RSS 1.0Cases
Recent Submissions
-
Allianz: Predicting direct debit with machine learningIn January 2021, the chief data and analytics officer (CDAO) at Allianz Benelux SA (Allianz) spotted a possible opportunity to optimize cash flow with direct debit. Direct debit was a pre-authorized financial transaction between two parties where the amount due was directly and automatically collected from the payer’s bank account. Direct debit would allow Allianz to shorten payment processes, reduce risks by anticipating payments, and improve customer loyalty. Despite the clear advantages of direct debit for both clients and insurers, only a few of Allianz’s clients were currently making use of direct debit. It was not clear what drove Allianz’s customers or brokers to implement direct debit. This was where the CDAO and his data office team came in. The data office possessed a large amount of data on Allianz’s property and casualty insurance contracts and customers. Now the team needed to investigate how this data could be leveraged to determine the value drivers and develop a strategy to convert more clients to direct debit payments.
-
Allianz: Improving P&L through machine learningDuring an Allianz Benelux SA (Allianz) board meeting held in early 2019, Allianz’s chief financier officer (CFO) had a profound discussion with Allianz’s chief data and analytics officer (CDAO) on improving the company’s profit and loss (P&L) statement by targeting problematic cases among disability claims related to Allianz’s life insurance product. It appeared that certain claims had very long durations, leading to recurrent payouts surpassing the total amount of premiums. Consequently, there were too many claims that could translate into future losses. If this phenomenon persisted, Allianz could lose millions of dollars in revenues. Therefore, the CFO contacted the CDAO and his data office and requested that the team identify the client segments in which the most problematic cases of disability claims occurred. Additionally, the CFO wanted the data office to build a predictive model that could estimate the duration of a claim, to adapt the premium coverage to specific customer segments.
-
Allianz: Optimizing Customer Acquisition Strategy using Machine LearningIn October 2019, the regional chief data and analytics officer at Allianz AG, Belgium, attended a two-hour strategy meeting with the Allianz Benelux chief executive officer, who had expressed concerns about the company’s digitalization strategy. A few days earlier, the marketing department had found that online sales channel results had fallen unexpectedly. The chief executive officer was worried that the company could lose market share if it did not react accordingly, which would damage the company’s competitive position in the market. Therefore, the regional chief data and analytics officer was asked to gather a team to investigate why online sales were low and to design an effective customer acquisition strategy. In addition to his data office staff, the regional chief data and analytics officer asked for the business transformation unit to provide assistance. He had to consider how best to approach this challenging task.
-
Ovinto: Preparing for a series a venture capital investment roundLate 2018, Frederick Ronse, founder and CEO of Ovinto, was going over the options to finance the next development stage of his scale-up. Ovinto is active in big data analytics and IoT in the rail freight industry. It had now gained traction and had lined up some highly visible customers. Its recent partnership with SAP, the global software solutions company, was also a major step forward. Now was the time to push the company on a high growth trajectory, but some EUR5 million to EUR10 million was needed to achieve this. Important questions crossed his mind. How much should Ovinto try to raise? What would a reasonable valuation be, that would be agreeable to his current investors - and himself - but that would not scare off potential investors? And who might be interested investors, that could add value to his scale-up? Frederick understood that raising professional venture capital was not only a financial decision, but a highly strategic decision as well. This case won the Entrepreneurship category at The Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2023.
-
FD Mediagroup: Surviving digital disruptionThe FD Mediagroep (FDMG) case describes how a leading local, niche newspaper company dealt with the challenges of digital disruption in the period 2011-2020. It describes both the actions taken at the corporate and business unit level and shows how FDMG has strengthened its core media business. Furthermore, the case describes how FDMG grew beyond its media core and unveils how the company decided to manage this new business division, and how it chose its operating model: Should the new business operate as an autonomous division or should the corporation actively pursue synergies with the other business divisions?
-
Barco ClickShare: Introducing the next-generation meeting experienceBarco - a global technology leader in industrial visualization solutions - pioneered the category of wireless presentation systems for business meetings with its launch of ClickShare in 2012. Barco ClickShare rendered cables in the meeting room redundant, enabling meeting participants to share their laptop, tablet or smartphone screens wirelessly on the meeting room display. Over time, the Barco ClickShare product portfolio had evolved to 5 models, each targeted at a different type of meeting room - from huddle to board room. After 7 years of stellar growth, ClickShare was at a pivotal point: It had to sustain its momentum and double the number of units sold in three years' time, while driving meeting technology innovation and spearheading the next generation digital meeting experience. The case is situated at the beginning of 2020 and describes how the first two generations of Barco ClickShare products were brought to market, resulting in an installed base of 750,000 units across the world, with a presence in over 40% of the Fortune 1000 companies. In the case, three key executives of Barco's Meeting Experience business unit appraise how ClickShare evolved in terms of product design, market definition, value proposition, pricing, distribution, and communication, and discuss the competition. Given the changing market conditions and competitive dynamics, the executives set out to further digitize the product line, which raised two important strategic issues: What should the next-generation ClickShare experience be and how to bring the digitized product line to market?
