Case Studies Collection - IMD business school for management and leadership courses

Case Study

Marvis in America: Can a European competitor disrupt the US toothpaste aisle?

Niccolò Francalanci, General Manager – EMEA & Americas of Ludovico Martelli S.p.A., the maker of Italian Marvis toothpaste, found himself at a crossroads. Francalanci, an experienced marketer, had assumed his current leadership role nearly four years earlier. In 2021 he was recognized by Forbes magazine as one of ‘Italy’s 100 Most Successful Mar…

Global Business Branding Marketing

By Douglas Quackenbos, Martin S. Roth and Dominique Turpin

Marvis in America: Can a European competitor disrupt the US toothpaste aisle?

By Douglas Quackenbos Martin S. Roth and Dominique Turpin
Case reference: IMD-2787 ©2026

Summary

Niccolò Francalanci, General Manager – EMEA & Americas of Ludovico Martelli S.p.A., the maker of Italian Marvis toothpaste, found himself at a crossroads. Francalanci, an experienced marketer, had assumed his current leadership role nearly four years earlier. In 2021 he was recognized by Forbes magazine as one of ‘Italy’s 100 Most Successful Marketing Directors.’ In the early summer of 2026, however, he faced a new and unfamiliar challenge – How should the Marvis premium toothpaste brand go to market in the United States, one of the world’s largest and most competitive consumer goods market? As is typical of international expansion initiatives, Francalanci’s challenge is one of answering two fundamental and discrete questions. Should he recommend opening a US sales and marketing subsidiary and secondly, which products should he offer – standardized or customized? He must also determine if the US market will accept the current and desired ‘premium’ positioning. Ultimately, he is tasked with making a recommendation to the company CEO, Giovanni Galeotti.

Reference IMD-2787

Copyright owner IMD Copyright

Organization Marvis

Industry Consumer Goods

Available Languages English

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Related topics

Global Business

Branding

Marketing

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Case Study

Ticked off: TikTok vs. the USA

How should firms adapt when geopolitical tensions redefine the rules of competition? This case spotlights TikTok’s escalating confrontation in the run-up to and aftermath of the passage of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) in April 2024. The legislation forced ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent …

Strategy Geopolitics

By David Bach

Ticked off: TikTok vs. the USA

By David Bach
Case reference: IMD-2772 ©2026

Summary

How should firms adapt when geopolitical tensions redefine the rules of competition? This case spotlights TikTok’s escalating confrontation in the run-up to and aftermath of the passage of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) in April 2024. The legislation forced ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, to either divest its US operations or face a nationwide ban, transforming what began as a relatively technical regulatory review into an existential threat to the platform’s continued presence in one of its most important markets. The case traces how concerns over data security expanded into a broader political debate about foreign influence, national security, and control over information flows. As the issue moved from the technocratic arena of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to the highly politicized setting of the US Congress, the problem itself becomes redefined. Strategies designed to address regulators’ initial concerns were no longer sufficient, and TikTok faced a rapidly narrowing set of options. The case invites participants to examine how issues evolve over time and how changing definitions of a problem can transform the strategic options available to firms. It challenges them to look beyond traditional market solutions and adopt a more integrated perspective that considers both market and nonmarket responses. Additionally, it illustrates how framing can redefine the issue, mobilize stakeholders, and expand or constrain the set of acceptable solutions.

Reference IMD-2772

Copyright owner IMD Copyright

Organization TikTok

Industry Media

Available Languages English

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Strategy

Geopolitics

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Case Study

Alpian: Swiss banking excellence. For all.

In August 2023, Alpian’s founding CEO Schuyler Weiss announced his departure, promoting Gianmarco Bonaita to the role. Alpian had pioneered digital Swiss private banking. With three rounds of financing, a full-fledged Swiss banking license from FINMA and a strategic partnership with Fideuram–Intesa Sanpaolo Private Banking, it also demonstrated …

Digital Entrepreneurship Strategy Finance

By Benoit F. Leleux and Inna Francis

Alpian: Swiss banking excellence. For all.

