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Dear colleagues,

My research team at WU Vienna, together with co-authors in other places, has recently published several teaching cases that might be relevant for you as you prepare for your upcoming teaching.

All cases take place in exciting contexts (e.g. Ukraine, Silicon Valley, Cote d’Ivoire), are available with comprehensive teaching notes, and have already been used in universities such as Arizona State University, Copenhagen Business School, George Washington University, INSEAD, Singapore Management University, and the University of Maryland.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us!

Best regards

Benoit Decreton

 

Topics: Subsidiaries in extreme environments, crisis management, political risk

Managing a severe crisis: Pharmacorp in Ukraine (Phillip C. Nell, Renate Kratochvil and Patricia Klopf, Ivey Publishing, 2017)

In early 2015, the newly appointed country head of PharmaCorp's operating unit in Ukraine faced internal and external challenges in managing the global pharmaceutical company's operations in the crisis-ridden country. Since November 2013, Ukraine had undergone massive disruptions, including riots in Kiev, the annexation of Crimea by Russia, and a war in its easternmost region. Amid these economic and political turbulences, PharmaCorp Ukraine experienced plummeting sales, increased workload, amplified human resources issues, and decreased market share. Furthermore, the multinational corporation's internal routines became less effective in the context of the crisis. Although the regional headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, offered guidance and resources, inefficiencies in responding to local issues emerged during the crisis. Should PharmaCorp exit the market? Or should it stay in Ukraine and revise its local marketing strategy by offering more innovative products? Should it implement cost-saving measures? Should the business model be revised to gain more autonomy for its operations? The country head was scheduled to meet with representatives from the regional headquarters and needed to prepare a comprehensive strategy for improving the local situation.

 

Topics: Global knowledge management, subsidiaries in innovation clusters, open innovation

BT Group: Managing Global Open Innovation (Benoit Decreton and Felipe Monteiro, INSEAD Case Publishing, 2018 – case website incl. video interviews with the case protagonist online by September here)

Jean-Marc Frangos, Managing Director of Products & Services Research and Open Innovation at BT Group is looking to optimize the London-based telecom company's external innovation process - scouting for new technologies from Silicon Valley, Israel and Asia. Having taken on responsibility for some of BT's internal research labs in 2017, he needs to boost synergies between internal research and external innovation, and to evaluate how these will play out in the future for telecom companies and the implications for BT.

 

Topics: Local adaptation vs. global responsiveness, emerging markets, headquarters-subsidiary relationships

DeliverMeal Ivory Coast: Addressing Headquarters Demands (Benoit Decreton, Phillip C. Nell and Alison E. Holm, Ivey Publishing, 2017)

In 2015, DeliverMeal was a Norwegian online food delivery firm, mostly present in what could be considered emerging markets such as those in Africa. Founded in 2010, the company had experienced extremely rapid international expansion. DeliverMeal followed a global strategy, and standardized processes and turnkey solutions were provided from the headquarters to the subsidiaries. The local business development manager at DeliverMeal's Ivory Coast subsidiary needed to make some decisions on how to react to three demands that had recently been passed down from corporate headquarters, all of which were at odds with the West African environment. How could the Ivory Coast manager meet her headquarters' corporate expectations and still conduct successful business operations within the local cultural context?

 

Topics: Local problem-solving and global strategy, marketing strategy, social media

Pharma Luxur and institutional change in Croatia (Phillip C. Nell and Renate Kratochvil, The Case Centre, 2016)

The Croatian government introduces a new tax law which restrains pharmaceutical companies’ marketing & sales activities. The focus of this case is on a local subsidiary of a global pharmaceutical company dealing with this challenging problem. At first sight the problem looks like a local issue, though, scratching the surface, it represents a global issue in pharmaceutical marketing, but only on a small scale. Globally, pharmaceutical companies deal with lots of strategic challenges, for instance: to make their marketing strategy fit for the future, to revitalize their business model, and to adapt to changes in local regulations as well as patients’ and Health Care Professionals’ (for example doctors) behaviors. In sum, this case is written to encourage students to (1) advance their analytical skills when identifying the substantial drivers of a problem (what is beyond the surface), (2) to be creative (think out of the box) to find possible solutions, and (3) understand problem solving in global corporations. The case is structured as a two-part series and provides an engaging context to understand the essence of analyzing the underlying causes of a complex problem, before rushing into solution search. In addition, it highlights the potential of problems when turned into opportunities. This case takes students through a sequence of demanding tasks: identify symptoms and causes of a firm’s particular problem, find creative solutions, reformulate the problem and explore the opportunities it offers, detect global trends as well as challenges the pharmaceutical industry is facing.

 

 

_________________________________________________

Benoit Decreton

PhD Student in Strategy and International Business

WU Vienna University of Economics and Business

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