SM237
Paul Brest, Debra Schifrin
2014
In 2014 The Alta Gracia clothing factory in the Dominican Republic was doing something quite unusual in the industry; it was paying its employees a living wage, which was 350 percent higher than the country’s minimum wage. Knights Apparel, which owned…
E529
Federico Antoni, Steve Ciesinski, Howard Rosen, Fernando Lelo de Larrea, Jason Luther
2014
SM220
Paul Brest, Georgia Levenson Keohane
2014
This 2014 case discusses the U.S. nonprofit organization B Lab and its mission to support and help drive investment capital toward private enterprises that 1) aim to provide social and environmental benefits, and 2) are accountable to stakeholders (such…
SM226
Paul Brest, Debra Schifrin
2014
This 2014 case describes how the Los Angeles-based Magnolia Community Initiative (MCI) – a network of 70 government, nonprofit and for-profit organizations from multiple sectors – is trying to create population-level change for 110,000 people in a…
IDE06
Laura Hattendorf, Michael Kennedy, Laurent de Clara, Yin Li
2014
The case follows Jim and Debbie Aung-Din Taylor, an American couple with backgrounds in international development, as they found and build Proximity Designs, a social enterprise in Myanmar. Initially, the Taylors are focused on redesigning the treadle…
IDE08
John-Paul Ferguson, Laurent De Clara
2014
In June 2014, Anthony Pile, founder and chairman of Blue Skies, called a board meeting to discuss the company’s development plans. The economic crisis in Europe had made consumers more price sensitive, putting pressure on profit margins and spurring the…
E519
Haim Mendelson
2014
Evernote is a suite of cloud-based software and services designed to augment the user’s brain by capturing pieces of information in multiple formats, organizing, indexing and storing them, and making them easily searchable. The company grew dramatically…
E516
Laura Hattendorf, Yin Li, Gelila Bekele
2014
VisionSpring follows social entrepreneur Jordan Kassalow from his early career in public health through the founding of VisionSpring, an organization that sells eyeglasses to the rural poor in developing countries. The case describes how Kassalow becomes…
E514
H. Irving Grousbeck, Yin Li
2014
This case follows CEO Andy Dunn as he struggles to build a technical team that will enable Bonobos, an ecommerce and menswear company, to scale. The case also outlines the path that leads Dunn to the CEO post. Three vignettes compose the main body of…
E506B
George Foster, Jason Luther
2014
Alain Chuard and Victoria Ransom reflected on their history as founders of Wildfire Interactive Inc. (Wildfire). Originally called Promotion Builder, Wildfire had evolved from an in-house marketing solution used by the duo’s adventure travel company to a…
E506A
George Foster, Jason Luther
2014
It was June 2011, and Alain Chuard and Victoria Ransom reflected on their history as founders of Wildfire Interactive Inc. (Wildfire). Originally called Promotion Builder, Wildfire had evolved from an in-house marketing solution used by the duo’s…
E503
James Lattin, Kirk Bowman, Maryanna Quigless
2014
CEO, Ryan Smith and the rest of the founding team at Qualtrics grew the company to 350 employees and an estimated $50M in revenue through an inside-sales model. After ten years of bootstrapping however, the company took on $70M in funding from prominent…
E500
Jonathan Levav, Jason Luther
2014
Waze successfully developed a free smartphone mapping application that gave consumers turn-by-turn directions and real-time traffic data. This digital map compiled driver-generated data from Waze’s community of users to relay constantly updated…
E477
Andrew Rachleff, Peter Reiss, Sara Rosenthal
2014
The Wealthfront case tells the story of Andrew Rachleff, co-founder of Benchmark Capital and Stanford GSB faculty member, who starts a new company in 2007 based on his personal interest to provide endowment-quality investment management to the mainstream…
ETH4
Neil Malhotra, Ken Shotts, Sheila Melvin
2014
Driverless cars – once the stuff of science fiction – are fast becoming reality. Indeed, some automotive companies have said they expect to sell autonomous vehicles to the public by 2020. The advent of such self-driving vehicles raises numerous ethical…
OB89
Charles O'Reilly, Jeffrey Pfeffer, David Hoyt, Davina Drabkin
2014
This case describes the challenges facing CEO Kent Thiry and DaVita as they being thinking about how to integrate a recent acquisition, Health Care Partners (HCP). DaVita had been primarily a kidney dialysis company with a very strong culture built around…
A217
Madhav Rajan, Anne Beyer, Jaclyn Foroughi
2014
In early December 2013, Jim Madsen, co-founder and owner of The Farm Winery was preparing the company’s current and longer-term financing needs. Madsen needed to develop plans for fiscal year 2014, which included specific goals that were crucial to the…
E481
George Foster, Justin Randolph
2014
The case profiles Brad Handler, co-founder of Inspirato, as he contemplates and ultimately founds the luxury and leisure membership-based ‘destination club,’ shortly after selling and leaving an analogous company that he previously also founded (Exclusive…
A216
Madhav Rajan, Anne Beyer, Jaclyn Foroughi
2014
Dr. John Anderson plans to license a technology that will be used to develop a device that would help physicians detect early-stage cancers. Patients would breathe directly into the device, which would analyze a user’s breath for traces of key compounds…
SM235
Robert Burgelman, Robert Siegel, Cyril Labidi
2014
This industry note covers how new players in cloud file sharing and storage (such as Dropbox and Box) are reshaping the overall enterprise content management (ECM) software industry in 2014. The note presents the major incumbent firms in the ECM industry…
HR40
Hayagreeva Rao, Carter Bowen, Gib Lopez
2014
The SEALs are the elite special forces of the U.S. Navy. Their selection and training is exceptionally rigorous, with a heavy emphasis on physical condition, stamina, and mental toughness. However, the SEALs have a wide range of missions, many of which…
M349
Harikesh Nair, David Hoyt
2014
In 2013 and 2014, eBay deployed several sets of large, interactive touch screens and related technologies in shopping malls and retail stores. These “connected technologies” were used in a variety of ways intended to benefit both shoppers and retailers…
IDE07
Jesper B. Sørensen, Laurent De Clara
2014
In early 2014, Sanjay Swamy and Valerie Rozycki Wagoner, respectively chairman and CEO of ZipDial, were discussing the possibility of extending the company’s operations to Indonesia and the Philippines, two key markets in Southeast Asia. Having…
SM234
Stefan Reichelstein, Christos Makridis
2014
This case illustrates the tragedy of the commons through an interactive game to be played by students. At a United Nations world climate conference, students are divided into 10 regional blocs. With less than a day to go and no agreement among the…