By Benoit F. Leleux and Inna Francis
Case reference: IMD-7-2552 ©2026

Summary

In August 2023, Alpian’s founding CEO Schuyler Weiss announced his departure, promoting Gianmarco Bonaita to the role. Alpian had pioneered digital Swiss private banking. With three rounds of financing, a full-fledged Swiss banking license from FINMA and a strategic partnership with Fideuram–Intesa Sanpaolo Private Banking, it also demonstrated a solid B2B potential selling its digital technology. Reinventing the private banking industry for digital natives was no simple feat. Among the most pressing concerns were how to reduce the client acquisition costs, how to diversify private banking services, how broadly to expand Alpian retail services while keeping the costs down and how to develop the fledgling B2B market. Scale was clearly of the essence, and so far it had come at a very high cost. What else could they do to increase brand awareness and client acquisition to accelerate scale up without proportional cost increases? And as if that was not enough, Alpian also had to deal with the agenda of a new majority owner.

Reference IMD-7-2552

Copyright owner IMD Copyright

Organization Alpian

Industry Finance and Insurance, Banking

Available Languages English

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Digital

Entrepreneurship

Strategy

Finance

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Case Study

A bittersweet paradox: From zero child labor to human rights due diligence

What does a zero target measure? In 2016, Barry Callebaut launched Forever Chocolate with a pledge to eradicate child labor from its supply chain by 2025. For its 2021-22 financial year, the company reported over 25,000 cases of child labor identified and 2,844 remediated. In May 2023, it changed the target: By 2025, human rights due diligence w…

Sustainability Business Ethics Stakeholder Management Supply Chain

By Vanina Farber, María Helena Jaén, Zoe Gudino, Johanna Beatrice Frisch De Crousaz, Simon Paul Ntah and Elisabeth Reus

A bittersweet paradox: From zero child labor to human rights due diligence

By Vanina Farber María Helena Jaén Zoe Gudino Johanna Beatrice Frisch De Crousaz Simon Paul Ntah and Elisabeth Reus
Case reference: IMD-2712 ©2026

Summary

What does a zero target measure? In 2016, Barry Callebaut launched Forever Chocolate with a pledge to eradicate child labor from its supply chain by 2025. For its 2021-22 financial year, the company reported over 25,000 cases of child labor identified and 2,844 remediated. In May 2023, it changed the target: By 2025, human rights due diligence would cover its entire cocoa supply chain and every identified case would be remediated. A Bittersweet Paradox: From Zero Child Labor to Human Rights Due Diligence uses this decision to examine how zero KPIs and impact metrics behave in practice. A zero KPI states an absolute ethical demand in a single number. That simplicity mobilizes action. It can also conceal the conditions that determine whether change lasts: persistent poverty in farming communities, limited access to education, and constraints that no single company can resolve alone. But Zero KPIs also set a measurement trap. Stronger monitoring uncovers more cases so improved visibility looks like deteriorating performance. A report of zero cases can say more about what an organization fails to see than about the children it has protected. The replacement metrics raise their own questions. Is abandoning zero child labor a retreat or an evolution in the sustainability strategy compliant with the new regulatory environment? Students work with the company’s reported figures through the eyes of a sustainability manager, an investor, a child rights organization and a farmer cooperative, each reading the same evidence differently. The questions apply more broadly: to net zero emissions, zero workplace harm and zero discrimination. What exactly does ‘zero’ cover? Do incentives reward discovering problems? Who verifies that remediation lasts? Do indicators reveal progress or reward an attractive appearance of success?

Reference IMD-2712

Copyright owner IMD Copyright

Organization Barry Callebaut

Available Languages English

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Related topics

Sustainability

Business Ethics

Stakeholder Management

Supply Chain

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Case Study

Firmenich D-lab: Where AI meets creativity

Firmenich, the Geneva-founded flavors and fragrances house, built its competitive edge on the tacit, highly specialized craft of its perfumers and flavorists – expertise sitting at the intersection of chemistry and artistry. By 2017 board-level anxiety about digital disruption, and credible signals that technology giants were eyeing the sector, …

