Klöckner & Co: Steeling for a Digital World

Scott Duke Kominers; Carin-Isabel  Knoop

Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2020

Klöckner & Co: Steeling for a Digital World

by Scott Duke Kominers and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Abstract

Hoping to get ahead of potential digital disruption at Klöckner & Co. – one of the world’s largest steel and metal distributors – CEO Gisbert Rühl set up both kloeckner.i (KCI), an internal transformation arm, and XOM Materials (XOM), an independent industry platform. KCI and XOM sought to digitize the $350 billion materials supply and service chain, and promote greater price transparency and efficiency. However, the materials market traditionally resisted digitalization, making the process longer, harder, and more expensive than expected. As 2020 opened, Rühl and his teams wondered how they could dramatically increase uptake.

Keywords: digital transformation; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Market Design; Market Platforms; Multi-Sided Platforms; Markets; Industry Structures; Supply and Industry; Technology Platform; Technology Adoption; Transformation; Steel Industry; Information Technology Industry; Europe; Germany;

Language: English

Format: Print

20 pages

Educators Purchase

Citation:

Kominers, Scott Duke, and Carin-Isabel Knoop. "Klöckner & Co: Steeling for a Digital World." Harvard Business School Case 820-035, February 2020.

COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) therapy is currently a leading treatment for COVID-19. At present, there is a shortage of CCP relative to demand. We develop and analyze a model of centralized CCP allocation that incorporates both donation and distribution. In order to increase CCP supply, we introduce a mechanism that utilizes two incentive schemes, respectively based on principles of “paying it backward" and “paying it forward." Under the first scheme, CCP donors obtain treatment vouchers that can be transferred to patients of their choosing. Under the latter scheme, patients obtain priority for CCP therapy in exchange for a future pledge to donate CCP if possible. We show that in steady-state, both principles generally increase overall treatment rates for all patients—not just those who are voucher-prioritized or pledged to donate. Our results also hold under certain conditions if a fraction of CCP is reserved for patients who participate in clinical trials. Finally, we examine the implications of pooling blood types on the efficiency and equity of CCP distribution.

We prove configuration results for extremal Type II codes, analogous to the configuration results of Ozeki and of the second author for extremal Type II lattices. Specifically, we show that for n ∈{8,24,32,48,56,72,96} every extremal Type II code of length n is generated by its codewords of minimal weight. Where Ozeki and Kominers used spherical harmonics and weighted theta functions, we use discrete harmonic polynomials and harmonic weight enumerators. Along the way we introduce "t12-designs" as a discrete analog of Venkov's spherical designs of the same name.

Faculty & Research

Klöckner & Co: Steeling for a Digital World

Abstract

Citation:

About the Author

More from the Author