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Educator Training: Teaching with Cases

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Frequently Asked Questions

What support can I offer my students around analyzing cases and preparing for discussion?

Case discussions can be a big departure from the norm for students who are used to lecture-based classes. The Case Analysis Coach is an interactive tutorial on reading and analyzing a case study. The Case Study Handbook covers key skills students need to read, understand, discuss and write about cases. The Case Study Handbook is also available as individual chapters to help your students focus on specific skills.

How can I transfer my in-person case teaching plan to an online environment?

The case method can be used in an online environment without sacrificing its benefits. We have compiled a few resources to help you create transformative online learning experiences with the case method. Learn how HBS brought the case method online in this podcast , gather some quick guidance from the article " How to Teach Any Case Online ", review the Teaching Cases Online Guide for a deep dive, and check out our Teaching Online Resources Page for more insights and inspiration.

After 35 years as an academic, I have come to the conclusion that there is a magic in the way Harvard cases are written. Cases go from specific to general, to show students that business situations are amenable to hard headed analysis that then generalize to larger theoretical insights. The students love it! Akshay Rao Professor, General Mills Chair in Marketing at the University of Minnesota

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HBS Case Selections

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Case Studies in Human Relations

• © 1971
• Kenneth V. Porter

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Part of the book series: Business Case Studies (BCS)

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

Front matter, the management trainee scheme, the new duplicating machines, the safety officer, the disappearing cigarettes, the insubordinate seaman, back matter.

• management education
• management training

Bibliographic Information

Book Title : Case Studies in Human Relations

Authors : Kenneth V. Porter

Series Title : Business Case Studies

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-01145-2

Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan London

eBook Packages : Palgrave Business & Management Collection , Business and Management (R0)

Copyright Information : Kenneth V. Porter 1971

Softcover ISBN : 978-0-333-12352-2 Published: 18 June 1971

eBook ISBN : 978-1-349-01145-2 Published: 18 June 1971

Series ISSN : 2947-0226

Series E-ISSN : 2947-0234

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : XII, 116

Topics : Human Resource Management

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Lessons in Corporate Finance: A Case Studies Approach to Financial Tools, Financial Policies, and Valuation

Lessons in Corporate Finance explains the fundamentals of the field in an intuitive way, using a unique Socratic question and answer approach. Written by award-winning professors at M.I.T. and Tufts, this book draws on years of research and teaching to deliver a truly interactive learning experience. Each case study is designed to facilitate class discussion, based on a series of increasingly detailed questions and answers that reinforce conceptual insights with numerical examples. Complete coverage of all areas of corporate finance includes capital structure and financing needs along with project and company valuation, with specific guidance on vital topics such as ratios and pro formas, dividends, debt maturity, asymmetric information, and more.

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Theoretical research in corporate finance is critical for our understanding of real-world phenomena , for interpreting empirical results, and for deriving policy implications. We discuss the benefits and limitations of research in corporate finance theory and link them to the nine articles in this special issue on " Corporate Finance Theory. " We provide a perspective on the nine articles in this special issue, and outline our perception of how future research may evolve. We also review several themes that emerge out of the articles, which we think deserve more attention from theorists going forward: interactions between financial markets and corporate finance and dynamic models of corporate decisions, such as capital structure and managerial compensation.

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This book was prepared for the Finance Master program of the Corvinus University of Budapest started in the academic year 2019/2020. The book consists of two main parts, the first part deals with corporate finance and financing issues, while the second part covers risk management and liquidity management in financial markets. The cases in this book highly build on the knowledge base of the master’s program curriculum, therefore, it is imperative for students to familiarize themselves with the basic notions first, before starting to solve the exercises. If you experience any knowledge gaps, then refer to the regular textbooks before solving the cases. In several cases, the related regulations should also be read in conjunction with the case in order to be able to understand and solve the exercises. This highlights the ever increasing relevance of regulation in the finance industry. Apart from the knowledge of the financial notions, and related regulations, students should also be ski...

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

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

Stanford case studies with diverse protagonists, along with case studies that build “equity fluency” by focusing on DEI-related issues and opportunities are listed in the Case Compendium developed by the Center for Equity, Gender and Leadership at the Berkeley Haas School of Business.

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Dara Khosrowshahi became the CEO of Uber in August 2017, following internal turbulence and serious headwinds related to the company’s governance and reputation. Five short years later, Uber was clearly back on course, building on the success of its…

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In December 2021, Rekha Unnithan, CFA, received a cold outreach from Devendra Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Ecozen Solutions (“Ecozen”), an agriculture-focused cleantech business based in Pune, a major technology and manufacturing hub in India. Founded in…

APA Technologies

APA Technologies, a startup in the trucking industry, faced a significant challenge with its innovative product, the Tyro - an automatic tire inflation device. Founders Brad Miller and Jeffrey Howell, Stanford mechanical engineering students, developed…

APA Technologies (A): Just When We Were Hitting Our Stride

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Jason Scott: Creating a Dream Job to Find and Fund Entrepreneurs Across the Globe

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Business Case Studies

Open access cases.

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A number of universities and organizations provide access to free business case studies.  Below are some of the best known sources.

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• Last Updated: Apr 25, 2024 10:02 AM
• URL: https://library.bu.edu/business-case-studies

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Finance Case Studies

Featured finance case studies:.

Canary Wharf: Financing and Placemaking

Fondaco dei Tedeschi: A New Luxury Shopping Destination for Venice

Nathan Cummings Foundation: Mission-Driven Investing

The Decline of Malls

Expand the sections below to read more about each case study:, nathan cummings foundation, ellie campion, dwayne edwards, brad wayman, anna williams, william goetzmann, and jean rosenthal.

