Hewlett-Packard Company: The War Within

Krishna G. Palepu; Jay W. Lorsch; Carin-Isabel  Knoop; Eliot  Sherman

Case | HBS Case Collection | November 2006 (Revised May 2007)

Hewlett-Packard Company: The War Within

by Krishna G. Palepu, Jay W. Lorsch, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Eliot Sherman

Abstract

In September 2006 it was revealed that the Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) had been carrying out an extended investigation of its own employees, board members, and journalists outside the company. The investigation was launched in response to a series of leaks to the press that could only have come from highly placed members of the company. Fully understanding the context of the events of September, however, requires knowledge of board personalities and events that began under former CEO Carly Fiorina and continued thought the successful turnaround under her successor, Mark Hurd. As such, special focus is given to the individual board personalities and their conflicts over this time in order to fully explore the environment in which the investigation would later take place.

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Employee Relationship Management; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Governing and Advisory Boards; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Communication Technology; Conflict and Resolution; Newspapers; Computer Industry; Information Technology Industry;

Format: Print

35 pages

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Citation:

Palepu, Krishna G., Jay W. Lorsch, Carin-Isabel Knoop, and Eliot Sherman. "Hewlett-Packard Company: The War Within." Harvard Business School Case 107-030, November 2006. (Revised May 2007.)

In 2020, Olympic goal medal winning boxer and former heavyweight world champion Wladimir Klitschko had built himself a “second ring” to continue his career after retiring from professional boxing. He was a hotelier, boxing promoter, author, teacher, speaker, and had built an organization to train businesspeople on his “Challenge Management” philosophy. He believed that any problem could be turned into a challenge to be overcome, and he taught a method based around F.A.C.E.—Focus, Agility, Coordination, and Endurance—to do so. Some major European firms, including SAP and Deutsche Telekom, had begun using Klitschko’s methods to train their teams. Given the new realities of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, how could Klitschko use his method to help people around the world adapt?

Case | HBS Case Collection | July 2020 (Revised September 2020)

Property Finder's Strategy for Online Classifieds in the MENA Region

Krishna G. Palepu, Gamze Yucaoglu and Fares Khrais

The case opens in 2020 as Michael Lahyani, founder and CEO of Property Finder, Dubai’s leading online real estate classifieds portal, contemplates the company’s five-year growth strategy.
Since its founding in 2005 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Property Finder had secured multiple rounds of investments and expanded into countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The business grew following a proven business model revolving around monthly flat subscription fees paid by real estate brokers for packages of listings, while remaining free for end-customers to browse. By 2020, Property Finder had reached profitability in the UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar, which it considered its core markets, and had done significant brand building in newer markets of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, and Turkey.
In 2020, Lahyani needed to decide on the company’s growth strategy to increase profitability. Property Finder could focus on its core markets and switch to segmented pricing, lure in more developers to post first hand property directly, and create new revenue channels. Alternatively or in parallel, the company could tailor its business model to suit the dynamics of each of its newer markets. All the while, Lahyani had just onboarded a new executive team that was busy adjusting the organizational structure and institutionalizing procedures and processes. As a result, company resources were spread thin and Lahyani found himself at a crossroads; should the company focus its efforts on bolstering its position in incumbent markets and thus forego growth abroad, or should it pursue new markets and risk tarnishing its reputation in its core markets in case of a failure?

Keywords: General Business; real estate; Entrepreneurship; Property; Strategy; Emerging Markets; Growth Management; Real Estate Industry; Technology Industry; United Arab Emirates; Saudi Arabia; Egypt; Turkey;

Citation:

Palepu, Krishna G., Gamze Yucaoglu, and Fares Khrais. "Property Finder's Strategy for Online Classifieds in the MENA Region." Harvard Business School Case 321-009, July 2020. (Revised September 2020.) View Details

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Kenyan off-grid-solar pioneer d.light can power entire homes in rural Africa but must now decide how to fund the growth of its asset-heavy business model. Ned Tozun and Sam Goldman founded d.light in 2006 to transform lives through solar solutions enabling access to electricity, the seventh of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. Originally providing simple portable solar lanterns to people without access to reliable electricity, the enterprise developed solar home systems that included lights, mobile chargers, and an energy-efficient device such as a radio, fan or TV. By 2019, with the success of home systems, d.light had become one of the leading players in the off-grid solar sector, with the world’s largest distribution network for off-grid solar products and a projected revenue of over $90 million.
Key to d.light’s solar home systems was pay-as-you-go (PayGo) plans, a lease-to-own model consisting of a down payment followed by small (<$1.50) daily payments, normally for a period of 12 to 18 months. In 2019, sales from PayGo products were expected to contribute close to 70% of the company’s annual revenue. However, PayGo was an asset-heavy model and in the past 18 months, d.light had raised over $90 million, nearly 75% of which was in debt facilities. As the company continued to grow rapidly, its co-founders were deliberating whether they ought to go out and raise capital again. If so, should it be equity or debt? How much and from whom? If not now, when? Alternatively, should they modify the business model to reduce the company’s need for so much external funding?

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Hewlett-Packard Company: The War Within

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