Cold Call

Health insurance that consumers like? Doesn’t sound possible, but South African company Vitality is doing just that. By focusing on consumer-driven health insurance ideas like paying customers to take care of themselves, Vitality has expanded to the UK and China. Harvard Business School professor Regina Herzlinger discusses her case entitled “The Vitality Group: Paying for Self-Care” — why this idea of paying for self-care has the potential to improve health care in the United States as well.

Germany took in a million Syrian refugees in 2015, buoyed by the knowledge that these people could contribute strongly to the country’s economy. But has it worked out as successfully as hoped? Harvard Business School professor Rebecca Henderson discusses her case study, “German Business and the Syrian Refugee Crisis” — what it takes to integrate a huge number of new people, and the role business can play.

Is it possible to retain brand value after cutting costs and services dramatically just to stay alive? The airline industry has struggled with this question for decades in the face of economic downturns, changes in market structure, and shifting clientele. Harvard Business School professor Susanna Gallani discusses one of the central lessons from her case study (co-authored with Harvard Business School professor Eva Labro), “RegionFly: Cutting Costs in the Airline Industry,” that encompasses any company in any industry: the long-term focus for any leadership team has to be on not just survival, but figuring out how to come back from a rough patch to regain and even exceed market position.

IDEO’s human-centered design thinking is a systematic process used to help create new products and services. And, the best part? They are open about the process and how to adopt it. Harvard Business School professor Ryan Buell explores this process through the example of Cineplanet, the leading movie cinema chain in Peru. The company hired IDEO to help them determine how to better align their operating model with the needs of its customers. Like Buell, this case, entitled “IDEO: Human-Centered Service Design,” may change the way you think about thinking.

Using crowdsourcing to develop an annual list of Hollywood’s hottest unproduced screenplays, Harvard graduate Franklin Leonard took the negative term “black list” and turned it into a coveted place to be. Three films that once appeared on his Black List are nominated for a Best Picture Oscar this year. Harvard Business School professor Henry McGee, the former president of HBO Home Entertainment, discusses his case, “The Black List,” which explores a fascinating case about navigating the Hollywood film industry, reclaiming blackness as a positive, and taking success to the next level.

Growing up in the heart of the Confederacy, Maggie Lena Walker started work as a laundress at age nine. At the urging of her mother and mentors, she turned to education, and used it to propel her life forward — graduating high school at 16, working as a teacher, and learning accounting. Those experiences, coupled with her strong work ethic, culminated in Walker rising to lead the Independent Order of St. Luke and found several other businesses, all of which created jobs and opportunities for many women and blacks where there had been none before. Harvard Business School professor Tony Mayo discusses his case, “Maggie Lena Walker and the Independent Order of St. Luke” regarding Walker’s remarkable legacy of firsts, and the courage and strength it took for her to forge a path forward for herself and those she served.

In theory, most companies would love to diversify their workforce. In practice, hiring specifically to increase diversity can cause a variety of cultural problems within an organization. Harvard Business School professor Robin Ely discusses two of her cases — “Managing Diversity at Spencer Owens & Co.” and “Managing Diversity at Cityside Financial Services” — that train a critical lens on race-based and race-blind hiring, and some of the best practices firms can employ to achieve a well-balanced staff.

For more than seven decades, Ebony Magazine has chronicled the most important African-American issues, personalities, and interests of its time, including operating essentially as the journal of record for the Civil Rights Movement. But along with most other media companies, the publication faced stark challenges if it was to survive in the rapidly changing media landscape of 2015. Harvard Business School professor Steve Rogers discusses his case “Ebony Magazine” about Ebony Magazine’s storied history, including its founder’s awareness of disruption theory fifty years ahead of time, and what the company has long meant for the black community.

Research says that people imprint on music in their dating years, and carry those tastes with them through the rest of their lives. Lately, this has spelled trouble for jazz music, which is failing to attract new and younger fans in a competitive musical landscape. With its listenership in steep decline, jazz legend Wynton Marsalis is looking to rebrand the genre and engineer its comeback, with the help of Harvard Business School professor Rohit Deshpande, author of the case, “Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center.”

One third of the U.S. population is obese, even as 50 million Americans often struggle to find enough to eat. And all that in a country where 40% of the food made and purchased each year is thrown away, and in which food needs are expected to more than double over the next few decades. Harvard Business School professor Jose Alvarez discusses his case entitled “Doug Rauch: Solving the American Food Paradox” — how the former president of Trader Joe’s is boiling these difficult problems down into one elegant solution in a pilot store in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and blazing a trail toward sustainability in the process.