Artificial Intelligence Future Readiness Business Transformation

By Öykü Işık, Tomoko Yokoi and Lisa Simone Duke

Firmenich D-lab: Where AI meets creativity

By Öykü Işık Tomoko Yokoi and Lisa Simone Duke
Case reference: IMD-7-2647 ©2026

Summary

Firmenich, the Geneva-founded flavors and fragrances house, built its competitive edge on the tacit, highly specialized craft of its perfumers and flavorists – expertise sitting at the intersection of chemistry and artistry. By 2017 board-level anxiety about digital disruption, and credible signals that technology giants were eyeing the sector, forced the question of how a craft-based industry should respond to AI. Eric Nicolas, chief financial officer (CFO) and head of strategy, and Eric Saracchi, chief digital and information officer (CDIO) were charged with shaping that response. Rather than buy capability or partner externally, they chose to build in-house: d-lab, sited deliberately close to, while being organizationally distinct from EPFL’s innovation park in Lausanne. The case follows d-lab from early experimentation to a string of commercial firsts: an AI-generated beef flavor launched in Asia in 2020, and an AI-created laundry fragrance in early 2021. Central to the lab’s traction was a deliberate framing choice positioning AI as a creative co-pilot rather than a replacement and designed to win over skeptical, identity-invested experts whose value rested precisely on the knowledge AI now threatened to encode. By November 2021 d-lab had been named digital innovation of the year and had halved time-to-market while cutting formulation costs. The case closes on an unresolved strategic question facing Nicolas and Saracchi: how to move d-lab from proof of concept to durable advantage while deepening its integration with the wider organization, and extending its reach from formulation into molecular discovery. It offers a grounded vehicle for examining innovation-unit design, expert buy-in under AI disruption, and the governance of adjacent-but-separate digital capability.

Reference IMD-7-2647

Copyright owner IMD Copyright

Organization DSM-Firmenich

Industry Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals

Available Languages English

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Related topics

Artificial Intelligence

Future Readiness

Business Transformation

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Case Study

Holcim: Transitioning toward net zero

Holcim is a Swiss multinational company that manufactures cement and building materials. Excluding China, it is the top cement producer in the world. Holcim is also a top 50 CO2 emissions emitter. And it decisively put sustainability efforts front and center in its overall strategy. The case describes the integration of different sustainability …

Sustainability Change Management Business Transformation Strategy

By Frédéric Dalsace, Goutam N. Challagalla and Nicholas Abery

Holcim: Transitioning toward net zero

By Frédéric Dalsace Goutam N. Challagalla and Nicholas Abery
Case reference: IMD-2759 ©2026

Summary

Holcim is a Swiss multinational company that manufactures cement and building materials. Excluding China, it is the top cement producer in the world. Holcim is also a top 50 CO2 emissions emitter. And it decisively put sustainability efforts front and center in its overall strategy. The case describes the integration of different sustainability initiatives into Holcim’s overall strategy over more than a decade, a period during which the firm underwent massive transformations, including a merger with Lafarge, a major pivot from cement to construction materials, the sale of assets in key countries and a spin off of its North-American operations. The case pivots the discussion from the traditional question: ‘What does Holcim do for sustainability?’ to a more interesting one: ‘What does sustainability do for Holcim?’ It brings clarity to the different ways through which sustainability contributes to the firm’s strategy: compliance, resilience and market advantage. Focusing on market advantage, it shows the vast repertoire of sustainability actions that can impact a firm’s strategy and how sustainability can be leveraged to create value. It also reveals that not all sustainability actions are designed to have a sustainability impact.

Reference IMD-2759

Copyright owner IMD Copyright

Organization Holcim Group

Industry Materials, Construction Materials;Materials, Cement

Available Languages English

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Sustainability

Change Management

Business Transformation

Strategy

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Case Study

Caroline Schmidt: Invitation to the board of directors

Caroline Schmidt, 55, chief strategy officer of Edelweiss Corporation, has just led her company through a remarkable turnaround. When Henri Vonlanthen, CEO of Léman Corporation – a company twice Edelweiss’s size – invites her to join Léman’s board, Caroline sees a genuine opportunity: a bigger stage on which to apply the strategic and financial …

Corporate Governance Family Business Organizational Change Board Diversity and Equity and Inclusion

