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Vol. II February 19th 2009
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Confronted with the shortcomings of Conventional measures such as GNP, GDP, NNP, NDP, the difficulties in measuring happiness and understanding the relevance of concepts like Easterlin's Paradox, MEW, HDI, externalities, Pareto optimality, aspiration treadmill and relative income hypothesis, Bhutan has embarked upon designing a new measure of development, called Gross National Happiness (GNH). The case study highlights how Bhutan attempts to track happiness directly instead of sticking to the imperfect proxy route of GDP and debates on issues – like involving various concepts pertaining to
National Income Accounting and Welfare Economics.
If a distinctive positioning is what gives a company success, should it stick to it, even when other companies with similar positioning are experiencing failure?
In the backdrop of aviation turmoil of aggressive capacity expansions amid rising fuel prices and taxation rates, the case study explores how IndiGo sailed through the turmoil and endeavoured to consistently maintain low costs by resorting to measures like outsourcing and having homogeneous fleet; while all other low-cost carriers struggled to keep up their low fare promises.
Borrowing Milton Friedman's phrase, 'the business of business is business', do CSR initiatives make any business sense for companies?
The case study discusses many intriguing issues on how CSR remained a long-running debate and how the corporate world is caught between two contrasting ideologies – ensuing a win-win model for the society as well as for the company on one end and achieving the main goal of creating value for the shareholders on the other.
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When a founder/co-founder cannot lead the company during its most demanding and challenging times, who else would? Highlighting Yahoo!'s struggle for survival under Jerry Yang, amid intensifying competition from Google, the case study captures the dire consequences of ineffective leadership – failed execution and missed opportunities. Losing the battle to Google, both technologically and strategically, Yahoo! in no time became a takeover target
to rivals like Microsoft. The case study debates on many issues – what actually went wrong with Yahoo! Should Yahoo! struggle as a standalone company or should it merge
with a rival? With Jerry Yang's decision to quit as Yahoo!'s CEO, who would reinvigorate the company with the right strategic refocus?
In the highly volatile business environment, traditional marketing tactics no longer lure the customers, owing to a plethora of factors like better product awareness among customers, increased choice of product variety (both local as well as global brands), exposure to aggressive advertising tactics, growing presence of Internet and corporate world's reliance on Web 2.0 technologies like social networking and corporate blogging. Pressurised with these changes in the corporate business, marketers looked for new and innovative ways to reach out to customers. This case book is a compilation of 19 case studies that serve as illustrious examples of innovative marketing – like
celebrity endorsements, enhanced advertising appeal, focus on in-store advertising, finding new channels of marketing sponsoring sport events, etc.
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Will the companies across different industries survive this global economic recession? How can businesses sail through such crisis?
In his book, Andrew S. Grove (Grove) president and CEO of Intel Corporation, cautions business entities to be agile to fundamental changes in their businesses, what he calls as strategic inflection points. Such changes might mean an opportunity to rise to new heights or it might also lead to disaster and be deadly when left unattended. With years of experience in the technology industry, Grove says that as the corporate world is hard hit by massive changes in the global economy, companies which keep themselves abreast of this transition are the ones that survive.
With an urge to teach the lessons learnt out of experience at Intel, Grove offers reflections on how Intel wrestled with one of the biggest business challenges in 1994, when a flaw in its Pentium processor rose to a front-page controversy threatening its very existence. Grove also provides insights on his observations from interactions with customers and partners and the need to constantly speculate competitors' moves.
Through this book, Grove raises awareness of what it is like to go through cataclysmic changes and provides a framework for finding a way through unchartered territories.
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Marketing in Recession:
Focusing on Frugal Consumers
As recession hit hard on customers in the form of rising
unemployment and inflation, retailers are faced with the toughest challenge of luring customers to loosen their purse strings. In the backdrop of changing consumer behaviour during recession and its impact on the US retail industry, this case study briefs on how few discounted retailers like Kmart, T.J Maxx and Kohl have successfully weathered through the recession. What alternatives should retailers try to sail through the crisis? Should they invest on consumer research, advertise more, change in-store marketing strategies or simply reduce price? How far is it necessary for the retailers to emotionally connect with the customers?
Collateral Damage:What the Crisis in the Credit Markets Means for Everyone Else
The global financial crisis is no longer just a financial crisis – it is engulfing the global economy. Given the dramatic events in the capital markets, everyone is wondering what will happen next and what the implications are. This paper explains the background to the crisis both in the capital markets and in the broader economy. It explores the possible future economic scenarios and the challenges facing companies outside the financial sector and provides a rapid but comprehensive action plan to sustain the crisis.
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On
Managing
TROUBLED TIMES
An Interview with Tamara J Erickson, a McKinsey award-winning author and widely respected expert on organisations and innovation – on building talent and enhancing productivity – and on the nature of work in the intelligent economy.
She talks about her company, nGenera Innovation Network, a business innovation platform for next generation enterprises. Through a combination of technology and innovative processes, it provides an agile mechanism for identifying, creating and configuring key capabilities into highly modular assets that enable companies to transform into Next-Generation Enterprises. Through her works, "Give Me the Ball!" Is the Wrong Call and In Plugged In: the Generation Y Guide to Thriving at Work, she advises organisations as well as individuals on how to deal with the ongoing economic recession and the resulting chaos.
An Interview with Stewart D.
Friedman, Practice Professor of Management Director, Wharton Work/Life Integration Project.
Through the interview, Friedman, whom the Wharton students look up
with a mixture of earnest admiration, gratitude and rock star adoration, talks about his latest book, Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life, as a practical guide for improving performance in all spheres of life – work, home, community, and self (mind, body, and spirit) – by finding mutual value among them. He also debates on the relationship between leadership and management, whether leadership is inborn or can it be acquired and on how to deal with unprecedented times – both individually and institutionally. |
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