Rituals Cosmetics: Building the world’s leading well-being brand in Asia

Nespresso, the global leading brand in portioned coffee, is facing an existential threat. The company’s current market base, which consists primarily of aging consumers, is likely to decline in the medium to long term. To compensate for the certain shortfall, the company needs to attract young coffee drinkers among Millennials and Generation Z, whose consumption and values are significantly different from the current base. Management is being forced to reset its historically successful strategy for a new era when today’s young consumers will soon account for the bulk of the global coffee market.

Chris Tung is President of Strategic Development at Chinese e-commerce multinational Alibaba Group. He tells Amit Joshi how the company is integrat...

In 1983, Korean Air Lines Flight KE007, a Boeing 747, suffered a tragic fate that claimed the lives of all 269 passengers and crew. Against the backdrop of Cold War tensions, the aircraft experienced an autopilot failure and veered significantly off course into Soviet airspace. The crew’s missteps led to a series of misinterpretations because there was a lack of awareness of geopolitical intricacies and technological constraints. Confusion was triggered as a result of Flight KE007 entering Soviet territory during a heightened state of alert for a missile test, miscommunications, and a malfunctioning radar system. Soviet fighter jets, unable to establish communication, fired warning shots. When Flight KE007 sought altitude clearance, in accordance with its flight plan, this maneuver was misread as evasion and the Soviet military launched a missile that downed the aircraft. Post-incident, the Soviets maintained secrecy, attributing the intrusion to ongoing provocations. However, this catastrophe was the catalyst for pivotal advancements in air safety. The Reagan administration pledged to introduce GPS for civil aviation by 1988, which would afford precise global positioning. Interim measures included the extension of US military radar coverage and the establishment of a joint air traffic control system in 1986, with the Soviet Union monitoring civilian air traffic over the North Pacific. The narrative unfolds at the intersection of aviation, politics and global security in the early 1980s. Beyond technical and human factors, it underscores the profound impact of international relations and the subsequent strides in air safety emerging from this poignant chapter in aviation history.

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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 sta...

The case explores the efforts of Hamilton Mann, Group VP, Global Digital Marketing & Digital Transformation at Thales, to build a sales enablement platform as part of Thales’ larger digital transformation. “ContentFlix” aimed to be a one-stop sales enablement platform bringing together content for presentations and sales pitches and integrating solutions from across the business. Thales’ key account teams were used to operating in silos and via face-to-face interactions. Similarly, marketing and sales were distant and did not work together as effectively and seamlessly as they could. ContentFlix was intended to break down those silos and encourage collaboration between the company’s different businesses and marketing and sales teams. Mann’s team had launched ContentFlix quietly, tackling each implementation challenge as it came, and adoption had been steady. The Covid pandemic changed everything. Enforced lockdowns meant that remote cooperation between units became the only way to do business. The platform’s adoption accelerated beyond Mann’s expectations and continued to grow post-pandemic. The case explores how the team planned the platform, supported its rollout across Thales and continued to build it throughout the pandemic and beyond. The case explores in rich detail the obstacles and challenges as well as the successes Mann and his team face. The case closes with the rise of generative AI (GenAI). The team starts to consider where GenAI could enhance ContentFlix. What possibilities were there to take the platform to its next stage of development?

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.