First Look

Dr. Mark Post and his team at Maastricht University were perfecting their tissue culture beef product-made entirely from muscle grown in his lab-to give it the same taste, texture, and appearance of a traditional beef hamburger. A previous iteration of this product had been taste-tested live, with good results, and Sergey Brin, a cofounder of Google, had provided Post with much of the funding to make the burgers. The next step was to form an independent company around this technology and take it to market. This innovative product could both radically disrupt the existing beef production and supply chain and provide an animal welfare and environmentally friendly food that had far less of an environmental impact than traditional beef products. Post faced several challenges, though, in making this a commercially viable product. He had to get price down, as it currently cost roughly $330,000 to make a single burger. He also had to find the right partner(s) to help him bring the product to market. But who should he work with: someone from the established beef production and supply system, a retailer, or someone entirely outside the traditional beef system? How could he expect established companies to react to this disruption of the status quo? Messaging around this product was critical: How should Post communicate with the public to convey that this was a natural product-the way muscle tissue grew in his lab was the same way it developed in cattle-and overcome public skepticism of overt scientific involvement in their food?

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The leadership team at Atlantis Paradise Island, under new ownership, decided that better alignment of the core values with the vision and mission statement would create a more compelling and consistent organizational narrative that would redouble employee commitment to Atlantis' ultimate success. They hoped that rethinking the core values would help them unleash the full transformative potential of their vision and mission.

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The case focuses on a European private equity firm-Ardian-and the process it uses to sell one of its portfolio companies and the decisions around that sale. Key issues include the choice of an auction or acceptance of a preemptive bid, as well as the role of the portfolio company's management in the process. The case explores the kinds of influence company management can, and should, have in the sale process. The case also explores issues at the PE firm level, including the fact that the firm has recently been spun off out of its large parent financial services firm, and how the GP entity was valued during that spinoff.

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No abstract available.

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No abstract available.

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In October 2004 Fernández Pujals, founder of Telepizza, an international home delivery pizza business, bought 24.9% of Jazztel (€90 million), a telecom company. At the time, Jazztel was near bankruptcy and needed a capital injection to finish the year. Over the next 10 years, Fernández Pujals led the restructuring of Jazztel's debt, reached an agreement with the former monopoly Telefónica, set up internal call centers, and transformed Jazztel into the fastest growing broadband operator in Spain. The case describes how Fernández Pujals designed and managed the board and led Jazztel toward profitable growth.

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In less than 10 years, cofounders Brian Sharples and Carl Shepherd had transformed HomeAway from just another Internet startup into the world's leading vacation-rental marketplace-a global online platform that links customers seeking vacation-home rentals to the property owners and managers who supply them. The case traces HomeAway's founding and acquisition-led growth, its 2011 IPO, and the core elements of its subscription-based business model. By 2014, incumbent travel giants like TripAdvisor and high-profile startups like Airbnb had begun to enter the vacation-rental sector. To stay ahead, HomeAway initiated a pilot cross-platform collaboration to list some of its properties on Expedia's site. More momentously, Sharples was also weighing a new commission-based revenue model that promised to attract a broader array of property listings but at the risk of undermining HomeAway's existing business.

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In 2013, Progressive was the fourth largest player in the auto insurance market, having lost the third position to GEICO in 2008. As the industry shifted from agency to online sales, GEICO's direct selling model positioned it strongly for growth. Progressive's direct sales mix had increased from 36% of total sales in 2006 to 42% in 2012, well ahead of the industry average of around 25%. As a result, both Progressive and GEICO continued to gain ground on industry leaders State Farm and Allstate, which sold less than 5% of their policies direct. In 2013, Progressive hoped to revolutionize the purchasing of auto insurance and to build its competitive position with Snapshot, a new usage-based pricing product. First introduced in 2011, Snapshot had low rates of adoption through 2012, but Progressive was redoubling its efforts in 2013 to educate consumers about the product's benefits, which included potential savings of as much as 30% for some drivers. Progressive was also intent on building share with customers that purchased multiple insurance policies since they tended to be more loyal and profitable. Whether these moves would be sufficient to catch up with GEICO was unclear, but they seemed to be working well against State Farm and Allstate.

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