Ivey Business School (Canada)
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Suntory: Rebranding the Japanese Whisky Highball
Philip SugaiCase IVEY-9B20A017-EMarketing, StrategyFounded in 1899 by Shinjiro Torii in Osaka, Japan, Suntory Holdings (Suntory) boasted a rich history in Japan’s alcoholic beverage industry. It purchased US-based Beam in 2014 for $16 billion, renamed itself as Beam Suntory, and transformed into one of the world’s largest alcoholic beverage makers, reaching total global revenues of more than 2.5 trillion yen ($23 billion) by the end of fiscal year 2018. Now, in 2020, could the Suntory team pull o...Starting at €8.20
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Nestlé KITKAT in Japan (D): A Trajectory For Future Growth
Philip SugaiCase IVEY-9B17A040-EEntrepreneurship, Marketing, StrategySupplement for product 9B17A037. It was 2017 and the KITKAT brand in Japan was at a critical juncture. The KITKAT marketing leaders sat down for a special meeting to review how Nestlé Japan had been able to create meaning and value for their brand. However, as they began to discuss their options for future growth, they faced difficult decisions: Should they look to export the flavor variations that had become such big hits in Japan to overseas ma...Starting at €5.74
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Innovating Tradition at Hosoo
Philip SugaiCase IVEY-9B18A058-EEntrepreneurship, Marketing, StrategyHosoo was a kimono and textile company, established in 1688 as a traditional Nishijin weaving company. The 11th generation president of the company, Masao Hosoo, had transformed the business from a producer of premium kimono fabrics and kimonos for the luxury market in Japan to a globally respected textile producer for some of the world’s top brands. A great deal of the company’s success in the global market could be attributed to the master craf...Starting at €8.20
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Concentrix Corporation: Improving Customer Persistency for an Indian Insurance Company
Shylu John; Bhavin J. ShahCase IVEY-W25821-EInformation Technologies, Service and Operations ManagementIn August 2017, Concentrix Corporation (CNX) partnered with Photon Life Insurance Company (PLI), a leading insurance provider in India, to support PLI's customer management service. On February 1, 2018, Mohit Khanna, global operations manager at CNX, undertook a promising task to improve PLI’S customer persistency at minimal operational cost. If all policyholders with an approaching due date were to be called, then the number of service agents re...Starting at €8.20
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GD Labs: Scaling Swab Testing During COVID-19
Bhavin J. Shah; Arvind ShroffCase IVEY-W28361-EDecision Analysis, Service and Operations ManagementIn early 2020, the rapid spread of COVID-19 across the world led the most highly affected countries, such as the United States and India, to focus on rapid testing and contact tracing to break the chain of transmission. By August 25, 2020, India had tested nearly 37 million cumulative COVID-19 samples as part of the government’s “Test, Track, Treat” initiative. The efficient allocation of collected swabs with saliva samples to appropriate testing...Starting at €8.20
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KITKAT in Japan (A): Sparking a Cultural Revolution
Philip Sugai; Adrian SossnaCase IVEY-9B17A037-EEntrepreneurship, Marketing, StrategyIn 2008, the marketing manager for Nestlé Japan’s confectionery business and his team were struggling to redefine the KITKAT brand within the Japanese market. KITKAT as a brand faced a real threat as the retail environment rapidly shifted toward increasingly powerful convenience store chains and consumer preferences shifted toward more novel consumable products. With more than 200 companies competing within Japan’s crowded and relatively stable c...Starting at €8.20
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Project Execution Dilemma at MICC
Hasmukh Gajjar; Bhavin J. ShahCase IVEY-9B14D010-EEntrepreneurship, Service and Operations Management, StrategyMid-India Construction Private Company Limited (MICC) was awarded a refurbishing project for INR30 million from the National Institute of Management. The project had to be completed in eight months. MICC’s project manager observed the dismal pace of work execution and the limited resource deployment on-site in the first monthly review meeting for the project. This situation warranted the manager’s immediate attention to acquire more resources and...Starting at €8.20
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Nestlé KITKAT in Japan (B): The Roots of Premiumization
Philip SugaiCase IVEY-9B17A038-EEntrepreneurship, Marketing, StrategySupplement for product 9B17A037. The KITKAT team had experienced great success over the past few years by building a powerful and resonating brand and enhancing their production capabilities to enable them to adapt to changing demands from their channel partners. However, the harsh realities of a changing market demographic, and increasingly powerful convenience store chains, created a clear sense of urgency for creative solutions to continue the...Starting at €5.74
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Concentrix Corporation: Analytics to Audit Claims in Customer Management Services
Shylu John; Pradeep Kartha; Raghavendra Graghu; Bhavin J. ShahCase IVEY-9B21D012-EInformation Technologies, Service and Operations ManagementConcentrix Corporation (CNX), a technology enabled global business services organization, supported a transport solutions company with its customer management services. In June 2019, CNX’s global customer services operation manager carried out an assessment and found irregularities in the credit claim process for CNX’s client. The manager needed to reduce the number of irregularities so that CNX’s agents did not create a negative experience for t...Starting at €8.20
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Hatsune Miku: Japanese Virtual Idol Ignites Global Value Co-creation
Timothy Craig; Philip Sugai; Lukman AroeanCase IVEY-9B14M110-EStrategyCrypton Future Media, a music software company based in Sapporo, Japan, developed Hatsune Miku (HM), a singing voice synthesizer software program (Vocaloid). Users entered lyrics and melodies to create songs, which were then sung by Hatsune Miku, a 16-year-old female virtual singer featured on the software packaging.Initially targeting professionals, HM unexpectedly caught on among amateurs who produced music, lyrics, artwork and videos, which th...Starting at €8.20