Asset Management, Investor/Finance, Leadership & Teamwork, Social Enterprise, Sourcing/Managing Funds

The Nathan Cummings Foundation Investment Committee and Board of Trustees had studied the decision to go “all in” on a mission-related investment approach. The Board voted 100% to support this new direction and new goals for financial investments, but many questions remained. How could NCF operationalize and integrate this new strategy? What changes would it need to make to support the investment strategies' long-term success? How could NCF measure and track its progress and success with this new strategy?

William Goetzmann, Jean Rosenthal, Jaan Elias, Edoardo Pasinato, Lukas Cejnar, Ellie Campion

Business History, Competitor/Strategy, Customer/Marketing, Innovation & Design, Investor/Finance, Sourcing/Managing Funds, State & Society

The renovation of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice represented a grand experiment. Should an ancient building in the midst of a world heritage site be transformed into a modern mall for luxury goods? How best to achieve the transformation and make it economically sustainable? Would tourists walk to the mall? And would they buy or just look? What could each stakeholder learn from their experiences with the Fondaco dei Tedeschi?

Gardner Denver

James quinn, adam blumenthal, and jaan elias.

Asset Management, Employee/HR, Investor/Finance, Leadership & Teamwork

As KKR, a private equity firm, prepared to take Gardner-Denver, one of its portfolio companies, public in mid-2017, a discussion arose on the Gardner-Denver board about the implications of granting approximately $110 million in equity to its global employee base as part of its innovative "broad-based employee ownership program." Was the generous equity package that Pete Stavros proposed be allotted to 6,100 employees the wisest move and the right timing for Gardner Denver and its new shareholders?

Home Health Care

Jean rosenthal, jaan elias, adam blumenthal, and jeremy kogler.

Asset Management, Competitor/Strategy, Healthcare, Investor/Finance

Blue Wolf Capital Partners was making major investments in the home health care sector. The private equity fund had purchased two U.S. regional companies in the space. The plan was to merge the two organizations, creating opportunities for shared expertise and synergies in reducing management costs. Two years later, the management team was considering adding a third company. Projected revenues for the combined organization would top $1 billion annually. What was the likelihood that this opportunity would succeed?

Suwanee Lumber Company

Jaan elias, adam blumenthal, james shovlin, and heather e. tookes.

Asset Management, Investor/Finance, Sustainability

In 2016, Blue Wolf, a private equity firm headquartered in New York City, confronted a number of options when it came to its lumber business. They could put their holdings in the Suwanee Lumber Company (SLC), a sawmill they had purchased in 2013, up for sale. Or they could continue to hold onto SLC and run it as a standalone business. Or they could double down on the lumber business by buying an idle mill in Arkansas to run along with SLC.

Alternative Meat Industry: How Should Beyond Meat be Valued?

Nikki springer, leon van wyk, jacob thomas, k. geert rouwenhorst and jaan elias.

Competitor/Strategy, Customer/Marketing, Investor/Finance, Sourcing/Managing Funds, Sustainability

In 2009, when experienced entrepreneur Ethan Brown decided to build a better veggie burger, he set his sights on an exceptional goal – create a plant-based McDonald’s equally beloved by the American appetite. To do this, he knew he needed to transform the idea of plant-based meat alternatives from the sleepy few veggie burger options in the grocer’s freezer case into a fundamentally different product. Would further investments in research and development help give Beyond Meat an edge? Would Americans continue to embrace meat alternatives, or would the initial fanfare subside below investor expectations?

Hertz Global Holdings (A): Uses of Debt and Equity

Jean rosenthal, geert rouwenhorst, jacob thomas, allen xu.

Asset Management, Financial Regulation, Sourcing/Managing Funds

By 2019, Hertz CEO Kathyrn Marinello and CFO Jamere Jackson had managed to streamline the venerable car rental firm's operations. Their next steps were to consider ways to fine-tune Hertz's capital structure. Would it make sense for Marinello and Jackson to lead Hertz to issue more equity to re-balance the structure? One possibility was a stock rights offering, but an established company issuing equity was not generally well-received by investors. How well would the market respond to an attempt by Hertz management to increase shareholder equity?

Twining-Hadley Incorporated

Jaan elias, k geert rouwenhorst, jacob thomas.

Employee/HR, Investor/Finance, Metrics & Data, Sourcing/Managing Funds

Jessica Austin has been asked to compute THI's Weighted Average Cost of Capital, a key measure for making investments and deciding executive compensation. What should she consider in making her calculation?

Shake Shack IPO

Vero bourg-meyer, jaan elias, jake thomas and geert rouwenhorst.

Competitor/Strategy, Innovation & Design, Investor/Finance, Leadership & Teamwork, Sourcing/Managing Funds, Sustainability

Shake Shack's long lines of devoted fans made investors salivate when the company went public in 2015 and shares soared above expectations. Was the enthusiasm justified? Could the company maintain its edge in the long run?

Strategy for Norway's Pension Fund Global

Jean rosenthal, william n. goetzmann, olav sorenson, andrew ang, and jaan elias.

Asset Management, Investor/Finance, Sourcing/Managing Funds

Norway's Pension Fund Global was the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world. With questions in 2014 on policies, ethical investment, and other concerns, what was the appropriate investment strategy for the Fund?

Factor Investing for Retirement

Jean rosenthal, jaan elias and william goetzmann.

Asset Management, Investor/Finance

Should this investor look for a portfolio of factor funds to meet his goals for his 401(k) Retirement Plan?

