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Stealing Time: America's Disruption of the Swiss Watch Industry
Van Den Steen, Eric; Stark, AaronCase HBS-718500-EStrategyAfter years of growth, the Swiss watch industry faced an existential crisis. Exports to the US, their primary market, had dropped by more than two thirds over the past five years. Swiss watches were being disrupted by high-quality and affordable American products. The Swiss had to figure out how to respond. No matter the outcome, the year 1876 would prove to be pivotal.Starting at €8.20
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Capitalizing for the Future: HSBC in 2010
Mikes, Anette; Hamel, DominiqueCase HBS-112097-EAccounting and ControlFollowing the financial crisis of 2007/2008, HSBC CEO Michael Geoghegan saw a fundamental change in global opportunities and risks. With increasing regulation and fierce competition between banks, the Western hemisphere was going to be a tougher place to do business. Emerging markets, however, offered many opportunities. Geoghegan reasoned that in HSBC's case, a turn to emerging markets would be a return to its roots and to managing risks that it...Starting at €8.20
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Risk Management at Wellfleet Bank: Deciding about "Megadeals"
Mikes, AnetteCase HBS-109071-EFinanceThis case introduces risk management in the context of corporate lending, one of the bread-and-butter functions of commercial banks. It evokes the cultural tension between the risk function and the business line, which in this organization reverberated long after the decisive votes were cast at the group credit committee. The case further motivates debate on calculative cultures, and the role of model-based risk assessments in decision-making, an...Starting at €8.20
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The Kursk Submarine Rescue Mission
Mikes, AnetteCase HBS-114046-EAccounting and ControlThe Kursk, a Russian nuclear-powered submarine sank in the relatively shallow waters of the Barents Sea in August 2000, during a naval exercise. Numerous survivors were reported to be awaiting rescue, and within a week, an international rescue party gathered at the scene, which had possessed between them all that was needed for a successful rescue. Yet they failed to save anybody. Based on the recollections and daily situational reports of Commod...Starting at €8.20
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Akamai's Edge (A)
Van Den Steen, EricCase HBS-712455-EStrategyTo maximize their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color. In 2009, Paul Sagan, CEO of Akamai, the leading online content delivery network with a 60% market share, needs to decide how to respond to aggressive entry in its market, whether and how to pursue the explosive growth in online video, and whether to stay with its distributed network model or move towards its competitors' more centralized design.Starting at €8.20
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Managing Risks: A New Framework
Kaplan, Robert S.; Mikes, AnetteArticle HBS-R1206B-EStrategyRisk management is too often treated as a compliance issue that can be solved by drawing up lots of rules and making sure that all employees follow them. Many such rules, of course, are sensible and do reduce some risks that could severely damage a company. But rules-based risk management will not diminish either the likelihood or the impact of a disaster such as Deepwater Horizon, just as it did not prevent the failure of many financial institut...Starting at €8.20
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Bananas (A)
Van Den Steen, EricCase HBS-712451-EStrategyTo maximize their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color. As owner and CEO, Wim Van der Borght had grown Bananas in 8 years from a 4.5 million euro company into a 40 million euro group of companies with a range of field marketing activities in Belgium and the Netherlands. The core of the group consisted of two companies - Bananas and Demonstrate - which were operationally completely independent and acted as competitors in the marke...Starting at €8.20
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Risk Management at Wellfleet Bank: All That Glitters Is Not Gold
Mikes, AnetteCase HBS-110011-EAccounting and ControlThis case motivates a debate on the role of staff functions, such as risk management: what does it mean for them to be independent, and at the same time, to partner the business lines? The case describes the risk assessment process in the corporate banking arm of Wellfleet Bank (cca. 2006-2009) around an illustrative business proposal in the corporate lending business, and illustrates the decision challenges faced by the case protagonists (two se...Starting at €8.20
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Tesla Motors
Van Den Steen, EricCase HBS-714413-EStrategyIn mid-2013, Tesla Motors was riding a wave of success: It had launched its first really mass-produced car-the model S-to rave reviews; had recently raised first-year production targets; and had started taking orders for its next car, the Model X. Tesla seemed to be on its way to defying the skeptics and becoming the first US company to enter the car industry with a mass-produced car since WWII and the first to successfully launch a fully electri...Starting at €8.20
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Swissgrid: Enterprise Risk Management in a Digital Age
Kaplan, Robert S.; Mikes, AnetteCase HBS-119045-EAccounting and ControlKurt Meyer, chief risk officer of Swissgrid, the Swiss national electricity transmission system operator, reflects on the risk management system he installed after the deregulation and liberalization of the European energy market. With 41 connections to other European networks, a failure in Swissgrid's network could interrupt the supply of electricity in Switzerland and much of Europe. Meyer describes the periodic interactive risk workshops condu...Starting at €8.20