Consumer goods
November 2023
Heineken’s International Expansion
Asserting his lifelong motto “I don’t sell beer, I sell warmth”, Alfred ‘Freddy’ Heineken passed away on 3 January 2002, aged 78. Known for his flamboyant lifestyle and fiery personality, Freddy was also the driving force in growing Heineken into an international brand. Heineken had the la...
November 2023
Royal Ahold: International growth and acquisitions
By Freek Vermeulen
On October 13 2004, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed fraud and other charges in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against Royal Ahold and three former top executives, including CEO and Chairman Cees van der Hoeven, thus terminating the career of the once-power...
October 2023
Insearch Ltd: Searching for a company to buy
By Simon Webster
By March 2022 Steve Webb had spent more than three years looking for a company to acquire. He was in final negotiations to buy a company, but he and the vendors did not see eye-to-eye on its valuation. Steve was also concerned about how to structure an offer. He was in a difficult financial situatio...
November 2023
Building an organisation for the ecosystem era: Weighing up the Recipe of Haier’s Internet of Food
By Michael Jacobides, Tom Albrighton, Monwei Chou, Lisa Duke, Dalbert Ma, Aryan Mittal
Ecosystems offer a new way to bring multiple firms together in order to deliver new value propositions. By working together, the hub firm and its complementors can create innovative ‘product plus service’ bundles that span traditionally separate industries to offer an experience that simply wasn...
November 2023
From Products to Experience Ecosystems: Haier’s Internet of Food
By Michael Jacobides, Lisa Duke, Dalbert Ma, Aryan Mittal
Haier had come a long way since Zhang Ruimin took it over as a failing Chinese Collective-Owned Enterprise in 1984. Since then, he’d been able to transform it into one of the world’s leading appliance manufacturers, known for quality and innovation. Haier was also noted for its bold geographical...
October 2020
Brand Value and Valuation – Technical Note (Spanish language)
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...
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...
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...