Bank of Ireland

Jean w. rosenthal, eamonn walsh, matt spiegel, will goetzmann, david bach, damien p. mcloughlin, fernando fernandez, gayle allard, and jaan elias.

Asset Management, Financial Regulation, Investor/Finance, Leadership & Teamwork, Macroeconomics, State & Society

In August 2011, Wilbur Ross, an American investor specializing in distressed and bankrupt companies, purchased 35% of the stock of Bank of Ireland. Even for Ross, investing in an Irish bank seemed risky. Observers wondered if the investment made sense.

Commonfund ESG

Jaan elias, sarah friedman hersh, maggie chau, logan ashcraft, and pamela jao.

Asset Management, Investor/Finance, Metrics & Data, Social Enterprise

ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) investing had become an increasingly hot topic in the financial community. Could Commonfund offer its endowment clients some investment vehicle that would satisfy ESG concerns while producing sufficient returns?

Glory, Glory Man United!

Charles euvhner, jacob thomas, k. geert rouwenhorst, and jaan elias.

Competitor/Strategy, Employee/HR, Investor/Finance, Leadership & Teamwork, Sourcing/Managing Funds

Manchester United might be the greatest English sports dynasty of all time. But valuation poses unique challenges. How much should a team's success on the pitch count toward its net worth?

Walmart de México: Investing in Renewable Energy

Jean rosenthal, k. geert rouwenhorst, isabel studer, jaan elias, and juan carlos rivera.

Investor/Finance, Operations, State & Society, Sustainability

Walmart de México y Centroamérica contracted for power from EVM's wind farm, saving energy costs and improving sustainability. What should the company's next steps be to advance its goals?

Voltaire, Casanova, and 18th-Century Lotteries

Jean rosenthal and william n. goetzmann.

Business History, State & Society

Gambling has been a part of human activity since earliest recorded history, and governments have often attempted to turn that impulse to benefit the state.  The development of lotteries in the 18th century helped to develop the study of probabilities and enabled the financial success of some of the leading figures of that era.

Alexander Hamilton and the Origin of American Finance

Andrea nagy smith, william goetzmann, and jeffrey levick.

Business History, Financial Regulation, Investor/Finance

Alexander Hamilton is said to have invented the future. At a time when the young United States of America was disorganized and bankrupt, Hamilton could see that the nation would become a powerful economy.

Kmart Bankruptcy

Jean rosenthal, heather tookes, henry s. miller, and jaan elias.

Asset Management, Financial Regulation, Investor/Finance

Less than 18 months after Kmart entered Chapter 11, the company emerged and its stocked soared. Why had the chain entered Chapter 11 in the first place and how had the bankruptcy process allowed the company to right itself?

Oil, ETFs, and Speculation

So alex roelof, k. geert rouwenhorst, and jaan elias.

Since the markets' origins, traders sought standardized wares to increase market liquidity. In the 1960s and later, they sought assets uncorrelated to traditional bonds and equities. By late 2004, commodity-based exchange-traded securities emerged.

Newhall Ranch Land Parcel

Acquired by a partnership of two closely intertwined homebuilders, Newhall Ranch was the last major tract of undeveloped land in Los Angeles County in 2003.

Brandeis and the Rose Museum

Arts Management, Asset Management, Investor/Finance, Social Enterprise, Sourcing/Managing Funds

The question of the role museums should play in university life became urgent for Brandeis in early 2009. Standard portfolios of investments had just taken a beating. Given that environment, should Brandeis sell art in order to save its other programs?

Taking EOP Private

Allison mitkowski, william goetzmann, and jaan elias.

Asset Management, Financial Regulation, Investor/Finance, Leadership & Teamwork

With 594 properties nationwide, EOP was the nation’s largest office landlord.  Despite EOP's dominance of the REIT market, analysts had historically undervalued EOP. However, Blackstone saw something in EOP that the analysts didn’t, and in November, Blackstone offered to buy EOP for $48.50 per share. What did Blackstone and Vornado see that the market didn’t?

Subprime Lending Crisis

Jaan elias and william n. goetzmann.

Asset Management, Financial Regulation, Investor/Finance, State & Society

To understand the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, we look at a failing Mortgage Backed Security (MBS) and then drill down to look at a single loan that has gone bad.

William N. Goetzmann, Jean Rosenthal, and Jaan Elias

Asset Management, Business History, Customer/Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Design, Investor/Finance, Sourcing/Managing Funds, State & Society

The financial engineering of London's Canary Wharf was as impressive as the structural engineering. However, Brexit and the rise of fintech represented new challenges. Would financial firms leave the U.K.? Would fintech firms seek new kinds of space? How should the Canary Wharf Group respond?

The Future of Malls: Was Decline Inevitable?

Jean rosenthal, anna williams, brandon colon, robert park, william goetzmann, jessica helfand  .

Business History, Customer/Marketing, Innovation & Design, Investor/Finance

Shopping malls became the "Main Street" of US suburbs beginning in the mid-20th century. But will they persist into the 21st?

Hirtle Callaghan & Co

James quinn, jaan elias, and adam blumenthal.

Asset Management, Investor/Finance, Leadership & Teamwork

In August 2019, Stephen Vaccaro, Yale MBA ‘03, became the director of private equity at Hirtle, Callaghan & Co., LLC (HC), a leading investment management firm associated with pioneering the outsourced chief investment office (OCIO) model for college endowments, foundations, and wealthy families. Vaccaro was tasked with spearheading efforts to grow HC’s private equity (PE) market value from $1 billion to a new target of roughly $3 billion in order to contribute to the effort of generating higher long-term returns for clients. Would investment committees overseeing endowments typically in the 10s or 100s of millions embrace this shift, and, more pointedly, was this the best move for client portfolios?

