were heavily marketed and distributed. EF had narrowed its options down to three broad distribution options—community groups, small convenience stores, and apparel retailers; the team needed to choose and develop a plan.

Schiit Audio was a manufacturer of audio equipment in the Los Angeles, California area. The company, which mainly sold its products directly to consumers, experienced consistent growth in the years leading up to 2015. However, in the summer of 2015, the company’s founder had three major issues to resolve. First, he was devoting half of his time to a marketing agency he had founded earlier and was increasingly feeling that the arrangement was inadequate to provide the leadership his audio company needed. Second, some suppliers were causing inventory and out-of-stock issues that made it difficult to deliver products to customers on time. Finally, selling products on Amazon Marketplace expanded the company’s reach to new customers, but came with drawbacks, including lower margins, high fees, and inventory management difficulties. The founder had to make some decisions for the business venture’s path forward.

Welspun India Limited (Welspun) was a global leader in home textiles, supplying to top global retailers like Costco Wholesale Corporation, IKEA, Tesco plc, and Bed, Bath and Beyond, Inc. Welspun undertook many sustainability actions like eliminating freshwater usage through a sewage treatment plant in Anjar, improving energy efficiency in manufacturing and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, using transportation modes to leave a smaller carbon footprint, and creating products out of waste material. In order to move forward, the chief executive officer needed to decide how to use sustainable fashion to gain a competitive advantage. Was becoming a circular company the answer? If so, what steps needed to be taken for Welspun to become circular?

At the start of 2020, the main strategic challenge for UBits (a start-up focused on online corporate training in Latin America) was how to continue to scale up the operation. Although UBits had gained a foothold in Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, the company had no presence in Brazil—Latin America’s largest economy—or in any other major regional economies, including Chile and Argentina. UBits was offering only one type of service—subscription-based courses for corporate clients. The management team was contemplating targeting individual customers directly to leverage the growing UBits library that held more than 300 locally produced courses. However, the ideal strategic direction for the company's expansion was unclear, and its current financial situation did not permit pursuing all options.

In March 2020, the founder of an auto mechanic shop in a Toronto suburb was contemplating a five-year growth strategy. Given the disruptions in both the auto mechanic sector and the automotive industry at large, she wondered whether her plan was realistic. Should the founder execute the growth strategy according to plan or change the plan and lead the business in a completely different direction?

The chief information officer and head of human resources at Hero MotoCorp Limited, India’s largest two-wheeler company, was responsible for overseeing the company's corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs. Under his leadership, the company's CSR team had started an ambitious project to provide livelihood and skills training to girls and women from marginalized socio-economic backgrounds. By March 2019, the program had helped many women become financially independent by providing training and opportunities to earn a living. These women otherwise lacked the resources and family support to gain employment or start their own business. However, the head of CSR wondered whether or not the company had done enough for women to reach their goals and become independent. Although the various CSR programs at Hero MotoCorp Limited had been successful, how could the company scale up its CSR programs for greater impact to help more girls and women?

Hijo Resources Corporation (Hijo) was a conglomerate based in Tagum, Davao del Norte, Philippines. Hijo began as an abaca plantation in the 1940s and ventured into the cultivation and exportation of Cavendish bananas in 1968. Alongside its agribusiness operations, Hijo had diversified into a conglomerate with business interests spanning a broad range of sectors. However, Hijo was no longer able to operate its business as usual due to changing economic, environmental, and societal challenges. The company’s current initiatives were fragmented and existed in silos within each strategic business unit (SBU). In April 2018, Hijo’s president and chief executive officer needed to determine how to holistically integrate sustainability practices into the company’s value chain, cutting across different issues and encouraging collaboration across Hijo’s different SBUs.

In 2014, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), a large, government-owned, global, Fortune 500 petroleum refining and marketing company in India, was facing a variety of issues around its audit process. The internal audit department had been facing delays in completion of audits and compliance of recommendations. The executive director and head of the Internal Audit (IA) department believed that performance problems were due to the organization of the department. Changes were needed to the processes, technology, and structure of the department, and he wanted his team to find solutions to put some fundamental changes in place. What changes should be made to IA’s processes, staffing, and structure so the company could complete more audits and comply with the recommendations?