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Case Studies

This listing contains abstracts and ordering information for case studies written and published by faculty at Stanford GSB.

Katerra

|E655
Mark Leslie, Matt Saucedo
2019

The Katerra case takes a deep dive into the opportunities to leverage disruptive technology in the global construction industry. The case analyzes the history of Katerra,a technology-driven offsite construction company and walks through each of...

MedAvante: Navigating Resistance to Innovation

|E676
George Foster, Joseph Golden
2019

MedAvante, a provider of clinical trial services and technology solutions to the pharmaceutical industry, struggled to find product/market fit for many years, because its innovative service offering met fierce resistance from other stakeholders in the...

Floodgate: An Entrepreneurial VC

|E644
Peter Ziebelman, Amadeus Orleans
2019

Mike Maples Jr. founded the micro-VC firm Floodgate in 2006, after a successful career as an entrepreneur with two startup IPOs under his belt. At the time, he had identified a group of overlooked founders...

Senreve

|E674
Graham Weaver, Susan Pohlmeyer
2019

This case explores the various challenges that Senreve faced in hiring and retaining talent as a rapidly growing organization. The case first describes how the two co-founders developed a vision for their company, created a...

SurveyMonkey in 2018: Under New Management

|E654
Robert E. Siegel, Amadeus Orleans
2019

The unexpected passing of Dave Goldberg in May 2015 triggered the most difficult period in the history of SurveyMonkey, a global online survey software company headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. In a state...

Can Firing/Separation/Termination Be Anything But...Awful?

|ETH17
William Meehan III, Sheila Melvin
2019

This roleplay case is designed for two students. It begins, with part one, on a Friday morning in the San Francisco office of McKinsey & Company. Ryan Lane, an associate, and Gary Pinkus, chairman of...

King Philanthropies: Intentional Choices for Maximum Impact

|SI151
William Meehan III, Sheila Melvin
2019

King Philanthropies (KP) was a grant-making organization that employed a highly intentional and carefully targeted approach to philanthropy. It was guided by relentless pursuit of its mission: to alleviate extreme poverty by magnifying the impact...

FINDMINE: Looking for a Break

|E672
Robert Chess, Amadeus Orleans
2019

From quitting a stable post-MBA job and starting FINDMINE, a start-up in the retail technology space, to finally negotiating venture capital investment offers, Michelle Bacharach—and FINDMINE—had come a long way. Two years of uncertainty with...

Cerebras: A Tale of Dreams and Risks

|E671
Mark Leslie, Amadeus Orleans
2019

After selling SeaMicro, Inc. to AMD, in 2012, Andrew Feldman started a process he called “lightly sifting”, trying to stay updated on the ideas and businesses being built in Silicon Valley. Eventually, he started spending...

Glassdoor: The Fundraising Journey (A)

|E673A
Robert E. Siegel, Amadeus Orleans
2019

From his time as a young engineer at Microsoft in 1993, to the challenge of building Glassdoor from the ground up until it reached a valuation of over $1 billion, in 2018, Robert Hohman had...

Glassdoor: The Fundraising Journey (B)

|E673B
Robert E. Siegel, Amadeus Orleans
2019

From his time as a young engineer at Microsoft in 1993, to the challenge of building Glassdoor from the ground up until it reached a valuation of over $1 billion, in 2018, Robert Hohman had...

The League

|E650
Peter Kelly, Cameron Lehman
2019

Amanda Bradford, founder and CEO of The League dating app, works through growth challenges including fundraising, Millennial hires, and executive team building.

PMC-Sierra: Riding the Waves of Disruption (A)

|SM272A
Yossi Feinberg, Debra Schifrin, Derek Dicker
2019

This case details how semiconductor company PMC-Sierra implemented different corporate entrepreneurship strategies to take advantage of two major industry disruptions: 1) the transition from hard disk drives to solid state drives; and 2) the rise...

PMC-Sierra: Riding the Waves of Disruption (B)

|SM272B
Yossi Feinberg, Debra Schifrin, Derek Dicker
2019

The (B) case starts with PMC-Sierra’s decision to acquire for $100 million a solid state drive controller business, which included a prototype and a team of 50 people. The company also acquired intellectual property required...

Intrapreneurship @ Nokia Software (B): Lessons Learned, Feedback Given

|SM320B
Yossi Feinberg, Sheila Melvin
2019

Intrapreneurship at Nokia Software, or I at NS, was a program created in 2017 to give Nokia Software’s 10,000 employees the opportunity to submit ideas for products, services, or solutions that delivered new capabilities, solved...

Intrapreneurship @ Nokia Software: Instilling Culture Change

|SM320A
Yossi Feinberg, Sheila Melvin
2019

Intrapreneurship at Nokia Software, or I at NS, was a program created in 2017 to give Nokia Software’s 10,000 employees the opportunity to submit ideas for products, services, or solutions that delivered new capabilities, solved...

The Rise of JTBC

|SM317
Mooweon Rhee, Dongyoub Shin, William P. Barnett
2019

JTBC, which began operations in 2011, provided press coverage, drama shows, and entertainment programs. Within a relatively brief period, the company had gained the position of Korea’s most trusted press outlet, and played a pivotal...

Michelin Group: Embracing Culture While Adapting to Change

|SM315
Robert Siegel, Jocelyn Hornblower
2019

SM-315 Michelin Group is told from the perspective of Florent Menegaux, COO of Michelin, and other senior leaders at the company. Michelin had recently undergone a company wide reorganization, and Menegaux was tasked with how...

How to Cultivate Purpose (and Autonomy, Collaboration, and Excellence) in Companies

|M377
Sophia Pink, Sara Gaviser Leslie, Jake Poses, Debra Schifrin, Jennifer Aaker
2019

How do companies foster a sense of meaning and purpose – for employees and for customers? There were multiple benefits to this approach, including increased job satisfaction as well as greater customer engagement – this...

EarthEnable (A)

|E640A
Laura Hattendorf, Peter Seibert
2018

The EarthEnable case focuses on the challenges a social enterprise can face as it grows from a business plan in the classroom to a fully-fledged enterprise. Particular focus is placed on marketing strategy, sales strategy,...

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Publicly available cases in this collection are distributed by Harvard Business Publishing and The Case Centre.

Leadership in Focus

Leadership in Focus is a large collection of short videos that bring to life real-world business challenges and spark lively discussions aimed at improving executive skills. Each short video is accompanied by teaching notes for added context, suggested discussion questions and role-playing ideas to help engage groups of managers in learning experiences of their own. Leaders may also experience the cases online with opportunities to calibrate their thinking for actionable insights.