The Federal Reserve Response to 9-11

Jean rosenthal, william b. english, jaan elias.

Financial Regulation, Investor/Finance, Leadership & Teamwork, State & Society

The attacks on New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on September 11, 2001, shocked the nation and the world. The attacks crippled the nerve center of the U.S. financial system. Information flow among banks, traders in multiple markets, and regulators was interrupted. Under Roger Ferguson's leadership, the Federal Reserve made a series of decisions designed to provide confidence and increase liquidity in a severely damaged financial system. In hindsight, were these the best approaches? Were there other options that could have taken place?

Suwanee Lumber Company (B)

In early 2018, Blue Wolf Capital Management received an offer to sell both its mill in Arkansas (Caddo) and its mill in Florida (Suwanee) to Conifex, an upstart Canadian lumber company. Blue Wolf hadn’t planned to put both mills up for sale yet, but was the deal too good to pass up? Blue Wolf had invested nearly $36.5 million into rehabilitating the Suwanee and Caddo mills. However, neither was fully operational yet. Did the offer price fairly value the prospects of the mills? How should Blue Wolf consider the Conifex stock? Should Blue Wolf conduct a more extensive sales process rather than settle for this somewhat unexpected offer?

Occidental Petroleum's Acquisition of Anadarko

Jaan elias, piyush kabra, jacob thomas, k. geert rouwenhorst.

Asset Management, Competitor/Strategy, Investor/Finance, Sourcing/Managing Funds

In May of 2019, Vicki Hollub, the CEO of Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), pulled off a blockbuster. Bidding against Chevron, one of the world's largest oil firms, she had managed to buy Anadarko, another oil company that was roughly the size of Oxy. Hollub believed that the combination of the two firms brought the possibility for billions of dollars in synergies, more than offsetting the cost of the acquisition. Had Hollub hurt shareholder value with Oxy's ambitious deal, or had she bolstered a mid-size oil firm and made it a major player in the petroleum industry? Why didn't investors see the tremendous synergies in which Hollub fervently believed?

Hertz Global Holdings (B): Uses of Debt and Equity 2020

In 2019, Hertz held a successful rights offering and restructured some of its debt. CEO Kathyrn Marinello and CFO Jamere Jackson were moving the company toward what seemed to be sustainable profitability, having implemented major structural and financial reforms. Analysts predicted a rosy future. Travel, particularly corporate travel, was increasing as the economy grew. With all the creativity that the company had shown in its financial arrangements, did it have any options remaining, even while under the court-led reorganization?

Prodigy Finance

Vero bourg-meyer, javier gimeno, jaan elias, florian ederer.

Competitor/Strategy, Investor/Finance, Social Enterprise, State & Society, Sustainability

Having pioneered a successful financing model for student loans, Prodigy also was considering other financial services that could make use of the company’s risk model. What new products could Prodigy offer to support its student borrowers? What strategy should guide the company’s new product development? Or should the company stick to the educational loans it pioneered and knew best?

tronc: Valuing the Future of Newspapers

Jean rosenthal, heather e. tookes, and jaan elias.

Business History, Competitor/Strategy, Investor/Finance, Leadership & Teamwork

Gannet offered Tribune Publishing an all-cash buyout offer. Tribune then made a strategic pivot: new stock listing, new name "tronc," and a goal of posting 1,000 videos/day. Should the Tribune board take the buyout opportunity? What was the right price?

Role of Hedge Funds in Institutional Portfolios: Florida Retirement System

Jaan elias, william goetzmann and lloyd baskin.

Asset Management, Financial Regulation, Investor/Finance, Metrics & Data, State & Society

The Florida Retirement System, one of the country’s largest state pensions, had been slow to embrace hedge funds, but by 2015, they had 7% of their assets in the category. How should they manage their program?

Social Security 1935

Jean rosenthal, william n. goetzmann, and jaan elias.

Business History, Financial Regulation, Innovation & Design, Investor/Finance, State & Society

Frances Perkins, Franklin Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor, shaped the Social Security Act of 1935, changing America’s pension landscape. What might she have done differently?

Ant Financial: Flourishing Farmer Loans at MYbank

Jingyue xu, jean rosenthal, k. sudhir, hua song, xia zhang, yuanfang song, xiaoxi liu, and jaan elias.

Competitor/Strategy, Customer/Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Design, Investor/Finance, Leadership & Teamwork, Operations, State & Society

In 2015 Ant Financial's MYbank (an offshoot of Jack Ma’s Alibaba company) created the Flourishing Farmer Loan program, an all-internet banking service for China's rural areas. Could MYbank use financial technology to create a program with competitive costs and risk management?

Low-Carbon Investing: Commonfund & GPSU

Jaan elias, william goetzmann, and k. geert rouwenhorst.

Asset Management, Ethics & Religion, Investor/Finance, Social Enterprise, State & Society, Sustainability

In August of 2014, the movement to divest fossil fuel investments from endowment portfolios was sweeping campuses across the United States, including Gifford Pinchot State University (GPSU). How should GPSU and its investment partner Commonfund react?

360 State Street: Real Options

Andrea nagy smith and mathew spiegel.

Asset Management, Investor/Finance, Metrics & Data, Sourcing/Managing Funds

360 State Street proved successful, but what could Bruce Becker construct on the 6,000-square-foot vacant lot at the southwest corner of the project? Under what set of circumstances and at what time would it be most advantageous to proceed? Or should he build anything at all?

Centerbridge

Jean rosenthal and olav sorensen.

