Case studies

This case features Lucas Lopez Lince, a rising leader in Colombian consumer goods company Grupo Familia. Lopez Lince had inherited a digital marketing program built around a newly identified customer persona–a young low-income mother. The program represented a significant shift in Familia's target customer as well as a shift in the way marketing funds were spent. The program appeared to be working, so he increased the digital spend even as he had to reduce his overall marketing budget in the face of challenging economic headwinds. Activity metrics such as page views, social media “likes,” and video views rose dramatically, and at the same time sales began to rise again. By the beginning of 2017, Lopez Lince faced a deeper set of questions. How could he be certain that the rising sales were due to the digital efforts? Would the existing digital programs and tactics continue to deliver against chosen metrics? And what could he do next in order to continue driving growth of revenue and margin through digital efforts? Students assume the role of Lopez Lince and are asked to apply concepts such as customer personas, micro-moments, and customer journey mapping to develop their own point of view on what they would do next.

This case features Stripe, a startup that enables merchants to accept payments from customers on the web, on mobile devices, and at the point of sale (POS). Stripe was launched in 2011 by the Collison brothers and quickly gained traction with e-commerce startups, particularly software and platform developers who needed help building their payment processing infrastructures. Stripe incurred high fixed costs in developing its platform and had low margins per transaction, so the company needed to reach high processing volumes (i.e., scale) to survive. This was challenging, as Stripe competed with large payment processors and traditional banks that had high processing volumes and were able to offer merchants significantly lower rates than Stripe. Still, merchants valued Stripe#x0027;s solution because it was simple and versatile. Students assume the role of the Collisons to think about possible strategies Stripe could pursue to process higher volumes of transactions. Students are challenged to think about the potential response of the incumbents to Stripe's different growth alternatives. The teaching note presents the Value Net framework and discusses the importance of considering complementors and their effect on a firm's strategy. Finally, a discussion about Stripe's potential entry into the Indian market allows students to apply the concepts they learned in the discussion of a new market.

It is January 2017, and Nikki Tyler, market access advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development's Center for Accelerating Innovation and Impact, must recommend an actionable strategy for how to use the $10 million contributed by global donors and foundations to scale up the use of chlorhexidine in Nigeria. It was clear that chlorhexidine, a substance applied to newborns' umbilical cord stumps to prevent infection, could reduce infant mortality significantly. However, changing behavior would be an enormous challenge. This case gives students an appreciation for the importance and complexity of global health issues, along with an understanding of key analytic techniques for approaching a complex market situation. Students quickly learn that there are no easy answers to encouraging chlorhexidine's greater use. To develop a plan, it is essential to complete detailed analyses, study insights and motivations, and ultimately compare different possible solutions, considering efficiency and efficacy.

This case asks students to step into the role of Adalberto Flores, co-founder and CEO of Kueski, one of the first companies to develop a proprietary algorithm for online loan approval in Mexico. Mexico lacks a standardized credit scoring system, making it difficult for many Mexicans to get approved for a loan or credit card. This, together with the fact that Mexicans generally do not trust traditional banks, makes Mexico an attractive opportunity for fintech companies. Growth, however, could require fintech companies to partner with traditional banks. Students assume the role of Flores to think about the benefits and risks associated with a partnership between Kueski and traditional banks. Students are also challenged to compare the structure of U.S. financial services markets with the Mexican structure and consider the implications on the sustainability of fintech companies in the two markets. The teaching note analyzes the Mexican financial market and the benefits and threats it holds for fintech companies, and outlines a framework for evaluating the risk associated with partnerships.

Jennifer McDougall is considering investing in mutual funds for the first time, and has narrowed her options down to three: one that is domiciled in Germany, and two that are domiciled in Luxembourg. As a cautious and risk-averse investor, Jennifer has done extensive research on the three funds, and has come across a curious fact: the beta of the German fund is surprisingly low. After speaking to her financial planner, she learns there is no legal requirement in Germany for mutual funds to compute net asset values at a particular time of the day. If the German fund is closing its books in the middle of the day and its net asset values reflect its midday holdings, rather than end-of-day holdings, this could explain the low beta. Thus, the German fund might appear less risky, without actually being so. Jennifer needed to get a clearer picture of what was going on before making her decision.

Using the data provided with the case, students will determine the closing time of the three funds and how that affects the beta of each. Then they must make a recommendation about which fund would be the best investment for Jennifer.