By Ruth V. Aguilera and Jennifer Jordan

Caroline Schmidt: Invitation to the board of directors

By Ruth V. Aguilera and Jennifer Jordan
Case reference: IMD-2720 ©2026

Summary

Caroline Schmidt, 55, chief strategy officer of Edelweiss Corporation, has just led her company through a remarkable turnaround. When Henri Vonlanthen, CEO of Léman Corporation – a company twice Edelweiss’s size – invites her to join Léman’s board, Caroline sees a genuine opportunity: a bigger stage on which to apply the strategic and financial expertise that turned Edelweiss around, and a chance to help a storied family enterprise chart its next chapter. Léman, built over three generations by the Keller family and taken public in 2010, is a company with real assets and real needs: a strong balance sheet but a flat top line, two fast-growing subsidiaries alongside stagnant ones, and no clear long-term strategy. Its aging patriarch, Samuel Keller, remains chairman, and the board might need refreshment. Could Caroline, working alongside her ally Henri and maybe other board members, build the coalition needed to drive the strategic change Léman requires? Or would she find herself without the influence to move a set board, exposed instead to legacy issues and a possible conflict of interest with her own company? As Caroline’s first appointment to a major board, her decision also carries a signaling dimension; the boards that a rising executive chooses to join, and how visibly she vets them, shape how the market will read her judgment for years to come. The case gives students a realistic, decision-forcing vehicle for weighing a directorship’s opportunities against its risks: What due diligence a prospective director should conduct, how to assess whether one can genuinely influence and ally with fellow directors, and how a first major board appointment signals character and judgment to the market.

Reference IMD-2720

Copyright owner IMD Copyright

Available Languages English

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Corporate Governance

Family Business

Organizational Change

Board

Diversity and Equity and Inclusion

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Case Study

BP’s transformation strategy under pressure: A pivotal moment for the board’s chair

The case places participants in the role of Helge Lund, chair of BP, on 4 October 2023. Only weeks earlier, BP’s chief executive officer Bernard Looney had resigned over undisclosed relationships with colleagues. Looney had been the principal architect and public face of BP’s 2020 strategy to transform BP from an international oil company into a…

Board Stakeholder Management Business Transformation Finance

By Hans-Christoph Hirt

Case Study

Entrepreneurship through acquisition: NCA’s operator-led search fund approach

The case investigates the supported search fund model pioneered by Novastone Capital Advisors (NCA) through which mid-career executives can achieve their dreams of becoming entrepreneurs though the acquisition of an SME. NCA provides support through the various phases of the program, from talent selection, training, target searches, due diligenc…

Entrepreneurship Strategy Finance

By Benoit F. Leleux

Case Study

Understanding and influencing stakeholders

Senior leaders rarely get their most important work done by issuing orders. A CTO cannot compel a partner firm, a dean cannot order a faculty to embrace a curriculum, a ministry cannot be forced to share data. On the questions that matter, outcomes depend on people with agendas and loyalties of their own. This note details a two-part discipline …

Stakeholder Management Organizational Change Change Management Negotiation

By Michael D. Watkins

Case Study

Zamil Group: Growing a family business into a diversified holding

Founded in 1920 as a modest trading house in the Arabian Gulf, Zamil Group has grown into one of the Middle East’s most diversified business groups, with activities spanning manufacturing, petrochemicals, real estate and investments. As the portfolio expanded and some operating companies were listed or divested, the family gradually shifted from…

Family Business Corporate Governance Business Transformation Leadership

By Peter Vogel and Anouk Lavoie

Case Study

A thread of hope: Gender lens due diligence on Bankamoda

The Bankamoda case looks at due diligence in the impact investing context. The protagonist, Estefanía Abello, is a Colombia-based senior associate at the Swiss AlphaMundi Group (AMG), an impact first but very commercially minded impact investor that invests in Africa and Latin America. Since 2017, AMG had been integrating gender analysis through…

Diversity and Equity and Inclusion Entrepreneurship Finance Social Innovation Sustainability

