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• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | May 2016 (Revised December 2019)

  Cyberdyne: A Leap to the Future

  Doug J. Chung and Mayuka Yamazaki

  Cyberdyne Inc. was a Japanese technology venture founded in 2004 by scientist Yoshiyuki Sankai to commercialize a hybrid assistive limb (HAL). HAL was a robotic exoskeleton system for people who had difficulty walking due to nervous system disabilities resulting from stroke, spinal cord injury (SCI), and intractable neuromuscular diseases. In a person with neuromuscular disorders, signals transmitted from the brain to steer muscle movement are weakened, causing ambulatory difficulty. HAL could noninvasively read faint signals that leaked to the skin surface and amplify them, which drove actuators to assist limb movement. In other words, when a person wearing HAL tried to move his or her limb, HAL assisted the person in moving the limb. As a result, HAL enabled the person’s brain to relearn how to walk, as HAL could reinforce the neurological system’s transmission. In order to sell and promote HAL in the U.S., the world’s largest medical device market, Cyberdyne submitted an application to the Food Drug and Administration (FDA) in November 2014 and eagerly awaited approval.
  The case concentrates on the marketing decisions that Cyberdyne has to make to bring HAL to the U.S. market once Cyberdyne obtains FDA approval. The students can consider target-market selection and accompanying marketing-mix elements—distribution, promotion, and price. The case provides students the opportunity to understand and utilize marketing-mix elements when bringing a technologically innovative product to market in a business-to-business context.

  Keywords: Health Disorders; Technological Innovation; Marketing Strategy; Decisions; Product Launch; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry;

  Citation:

  Chung, Doug J., and Mayuka Yamazaki. "Cyberdyne: A Leap to the Future." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 516-114, May 2016. (Revised December 2019.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | June 2008 (Revised September 2019)

  Yataro Iwasaki: Founding Mitsubishi (A)

  Geoffrey Jones, Masako Egawa and Mayuka Yamazaki

  Considers the entrepreneurial career of the founder of Mitsubishi, Yataro Iwasaki, who built a large shipping company against the opposition of powerful Western incumbents. Although sometimes supported by the Japanese government, and often times opposed, the case identifies Iwasaki's entrepreneurial talent and organization-building skills as key drivers of success. This case provides a vehicle for examining the entrepreneurial factors behind Japan's remarkable transition from a feudal to a modern society in the second half of the nineteenth century.

  Keywords: History; Leadership; Business History; Organizational Structure; Entrepreneurship; Business and Government Relations; Japan;

  Citation:

  Jones, Geoffrey, Masako Egawa, and Mayuka Yamazaki. "Yataro Iwasaki: Founding Mitsubishi (A)." Harvard Business School Case 808-158, June 2008. (Revised September 2019.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2019

  JTC: Stronger Together with Shared Ownership

  Ethan Bernstein and Daniela Beyersdorfer

  Nigel Le Quesne, CEO of Jersey-based financial services firm JTC, firmly believed that "shared ownership" was at the heart of his company’s successful track record. The firm had seen its revenues, profits, and number of clients and staff grow steadily throughout its over 30-year history, and management attributed much of its competitive edge to its culture in which engaged employee owners had fully aligned interests and collaborated for the greater good of the firm. Le Quesne had seeded the first employee benefit trust with some of his own equity when becoming CEO in 1998, making all employees—from the receptionists to top executives—direct shareholders in the firm. Over time, the employee owned equity had grown from 5% to 23% and the trusts created significant value that had already been directly distributed to employees in two past pay-out events. In 2018, after JTC’s successful IPO, Le Quesne and his leadership team have to decide if and how to adjust the shared ownership tools to their new public markets environment.

  Keywords: Ownership; Employee Ownership; Leadership Style; Compensation and Benefits; Organizational Culture; Employee Stock Ownership Plan; Going Public; Mission and Purpose; Management Practices and Processes; Human Resources; Financial Services Industry; Channel Islands; Europe; United States;

  Citation:

  Bernstein, Ethan, and Daniela Beyersdorfer. "JTC: Stronger Together with Shared Ownership." Harvard Business School Case 420-008, September 2019.  View Details

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