When Jeffrey Aronson and Mark Gallogly founded Centerbridge, they hoped to grow the firm, but not to a point that it would lose its culture. Having added an office in London, could the firm add more locations and maintain its collegial character?

George Hudson and the 1840s Railway Mania

Andrea nagy smith, james chanos, and james spellman.

Business History, Financial Regulation, Investor/Finance, Metrics & Data

Railways were one of the original disruptive technologies: they transformed England from an island of slow, agricultural villages into a fast, urban, industrialized nation.  George Hudson was the central figure in the mania for railroad shares in England. After the share value crashed, some analysts blamed Hudson, others pointed to irrational investors and still others maintained the crash was due to macroeconomic factors.

Demosthenes and Athenian Finance

Andrea nagy smith and william goetzmann.

Business History, Financial Regulation, Law & Contracts

Demosthenes' Oration 35, "Against Lacritus," contains the only surviving maritime loan contract from the fourth century B.C., proving that the ancient Greeks had devised a commercial code to link the economic lives of people from all over the Greek world.   Athenians and non-Athenians alike came to the port of Piraeus to trade freely.

South Sea Bubble

Frank newman and william goetzmann.

Business History, Financial Regulation

The story of the South Sea Company and its seemingly absurd stock price levels always enters into conversations about modern valuation bubbles.  Because of its modern application, discerning what was at the root of the world's first stock market crash merits considerable attention. What about the South Sea Company and the political, economic and social context in which it operated led to its stunning collapse?

Jean W. Rosenthal, Jaan Elias, William N. Goetzmann, Stanley Garstka, and Jacob Thomas

Asset Management, Healthcare, Investor/Finance, Sourcing/Managing Funds, State & Society

A centerpiece of the 2007 contract negotiations between the UAW and GM - and later with Chrysler and Ford - was establishing a Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA) to provide for retiree healthcare costs. The implications were substantial.

Northern Pulp: A Private Equity Firm Resurrects a Troubled Paper Company

Heather tookes, peter schott, francesco bova, jaan elias and andrea nagy smith.

Investor/Finance, Macroeconomics, State & Society, Sustainability

In 2008, the lumber industry was in a severe recession, yet Blue Wolf Capital Management was considering investment in a paper mill in Nova Scotia. How should they proceed?

Lahey Clinic: North Shore Expansion

Jaan elias, andrea r. nagy, jessica p. strauss, and william n. goetzmann.

Asset Management, Financial Regulation, Healthcare, Investor/Finance

In early 2007 the Lahey Clinic in Massachusetts believed that expansion of its North Shore facility was not only a smart strategy but also a business necessity.  The two years of turmoil in the Massachusetts health care market prompted observers to question Lahey's 2007 decisions. Did the expansion strategy still make sense?

Carry Trade ETF

K. geert rouwenhorst, jean w. rosenthal, and jaan elias.

Innovation & Design, Investor/Finance, Macroeconomics, Sourcing/Managing Funds

In 2006 Deutsche Bank (DB) brought a new product to market – an exchange traded fund (ETF) based on the carry trade, a strategy of buying and selling currency futures. The offering received the William F. Sharpe Indexing Achievement Award for “Most Innovative Index Fund or ETF” at the 2006 Sharpe Awards. These awards are presented annually by IndexUniverse.com and Information Management Network for innovative advances in the indexing industry. The carry trade ETF shared the award with another DB/PowerShares offering, a Commodity Index Tracking Fund. Jim Wiandt, publisher of IndexUniverse.com, said, "These innovators are shaping the course of the index industry, creating new tools and providing new insights for the benefit of all investors." What was it that made this financial innovation successful?

William Goetzmann and Jaan Elias

Asset Management, Business History

Hawara is the site of the massive pyramid of Amenemhat III, a XII Dynasty [Middle Kingdom, 1204 – 1604 B.C.E.] pharaoh.  The Hawara Labyrinth and Pyramid Complex present a wealth of information about the Middle Kingdom.  Among its treasures are papyri covering property rights and transfers of ownership.

Invest to build financial resilience and reduce risk

Amid intensifying market disruptions and escalating business volatility, there’s more pressure on Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and Chief Risk Officers (CROs) to balance multiple interconnected transformations while sustaining company performance, profitability and safety.

Finance and risk management now

of CFOs say the responsibility they’ve been entrusted with feels much greater than in the past

CFOs call the shots on business-critical decisions that impact the entire organization, not just finance

of risk leaders believe that complex, interconnected new risks are emerging at a more rapid pace than ever before

of risk leaders say their risk management capabilities have not kept pace with the rapidly changing landscape

How to reinvent finance and risk management

Win with a data-driven operating model.

Think “out-of-the-box”

Cloud-enabled EPM paves the path to advanced analytics

Harness the power of data, ai, and technology, what you measure shapes what you do.

This journey begins with building a digital core that draws on data, technology, and talent. Determining the right mix of people and applications is key to implementing a data-driven operating model that delivers.

Make finance more predictive and proactive

A data-driven operating model can reduce time forming insights by up to 30% and deliver real-time business performance analysis.

Improve liquidity management

Additionally, it can increase cash collection by up to 30%, improve cash and capital forecasting by 85-95% and raise cash in bank by up to 95%.

Increase operational efficiency

See a 50-60% increase in operational efficiency, a 45-50% reduction in operating costs and 30-40% savings from an improved reporting system.

Mitigate risk and improve compliance

Touchless processing can help drive a 50-60% increase in efficiency, while an improved reporting system can help deliver up to 40% in savings.