-
Fluvius drives towards sustainability: A case on rare earth elements (Ree) supply integrityAs Supply Chain Manager at Fluvius, the Belgian distribution system operator, Gunther wants to formulate a plan that can generate incentives to move towards greater energy supply chain sustainability and resilience. The low-carbon energy transition relies on rare earth elements (REEs)-enabled technologies tainted by their harsh mining ecosystem effects and their Chinese policies dependence. Gunther, adopting a holistic approach, analyses the complexity of the global, green energy supply chain. What does a sustainable energy supply chain actually mean? How to create a cascade of sustainable practices that reaches first-tier suppliers? How to couple resilience and sustainability and contribute to sustainable development? This case is designed to be exposed in Business Administration, Energy Management, Supply Chain Management, Operations Management or Technology Management courses. The goal is to develop and practice skills in identifying trends and weaknesses in a dynamic supply chain and to formulate an action plan that can integrate sustainability and resilience across an organization's supply chain.
-
Customer churn prediction using machine learning and customer lifetime value analysis at EurotelEvery CFO should invest in getting to know the organisation’s customers. After all, building long-term and valuable customer relationships is an important driver of value creation. This case study explores how machine learning and predictive analytics can be used to develop a deeper understanding of customer behaviour and to enhance customer profitability. The case study consists of two parts: part A, customer churn prediction using machine learning, and part B, customer lifetime value analysis. In part A, the focus is on using machine learning to predict customer churn at Eurotel, a Belgian telecommunications start-up. The participants will learn how to pre-process raw customer data and will use different modelling techniques to predict customer churn. Furthermore, they will learn how to select the right model based on business relevance and performance. In part B, the participants will use the insights derived in the first part to analyse the customer lifetime value of the different Eurotel customers. This will serve as input for a marketing analysis. The goal is to determine which customer and product segments of Eurotel are most valuable and to strategically select the right marketing campaigns to target those segments. The participants will learn how to implement a customer lifetime value analysis and how the resulting information can be used to design an effective marketing campaign. The participants will also learn how they can implement the analysis in python.
-
Machine learning to predict the net promotor score and improve patient experienceNet Promotor Score (NPS) is a simple yet prominent indicator for customer satisfaction that is widely used in organizations. An in-depth analysis of the NPS and its drivers can provide organizations with highly valuable insights into their current deficiencies and strengths. CFO’s, for example, can use this metric to develop a strategy map. This case study explores the use of machine learning to perform an NPS key driver analysis at IndyCare, an Indian hospital group. The aim is to develop a model that predicts whether patients are promotors, detractors or passive customers for the hospital, and to assess feature importance of the models. The participants will also learn how to address a specific problem encountered when using NPS status as a target variable. In particular, the difference in scaling between the features and the target variable causes a low statistical fit of the various models. This problem is addressed by adding an additional feature to the model which considers subgroups of patients with common scoring patterns. Next to the analysis on the level of the hospital group, the participants will also go more into detail in this case study. More specifically, they will examine whether different patient groups have other drivers for their NPS. For this purpose, the participants will also explore unsupervised learning by making use of clustering techniques.
-
Kaffee kostuum: A dilemma in retail financialsJohn Dong, the founder and CEO of Kaffee Kostuum, was puzzled. He had executed his business plan down to the smallest detail. His company had realized tremendous growth in only five years, topping his target of €1 million1 in revenue by the end of this fiscal year. But somehow, his business was more cash-intensive than expected. The return on sales was less than 6%. Dong examined, once more, the options provided by a team of summer intern MBA students and wondered how to proceed.
-
IT strategy for growth at FagronThe case takes us back to March 2010, when Fagron - a multinational pharmaceutical company focusing on speciality pharma - underwent a strategic transformation to turn the company into a worldwide, scalable organisation. In the case, we follow the newly-appointed Chief Information Officer, Rene Clavaux, who had been asked to lead the Information Management department. As a non-traditional, innovation-driven IT professional, Rene was put in charge of a department that had always been viewed as subordinate to the rest of the organisation. At the Executive Committee meeting of March 2010, he was expected to outline a clear IT strategy to support Fagron's growth, starting with a clear mission statement for the IM department.
-
Fluvius looking forward: Investigating the lifecycle of renewable energy technologiesRenewable energy is only as sustainable as the technology that harvests it, and decisions around sustainable technology infrastructure need to be made with this in consideration. For example, a wind turbine's blade can be made of a reinforced carbon composite that cannot be recycled; an electric vehicle (EV) battery contains lithium - a finite, highly demanded resource with a heavy environmental cost in mining and manufacture; insulation used in medium to high voltage transmission often uses sulphur hexafluoride, which has a greenhouse gas equivalency 23 500 times greater than carbon dioxide; and many advanced electronics required rare earth elements (REEs), which have an uncertain, dynamic global supply chain. This teaching case and note is designed to be taught in Operations Management or Technology Management courses. The goal is to generate discussions focusing on the challenges that stakeholders encounter in adapting to the dynamic renewable energy landscape, and enable effective, nuanced decisions that go beyond purchasing and electrical output.