In early December 2013, Roxann Biller, Associate at the Chicago-based private equity firm Delta Quantitative Real Estate Capital, was asked to assess the risk associated with the firm's first potential overseas investment. Haifu Sentā Gendaino (HSG) was a large multi-tenant logistics property located in the Gaikando area of Tokyo. High-quality tenants currently occupied the property, so at first glance the risks of investing in the property seemed minimal. However, Biller knew that she had to consider the potential drawbacks. This would mean gaining a better understanding of each tenant, trying to forecast the future condition of the Tokyo logistics market, and considering what new risks her firm would face because the property's cash flows were in a foreign currency.

This case puts students in the shoes of the Ebola response leadership teams of Firestone Liberia and its parent company, Bridgestone Americas, as they worked together to respond to the deadly 2014 Ebola epidemic. While the companies had received positive press for their containment of the virus on their rubber farm in Liberia, which was home to 8,000 employees and 80,000 Liberian citizens, the situation off the property was worsening. With death counts rising and hospitals across the nation closing as staff caught the virus, the Liberian government declared a national state of emergency. The teams now faced the possibility that the government might attempt to take control of the farm's medical center. How could they balance their duty to care effectively for employees against the demands of the Liberian government? Should they try to fend off the government or cooperate to meet the government's demands? Students will learn how to do a methodical situation analysis that considers ethical obligations and strategic implications, and to distill their recommendation into a briefing for senior leadership.

Louise Dejan was a successful real estate developer operating throughout northeast England. The city council of her hometown of Newcastle faced a problem common to many areas: how to encourage private investment into less attractive areas. In August 2012, Newcastle's East Pilgrim Street neighborhood remained an eyesore, despite its great location between the city's Central Station and city hall. It was a natural place for Dejan to build a typical urban office building over street-level retail building. On a particularly attractive site sat an asbestos-contaminated building, which was a former home to the Bank of England. The costs of remediation had kept developers like Dejan away for many years. To encourage redevelopment, the Newcastle City Council had recently designated the East Pilgrim Street neighborhood an Accelerated Development Zone (ADZ). This gave Dejan access to Tax Increment Financing (TIF), a method by which public funds could be spent to encourage private sector redevelopment of designated parcels of land. After studying the details of TIF and the financial projections of a potential new development, Dejan had to decide whether she should be the first to redevelop property in this well-located but seemingly forgotten neighborhood.

In early 2017, after launching its successful “Greenhouse-in-a-Box” pilot project in India with fifteen smallholder farmers, Kheyti, a non-profit agricultural technology (AgTech) social enterprise, was struggling with several decisions in developing and growing its business. Kheyti was launched in 2015 to help smallholder farmers battle poverty and income variability by providing affordable technologies bundled with services. Over eighteen months, the team had developed a low-cost and modular greenhouse product to which it added financing, inputs, training, and market linkages to create a comprehensive “full-stack” solution for small farmers. The pilot project was a success in many ways, but Saumya, Kheyti's co-founder and head of product, was concerned that it revealed shortcomings that could severely affect the viability and scalability of Kheyti's solution.

Saumya had some important decisions to make. Should Kheyti redesign the product from scratch, or find other ways to reduce the cost for early adopters? Should it rely on upfront revenues from sales of the greenhouse, or consider developing an innovative financing or contract farming model? Kheyti's dwindling cash reserves meant that these decisions were urgent and critical. The path chosen now would determine whether the startup would move beyond the pilot stage and achieve its vision of serving 1 million farmers by 2025.

The case traces the development of Lululemon Athletica (Lulu) from founder Chip Wilson's first post-yoga euphoria in 1997 through the sale of all his shares in 2015. Officially founded in 1998, Lulu was built on the foundation of its “miracle” figure-enhancing yoga pants made from a proprietary stretch fiber. The case outlines Wilson's early experience in technical performance wear, which gave him the expertise needed to launch the Lululemon brand with its premium-priced, fashion-designed product line targeted at upscale women. The case also highlights the retailing and promotion approach that drove Lulu's first decade of success. The snapshot of how the Lulu brand cult was born and diffused provides the backdrop for assessing whether the brand has already hit its peak or whether it can sustain the explosive growth that effectively created the athleisure category. To aid in this determination, the case presents two competitors as comparative foils (Under Armour and Athleta) to contextualize Lulu's growth prospects.

The Lululemon case highlights the importance of the competitive frame of reference when positioning a brand and describes how this may differ for the three competitors. The case also allows for a discussion of the challenges of maintaining the congruence of a retail brand with a diverse product line. This struggle is unique to retailers who must fit ever-varied product assortments (not just a single product line) under the umbrella of a single brand proposition, and is particularly relevant to vertically integrated brands such as Lululemon.