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Latest Case Studies
Case Study
Social Innovation
Strategy
Sustainability
Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
Count every child: Telenor’s digital birth registration
Birth registration – considered a basic human right provided by government services – was still not working in many countries. One in four children worldwide is not registered. Yet, Zainab Siddiqui, head of sustainability at Telenor Pakistan, had a different idea. In 2013, she initiated the Digital Birth Registration Project in Pakistan in two p…
Count every child: Telenor’s digital birth registration
Summary
Birth registration – considered a basic human right provided by government services – was still not working in many countries. One in four children worldwide is not registered. Yet, Zainab Siddiqui, head of sustainability at Telenor Pakistan, had a different idea. In 2013, she initiated the Digital Birth Registration Project in Pakistan in two provinces to replace the existing paper-based approach. Her entrepreneurial leadership was encouraged in Telenor, a global mobile network operator based in Norway, active in 8 markets with over 170 million subscribers. The company was an organization true to its original purpose of “promoting a country’s prosperity” – by “empowering societies and connecting its subscribers to what matters most.” What mattered most could be digital health, digital farming or digital banking services – several of the services that the company had launched over the years. Digital birth registration and its potential follow-on services – such as digital marriage certificates and digital driver’s licenses – were considered good not only for what matters most but also potentially for the bottom line. After several years of successful implementation of the project, Zainab considered how Telenor Pakistan could take on full responsibility for the service from the Pakistani government. How would the company prepare and position itself for the eventual negotiations with the government for this potential growth opportunity?
Reference
IMD-7-2410
Copyright
©2023
Copyright owner
IMD Copyright
Organization
Telenor Group
Industry
Services, Telecommunications
Available Languages
English
Contact
Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications
Case Study
Sustainability
Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
Family Business
J.M. Huber Corporation: Testing the limits of resilience capabilities
As circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic continued to shift and evolve, J.M. Huber Corporation (Huber) remained focused on protecting its employees, maintaining business continuity, and on advancing its multi-year sustainability strategy. The efforts of Mike Marberry, the President & CEO, the Huber Management Council (HMC), the family sharehold…
Case Study
Entrepreneurship
Family Business
Leadership
Sustainability
Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
Maria Ahlström-Bondestam: Together everyone achieves more (Video case)
This case presents the unique approach to philanthropy of the Ahlström family. A group of 25 fifth-generation female Ahlström family members founded the Eva Ahlström foundation in 2010, in the name of the family matriarch Eva Ahlström (1848–1920), who was a big contributor to society in her time. This led to the establishment of the Ahlström Co…
Case Study
Corporate Governance
Strategy
Sustainability
Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
Multi-stakeholder governance at Better Cotton
Better Cotton was founded in 2005 to set standards for cotton production, with a goal of facilitating ethical, environmental and development-friendly agricultural practices. As multiple players come under increasing pressure to address social and environmental issues across their supply chains, Better Cotton aims to engage all actors to work tog…
Multi-stakeholder governance at Better Cotton
Summary
Better Cotton was founded in 2005 to set standards for cotton production, with a goal of facilitating ethical, environmental and development-friendly agricultural practices. As multiple players come under increasing pressure to address social and environmental issues across their supply chains, Better Cotton aims to engage all actors to work together. The Better Cotton Standard System was developed as a holistic approach to sustainable cotton production that addresses the three pillars of sustainability: environmental, social and economic. The organization works to build capacity by working with local partners to train cotton farmers worldwide in more sustainable farming practices that improve their livelihoods and protect and restore the environment. Its assurance model aims to balance scalability with cost effectiveness. Its Chain of Custody system matches supply and demand by tracing transactions throughout the supply chain. Better Cotton subscribes to a multi-stakeholder governance model, bringing stakeholders together to participate in dialogue, decision making and implementation of responses to joint problems. By seeking input from multiple types of actors involved in a question, the eventual consensual decision gains greater legitimacy, and it can be more effectively implemented than a response by any single actor. Multi-stakeholder governance requires balancing representation with the need for efficiency and effectiveness in developing and implementing strategy. The case allows for a discussion on the extent to which the BetterCotton governance model is aligned with its strategy and mission, and more broadly, how to design governance for multi-stakeholder organizations.
Reference
IMD-7-2421
Copyright
©2022
Copyright owner
IMD Copyright
Organization
Better Cotton
Industry
Manufacturing, Textile
Available Languages
English
Contact
Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications
Case Study
Sustainability
Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
OCP: Liberating energy to create sustainable growth
The case focuses on the transformation of OCP, a state-owned monopoly that mined and exploited Morocco’s phosphate reserves. By 2021 it had become an organization with a mission to contribute to the sustainability of food security as the custodians of 70% of the world’s phosphate reserves. Phosphate is one of three vital ingredients in fertilize…
The Case Hub at Suliman S. Olayan School of Business Annual Case Writing Competition – First Place
Case Study
Family Business
Sustainability
Strategy
Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
Firmenich: Juggling the short and the long term (Cartoon case)
Formatted like a comic-strip, this case showcases how Firmenich achieved resilience and strong sustainability commitments thanks to its family ownership. The case investigates how family ownership spanning across four generations and 125 years, has influenced the company’s core values and brought a long-term perspective to its strategy, which al…
Firmenich: Juggling the short and the long term (Cartoon case)
Summary
Formatted like a comic-strip, this case showcases how Firmenich achieved resilience and strong sustainability commitments thanks to its family ownership. The case investigates how family ownership spanning across four generations and 125 years, has influenced the company’s core values and brought a long-term perspective to its strategy, which allowed sustainability, diversity, and inclusion on the executives’ agenda many decades before its peers.
