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• Case | HBS Case Collection | December 2018

  Corporate Transformation at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

  Joseph B. Fuller, Amy C. Edmondson, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Tonia Labruyere

  When Stefan Oschmann became CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, in 2016, the company had started its transformation from a mid-tier traditional German industry player to a global modern science and technology player. The restructuring and portfolio overhaul led by Oschmann’s predecessor Karl-Ludwig Kley since 2007 had been approved by the Merck founding family in its 13th generation, which still owned the majority of the shares. Its intermediate results had been encouraging. After three large acquisitions (Serono, Millipore, and Sigma-Aldrich) that broadened its reach from healthcare and pharmaceuticals into life sciences and performance materials and an internal optimization program, revenues and profitability had doubled in the decade leading up to 2016. But more needed to be done. Preparing for the company’s 350-year anniversary in 2018, Oschmann had kept up the pace of change, and announced further divestments and restructurings, sparking reactions from employees who expressed increasing exasperation about the new measures. In the fall of 2017 Oschmann and his Executive Board had to decide on the best strategic option for the company’s consumer health division. Should they divest a division that lacked scale but that with its consumer brands in pain and cold remedies was viewed as a symbol of the company’s origins? Was more change too much change in such a short time?

  Keywords: Corporate governance with Family Ownership; Transformation; Change Management; Restructuring; Corporate Governance;

  Citation:

  Fuller, Joseph B., Amy C. Edmondson, Daniela Beyersdorfer, and Tonia Labruyere. "Corporate Transformation at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany." Harvard Business School Case 319-072, December 2018.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | December 2017 (Revised December 2018)

  OCP Group

  Kristin Fabbe, Forest Reinhardt, Natalie Kindred and Alpana Thapar

  This case explores the strategy of OCP Group, the 95% state-owned Moroccan firm charged with managing the North African country’s vast reserves of phosphate. Phosphate was one of the most vital macronutrients for plant health, along with nitrogen and potassium, and Morocco had about 75% of known worldwide reserves. In 2017, under the leadership of Dr. Mostafa Terrab, OCP was halfway through a $20 billion industrial transformation program aimed at increasing its industrial capacity, improving cost efficiencies, and boosting long-term competitiveness. The program involved moving OCP beyond mining and exporting raw phosphate rock—its traditional focus, which it performed at a relatively low cost—towards greater production of phosphoric acid and finished fertilizer products. In the next phase of the program, OCP planned to ramp up its focus on fertilizer production, especially for markets in Africa, where fertilizer was historically underutilized. Terrab and his team saw an opportunity to nurture and meet fertilizer demand by creating products tailored to the needs of African farmers. This case provides background on Morocco, the fertilizer industry, and OCP Group’s past, current, and envisioned strategy and operations. With this context, students are invited to consider how aggressively OCP Group should pursue downstream integration (and specifically its Africa strategy), as well as how OCP can best leverage its competitive advantages and utilize Morocco’s phosphate reserves to its—and Morocco’s—benefit.

  Keywords: OCP; OCP Group; Casablanca; chemicals; Chemicals; Operations; Transformation; Competitive Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Chemical Industry; Morocco;

  Citation:

  Fabbe, Kristin, Forest Reinhardt, Natalie Kindred, and Alpana Thapar. "OCP Group." Harvard Business School Case 718-002, December 2017. (Revised December 2018.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | January 2018 (Revised November 2018)

  Index

  Jose Alvarez and Julia Kelley

  In December 2017, Marc Freed-Finnegan and Jonathan Wall, the co-founders of retail technology company Index, had to discuss the company’s direction as they entered 2018. Five years earlier, Freed-Finnegan and Wall had founded Index after observing the technological advantages that Amazon and other online retailers had over brick-and-mortar retailers. Index’s first product was a customer database tool that allowed brick-and-mortar retailers to collect customer contact information (e.g., email addresses) at the time of checkout. Index soon added automated marketing tools and payment/security tools (e.g., encryption) to its product portfolio. However, selling to large retail chains had proved challenging—many stakeholders were involved in the buying decision, creating a long sales process, and some retailers did not understand why they should trust a small, young company with their payment security. By late 2017, Index had made some changes to reduce the average sales cycle, but there was still room for improvement. Now, Index was preparing to launch a new product, Index Connect, that would essentially allow retailers to pool customer contact data and be more competitive with Amazon. Participants must evaluate whether Index was taking the right approach to sales and marketing and consider how the company could position Index Connect to be a success.

  Keywords: Product Launch; Product Positioning; Sales; Strategy; Marketing Strategy; Retail Industry; Technology Industry;

  Citation:

  Alvarez, Jose, and Julia Kelley. "Index." Harvard Business School Case 518-038, January 2018. (Revised November 2018.)  View Details

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