business development case studies

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Top 40 Most Popular Case Studies of 2021

Two cases about Hertz claimed top spots in 2021's Top 40 Most Popular Case Studies

Two cases on the uses of debt and equity at Hertz claimed top spots in the CRDT’s (Case Research and Development Team) 2021 top 40 review of cases.

Hertz (A) took the top spot. The case details the financial structure of the rental car company through the end of 2019. Hertz (B), which ranked third in CRDT’s list, describes the company’s struggles during the early part of the COVID pandemic and its eventual need to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy. 

The success of the Hertz cases was unprecedented for the top 40 list. Usually, cases take a number of years to gain popularity, but the Hertz cases claimed top spots in their first year of release. Hertz (A) also became the first ‘cooked’ case to top the annual review, as all of the other winners had been web-based ‘raw’ cases.

Besides introducing students to the complicated financing required to maintain an enormous fleet of cars, the Hertz cases also expanded the diversity of case protagonists. Kathyrn Marinello was the CEO of Hertz during this period and the CFO, Jamere Jackson is black.

Sandwiched between the two Hertz cases, Coffee 2016, a perennial best seller, finished second. “Glory, Glory, Man United!” a case about an English football team’s IPO made a surprise move to number four.  Cases on search fund boards, the future of malls,  Norway’s Sovereign Wealth fund, Prodigy Finance, the Mayo Clinic, and Cadbury rounded out the top ten.

Other year-end data for 2021 showed:

• Online “raw” case usage remained steady as compared to 2020 with over 35K users from 170 countries and all 50 U.S. states interacting with 196 cases.
• Fifty four percent of raw case users came from outside the U.S..
• The Yale School of Management (SOM) case study directory pages received over 160K page views from 177 countries with approximately a third originating in India followed by the U.S. and the Philippines.
• Twenty-six of the cases in the list are raw cases.
• A third of the cases feature a woman protagonist.
• Orders for Yale SOM case studies increased by almost 50% compared to 2020.
• The top 40 cases were supervised by 19 different Yale SOM faculty members, several supervising multiple cases.

CRDT compiled the Top 40 list by combining data from its case store, Google Analytics, and other measures of interest and adoption.

All of this year’s Top 40 cases are available for purchase from the Yale Management Media store .

And the Top 40 cases studies of 2021 are:

1.   Hertz Global Holdings (A): Uses of Debt and Equity

2.   Coffee 2016

3.   Hertz Global Holdings (B): Uses of Debt and Equity 2020

4.   Glory, Glory Man United!

5.   Search Fund Company Boards: How CEOs Can Build Boards to Help Them Thrive

6.   The Future of Malls: Was Decline Inevitable?

7.   Strategy for Norway's Pension Fund Global

8.   Prodigy Finance

9.   Design at Mayo

10. Cadbury

11. City Hospital Emergency Room

13. Volkswagen

14. Marina Bay Sands

15. Shake Shack IPO

16. Mastercard

17. Netflix

18. Ant Financial

19. AXA: Creating the New CR Metrics

20. IBM Corporate Service Corps

21. Business Leadership in South Africa's 1994 Reforms

22. Alternative Meat Industry

23. Children's Premier

24. Khalil Tawil and Umi (A)

25. Palm Oil 2016

26. Teach For All: Designing a Global Network

27. What's Next? Search Fund Entrepreneurs Reflect on Life After Exit

28. Searching for a Search Fund Structure: A Student Takes a Tour of Various Options

30. Project Sammaan

31. Commonfund ESG

32. Polaroid

33. Connecticut Green Bank 2018: After the Raid

34. FieldFresh Foods

35. The Alibaba Group

36. 360 State Street: Real Options

37. Herman Miller

38. AgBiome

39. Nathan Cummings Foundation

40. Toyota 2010

Business Development

Processes, Methods and Tools

• © 2023
• Latest edition
• Andreas Kohne 0

Hessisch Oldendorf, Germany

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• Easy to implement business development process in six steps
• Relevant businsess development case study included
• General approach that can be used in any business

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About this book

This reference book provides a compact overview of the increasingly important topic of Business Development. The author not only describes the role of the Business Development Manager with its tasks, but also shows how Business Development can be organizationally integrated into a company. In addition, a prototypical Business Development Process is specifically presented and explained using a case study.

