International

September 2021

The fall of Greensill and the future of supply chain finance

By S. Alex Yang, Lisa Duke

In March 2021, Greensill Capital, the UK-based leading supply chain financing provider, with 16 offices across the world, filed for insolvency; its Germany-based bank closed by regulators. Less than two years earlier, Greensill had received a $1.5 billion investment from SoftBank’s Vision Fund, va...

August 2021

Natura &Co: Sustainability at Scale

By Stefano Turconi, Pranjal Singh, Rui Wang

Established in 1969 as a cosmetics lab in the city of São Paulo, Natura grew briskly over the ensuing decades and by 2004 it had become Brazil’s largest beauty company. Unlike its competitors, Natura was built on the principle of reconciling socioecological sustainability with value creation. Dur...

September 2005

Red Bull: The anti-brand brand

By Nader Tavassoli, Nirmalya Kumar, Sophie Linguri

In 2004, Red Bull found itself at a crossroad, challenged with defending its 70% worldwide market share of the €2.5 billion energy drinks category that it had pioneered. Through a combination of buzz marketing tactics, decentralised distribution and sponsorship of extreme sports and pop culture ev...

September 2021

Treeapp: Plant a tree for free, every day

By Ioannis Ioannou

The case describes the launch in the UK and Ireland in April 2020 of the mobile app Treeapp, intended to help combat the effects of climate change by enabling users to plant trees for free. The app is funded by Treeapp’s brand partners, who pay £1 to Treeapp every time a user watches an advert on...

July 2021

The ‘Funding Buffet’: Understanding the sources of capital to finance your venture – Technical Note

By Luisa Alemany, Gary Dushnitsky

This technical note is an introduction to the world of financing entrepreneurial ventures. It is a primer on the different stages of a business and the different types of financing available. Most of the capital that high-growth entrepreneurial businesses will secure to fund their future plans is pr...

February 2021

Finance for Entrepreneurial Companies: Financing Instruments – Technical Note

By John Mullins, Robert M Johnson, Steve Pesenti

Despite today’s growing attention to bootstrapping and the use of customer funding in the financing of new ventures, many new ventures, be they a startup or a plan to grow an existing business, will require some initial injection of capital to finance the fixed assets, working capital, and operati...

November 2020

Protean Electric: Innovation upon innovation

By David Arnold

The case is intended as a vehicle for analysis of the challenges involved in launching an innovative product. It is set against the background of the wave of innovation in the vehicle market, as manufacturers race to replace internal combustion engines (ICEs) with electric power. Protean Electric, a...

October 2020

The Marketing Process – Background Note

By Nader Tavassoli

The Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK defines marketing as: “The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably” 1 This note describes the marketing process...

October 2020

Brand Value and Valuation – Technical Note

By Nader Tavassoli

Brand valuation is the process of estimating the financial value of a brand. The valuation of brands as intangible assets emerged in the 1980s, when brands were first capitalized on post-M&A balance sheets. Brands are also valued for non-reporting purposes...

October 2020

The World Trade Organization and Tobacco Plain Packaging: Is Packaging Adverting and Does It Influence Consumption?

By Nader Tavassoli

On June 29, 2020, a dispute settlement panel convened by the World Trade Organization (WTO) rejected the appeal regarding its findings in the report “Australia – Certain Measures Concerning Trademarks, Geographical Indications and other Plain Packaging Requirements Applicable to Tobacco Products...