Corporate strategy
March 2022
Refinitiv: A private equity-led transformation
By Julian Birkinshaw, David Craig
In August 2019 CEO David Craig was considering the likely benefits and challenges of merging his company, financial-markets data and infrastructure provider Refinitiv, with the London Stock Exchange Group. Craig had led a turnaround of Thomson Reuters’ Financial & Risk division (F&R), then...
March 2012
Carnival Corporation: The P&O Princess Acquisition (A)
By Donald Sull, Stefano Turconi, Barbara Muckermann
Set in January 2002, this case examines the three-way takeover battle for cruise industry dominance involving Carnival, P&O Princess and Royal Caribbean. It also documents the evolution of the modern cruise industry and the competitive dynamics that led to momentous consolidation. After secret m...
March 2012
Carnival Corporation: The P&O Princess Acquisition (B)
By Donald Sull, Stefano Turconi, Barbara Muckermann
Set in January 2002, this case examines the three-way takeover battle for cruise industry dominance involving Carnival, P&O Princess and Royal Caribbean. It also documents the evolution of the modern cruise industry and the competitive dynamics that led to momentous consolidation. After secret m...
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...
January 2021
Building an Agile Organisation at ING Bank Netherlands – Compact Case
By Julian Birkinshaw, Ken Mark
ING Group was established through a merger of three Dutch financial services firms in 1991. It expanded internationally into Europe and the Americas, and created a no-frills savings account business called ING Direct in the late 1990s. In 2007 it merged its two main subsidiary banks, Postbank with ...
October 2020
COVID-19: Pret a Manger’s Fight for Survival
By Nader Tavassoli, Jessica Spungin
The case describes how Pret a Manger—a London casual-dining institution—was significantly adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and how they tried to pivot by launching several business experiments in fast succession. The long-term outcome of these experiments was far from certain, but th...
July 2020
Haier’s (2019) ecosystem revolution: From Rendanheyi 2.0 to Rendanheyi 3.0
By Michael Jacobides, Lisa Duke
2019 was an important year for Haier. Its new version of its radically decentralised structure, dubbed Rendanheyi 2.0, based on many independent ‘Ecosystem Micro-enterprise Communities’ (EMCs) had been devised to help it respond to the shifting ways of adding value in the digital, internet-based...
April 2015
Thomson Reuters: Building a Risk-Management Business
By Julian Birkinshaw, Stefano Turconi
The case tells the story of the evolution of Thomson Reuters’ risk business, from its creation in 2010 as Thomson Reuters GRC (governance, risk and compliance) to its position as a $700 million revenue business unit within the Finance and Risk (F&R) division of Thomson Reuters in 2016. The cas...
February 2019
Jack Ma at Alibaba: Building a Learning Organisation
By Herminia Ibarra, Jessica Spungin
In September 2018 Alibaba’s co-founder and executive chairman, Jack Ma, announced his plans to step down from the $420 billion Chinese internet company to pursue philanthropy in education. The case describes the evolution of Alibaba’s corporate strategy from Chinese e-commerce pioneer to a compl...
January 2016
Unilever Foundry
By Julian Birkinshaw, Shahnoor Meghani
This case focuses on the Unilever Foundry, a platform for Unilever to engage with start-ups and entrepreneurs, providing them with access to Unilever’s brands as a means of enabling their growth while bringing innovative technology back to the company. The case provides a brief description of Unil...