The second, revised and expanded edition of the reference book shows that crises can also be an opportunity, explains specific Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Business Development and describes new digital business models. In addition, the book was supplemented by a practical interview and quotes from business and science.

The reference book helps everyone who is responsible for introducing or optimizing Business Development in the company or who wants to work in this area in the future.

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

Front matter, introduction.

Andreas Kohne

Target Market

Interview with björn radde, in six steps to business development, quotes from science and business, back matter, authors and affiliations, about the author, bibliographic information.

Book Title : Business Development

Book Subtitle : Processes, Methods and Tools

Authors : Andreas Kohne

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38844-7

Publisher : Springer Vieweg Wiesbaden

eBook Packages : Computer Science , Computer Science (R0)

Copyright Information : Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023

Softcover ISBN : 978-3-658-38843-0 Published: 01 December 2022

eBook ISBN : 978-3-658-38844-7 Published: 30 November 2022

Edition Number : 2

Number of Pages : XV, 162

Number of Illustrations : 20 b/w illustrations

Topics : Computing Milieux , Information Systems and Communication Service , IT in Business , Management , Marketing , Sales/Distribution

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Corning Incorporated (A): Reinventing New Business Development

Throughout its history, Corning Incorporated had maintained a strong dedication to technology and innovation, committing approximately four to six percent of its annual sales to research, development, and engineering (RD&E) until the late 1990s when this figure climbed to 10 percent. Even when the company was faced with severe financial challenges in the early 2000s by a crash in the telecommunications industry, its largest business segment, Corning saw investment in innovation- and particularly in new business development- as its road to recovery. While other companies might have slashed their RD&E budgets in a desperate effort to regain profitability, Corning increased and formalized the amount of time, money, and resources it dedicated to the identification of potentially large new businesses. As the company emerged from its financial crisis, management set a goal to double Corning’s rate of innovation with the objective of launching two to four significant new businesses each decade. To accomplish its ambitious goals, Corning created an organization called Strategic Growth. The purpose of this new team was to collaborate with corporate research to identify and develop new, large (approximately $0.5 billion), and profitable business opportunities. Under the leadership of Dr. Mark Newhouse, a Corning senior vice president, Strategic Growth was more than three years into its charter by late 2007. Although the group had realized many accomplishments since its inception, the question facing Newhouse, his team, and Corning’s executives was how well the company’s innovative approach to organic growth was working. This case describes the Strategic Growth organization, its process, and its challenges.

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Case writing is a vital force behind research at HBS. Nearly 80 percent of cases used at business schools worldwide are developed by HBS faculty. HBS case studies have helped refine the skills and business judgment of tens of thousands of students, practitioners, and academics across the world. The School is continually expanding and refreshing course content as HBS faculty write new cases that span the globe, industries, disciplines, and organizational forms in the public, private for profit, and non-profit spaces. As its faculty continues to develop case studies, the School is shaping business learning and educating future leaders in a positive way for years to come.

What is a case study?

The HBS case study is a teaching vehicle that presents students with a critical management issue and serves as a springboard to lively classroom debate in which participants present and defend their analysis and prescriptions. The average case is 15 to 20 pages long (about 7 to 12 pages of prose and 5 to 7 pages of tables and figures). The two main types of cases at the School are field cases based on onsite research, and library cases written solely from public sources. HBS also writes "armchair" cases based entirely on faculty’s general knowledge and experience. Moreover, in 1995, the School’s Educational Technology Services began producing multimedia cases that provide a rich learning experience by bringing together video, audio, graphics, animation, and other mediums.

Case research and writing

At HBS, academic research and case development are connected and mutually reinforcing. Cases provide the opportunity for faculty to assess and develop ideas, spark insights on nascent research questions early in a project, illustrate theory in practice, and get feedback in the classroom on those very concepts. In addition, case writing provides faculty a means to collaborate and to develop research ideas both across disciplines and across institutions.

Field case development is a dynamic and collaborative process in which faculty engage business or governmental leaders, sometimes working together with a colleague at HBS or at other academic institutions. The Case Studies for Harvard Business School brochure is a helpful resource to organizations interested in working with the School on a case. Case leads are identified based on a faculty’s teaching purpose and may arise as the result of a past relationship with an executive, a former student, or from a professor’s interest in exploring with a company’s management team a situation that would provide a meaningful learning experience. HBS works closely with host organizations to guarantee confidentiality.

