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AMC Networks Inc.: The Walking Dead Problem
Ram SubramanianCase IVEY-9B18M203-EStrategyIn August 2017, AMC Networks Inc. (AMCN), a New York City–based cable television provider, faced a lawsuit from the creative talent behind the hit show The Walking Dead. The lawsuit charged that AMCN used its vertical integration into content development to reduce the profits available for distribution to participants. For AMCN, which was originally a content distributor, expanding into content creation through its AMC Studios had several benefit...Starting at €8.20
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eBay Inc.: The Portfolio Decision
Ram SubramanianCase IVEY-9B20M113-EStrategyIn January 2019, eBay Inc. (eBay), a California-based e-commerce company, faced an activist campaign centred on its portfolio of businesses. Elliott Management Corporation, the hedge fund leading the campaign, believed that StubHub and Classifieds, two ofStarting at €8.20
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Strategies to Fight Low-Cost Rivals (Spanish version)
Kumar, NirmalyaArticle HBS-R0612FStrategySlashing prices usually lowers profits for incumbents without driving the low-cost entrants out of business. Companies take various approaches to competing against cut-price players. Some differentiate their products--a strategy that works only in certain circumstances. Others launch low-cost businesses of their own, as many airlines did in the 1990s--a so-called dual strategy that succeeds only if companies can generate synergies between the ex...Starting at €8.20
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How Emerging Giants Are Rewriting the Rules of M&A (Spanish version)
Kumar, NirmalyaArticle HBS-R0905KStrategyThis article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading. While Western companies struggle with mergers and acquisitions, emerging giants like Indian aluminum producer Hindalco are using M&A as their main globalization strategy. That's partly because developing economies grew at near double-digit rates in the past 15 year...Starting at €8.20
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Etsy: A B Corp Start-Up Takes on Amazon
Ram SubramanianCase IVEY-9B16M074-EStrategyAWARD WINNING CASE - This case was one of the winners of the 2016 John Molson MBA Case Writing Competition. When Etsy proceeded with an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in April 2015, it was the second U.S. company to go public as a certified B Corporation. Etsy’s status as a B Corporation meant that social responsibility was ingrained in its mission. However, as an online marketplace for artisanal goods, Etsy faced a number...Starting at €8.20
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Viacom, Inc.: Corporate Governance in a Controlled Company
Ram SubramanianCase IVEY-9B17M036-EStrategyViacom, Inc., a New York City-based media company, owned Paramount Pictures and popular television channels such as MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon. Viacom was controlled by Sumner Redstone and run by his hand-picked second in command. In 2016, the 92-year-old Redstone, facing a claim of mental incompetency because of his advanced age, stepped down from his role as executive chair of the board. This led to several issues regarding corporate ...Starting at €8.20
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First Solar: The Module Recycling Opportunity
Ram SubramanianCase IVEY-9B16M042-EStrategyIn 2014, the vice-president and director of recycling at the Arizona-based First Solar, Inc., the world's leading solar energy company, was considering a business plan to convert its solar panel recycling initiative from a cost centre to a profit-making business. Although the company pre-funded the recycling of photovoltaic solar panels by adding the recycling cost to the end-customers’ purchase price, Europe had recently enacted laws requiring t...Starting at €8.20
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Don't Be Undersold!
Steenkamp, Jan-Benedict E.M.; Kumar, NirmalyaArticle HBS-R0912K-EMarketing"Aldi" is a word that strikes fear in the hearts of brand managers across Europe. A chain of low-budget retail stores with sales of $73.5 billion in 2008, Aldi invented what is commonly referred to as the hard-discount store, a format that is destroying between a quarter and a half trillion dollars in brand sales annually. Brand executives at major consumer packaged goods companies have mostly been caught off guard by this success. The authors' r...Starting at €8.20
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ArcelorMittal: Consolidating the Globally Fragmented Steel Industry--A Profile of One of India's Pioneering Multinationals
Kumar, Nirmalya; Mohapatra, Pradipta K.; Chandrasekhar, Suj , PhD.Book Chapter HBS-6735BC-EArcelorMittal is a Fortune 500 company with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as well as several European exchanges--but not on the Mumbai stock exchange. The company established its position as the largest steel company in the world by leveraging low-cost production operations in emerging markets throughout the globe, and thrived for decades without establishing operations of any kind in Ind...Starting at €8.20
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Bharat Forge: Bringing Technology and Speed to the World Forging Market--A Profile of One of India's Pioneering Multinationals
Kumar, Nirmalya; Mohapatra, Pradipta K.; Chandrasekhar, Suj , PhD.Book Chapter HBS-6737BC-EIn the past decade, manufacturers in Eastern Europe, China, and Southeast Asia have established reputations for quality, reliability, and cost efficiency. But manufacturing-led, export-driven growth bypassed India...until now. Whereas Indian manufacturing has generally been associated with belching machines, clanking equipment, flooded mud roads, and unreliable power supplies, a few companies are emerging as contenders for domination of global ma...Starting at €8.20