Alacra, Inc.

Lynda M. Applegate; Aldo  Sesia

Case | HBS Case Collection | July 2009 (Revised January 2014)

Alacra, Inc.

Abstract

In 2009, the CEO of Alacra, a venture-backed information services firm that provides customized data primarily to financial services firms, must decide how to respond to the global economic crisis.

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Entrepreneurship; Crisis Management; Information Industry;

Language: English

Format: Print

20 pages

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Citation:

Applegate, Lynda M., and Aldo Sesia. "Alacra, Inc." Harvard Business School Case 810-012, July 2009. (Revised January 2014.)

Mike Zani and Daniel Muzquiz needed to decide next steps to create a new category in the human resources consulting industry and scale their company.
Zani and Muzquiz, serial entrepreneurs, acquired Predictive Index in 2014. Previously, as clients of the 65-year-old Predictive Index, they had used its behavioral assessment tool to help them hire staff and build teams and they strongly believed in its value. They also believed, however, that Predictive Index had the potential to be something more. After acquiring the company, they invested in technology and people to modernize the business, and Predictive Index earned recognition as a “best place to work.” In 2018, they developed a Talent Optimization platform, an offering that had the potential to transform the industry by helping companies align their business strategies with their human capital and leadership development strategies. In late 2019, as they prepared a broad rollout of Talent Optimization, and planned to scale their business by an order of magnitude, the pair wondered what hurdles they might face along the way and what other steps they should take to reach their goals.

Case | HBS Case Collection | April 2019 (Revised June 2020)

Wendell Weeks at Corning Inc.: Extending a History of Life-Changing Innovations (A)

Ryan Raffaelli, David G. Fubini and Aldo Sesia

This case examines the leadership challenges associated with maintaining a culture of innovation in established organizations. It asks students to step into the shoes of a leader faced with making several tough decisions about when to invest (or to stop investing) in radical innovation projects. Corning CEO Wendell Weeks, who nearly bankrupted the company in the early 2000s when he overinvested in fiber optics, must initially decide if the company should enter a then-risky deal with Steve Jobs to produce the glass covers for the first generation iPhones. The case then asks students to analyze the Corning’s 157-year innovation agenda that started with the development of a bulb-shaped glass encasement for Thomas Edison's new incandescent lamp. In the years that followed, Corning made investments that led to products such as PYREX cookware, fiber-optic broadband cable, LCD television screens, Gorilla Glass, and a recent bet on pharmaceuticals. At the end of the case, Weeks must decide if Corning should continue to invest in a new pharmaceutical packaging product that held enormous promise, but had already cost the company $200 million in R&D and might divert resources and attention from other key business lines.

Keywords: Innovation and Invention; Organizational Culture; Innovation Leadership; History; Technological Innovation; Investment; Decision Making;

Citation:

Raffaelli, Ryan, David G. Fubini, and Aldo Sesia. "Wendell Weeks at Corning Inc.: Extending a History of Life-Changing Innovations (A)." Harvard Business School Case 419-003, April 2019. (Revised June 2020.) View Details

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