Create an agile operating model

Increase cross-worldwide business unit collaboration, while simplifying processes and harmonizing service.

Leveraging “out-of-the-box" cloud capabilities can increase automation and integrate data and ERP on the cloud for powerful analytics.

Provide a single “source of truth”

Transforming your finance platform can result in a single repository of clean and current data that's fully integrated. This data allows finance and other functions across your organization to unlock and share powerful and actionable insights.

Simplify the technology landscape

The simpler the landscape and greater the use of “out-of-the-box" capabilities, the greater the opportunity to grow your business at a lower cost. For example, reducing the number of applications frees up resources to focus on innovation activities.

Build a foundation that enables evolution

A solid ERP foundation can enable future initiatives, such as advanced reporting and analytics, intelligent automation and an insight-driven culture.

Activate new ways of working

Use the power of humans and data science to transform decision-making and ways of working across the organization.

Today’s decision support capabilities require new technology and collaboration tools. An end-to-end modeling capability that emphasizes scenario planning and aligns to company metrics is key.

Improve forecast accuracy

Implementing a modern, integrated EPM system will allow your team to have real time visibility of financial performance and improve forecast accuracy.

Reduce cycle time

Integrated and agile planning capabilities reduce cycle time and enable scenario planning to stress test specific situations and challenges.

Modernize your risk function, driving superior data insights and optimizing controls to meet regulatory, business and operational demands.

Strengthen your risk management

Through automation, streamlining of data and implementation of exception-based risk management, you can reduce the cost of core risk management processes by up to 50%.

Efficient AML/KYC investigation

Using automation and analytics, you can reduce anti-money laundering (AML) alerts by 25-40% and know your customer (KYC) reviews by 15-35%.

Effective regulatory compliance and remediation

Achieve a 95-98% quality rating across deliveries by implementing a quality control framework. Through AI-driven remediation, deliver 50-70% in cost savings.

Optimize risk-adjusted business performance

This can lead to a 20% improvement in revenue and risk adjustment performance management, unlocking new capital efficiency use cases. See a fast and efficient flow of risk insight to business divisions, along with an enhanced ability to identify and mitigate control issues and risk appetite breaches.

Safeguard business growth and expansion

Begin with establishing controls for financial product innovation (e.g., payments) and regulatory advisory for market expansion. In addition, proactively identify risks and opportunities in the interconnected business model.

The time has come to devote the same resources and attention given to financials to ESG measurement. It all starts with blending financial and nonfinancial goals via a data-led performance management capability.

Risk mitigation and cost avoidance

Preventing fines and penalties (e.g., climate taxes) and avoiding the loss of business due to the impact of your ESG metrics are just two of the benefits of implementing a data-driven approach to sustainability measurement, analytics and performance reporting.

Compliance and control

Meet consistent compliance with regulatory standards, and draw on data which is more reliable for reporting and decision-making.

Optimization of financing

Improved sustainability ratings can reduce the cost of debt. What’s more, you can gain access to beneficial lending rates, subsidies and tax breaks. And lastly, improve your chances of being included in a large ESG fund.

Cost reduction and operational efficiency

When you reduce water, energy and fuel usage—along with raw materials and waste—you can see increased efficiency and less maintenance and transportation costs.

Revenue growth and pricing power

Eco-friendly products can improve customer loyalty. They can also offer entry to new customer segments, new geographical markets and create the opportunity to leverage premium pricing models for innovative products.

What’s trending in finance and risk management

In an era of permacrisis, companies are embracing reinvention and turning to their CFOs. To meet the moment, CFOs need to transform their finance function to better support the organization’s reinvention and growth ambitions.

Risk is everywhere and companies need to create a new risk mindset and capabilities across the enterprise. This pivot is critical for turning hyper-disruption into opportunities for business resilience and growth.

Accenture explains how CFO's role has evolved & how CFO leadership & strategic decision making can drive enterprise growth & reinvention.

Five imperatives the C-suite must address to reinvent in the age of generative AI.

This is a singular moment for CIOs: here is how they can take advantage to unlock true business value across their enterprise.

See how operations reinventors are rising to the challenges of disruption, capturing new paths for growth, and setting new performance frontiers.

Accenture explores how responsible leaders can profitably embed sustainability without completely tearing up the traditional business case.

Affirming our commitment to transparency and accountability to our ESG goals and progress.

Partners in change

Accenture’s deep strategy, process, and technology expertise enables us to digitally transform organizations utilizing Anaplan.

Make processes more efficient, turn insights into action, and unlock new value in business processes.

Unleash the value of data locked up in contracts to realize benefits including accelerated transformation and better business outcomes.

Support complex financial consolidation, budgeting, forecasting, financial reporting and data quality management.

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Artificial intelligence in strategy

Can machines automate strategy development? The short answer is no. However, there are numerous aspects of strategists’ work where AI and advanced analytics tools can already bring enormous value. Yuval Atsmon is a senior partner who leads the new McKinsey Center for Strategy Innovation, which studies ways new technologies can augment the timeless principles of strategy. In this episode of the Inside the Strategy Room podcast, he explains how artificial intelligence is already transforming strategy and what’s on the horizon. This is an edited transcript of the discussion. For more conversations on the strategy issues that matter, follow the series on your preferred podcast platform .

Joanna Pachner: What does artificial intelligence mean in the context of strategy?

Yuval Atsmon: When people talk about artificial intelligence, they include everything to do with analytics, automation, and data analysis. Marvin Minsky, the pioneer of artificial intelligence research in the 1960s, talked about AI as a “suitcase word”—a term into which you can stuff whatever you want—and that still seems to be the case. We are comfortable with that because we think companies should use all the capabilities of more traditional analysis while increasing automation in strategy that can free up management or analyst time and, gradually, introducing tools that can augment human thinking.