By Vanina Farber and Shih-Han Huang

A thread of hope: Gender lens due diligence on Bankamoda

By Vanina Farber and Shih-Han Huang
Case reference: IMD-7-2516 ©2026

Summary

The Bankamoda case looks at due diligence in the impact investing context. The protagonist, Estefanía Abello, is a Colombia-based senior associate at the Swiss AlphaMundi Group (AMG), an impact first but very commercially minded impact investor that invests in Africa and Latin America. Since 2017, AMG had been integrating gender analysis throughout its investment process. The case opens with Abello having completed the due diligence and considering her recommendation to the AMG Investment Committee on whether to invest in Bankamoda, a women-founded, women-led fintech offering loans to the underbanked micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the apparel and textile industry in Columbia. While this startup fit the profile gender lens investing perspective, the investment also carried significant risks. Students assume the role of Abello and need to balance impact and financial considerations and consider risk mitigation strategies as they make a recommendation. Through this case, students can experience a real impact investing due diligence, understand gender lens investing, explore the layers of considerations needed to build a compelling investment case and simulate how best to present proposals to an investment committee.

Reference IMD-7-2516

Copyright owner IMD Copyright

Organization Bankamoda

Industry Finance and Insurance, Investment Management;Finance and Insurance, Financial Services

Available Languages English

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Diversity and Equity and Inclusion

Entrepreneurship

Finance

Social Innovation

Sustainability

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Case Study

The Final Whistle: Leadership, authority and moral choice at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations

The case chronicles the acute leadership crisis that erupted during the final minutes of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations final match. It presents a real-world dilemma in which formal authority clashes with informal influence, and deeply held values are pitted against team solidarity. The central conflict revolves around Sadio Mané, a globally res…

Leadership Negotiation Decision Making Crisis Management

By Sarah Dagher Al Feghali, Sïmon Saneback and Tawfik M. Jelassi

Case Study

Slow Forest Coffee: Can a regenerative model scale?

The case tracks the development of Slow Forest Coffee, a company launched in 2017 on the belief that when producing food in a regenerative way, everyone benefits. Farmers flourish, nature thrives and the economy prospers. By 2025 Slow had converted almost 600 hectares of degraded monoculture coffee plantations in Laos into booming agroforestry f…

Sustainability Supply Chain Entrepreneurship Purpose

By Benoit F. Leleux, Julia K. Binder and Rina Raikamo

Slow Forest Coffee: Can a regenerative model scale?

By Benoit F. Leleux Julia K. Binder and Rina Raikamo
Case reference: IMD-2736 ©2026

Summary

The case tracks the development of Slow Forest Coffee, a company launched in 2017 on the belief that when producing food in a regenerative way, everyone benefits. Farmers flourish, nature thrives and the economy prospers. By 2025 Slow had converted almost 600 hectares of degraded monoculture coffee plantations in Laos into booming agroforestry farms, ensuring the preservation of an additional 1,000+ hectares by working with local smallholders. The coffee was roasted, packed and delivered by Slow to offices, hotels and coffee chains across Northern Europe. Thanks to vertical integration and investing in soil health and the whole ecosystem, unlike its competitors, Slow was not impacted by volatile and rapidly increasing coffee prices. The Slow model seemed to be working, both in environmental and financial terms, regenerating nature while yielding healthy, stable returns. A host of ongoing initiatives and matters needed to be discussed at the forthcoming board meeting, including which new customer segments the company should enter, how to adapt and scale marketing communications to support growth, the integration of the newly acquired coffee roaster in Kenya and the expansion of the supply base in the region, not to mention evolving resource needs as the company prepared to enter a bigger league. Slow was indeed buzzing with positive energy.

Reference IMD-2736

Copyright owner IMD Copyright

Organization Slow Forest

Industry Food Production, Agriculture;Consumer Goods, Coffee

Available Languages English

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Sustainability

Supply Chain

Entrepreneurship

Purpose

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Case Study

UrbanLuxe: Supply chain product recall readiness

This short case exercise presents a rare but critical real-world business scenario: A large, multi-country, multi-site beauty company wishes to evaluate its capability to execute a major product recall. The need for a recall may be due to an internal quality issue or one caused by quality defects from a supplier. The CEO has seen a competitor st…

Operations Supply Chain Strategy Crisis Management

By Ralf W. Seifert, Richard Markoff and Olivier André Gléron