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Case Study

Largo.ai in Hollywood: Good enough?

By Jim Pulcrano, Laure Frank, Désirée Gilgen, Konrad Meyer and Federico Paparella

19 pages

June 2022

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Reference: IMD-7-2388

The case tells the story of Sami Arpa a young entrepreneur with a passion for the movie industry. Sami Arpa and his start-up Largo leverage technology to improve the movie industry. Largo launched in 2018 with the platform for short films called Sofy.tv. In 2020 Largo launches its own SaaS B2B platform providing an AI algorithm for the film-making industry. The algorithms support scriptwriters, producers, and artists with insights on the genre, content, and dramaturgy of their film, a character analysis, casting propositions, and a financial forecast. Largo’s early success is confirmed by awards from the San Sebastian and Berlin Film Festival. It is central to evaluate geographical markets which could be attractive for Largo to play in such as Europe, the US, Latin America, India, and China. Facing in addition different new opportunities from a variety of industry segments such as advertising, broadcasting, scripts, and social media, the challenge is how to strategically focus given the resources at hand. Largo must position itself within the different geographical markets and the various industry segments to gain a competitive advantage against strong competitors like StoryFit and Cinelytic.

Learning Objective

How a young CEO of a start-up makes strategic decisions
Identify different customer segments and their needs
Identify and evaluate different market opportunities
Evaluate available resources and differentiators
Position a startup in a new market

Keywords

Digital Transformation, Disruption, Entrepreneurship, Strategy, Start-up, Artificial Intelligence, Film Entertainment, Social Media, Advertising, Market Positioning, Porter's Five Forces Analysis, Customer Laddering, Strategy Diamond, VRIO Framework, Sustainability, Industry Infrastructure, Industry Innovation, Digital

Settings

Largo, Media, Motion Pictures and Film, Social Media
2017-2021

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

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Teaching note

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ABN AMRO (A): When culture drives transformation

By Michael R. Wade and Lisa Simone Duke
Case reference: IMD-7-2192 ©2025

Summary

The case describes two transformation journeys for ABN AMRO bank. The first transformation is cultural and the second is digital. It explores the interplay between these two journeys from the perspective of the head of the Personal Banking. The case goes into detail regarding how the bank rebuilt its internal operating model. The hierarchy was de-layered and replaced with agile ways of working, employee empowerment and a new performance management approach. At first, there was a lot of chaos, but, after some time for adjustment, benefits started to appear, such as higher NPS scores and improved financial results. The new approach also helped the bank cope with the Covid-19 pandemic as many of the changes were linked to remote working for employees and technology-mediated service provision for customers. The case also explores new challenges that appeared. While some teams embraced the new ways of working, others had trouble letting go of legacy approaches. There were inconsistencies and confusion around performance measurement. Despite improving performance in some areas, multifunctional teams were not necessarily delivering the best customer experiences. Sick leave was increasing, and there were signs that employee engagement was falling. The reader is placed in the shoes of the head of Personal Banking who must come up with solutions to these challenges.

Reference IMD-7-2192

Organization ABN AMRO

Industry Finance and Insurance, Banking

Available Languages English

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