Project 2 (Team project)
Objective: Analyze a listed company based on how it is responding to a big trend (e.g. Poly Medicure to dialysis demand growth in India/RoW, Amara Raja to Li-ion battery trend)
Submission format: A Word document converted to PDF. Page limit 6 pages, including references (12pt font)
1. Choose company A: Please choose a listed company A. You will be referring to multi-year annual reports (ARs) spanning 3 to 5 years, as well as CXO interviews conducted during this period, and at least one earnings call. Enter your choice **in this sheet**. Please provide the reference (i.e., which annual report, page number, etc.) for every answer.
2. Choose a trend B: Please choose a big trend B that, in your opinion, is likely to significantly impact / already impacting the chosen company A's business. Enter the trend in the Google sheet.
3. Choose A's competitor C: Choose another listed company C that is A's competitor. Enter C in the Google sheet.
Part-A
4. Innovation dashboard: Based on the recent annual reports, present an innovation dashboard for company A. Make sure it covers elements like top business challenges, crux clarity, products/services/concepts/technologies, participation indicators (kaizen, continuous improvement, any other processes), R&D actual/as a percentage of revenue, no of experiments, pilots, patents, papers, laboratories, number of greenfield projects, no of brownfield projects, technology platforms, startup investments, strategic partnerships, % of revenue from new products, etc.
5. Earnings call: Based on one quarterly earnings call, identify
(a) 2 bright spots (what is working well)
(b) 2 dark spots (what is not working well)
(c) At least one bias exhibited by the leadership team in answering questions (e.g. confirmation bias, overconfidence bias, outcome bias, status-quo bias, etc.)
(d) Which is your favorite question from the analysts that brought out some information about the company's innovation stamina? Why?
5. Assessment of innovation dashboard: Based on sectoral baselines, write your comments on A's innovation dashboard. What additional information would have helped strengthen the dashboard?
Part-B
6. Acknowledgment of the challenge: Please refer to previous years' ARs of A. Mention the earliest evidence (if any) where A's management has acknowledged the trend B as a challenge and/or opportunity. How have they articulated the challenge? When did this happen?
7. Initial response: What triggered Company A to initiate a response to the trend B? (e.g. Trigger for Amara Raja's response was growth in the EV market). What was the initial response? When was this response created?
8. Strategic bet: When did the company make a strategic bet to respond to trend B? What is the bet? When did it make the announcement? What budget did the company commit over how many years? What triggered it? (e.g. Amara Raja's billion-dollar bet on Li-ion Gigafactory). Using the real-win-worth-it framework, guess the ease with which the big bet passed the 3 criteria (real, win, worth-it).
9. Innovation vs complementary assets: Identify company A's innovation assets and complementary assets relevant for the bet. How did management build/improve its innovation assets? And how did it strengthen/acquire complementary assets in its strategic response? Please justify.
10. Business model tinkering: Describe A's business model (who-what-3-hows). Assess the business model based on 3 VCs (Value creation, Value capture, Value compounding). How did the company change its business model in response to trend B?
11. Strategic levers: Which strategic levers did company A utilize in executing the bet? Did it create an innovation sandbox (focused experimentation capacity)? If so, what were its elements? Did it create a platform? If so, briefly describe it: What were the reusable assets? Did it invest/partner with start-ups? If so, briefly mention the nature of collaboration. Did it use any other lever?
12. Margin of safety: What catastrophic risk(s) can you identify for company A, especially in the context of trend B? What steps has company A taken to safeguard against the catastrophic risks?
Part-C
13. A vs C on response to B: How do you compare A's response to that of competitor C to trend B? Consider dimensions such as quality of innovation assets, speed, focus, partnerships, etc.
14. Your recommendation: What is your recommendation to A's management at this point? Why?