-
Upgrade estate: winning with sustainabilityUpgrade Estate is a successful company in the Belgian student housing market. Although student housing is perceived to be a commodity market, the company has been able to differentiate itself from the competition with a very unique concept. The case outlines how Upgrade Estate has been able to grow in this market and what the company has done to achieve a market leader. It illustrates well how a company can build a successful strategy based on the principles of customer intimacy, and what it takes to implement that strategy well. The Management Team is, however, wondering how to grow the company beyond its existing core. There are several growth options available and the key question is which one(s) to pursue?
-
Trouble on the shop floorThis case emanates from an MBA technical report submitted to the University of Stellenbosch Business School. The case is based on actual events that transpired at a company in the fruit industry in South Africa in 2015, which involved a breakdown in wage negotiations between the company and a trade union that resulted in violent industrial action that caused major damage to company property and to what had been a fairly good working relationship between the company and the union. The case is suitable for general use in other countries with a tradition of collective bargaining and where freedom of association and the right to strike exists. The case is suitable for students at honours or masters level in conflict studies, dispute resolution, employment relations, human resource management and negotiation. A violent strike erupted after failed wage negotiations. It laid bare deep divisions between African and non-African employees and between permanent employees and those appointed as temporary employees only. It also revealed the mindsets of people on both sides of the conflict, as well as several errors made by management in the manner in which they viewed the role of the union and failed to build strong relations with employees on the shop floor. Students will be able to: - Critique the approach to collective bargaining of both the company and the union in the case and suggest alternative approaches. - Identify the steps the company could take to both deal with the aftermath of the strike and develop preventive measures for the future. - Advise the company on a series of questions it needs advice on. The case is supported with a teaching note, discussion questions and suggested responses to those as well as verbatim transcripts from interviews conducted with managers and others for purposes of a research project after the strike had ended. The case contains important lessons about the complexities of managing employment relations in complex environments.
-
Digi-Tec: The VC investor exit decisionDigi-Tec was a growing ICT firm and achieved growth both organically and through mergers and acquisitions (M&As). The large number of shareholders had divergent goals and visions for the future. In order to ensure further growth, two main shareholders searched for an external investor to buy out the others and thereby align and strengthen its governance. In 2011 the Spain-based private equity firm SRIC invested in Digi-Tec. This case documents the interactions between the external investor and the management. An exit opportunity arose much earlier than expected. The investment manager is faced with the question whether it is optimal to exit already after three years, or rather to stay on board for some more years as initially planned.
-
RTE: Financing electricity transmission investments in a regulated environmentLeading up to 2013, Réseau de Transport d’Électricité (RTE), a French transmission operator (TSO), was the largest TSO in Europe’s electricity network. Like all European TSOs, RTE was subject to regulatory regimes. At the end of 2013, RTE was operating under a revenue cap, which required that it seek the regulator’s approval before making capital investments. The company was poised to undertake an ambitious investment program in 2014 to replace aging assets. However, the potential for regulatory changes, the need for the regulator’s approval, and the long depreciation life of the assets made planning difficult. RTE needed to develop a financial planning model that would help it decide whether to make the investment and how to prepare for possible regulatory uncertainties.
-
Eandis: Financing the rollout of smart meters in a regulated environmentn 2014, Eandis System Operator CVBA (Eandis), a low- and medium-voltage power distribution system operator (DSO) in Belgium, had an ambitious plan for investing in a smart metering infrastructure, but the regulatory context was uncertain. The company had been operating in a regulated monopoly characterized by a cost-plus pricing regime. The regime allowed the company to recover its costs through the tariffs it charged grid users for access to the electricity distribution network. In recent years, the regime had motivated the company to invest in infrastructure; however, the cost-plus regime was about to be replaced by a new type of regulation based on incentives and the DSO's performance. Under the new regulation, DSOs could propose investments to the regulator, who then approved the investments based on a cost-benefit analysis. In this context, Eandis must decide whether to continue with its plan to invest in smart metering and, if so, how to structure the investment to appeal to the equity investors.
-
Event identification and demand management at FluviusAs a Distribution System Operator (DSO) in the Flemish Region of Belgium, Fluvius plays a role of strategic importance. With the growing energy demand and proliferation of new energy technology, DSOs require significantly more resilience to withstand upcoming disruptions. The energy system-wide approach towards building resilience aims to develop monitoring and prevention procedures. Smart meter data analytics opens a new avenue for the use of event management, enabling decision-makers to detect anomalous events in real-time and respond within a short time frame. Although some events strike either immediately or after a short warning, other events are anticipated well in advance. It is suggested that the danger of growing peak consumption will be combatted with demand management tools, which involve the consumer's engagement and more efficient use of technology. On the one hand, opting for dynamic pricing can leverage the consumer's potential to change consumption behaviour and decrease the harmful spike peak for the power infrastructure. On the other hand, electricity storage can decrease congestion in the power grids and support more active adoption of renewable technology. The systematic approach towards disruptions can build Fluvius' resilience, so that the organisation can bounce back with low impact on performance.