Sealed Air Corporation: Deciding the Fate of VTID

Elie  Ofek

Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2011 (Revised July 2012)

Sealed Air Corporation: Deciding the Fate of VTID

Abstract

In mid 2010 the Sealed Air Corporation has to decide on next steps for its novel video tracking technology (called VTID) after unsuccessful attempts to market it in three different industry settings. The company must determine whether its most recent target market, the quick-serve restaurant segment, is still worth pursuing or whether the company should look for a different application and market altogether. The company could also revisit the previous two applications, tracking and tracing processed meat and tracking employee safety practices. At the other extreme, after seven years of R&D and marketing efforts and millions of dollars in expenses, the company could cease attempts to commercialize VTID.

Keywords: Budgets and Budgeting; Customer Focus and Relationships; Decision Choices and Conditions; Technological Innovation; Marketing Strategy; Problems and Challenges; Commercialization; Service Industry;

Format: Print

25 pages

Educators Purchase

Citation:

Ofek, Elie. "Sealed Air Corporation: Deciding the Fate of VTID." Harvard Business School Case 512-029, August 2011. (Revised July 2012.)

In 2019, Chinese smartphone maker and telecommunications empire Huawei was preparing to launch its new flagship smartphone series, the Mate 30. After years of explosive growth, the previous 18 months had been a challenge for the company. In early 2018, Huawei’s planned smartphone launch in the U.S. had failed due to pressure from regulators who cited concerns about the company facilitating Chinese spying. Over the following months, a trade war between the U.S. and China had broken out, with Huawei at its epicenter. By mid-2019, after months of U.S. pressure and restrictions, Huawei found its supply chain for computer parts and software under siege and several governments around the world threatened to ban its 5G network equipment from their countries. In this unpredictable climate, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and his management team had to figure out not only how to successfully launch Mate 30 phones in the upcoming fall, but how to ensure the company’s long term viability.

Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2019

Lemonade: Disrupting Insurance with Instant Everything, Killer Prices, and a Big Heart

Elie Ofek and Danielle Golan

Launching its first products in the fall of 2016 in New York, insurtech startup Lemonade was on a mission to disrupt the insurance market by using AI and behavioral economics principles. The company offered renters, homeowners, and condo insurance and mainly targeted millennial, tech-savvy individuals with relatively few assets—customers who were less attractive to traditional insurers who had costly, labor-intensive operations. By offering a delightful, bot-driven consumer experience, embracing a model that removed any incentive to deny claims and that let customers pick causes to donate leftover money, building a loveable brand, and employing creative digital advertising—the company was able to grow at an impressive pace. By the end of 2018, Lemonade was active in 24 U.S. states, had insured 425,000 customers, and was expecting sales (gross premiums) of over $57 million.
In an effort to sustain the spectacular growth momentum, the co-founders sought to pursue ambitious plans in 2019, including the launch of new insurance product lines as well as international expansion. But limited resources and scarce management bandwidth suggested that taking on both moves simultaneously could be highly risky. In deciding which path to take, the leadership team had to consider whether it was more important at this stage to scale globally with the current product lineup or to cover a breadth of insurance categories and stay in the U.S. for now. Assessing the relevance of the business model and the role of AI for each of these moves, understanding the nature of consumers in different markets, and foreseeing competitive pressures from both incumbents and startups were key in making the right call.

Keywords: Business Startups; Insurance; Technological Innovation; Business Model; Disruption; Brands and Branding; Growth and Development Strategy; Global Strategy; Decision Making; Insurance Industry; Technology Industry;