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• Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2020 (Revised April 2020)

  Rumo: Infrastructure for a Healthier Economy

  Forest L. Reinhardt, Mariana Cal, Ruth Costas and Natalie Kindred

  Brazilian logistics company Rumo operated 13,500 km in railway networks, port terminals, and inland transshipment terminals, connecting major Brazilian ports to the agriculture hubs of Mato Grosso and São Paulo state. Controlled by Cosan, Brazil's leading sugar and ethanol producer, Rumo had been through a turnaround over the last three years, including heavy investment in operational improvements and financial deleverage, taking cash flow generation from a negative $278 million in 2015 to positive $15.3 million in 2018. In 2019, as the company planned its new expansion cycle ($3.4 billion would be invested from 2019 to 2023), Rumo's executives had to find the best way to continue to capture the value created, while preserving its relations with customers and other stakeholders.

  Keywords: Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Customer Relationship Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Logistics; Rail Transportation; Value Creation; Rail Industry; Transportation Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Latin America; Brazil;

  Citation:

  Reinhardt, Forest L., Mariana Cal, Ruth Costas, and Natalie Kindred. "Rumo: Infrastructure for a Healthier Economy." Harvard Business School Case 720-008, January 2020. (Revised April 2020.)  View Details

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• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | May 2016 (Revised March 2020)

  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 March 2020.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | December 2016 (Revised February 2020)

  Elders Limited

  Forest L. Reinhardt and Dawn H. Lau

  Keywords: Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Australia;

  Citation:

  Reinhardt, Forest L., and Dawn H. Lau. "Elders Limited." Harvard Business School Case 717-018, December 2016. (Revised February 2020.)  View Details

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