Pentland Group: A family of brands

The new map of discovery, terms of competition, and the search for where value will lie

Explore how Intelligence of the Heart guides hard decisions with compassion, wisdom, and ethical responsibility for thoughtful leadership.

Howard Yu explains how Aston Martin, Rolex, and other prestige brands turn performance, heritage, and cultural memory into lasting competitive advantage.

Companies are spending billions on artificial intelligence. But are they making any money from it? IMD's Karl Schmedders on hidden costs, vibe coding and how companies can turn AI into business value.

China's innovation strategy: How AI, robotics, swarm competition, energy investment, and management innovation drive global competitiveness and business growth.

Explore the Magnificent 7 of scaling: strategy, organization, and leadership practices that drive successful growth.

This chapter advances a political perspective on goal setting in family firms by foregrounding the role of issues and coalitional dynamics. Building on the Behavioral Theory of the Firm, it argues that goal formation is not a purely cognitive or s...

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.

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.