Cold Call

Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS) is an Indian nonprofit famous for creating low-cost prosthetics, like the Jaipur Foot and the Stanford-Jaipur Knee. Known for its patient-centric culture and its focus on innovation, BMVSS has assisted more than one million people, including many land mine survivors. How can founder D.R. Mehta devise a strategy that will ensure the financial sustainability of BMVSS while sustaining its human impact well into the future? Harvard Business School Dean Srikant Datar discusses the importance of design thinking in ensuring a culture of innovation in his case, “BMVSS: Changing Lives, One Jaipur Limb at a Time.”

The Cold Call podcast celebrates its 200th episode with a week-long series of favorites. Topics include the power of data in baseball and business, the history and impact of Hershey Chocolate, the challenge of achieving happiness at work, and the innovative approaches to ocean conservation. They also discuss AI bias in Google and preview upcoming episodes on the social purpose of businesses.

Headquartered in Kitengela, Kenya, Sian Flowers exports roses to Europe. Because cut flowers have a limited shelf life and consumers want them to retain their appearance for as long as possible, Sian and its distributors used international air cargo to transport them to Amsterdam, where they were sold at auction and trucked to markets across Europe. But when the Covid-19 pandemic caused huge increases in shipping costs, Sian launched experiments to ship roses by ocean using refrigerated containers. The company reduced its costs and cut its carbon emissions, but is a flower that travels halfway around the world truly a “low-carbon rose”? Harvard Business School professors Willy Shih and Mike Toffel debate these questions and more in their case, “Sian Flowers: Fresher by Sea?”

In mid-2022, automakers, consumers, regulators, and investors were focusing on the transition from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to electric vehicles (EV). While this would reduce tail-pipe emissions, it ignored the fact that the production of EVs—and especially their batteries—increases emissions in the supply chain. Many automakers were announcing deadlines by which they would stop selling ICE vehicles altogether, buoyed by investment analysts and favorable press. But BMW decided to focus on lifecycle emissions and pursued a flexible powertrain strategy by offering vehicles with several options: gasoline and diesel-fueled ICE, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and battery electric vehicles. That approach received a frostier reception in the stock market. Harvard Business School assistant professor Shirley Lu discusses how BMW plans to convince stakeholders that its strategy is good for both the environment and the company’s financial performance in the case, “Driving Decarbonization at BMW.”

Globally there are too few park rangers to prevent the illegal trade of wildlife across borders, or poaching. In response, Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) was created by a coalition of conservation organizations to take historical data and create geospatial mapping tools that enable more efficient deployment of rangers. SMART had demonstrated significant improvements in patrol coverage, with some observed reductions in poaching. Then a new analytic tool, the Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security (PAWS), was created to use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to try to predict where poachers would be likely to strike. Jonathan Palmer, Executive Director of Conservation Technology for the Wildlife Conservation Society, already had a good data analytics tool to help park rangers manage their patrols. Would adding an AI- and ML-based tool improve outcomes or introduce new problems? Harvard Business School senior lecturer Brian Trelstad discusses the importance of focusing on the use case when determining the value of adding a complex technology solution in his case, “SMART: AI and Machine Learning for Wildlife Conservation.”

Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr, rose from a poor family in segregated Louisville, Kentucky to international fame, winning three heavyweight boxing titles and becoming a civil rights leader and role model for millions of people around the world. How did he do it? Early in his career, Ali’s creativity and hard work helped him overcome significant obstacles. Rather than letting his fear of flying keep him from competing in the 1960 Olympics, he traveled to Italy wearing a parachute — and easily won the gold medal in boxing. When he returned to the U.S. as a gold medalist, Ali used his growing fame to bring attention to racial justice and humanitarian causes he supported, including his then-controversial decision to refuse to fight in the Vietnam War. Harvard Business School professor Robert Simons discusses how Ali made decisions throughout his life and career to leave a lasting impact on the world in his case, “Muhammad Ali: Changing the World.”

In 2013, soon after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had started a massive whistleblowing program with the potential for large monetary rewards, two employees of a U.S. bank’s asset management business debated whether to blow the whistle on their employer after completing an internal review that revealed undisclosed conflicts of interest. The bank’s asset management business disproportionately invested clients’ money in its own mutual funds over funds managed by other banks, letting it collect additional fees—and the bank had not disclosed this conflict of interest to clients. Both employees agreed that failing to disclose the conflict was a problem, but beyond that, they saw the situation very differently. One employee, Neel, perceived the internal review as a good-faith effort by senior management to identify and address the problem. The other, Akash, thought that the entire business model was problematic, even with a disclosure, and believed that the bank may have even broken the law. Should they escalate the issue internally or report their findings to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission? Harvard Business School associate professor Jonas Heese discusses the potential risks and rewards of whistleblowing in his case, “Conflicts of Interest at Uptown Bank.”

For years, Airbnb gave hosts extensive discretion to accept or reject a guest after seeing little more than a name and a picture, believing that eliminating anonymity was the best way for the company to build trust. However, the apartment rental platform failed to track or account for the possibility that this could facilitate discrimination. After research published by Harvard Business School associate professor Michael Luca and others provided evidence that Black hosts received less in rent than hosts of other races and showed signs of discrimination against guests with African American sounding names, the company had to decide what to do. In the case, “Racial Discrimination on Airbnb,” Luca discusses his research and explores the implication for Airbnb and other platform companies. Should they change the design of the platform to reduce discrimination? And what’s the best way to measure the success of any changes?

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and multinational companies began pulling out of Russia, in response. At Switzerland-based Nestlé, chief executive Mark Schneider had a difficult decision to make. Nestlé had a long tradition of neutrality that enabled it to operate in countries regardless of their political systems and human rights policies. But more recently the company had embraced Michael Porter’s “shared value” paradigm, which argues that companies have a responsibility to improve the business community and the health of their communities. What should Schneider do? Harvard Business School professor Geoffrey Jones discusses the viability of the shared value concept and the social responsibility of transnational corporations today in the case, “Nestlé, Shared Value and KitKat Diplomacy.”

Wordle went from a personal game, created by a developer for his girlfriend, to a global phenomenon with two million users in just a few months. Then The New York Times made an unexpected bid to acquire it. But will Wordle outlast other pandemic pastimes? Harvard Business School senior lecturer Christina Wallace discusses the journey of software engineer and accidental entrepreneur Josh Wardle in the case, “Wordle.”