The case concludes by illustrating how these core foundational values allowed Firmenich to weather the COVID-19 storm by prompting the organization to react very rapidly, in a display of strong resilience. Firmenich is the winner of the 2019 IMD-Pictet Sustainability in Family Business Award.
Reference
IMD-7-2308
Copyright
©2022
Copyright owner
IMD Copyright
Organization
Firmenich
Industry
Consumer Goods, Cosmetics and Perfumes;Consumer Goods, Food and Beverage
Available Languages
English
Contact
Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications
Case Study
Sustainability
Entrepreneurship
Strategy
Supply Chain
Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
Lionheart Farms (Philippines) and the tree of life (Abridged)
Lionheart Agrotech Limited, the holding company of Lionheart Farms is developing a large-scale sustainable hybrid coconut plantation with integrated processing and manufacturing capacities in the Philippines. The case describes the idea of the founders, their journey, the challenges they met and how they solved them. The case explores the key c…
2021-2022 HEC Montréal AEMBA CSR Case Writing Competition – 1st Prize
Case Study
Sustainability
Entrepreneurship
Strategy
Supply Chain
Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
Lionheart Farms (Philippines) and the tree of life
Lionheart Agrotech Limited, the holding company of Lionheart Farms is developing a large-scale sustainable hybrid coconut plantation with integrated processing and manufacturing capacities in the Philippines. The case describes the idea of the founders, their journey, the challenges they met and how they solved them. The case explores the key c…
2023 Financial Times Responsible Business Education Awards – Highly Commended
Case Study
Marketing
Strategy
Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
Growth
Social Platform
Sustainability
Kineer: A social marketing challenge
Kineer Services Limited (Kineer) was a social marketing startup set up in 2018 by Lakshmi Narayan Tripathi, a prominent Indian transgender, and Manish Jain, an ex-hospitality industry veteran. Their objective in setting up Kineer was to provide a life of dignity to the socially stigmatized third gender community in India. As a startup, Kineer fa…
2022 John Molson MBA International Case Writing Competition – 3rd prize
Best-selling Case Study
Case Study
Family Business
Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
Strategy
Sustainability
Value Creation
Brown-Forman: Nothing better in the market
London, UK, July 2020. G. Garvin Brown IV, the chairman of Brown-Forman Corporation and 5th generation family shareholder, was preparing to celebrate the firm’s 150th anniversary. Despite its current global footprint, a turnover in excess of $3.3 billion and over 4,800 employees worldwide, Brown-Forman had remained in Louisville, Kentucky, close…
2021 EFMD Case Writing Competition Award – Family Business
Case Study
Sustainability
Strategy
Marketing
Operations
Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
Going plastic neutral: The Nestlé Philippines experience (B)
In March 2019, Kais Marzouki, Chairman and CEO of Nestlé Philippines Inc. (NPI), wanted his company to reach plastic neutrality at the earliest possible time. Globally, including in the Philippines, more and more consumers, governments, NGOs and media were concerned by plastic waste and pollution. Mark Schneider, Nestlé’s global CEO, had recentl…
Case Study
Sustainability
Strategy
Marketing
Operations
Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
Going plastic neutral: The Nestlé Philippines experience (A)
In March 2019, Kais Marzouki, Chairman and CEO of Nestlé Philippines Inc. (NPI), wanted his company to reach plastic neutrality at the earliest possible time. Globally, including in the Philippines, more and more consumers, governments, NGOs and media were concerned by plastic waste and pollution. Mark Schneider, Nestlé’s global CEO, had recentl…
Case Study
Sustainability
Entrepreneurship
Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
Essilor’s Eye Mitra program: Serving BOP markets through inclusive business models
At Essilor, Jayanth Bhuvaraghan, recently retired Chief Mission Officer (CMO), had launched and then promoted an original base-of-pyramid (BOP) operation in India, which recruited, trained and set up some 8,000 Eye Mitras to operate in remote rural communities. These primary vision care providers were able to run vision tests and produce correct…
Case Study
Finance
Sustainability
Investment
Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
Nia Impact Capital: Active ownership for social justice
The case is about a sustainable investor firm, Nia Impact Capital (Nia) (Oakland, California), and its founder and CEO, Kristin Hull. Hull aims to invest in gender and racial justice and to make money with meaning and purpose. She brings the logic of impact investing to public markets, exercising active ownership, and engaging with portfolio com…
2021 EFMD Case Writing Competition Award – Responsible Leadership
Case Study
Agility
Entrepreneurship
Growth
Sustainability
Diversity and Equity and Inclusion
How Covid-19 tests entrepreneurs’ agility (B): Mobilizing through the crisis
Case B describes Tatulova’s actions in response to the crisis. This included a meeting with President Putin to discuss the situation of small businesses. Tatulova’s speech, in which she pleaded with him to support Russian entrepreneurs, made her very visible in Russia and propelled her into a nationwide role as the ombudsman for small businesses…