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Latest Case Studies
Case Study
Strategy
Digital Transformation
Entrepreneurship
General Management
Leadership
Organizational Behavior
Has Elon Musk X’d out?
In 2022, Elon Musk, known for his innovative ideas and often compared to Steve Jobs, made a big move by buying Twitter for $44 billion. He then started transforming the microblogging platform, rebranding it as “X.” His goal was to turn Twitter into a super app like WeChat in Asia, combining many services like messaging, shopping and payments int…
Case Study
Strategy
Disruption
Entrepreneurship
General Management
UniMag: Quality of life on paper, on air and online
Terry Burns launched UniMag in 2007 and went on to develop its ecosystem of affiliated companies over several years. As most media were rapidly shifting online, UniMag established its brand as a high-profile magazine with a counter-intuitive focus on high-quality print and journalism. Since then, digitalization has increasingly shaped the media …
UniMag: Quality of life on paper, on air and online
Summary
Terry Burns launched UniMag in 2007 and went on to develop its ecosystem of affiliated companies over several years. As most media were rapidly shifting online, UniMag established its brand as a high-profile magazine with a counter-intuitive focus on high-quality print and journalism. Since then, digitalization has increasingly shaped the media landscape, opening many opportunities for Burns. By 2023 digital activities most effectively drive the business of the many affiliated companies in UniMag’s ecosystem. In contrast, its print magazine sales have stalled, and costs keep growing. Burns and her team must make a strategic decision: What to do and what to stop? Where to perform and where to transform? In the context of a transforming media industry, the case illustrates how to set strategic direction in the face of disruptive forces in order to drive change and open opportunities.
Reference
IMD-7-2540
Copyright
©2024
Copyright owner
IMD Copyright
Organization
UniMag (Disguised)
Industry
Media
Available Languages
English
Contact
Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications
Case Study
Organizational Behavior
Entrepreneurship
Human Resources
Leadership
STADA: Sustaining agility and entrepreneurship in a fast-growing pharma company
Peter Goldschmidt became the CEO of pharmaceuticals company STADA in 2018. He was a firm believer in culture as a driving force – and a predictor – of organizational performance and competitiveness. A year earlier, two private equity funds had become majority owners of the “old” STADA – essentially a loose, decentralized network of country opera…
STADA: Sustaining agility and entrepreneurship in a fast-growing pharma company
Summary
Peter Goldschmidt became the CEO of pharmaceuticals company STADA in 2018. He was a firm believer in culture as a driving force – and a predictor – of organizational performance and competitiveness. A year earlier, two private equity funds had become majority owners of the “old” STADA – essentially a loose, decentralized network of country operations. After taking the helm, Goldschmidt made building a growth culture one of the strategic pillars aimed at transforming the company into a leader in consumer health, global generics and specialty pharma. As a major lever to achieve that vision, the CEO put forward four core values to define the new, aspirational brand of STADA’s culture: agility, entrepreneurship, integrity and “one STADA.” In its quest for agility, resilience and speed, STADA’s leadership recognized the need for an ambitious transformation that would improve collaboration to leverage learning, talent and technology, while centralizing some processes and reducing duplication and waste. Amid the Covid pandemic, in March 2020, STADA reported the highest production output in the group’s 125-year history. By 2022, the company was well on its way to achieving the owners’ growth objectives of becoming a strong, well-run organization. In a short span of five years, between 2018 and 2023, STADA built a platform that should allow the business to scale to five times its current size.
