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• Article | MIT Sloan Management Review

  The Magic That Makes Customer Experiences Stick

  Stefan H. Thomke

  Why do some customer experiences have that magical "wow" factor, making them all destined for success, while others get few, if any, enthusiastic customer responses? How would we "design" a great customer experience? These are some of the questions that the article addresses.

  Keywords: customer experience; Emotion; innovation; experimentation; storytelling; Customer Satisfaction; Emotions; Design; Innovation and Invention;

  Citation:

  Thomke, Stefan H. "The Magic That Makes Customer Experiences Stick." MIT Sloan Management Review 61, no. 1 (Fall 2019).  View Details

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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; Family Ownership;

  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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• Article | R&D Management | September 2018

  An Exploratory Study of Product Development in Emerging Economies: Evidence from Medical Device Testing in India

  Budhaditya Gupta and Stefan Thomke

  Recent research has studied innovation in emerging economies. However, microlevel product development processes in these economies are relatively unexplored, and the mechanisms by which the emerging economy context might affect such processes are still unclear. In this paper, we explore the testing routines fundamental to product development in one emerging economy. Based on an exploratory field study of medical device development projects in India, we observe the frequent, iterative testing of prototypes in clinical settings and investigate the related learning process. The observed testing approach is distinctly different from the comparatively linear and sequential approach adopted by medical device development teams in developed countries like the United States. Further, we suggest that such testing is feasible in India because of the prevailing regulatory flexibility, the cognitive orientation of device development practitioners, and the normative orientation of medical professionals.

  Keywords: product development; india; Product Development; Emerging Markets; Situation or Environment; Medical Devices and Supplies Industry; India;

  Citation:

  Gupta, Budhaditya, and Stefan Thomke. "An Exploratory Study of Product Development in Emerging Economies: Evidence from Medical Device Testing in India." R&D Management 48, no. 4 (September 2018): 485–501.  View Details

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