Disruptive innovation
February 2022
TrueLayer: Innovation, regulation and the future of financial services
By Julian Birkinshaw, Ken Mark, Farhan Lalji
In April 2021, having just raised $70 million in a Series D funding, Francesco Simoneschi, Co-Founder and CEO of TrueLayer, was thinking about expansion plans. Should the company focus on product innovation, broadening its line-up within the 13 countries in which it operated, or should it look to gr...
April 2009
Multi Media Mapping Ltd Case (B)
By John Bates, Cosette Reczek, Sean Phelan
It was early October 2007 as Sean Phelan, founder of Multi Media Mapping Ltd, reviewed the previous 12 months. It had been a year of highs and lows that now set the scene for the most important decision in the company’s 12-year history. At least he now had some options to consider – unlike this ...
April 2009
Multi Media Mapping Ltd Case (A)
By John Bates, Cosette Reczek, Sean Phelan
It was nearly 10 years since Multi Media Mapping Ltd had gone live with the launch of the Multimap.com website and Sean Phelan, founder and majority shareholder, was facing the classic entrepreneur’s dilemma. The company had a successful platform and business model that had made it the market lead...
November 2021
MOVE Guides (C)
By John Mullins, Tiffany Putimahtama
Having decided to go where her customers wanted to take her, CEO Brynne Kennedy had led MOVE Guides into the managed-moves market segment, in addition to the lump-sum moves segment that had given her company its start. By any measure, the company had grown: in top-line revenue, in head count, and (t...
November 2021
MOVE Guides (B)
By John Mullins, Tiffany Putimahtama
It was August 2014. The MOVE Guides team had successfully converted two of their initial pilot clients into paying customers whose employees were delighted with the company’s support of their moves. Brynne Kennedy and her team were successfully closing a couple of additional lump-sum clients reg...
November 2021
MOVE Guides (A)
By John Mullins, Tiffany Putimahtama
It was a crisp autumn day in London in 2012. Brynne Kennedy and Steve Black, the co-founders of MOVE Guides, were huddling with their lead software developer, Peter Almasi, and their lead angel investor, Kevin Eyres. Their fledgling business had come a long way since its July launch, with pilot prog...
June 2022
Dollar Shave Club: Disrupting the Shaving Industry (Spanish)
By Nader Tavassoli, Karin Kollenz-Quétard, Jamie Anderson
The case describes how Dollar Shave Club proved to be a disruptive force in the shaving industry, one dominated by Gillette for over a Century. It did so without a single patent to its name, and with a direct-to-consumer subscription and a content-based customer engagement model that was new to the ...
April 2019
Yulife: Redefining Life Insurance
By Julian Birkinshaw, Ken Mark
Yulife is a digital-first life insurance and rewards company that is seeking to disrupt the centuries-old life insurance market. Its founders are a combination of insurance industry veterans and executives in finance, wealth management and gaming. The challenge the company faces is that it cannot go...
July 2018
Dollar Shave Club: Disrupting the Shaving Industry
By Nader Tavassoli, Karin Kollenz-Quétard, Jamie Anderson
The case describes how Dollar Shave Club proved to be a disruptive force in the shaving industry, one dominated by Gillette for over a Century. It did so without a single patent to its name, and with a direct-to-consumer subscription and a content-based customer engagement model that was new to the ...
May 2017
Capitec Bank – Redefining Retail Banking: Innovation Through Elimination
By Freek Vermeulen
The consumer banking industry is notoriously hard to enter. Customers rarely switch banks (switching costs are high) and there are considerable barriers to entry to new players. Traditionally, banking products can be complex, often accompanied by non-transparent cross-selling practices and hidden fe...