Reference
IMD-7-2453
Copyright
©2024
Copyright owner
IMD Copyright
Organization
Stada Arzneimittel
Industry
Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals
Available Languages
English
Contact
Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications
Case Study
Digital Transformation
Disruption
Entrepreneurship
Operations
Sustainability
Galeneo Health: Scaling the hospital@home platform
MADRID (SPAIN), MARCH 2023. Jaime Garcia-Prieto, founder and CEO of Galeneo, was polishing the deck for the fundraising for his healthcare start-up. The seed round of €1 million would take him to the institutional A round scheduled for Q3-2024, a comfortable 18-month+ runway. His proposal to decentralize healthcare through a tech-enabled hospita…
Galeneo Health: Scaling the hospital@home platform
Summary
MADRID (SPAIN), MARCH 2023. Jaime Garcia-Prieto, founder and CEO of Galeneo, was polishing the deck for the fundraising for his healthcare start-up. The seed round of €1 million would take him to the institutional A round scheduled for Q3-2024, a comfortable 18-month+ runway. His proposal to decentralize healthcare through a tech-enabled hospital@home platform offered the solution people were looking for not only in Spain but also in most advanced economies. According to a recent Economist article, the NHS, like many healthcare systems, had become a sickness service, not a health service. To live up to the promise of its name would require a shift in focus, away from hospitals to the community, from centralized treatment to community-based prevention and bedside medicine. In other words, health systems needed to be investing in smoke alarms, not fire extinguishers. In 2020, as the Covid pandemic began, Jaime envisioned the future of in-home care for patients with chronic treatment needs. In 2021, he embarked on developing a platform to coordinate bedside medical care anywhere, anytime, in minutes. Galeneo was born. By 2023, it had integrated 200+ healthcare providers (HCPs) and 11+ institutional partners in the Madrid region, enabling the provision of general high-value services outside hospital. Revenues of €1.6 million in 2023 were expected, with a growth rate of about 8% every month and net profit breakeven reached in February. Things looked positive, but there were issues around scaling fast – although Jaime had found solutions. To counter the limited availability of qualified healthcare workers, he developed the Galeneo Academy to train future in-home bedside specialists. Tech-enabled standardization reduced operational complexity through an easy-to-use app and included real-time monitoring and quality control. Finally, the whole concept of community-based bedside medicine was still nascent, which meant market participants needed to adopt original approaches. But it was a large market with great potential.
Reference
IMD-7-2496
Copyright
©2023
Copyright owner
IMD Copyright
Organization
Galeneo
Industry
Healthcare, Health and Medical Services
Available Languages
English
Contact
Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications
Case Study
Entrepreneurship
Disruption
Strategy
Sustainability
SIBIUS: Battling cognitive disorders
Sept 2022. Corinne Avelines, SIBIUS’s CEO, had received the news that the results of the first large-scale test of the company’s first product had just been published. The test, conducted with children between 3 and 4 years old, validated their approach to early detection of autism. The technology was grounded in research showing that it was pos…
2024 John Molson MBA International Case Writing Competition – 3rd Prize
Case Study
Entrepreneurship
Strategy
Leadership
Valeur Absolue: Values-based entrepreneurship
The case discusses the development of Valeur Absolue – the niche luxury perfume company – from its inception in 2012 through to 2022 and the leadership journey of its founder Bénédicte Foucart. In pursuit of her purpose to empower women and increase the positive energy in their lives, Bénédicte believed that she would be able to address women’s …
2024 John Molson MBA International Case Writing Competition – 4th Prize
Case Study
Family Business
Human Resources
Entrepreneurship
Robert Kuok: The century-old Asian legend without a clear succession plan
Robert Kuok is a prominent Malaysian entrepreneur and the founder of the Kuok Group. He has led the Kuok Group to become one of Asia’s most dynamic multinational conglomerates, with publicly listed companies scattered across Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, complemented by a web of privately held companies. However, in 2023, the 100-year-old …
Robert Kuok: The century-old Asian legend without a clear succession plan
Summary
Robert Kuok is a prominent Malaysian entrepreneur and the founder of the Kuok Group. He has led the Kuok Group to become one of Asia’s most dynamic multinational conglomerates, with publicly listed companies scattered across Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, complemented by a web of privately held companies. However, in 2023, the 100-year-old …
Copyright
©2024
Copyright owner
External Copyright
Organization
Kuok Group
Available Languages
English
Contact
Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications
Case Study
Entrepreneurship
China
Leadership
The rise and fall of Byton
Byton was a Chinese electric vehicle company founded in 2016 with the goal of developing affordable, connected EVs. Daniel Kirchert, a seasoned automotive industry executive with extensive experience in luxury cars in China, was invited to join the start-up. With Daniel’s leadership and vision, Byton quickly became one of the most talked-about s…
The rise and fall of Byton
Summary
Byton was a Chinese electric vehicle company founded in 2016 with the goal of developing affordable, connected EVs. Daniel Kirchert, a seasoned automotive industry executive with extensive experience in luxury cars in China, was invited to join the start-up. With Daniel’s leadership and vision, Byton quickly became one of the most talked-about start-ups in the EV industry. The company raised around $700 million in funding from prominent investors such as FAW Group, Qidian Holdings and CATL, and secured partnerships with suppliers and strategic partners to support its innovative designs and technology. Byton’s first car model, the M-Byte, was unveiled at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). However, despite the initial success and buzz, Byton faced financial difficulties and began experiencing delays in bringing the M-Byte to market. In early 2020, Byton entered bankruptcy proceedings due to a lack of cash flow and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the global economy. Daniel left Byton for another career.
