Beyond the Familiar

In late 2023, when the management team at the consumer packaged goods company Reckitt considered adopting gen AI, potential use cases spanned the business—from drafting presentations to delivering customer support to optimizing procurement contrac...

Energy efficiency is the fastest and cheapest way to cut emissions. Business leaders must do more to translate words into action.

With US tariffs on Swiss goods at 39%, Carlos Cordon outlines eight strategic ways to reduce costs and turn protectionism into advantage.

IMD Professor Omar Toulan speaks with Dan Luo at OWP Singapore about driving growth, profitability, and leadership across global brands like Heinz and Lego.

European innovation can be a force for resilience, transformation and global leadership. And yet it is often overlooked due to the geographical bloc’s fragmented markets, risk-averse culture, regulatory complexity and limited access to growth capi...

The case examines how DNB Bank, Norway's largest financial services company, reshaped its growth strategy by focusing on startups and SMEs, a segment traditionally considered unprofitable. In 2013, DNB launched a bold SME strategy, deliberately choosing a gross approach to win new startups early in their life cycle rather than a net approach focused on the profitability of existing accounts. This strategy, enabled by a significant investment in digitalization and a cultural shift toward customer lifecycle engagement, generated exceptional results and by 2025, the SME segment delivered the highest return on allocated capital. The journey, however, was not linear. A European regulatory crackdown in 2019, following the Danske Bank money laundering scandal, forced DNB to shift its focus from growth to compliance. The bank reallocated 1,000 employees to KYC units, dismantling its startup-friendly onboarding process and causing customer acquisition to stall. As competitors advanced, DNB had to orchestrate a strategic Restart effort to rebuild its SME leadership. This involved launching superior digital tools, providing automated lending decisions within a minute, and renewing its customer-centric focus. By 2025, the recovery was well underway, with one in three Norwegian SMEs banking with DNB. The case challenges students to evaluate DNB's past choices, the critical balance between growth and compliance, and the future of SME banking as AI and digital agents transform customer interactions.

Bayer Canada empowers frontline staff through a dynamic shared ownership model, boosting customer focus, collaboration, and inclusive leadership.

The case looks at the fundamental challenges, tensions and opportunities associated with an internally run venture as opposed to an externally funded startup or spin-off company. It discusses the genesis and context of Kontor, an internal venture ...

This case series explores what companies can learn from luxury brands without becoming luxury brands themselves. The video B case features interviews with three Vanzetti Engineering executives: the marketing director, the CEO and owner and the chief commercial officer. With the shrinking of the automobile industry, the company has had to reposition itself in other industrial sectors where it is significantly smaller than the customers. Vanzetti Engineering embraced some of the codes of luxury branding according to what suited it and ignored others. The company discovered that although it was focused mostly on creating functional value, it had to dwell much more on emotional and societal value creation. The process of brand elevation required a complete cultural transformation, and one of the lessons from the case is that a brand is not a slogan but a way of being and of delivering value.

In this edition of Leaders Unplugged, IMD President David Bach and Vestas CEO Henrik Andersen discuss Europe’s energy risks and bold leadership.