Joanna Pachner: AI has been embraced by many business functions, but strategy seems to be largely immune to its charms. Why do you think that is?

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Yuval Atsmon: You’re right about the limited adoption. Only 7 percent of respondents to our survey about the use of AI say they use it in strategy or even financial planning, whereas in areas like marketing, supply chain, and service operations, it’s 25 or 30 percent. One reason adoption is lagging is that strategy is one of the most integrative conceptual practices. When executives think about strategy automation, many are looking too far ahead—at AI capabilities that would decide, in place of the business leader, what the right strategy is. They are missing opportunities to use AI in the building blocks of strategy that could significantly improve outcomes.

I like to use the analogy to virtual assistants. Many of us use Alexa or Siri but very few people use these tools to do more than dictate a text message or shut off the lights. We don’t feel comfortable with the technology’s ability to understand the context in more sophisticated applications. AI in strategy is similar: it’s hard for AI to know everything an executive knows, but it can help executives with certain tasks.

When executives think about strategy automation, many are looking too far ahead—at AI deciding the right strategy. They are missing opportunities to use AI in the building blocks of strategy.

Joanna Pachner: What kind of tasks can AI help strategists execute today?

Yuval Atsmon: We talk about six stages of AI development. The earliest is simple analytics, which we refer to as descriptive intelligence. Companies use dashboards for competitive analysis or to study performance in different parts of the business that are automatically updated. Some have interactive capabilities for refinement and testing.

The second level is diagnostic intelligence, which is the ability to look backward at the business and understand root causes and drivers of performance. The level after that is predictive intelligence: being able to anticipate certain scenarios or options and the value of things in the future based on momentum from the past as well as signals picked in the market. Both diagnostics and prediction are areas that AI can greatly improve today. The tools can augment executives’ analysis and become areas where you develop capabilities. For example, on diagnostic intelligence, you can organize your portfolio into segments to understand granularly where performance is coming from and do it in a much more continuous way than analysts could. You can try 20 different ways in an hour versus deploying one hundred analysts to tackle the problem.

Predictive AI is both more difficult and more risky. Executives shouldn’t fully rely on predictive AI, but it provides another systematic viewpoint in the room. Because strategic decisions have significant consequences, a key consideration is to use AI transparently in the sense of understanding why it is making a certain prediction and what extrapolations it is making from which information. You can then assess if you trust the prediction or not. You can even use AI to track the evolution of the assumptions for that prediction.

Those are the levels available today. The next three levels will take time to develop. There are some early examples of AI advising actions for executives’ consideration that would be value-creating based on the analysis. From there, you go to delegating certain decision authority to AI, with constraints and supervision. Eventually, there is the point where fully autonomous AI analyzes and decides with no human interaction.

Because strategic decisions have significant consequences, you need to understand why AI is making a certain prediction and what extrapolations it’s making from which information.

Joanna Pachner: What kind of businesses or industries could gain the greatest benefits from embracing AI at its current level of sophistication?

Yuval Atsmon: Every business probably has some opportunity to use AI more than it does today. The first thing to look at is the availability of data. Do you have performance data that can be organized in a systematic way? Companies that have deep data on their portfolios down to business line, SKU, inventory, and raw ingredients have the biggest opportunities to use machines to gain granular insights that humans could not.

Companies whose strategies rely on a few big decisions with limited data would get less from AI. Likewise, those facing a lot of volatility and vulnerability to external events would benefit less than companies with controlled and systematic portfolios, although they could deploy AI to better predict those external events and identify what they can and cannot control.

Third, the velocity of decisions matters. Most companies develop strategies every three to five years, which then become annual budgets. If you think about strategy in that way, the role of AI is relatively limited other than potentially accelerating analyses that are inputs into the strategy. However, some companies regularly revisit big decisions they made based on assumptions about the world that may have since changed, affecting the projected ROI of initiatives. Such shifts would affect how you deploy talent and executive time, how you spend money and focus sales efforts, and AI can be valuable in guiding that. The value of AI is even bigger when you can make decisions close to the time of deploying resources, because AI can signal that your previous assumptions have changed from when you made your plan.

Joanna Pachner: Can you provide any examples of companies employing AI to address specific strategic challenges?

Yuval Atsmon: Some of the most innovative users of AI, not coincidentally, are AI- and digital-native companies. Some of these companies have seen massive benefits from AI and have increased its usage in other areas of the business. One mobility player adjusts its financial planning based on pricing patterns it observes in the market. Its business has relatively high flexibility to demand but less so to supply, so the company uses AI to continuously signal back when pricing dynamics are trending in a way that would affect profitability or where demand is rising. This allows the company to quickly react to create more capacity because its profitability is highly sensitive to keeping demand and supply in equilibrium.

Joanna Pachner: Given how quickly things change today, doesn’t AI seem to be more a tactical than a strategic tool, providing time-sensitive input on isolated elements of strategy?

Yuval Atsmon: It’s interesting that you make the distinction between strategic and tactical. Of course, every decision can be broken down into smaller ones, and where AI can be affordably used in strategy today is for building blocks of the strategy. It might feel tactical, but it can make a massive difference. One of the world’s leading investment firms, for example, has started to use AI to scan for certain patterns rather than scanning individual companies directly. AI looks for consumer mobile usage that suggests a company’s technology is catching on quickly, giving the firm an opportunity to invest in that company before others do. That created a significant strategic edge for them, even though the tool itself may be relatively tactical.

