Elephant dung and the bioethanol goldrush (B)

Getting buy-in for a clear mandate can transform your organization's approach to innovation. The first in a three part series of articles looking at the complexities of corporate innovation,

GENEVA (SWITZERLAND), OCTOBER 2023. Vanessa Monestel was ecstatic. a day earlier, she had just signed the letter of intent (LOI) to acquire an Amsterdam-based fashion company. This was the culmination of her 18-month search for a company to acquire, conducted with the support of Novastone Capital Advisors’ (NCA) Entrepreneurship through Acquisition (ETA) program. The signed LOI was not the end of the story but the beginning of the next phases, namely successfully completing the due diligence, putting together the financing package, signing the purchase agreement (DPA ) and hopefully finally running the company as its new CEO. The journey to that point had proved the emotional rollercoaster. The frustration of the “deals that got away” soon passed with the excitement of the next one that came up; nothing tempered her enthusiasm to acquire and run her own company..

The former CEO of Shell and Chairman of the Board of Directors at ABB and PSA shares his personal insights from leading companies through crisis

GENEVA (SWITZERLAND), AUGUST 2021. There was a lot at stake for Sébastien. This was the culmination of his 18-month NCA supported search journey to find a company to acquire. Instead of a single target, he was now faced with the prospect of acquiring 4 separate companies at once, consolidating them into a group. One, SAS, was bigger than the others but also faced significant financial issues. Hopefully he had identified three additional companies as acquisition targets, all profitable and with low levels of debt but individually a bit too small. Should he pursue all three as a single deal or add SAS for a four-company deal? In a last-ditch effort to figure out the best deal configuration, he ran some simulations about the potential returns of the group with and without the SAS turnaround. With those projections in hand, it was time to finalize the management buy-in proposal to present to the investment committee the following week.

In the 2010s, card processing – Mastercard’s flagship service – started showing signs of commodification as new, nimble players (typically, fintech startups thriving on digital) entered the payment processing space, and customer preferences evolved beyond plastic cards and traditional contact payments. To re-energize its central position and its ability to capture value, Mastercard – as the incumbent – had to make bold decisions. The case details Mastercard’s approach to conceptualizing and building a global platform ecosystem that upholds the principles and design elements of modularity (i.e. interoperability and scalability) and optionality. Today, Mastercard's services, based on application programming interfaces (APIs), integrate with a variety of platforms and offer flexibility to businesses that require customized payment solutions. All along, the company has accommodated a high level of internal disruption. The case also explores the nature of Mastercard’s systematic collaboration with fintechs – players that often started out as competitors in specific parts of Mastercard’s value chain. It describes the company’s engagement with fintechs as fostering collaboration and co-creation and facilitating access; in other words, opening doors and sharing tools with partners. The case presents observations and quotes by CEO Michael Miebach, whose career trajectory at Mastercard – spanning Africa & Middle East experience, fintech partnerships, product management and the CEO role – sheds additional light on the philosophy and values that have driven the company’s transformation to a technology powerhouse and self-described original fintech.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast is one of the most enduring truisms of management. But is it really the case? And what is culture anyway?

The total costs of the Swiss healthcare system are rapidly approaching the CHF 100 billion mark per year. Now Switzerland is voting on November 24 on a further reform step. But that will not be enough. New ideas are needed.

The ways popular frameworks are used fall short in today’s rapidly changing environment. Here is a new way to make better-informed strategic choices.

Bossard, a Swiss company founded in 1731, has successfully transitioned from a product-centric approach to one that offers services and solutions. It has achieved significant revenue growth despite economic challenges. Its brand promise, “proven p...

99designs.com is a global platform connecting freelance designers with potential clients. The case study examines the potential impact of generative AI on 99designs’ business model. The platform uses a crowdsourcing approach that invites designers...