IMD business school for management and leadership courses

In 2022, Novo Nordisk was transitioning from its longstanding focus on diabetes treatments to multiple therapeutic areas while navigating other important challenges: • Changing market, competitive and regulatory environments • Dramatic growth due to blockbuster medications for diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular health • Increasing complexity b…

The Tropical Landscapes Finance Facility Sustainability Bond (TLFF I) was initially celebrated as a best-in-class example of sustainable finance. Issued in 2018, this $95 million financial instrument aimed to create a promising future: sustainable natural rubber plantations in Indonesia that balanced ecological preservation, local livelihoods an…

The case describes Legendary Foods Africa, a food-tech company founded in 2020 in Ghana by Canadian entrepreneur Shobhita Soor. Legendary Foods Africa is focused on farming, processing and selling palm weevil larvae products for human consumption. Palm weevil larvae, a traditional local food, are rich in protein, healthy fats and essential nutri…

In late 2023, when the management team at the consumer packaged goods company Reckitt considered adopting gen AI, potential use cases spanned the business—from drafting presentations to delivering customer support to optimizing procurement contracts. Many of the use cases guaranteed time savings and an immediate return on investment, but they ap…

Nespresso, the global leading brand in portioned coffee, is facing an existential threat. The company’s current market base, which consists primarily of aging consumers, is likely to decline in the medium to long term. To compensate for the certain shortfall, the company needs to attract young coffee drinkers among Millennials and Generation Z, …

The case series is based on extensive interviews with key executives at adidas Russia/CIS in charge of implementing the radical IT, supply chain and omnichannel initiatives that transformed adidas Russia/CIS from one of the poorest performers to the new standard within the Group. The initiatives included pioneering the rollout and implementation…

This short case exercise presents a rare but critical real-world business scenario: A large, multi-country, multi-site beauty company wishes to evaluate its capability to execute a major product recall. The need for a recall may be due to an internal quality issue or one caused by quality defects from a supplier. The CEO has seen a competitor st…

Case B of the Mulliez Family Business case series examines the family’s entrepreneurial ‘DNA’: the unique set of characteristics that have enabled the Association Familiale Mulliez (AFM) to successfully nurture the ventures of the next generations. Case B picks up in the 1990s, as the Mulliez family renews its focus on entrepreneurship. It first…

Though little-known outside of its home country of France, the Mulliez family enterprise is one of the largest privately held business networks in the world. The Association Familiale Mulliez (AFM) unites over 1,000 family shareholders and oversees a portfolio of more than 90 companies operating across retail, services and other sectors. Its fla…

In March 2019, Norsk Hydro (a Norwegian aluminum manufacturer and renewable energy company operating across 40 countries) suffered a large-scale ransomware attack that brought its global IT network to a complete standstill. Faced with encrypted systems across 160 sites and a ransom demand payable in bitcoin, the company’s leadership made a cruci…

Pang Dong Lai (PDL) is a regional Chinese supermarket chain that generated an astonishing $3.27 billion in revenue in 2025 with only 14 stores, vastly outperforming national and global giants in per-store efficiency. In a retail landscape defined by fierce competition and razor-thin margins, PDL’s success stems from a radical, people-first opera…

City Developments Limited (CDL), one of Singapore’s largest listed property developers, had been a cornerstone of the Kwek family business empire in Singapore since 1972. With an enterprise value of S$19.5 billion (US$15.1 billion) in January 2026, CDL operated across 168 locations in 29 countries. The company’s success was rooted in the vision …

Luxury brand strategy insights from Lalique CEO Nina Müller on craftsmanship, heritage, customer experience, authenticity, innovation, and growth.

The world’s attention is fixed on frontier artificial intelligence (AI) models, but China’s robot-making factories deserve just as much attention. Chinese e-commerce company JD.com has predicted that robots would ultimately replace its 700,000 delivery workers, while workers at South Korean carmaker Hyundai are threatening strike action over iss…

Europe’s digital sovereignty ambitions face a reality check: dependence on US and Chinese tech exposes gaps between regulation and capability.

Discover how negative capability and reflective inaction can help leaders stay calm, listen deeply, and guide change with clarity.

Family business control may erode over generations unless deliberately designed. Learn how ownership structures and family governance may preserve influence over time.

AI can optimize processes, but leadership hinges on human judgment. Learn to blend machine intelligence with empathy and intent.