Joanna Pachner: McKinsey has written a lot about cognitive biases  and social dynamics that can skew decision making. Can AI help with these challenges?

Yuval Atsmon: When we talk to executives about using AI in strategy development, the first reaction we get is, “Those are really big decisions; what if AI gets them wrong?” The first answer is that humans also get them wrong—a lot. [Amos] Tversky, [Daniel] Kahneman, and others have proven that some of those errors are systemic, observable, and predictable. The first thing AI can do is spot situations likely to give rise to biases. For example, imagine that AI is listening in on a strategy session where the CEO proposes something and everyone says “Aye” without debate and discussion. AI could inform the room, “We might have a sunflower bias here,” which could trigger more conversation and remind the CEO that it’s in their own interest to encourage some devil’s advocacy.

We also often see confirmation bias, where people focus their analysis on proving the wisdom of what they already want to do, as opposed to looking for a fact-based reality. Just having AI perform a default analysis that doesn’t aim to satisfy the boss is useful, and the team can then try to understand why that is different than the management hypothesis, triggering a much richer debate.

In terms of social dynamics, agency problems can create conflicts of interest. Every business unit [BU] leader thinks that their BU should get the most resources and will deliver the most value, or at least they feel they should advocate for their business. AI provides a neutral way based on systematic data to manage those debates. It’s also useful for executives with decision authority, since we all know that short-term pressures and the need to make the quarterly and annual numbers lead people to make different decisions on the 31st of December than they do on January 1st or October 1st. Like the story of Ulysses and the sirens, you can use AI to remind you that you wanted something different three months earlier. The CEO still decides; AI can just provide that extra nudge.

Joanna Pachner: It’s like you have Spock next to you, who is dispassionate and purely analytical.

Yuval Atsmon: That is not a bad analogy—for Star Trek fans anyway.

Joanna Pachner: Do you have a favorite application of AI in strategy?

Yuval Atsmon: I have worked a lot on resource allocation, and one of the challenges, which we call the hockey stick phenomenon, is that executives are always overly optimistic about what will happen. They know that resource allocation will inevitably be defined by what you believe about the future, not necessarily by past performance. AI can provide an objective prediction of performance starting from a default momentum case: based on everything that happened in the past and some indicators about the future, what is the forecast of performance if we do nothing? This is before we say, “But I will hire these people and develop this new product and improve my marketing”— things that every executive thinks will help them overdeliver relative to the past. The neutral momentum case, which AI can calculate in a cold, Spock-like manner, can change the dynamics of the resource allocation discussion. It’s a form of predictive intelligence accessible today and while it’s not meant to be definitive, it provides a basis for better decisions.

Joanna Pachner: Do you see access to technology talent as one of the obstacles to the adoption of AI in strategy, especially at large companies?

Yuval Atsmon: I would make a distinction. If you mean machine-learning and data science talent or software engineers who build the digital tools, they are definitely not easy to get. However, companies can increasingly use platforms that provide access to AI tools and require less from individual companies. Also, this domain of strategy is exciting—it’s cutting-edge, so it’s probably easier to get technology talent for that than it might be for manufacturing work.

The bigger challenge, ironically, is finding strategists or people with business expertise to contribute to the effort. You will not solve strategy problems with AI without the involvement of people who understand the customer experience and what you are trying to achieve. Those who know best, like senior executives, don’t have time to be product managers for the AI team. An even bigger constraint is that, in some cases, you are asking people to get involved in an initiative that may make their jobs less important. There could be plenty of opportunities for incorpo­rating AI into existing jobs, but it’s something companies need to reflect on. The best approach may be to create a digital factory where a different team tests and builds AI applications, with oversight from senior stakeholders.

The big challenge is finding strategists to contribute to the AI effort. You are asking people to get involved in an initiative that may make their jobs less important.

Joanna Pachner: Do you think this worry about job security and the potential that AI will automate strategy is realistic?

Yuval Atsmon: The question of whether AI will replace human judgment and put humanity out of its job is a big one that I would leave for other experts.

The pertinent question is shorter-term automation. Because of its complexity, strategy would be one of the later domains to be affected by automation, but we are seeing it in many other domains. However, the trend for more than two hundred years has been that automation creates new jobs, although ones requiring different skills. That doesn’t take away the fear some people have of a machine exposing their mistakes or doing their job better than they do it.

Joanna Pachner: We recently published an article about strategic courage in an age of volatility  that talked about three types of edge business leaders need to develop. One of them is an edge in insights. Do you think AI has a role to play in furnishing a proprietary insight edge?

Yuval Atsmon: One of the challenges most strategists face is the overwhelming complexity of the world we operate in—the number of unknowns, the information overload. At one level, it may seem that AI will provide another layer of complexity. In reality, it can be a sharp knife that cuts through some of the clutter. The question to ask is, Can AI simplify my life by giving me sharper, more timely insights more easily?

Joanna Pachner: You have been working in strategy for a long time. What sparked your interest in exploring this intersection of strategy and new technology?

Yuval Atsmon: I have always been intrigued by things at the boundaries of what seems possible. Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke’s second law is that to discover the limits of the possible, you have to venture a little past them into the impossible, and I find that particularly alluring in this arena.

AI in strategy is in very nascent stages but could be very consequential for companies and for the profession. For a top executive, strategic decisions are the biggest way to influence the business, other than maybe building the top team, and it is amazing how little technology is leveraged in that process today. It’s conceivable that competitive advantage will increasingly rest in having executives who know how to apply AI well. In some domains, like investment, that is already happening, and the difference in returns can be staggering. I find helping companies be part of that evolution very exciting.

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