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Case Study

Amazon in B2B – friend or foe? rethinking Grundfos’s european distribution channels

By Stefan Michel, Kristian Hollund, Bent Jensen, Morten Jørgensen, Imane Karboussi and Jesper Gedsø Smith

20 pages

May 2020

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Reference: IMD-7-2119

The ”Amazon in B2B – Friend or Foe” case describes a possible entry of Amazon B2B to the European Heating Ventilation and Air Condition (HVAC) industry. The case addresses questions like core competencies, Industry attractiveness, disruption, building and sustaining a competitive advantage. The readers can discuss how Grundfos should react to the growing online distribution channel and if the current Grundfos distribution model sustainable. Where the main objective is to come up with four distribution model alternatives that Grundfos can implement and choose the one that Grundfos shall pursue and argue why the model is chosen

Learning Objective

This case addresses business strategy, digital disruption, establishing and sustaining competitive advantage and how to navigate distribution channel dilemmas.
Where the reader specific shall use Porter 5 Forces, Porters Value Chain, core competencies, Key Success Factors, Strategy Diamond by Hambrick and Fredrickson.

Keywords

Strategy Diamond, Key Success Factor, Core Competency, Strategy, Distribution, Digitalization, Business Model, Value Chain, Five Forces Framework

Settings

Europe
Amazon, Construction and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
2019

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

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