Reference
IMD-7-2473
Copyright
©2023
Copyright owner
IMD Copyright
Organization
Byton
Industry
Automotive, Automobiles
Available Languages
English
Contact
Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications
Case Study
Entrepreneurship
Human Resources
Leadership
Organizational Behavior
Retaining entrepreneurial spirit during hypergrowth at sportswear brand On (B)
When one of On’s co-founders stepped into the elevator at the brand new On Labs headquarters in Zurich, a fellow co-worker asked whether it was also his first day at On. He was speechless. Less than a decade earlier, the 5 partners regularly went for lunch runs with some of the other 30 team members. And now in April 2023, On was a publicly list…
Case Study
Entrepreneurship
Human Resources
Leadership
Organizational Behavior
Retaining entrepreneurial spirit during hypergrowth at sportswear brand On (A)
On Wednesday 15 September 2021, about 100 On team members were going to jog to the NYSE to mark the running shoe brand’s first day as a publicly traded company. One of few unicorns in Switzerland, On had been founded in January 2010 by running enthusiasts David Allemann and Caspar Coppetti, together with former professional athlete Olivier Bernh…
Case Study
Entrepreneurship
Business to Business
Digital
Leadership
Sustainability
Drinkotec: Changing a company, changing a life (C): Dream big or go home
It is now four years later, and Drinkotec is scaling up fast. They’ve had to make some tough decisions in order to focus, have the best people and build the culture that they want, but today, major beverage companies are seeking their technology in order to go packaging-free. This case is about leadership, culture, sustainability and taking the …
Case Study
Entrepreneurship
Business to Business
Digital
Leadership
Sustainability
Drinkotec: Changing a company, changing a life (B): Taking the leap
The deal is closed; Franck-Erik Flegbo and Cyril Le Terrien become the owners of Drinkotec but discover that the existing team doesn’t really have the capabilities or culture to innovate. The Covid-19 pandemic hits, and they discover that their customers need Drinkotec’s help.
Case Study
Entrepreneurship
Business to Business
Digital
Leadership
Sustainability
Drinkotec: Changing a company, changing a life (A): Daring to change
Franck-Erik Flegbo and Cyril Le Terrien were already successful executives in a major multinational when they decided that it was time to dream, and to build their own company, with a culture that delivered performance, created a culture where everyone wanted to work, used the latest technologies, and did its part to save the planet. The opportu…
Case Study
Entrepreneurship
Business to Business
Disruption
Sustainability
Strategy
Green Motion: From entrepreneurial pioneer to multinational powerhouse
Entrepreneur François Randin was successful, but searching for his next venture, wanting to build something sustainable. Suddenly he sees an all-electric sports car and decides to create an electric vehicle (EV) charging station company, even though the number of EVs on the road at the time is minuscule. He starts with software, moves to hardwar…
Case Study
Entrepreneurship
Business to Business
Disruption
Economics
Leadership
Kandou Bus, From start-up to IPO? (B): The Scale-Up
Dr Amin Shokrollahi, a mathematician who loves research, becomes an entrepreneur by accident. He discovers a software solution to decelerate Moore’s Law, and his friend, entrepreneur Steve Papa, pushes him to create a company and bring the solution to market. For five years they “wander in the woods” building the team, raising money, developing …