Field cases typically take two months to complete - from obtaining a host organization’s approval to move forward on a case, to conducting onsite interviews, and drafting a case that paints a picture of the management issue and provides a mix of real-world uncertainty and information required for decision-making analysis.

Case support

A vast array of case-writing support is available to HBS faculty. Support is provided by case writers who work as individual research associates or are available on a project by project basis through our on-campus Case Research and Writing Group and eight regional research centers ( Asia-Pacific , California , Europe , India , Japan , Latin America , Harvard Center Shanghai , and Istanbul). Baker Library’s extensive business collection and specialist librarians comprise another invaluable research and case-writing resource.

Participating in a Case Study

Case Studies:  Business Development

Commercial Strategy

Market Research

Payer Strategy/ Reimbusement Planning

Business Development

Competitive Intelligence

Portfolio Planning/ Indication Scans

1. Case Study

Demand modeling for a novel rna technology in a mass market: using conjoint to inform partnership discussions, the problem.

A small, privately held clinical stage biotech sought to quantify the dynamics at play in a mass market cardiovascular indication in the US, with an emphasis on a recently launched franchise that they would be competing against with their RNA technology

Their goal was to inform a launch forecast, clinical development decisions, and help in partnership negotiations

What We Did

• Designed and executed an Internet survey with academic and community cardiologists in the US
• Used conjoint to create a user-friendly “what-if” scenario modeling tool to forecast scenarios across various patient and physician segments in 2 and 3 and 4 product markets
• Uncovered the dynamics behind a key relationship between 2 product attributes that had previously been hidden, leading to a re-thinking of clinical development

Our Results and Insights

• Identified key attributes at play; structured conjoint scheme to run parallel studies spanning 3 patient types
• Designed a concise conjoint grid spanning attributes and levels of highest competitive importance
• Modeled a series of 2, 3, and 4 product markets across various patient types, uncovering unexpected pockets of opportunity
• Conducted sensitivity analyses to uncover hidden relationships between product attributes across segments
• Integrated sensitivity analyses across patient segments in visually compelling ways
• Synthesized data into a series of actionable insights; uncovered the dynamics behind a key relationship between 2 attributes that had previously been hidden, leading to a re-thinking of clinical development

2. Case Study

Commercial diligence for licensing: global forecast modeling for a phase 3 asset in an orphan pediatric cns disease.

• A mid-sized public biotech company was conducting due diligence on a potential in-licensing asset and commissioned a global research study to understand the demand for a key late stage asset with 2 launch indications
• In addition, they wanted a global launch forecast and valuation tool for scenario planning
• Qualitative primary research with KOL physicians and dietitians in 8 countries involved in 2 rare pediatric neurological conditions
• Built a cohort-level demand forecast with customizable assumptions (spanning awareness, diagnosis rate, compliance, persistence, and share) by year and by country
• Client used this NPV forecast as the basis for their final negotiations
• Mapping the patient segments laid the groundwork for defining the opportunity
• Patient lifecycle is complex; demand was a function of patient age and severity
• Given the familiarity with the mechanism of action, respondents identified a number of patient segments where Product X would be a natural fit
• Country differences regarding Product X were stark between the US/ Europe and South America
• Using the qualitative research, a country-level forecast and NPV tool was built with customizable assumptions for scenario planning
• The NPV output reflected different uptake rates based on launch timing and geography

3. Case Study

Determining global prevalence of a niche market with poor epidemiological understanding.

• A mid-sized pharmaceutical client was in a quandary: they had a compelling asset with a well-defined clinical target, but had only a very rough estimate of the market size due to poor epidemiology coverage in the medical literature
• To advance partnership discussions, they sought to estimate the global genetic and diagnosed prevalence of this rare condition using an efficient, cost-effective custom methodology
• Conducted a 10-minute survey among n=500 “all-comers” across 3 specialties and 4 countries; supplemented this with rigorous secondary research
• Quantitative techniques were used to extrapolate prevalence to real-world while stratifying for patient age and severity and eliminating duplicate patients who are comanaged by multiple physicians
• Aquest arrived at an accurate figure for global diagnosed prevalence that allowed the client to adequately forecast and advance partnership discussions
• Survey provided a quantitative understanding of the patient journey which allowed us to correct for double counting at the country-level
• Using a battery of diagnostic questions we were able to estimate both the genetic prevalence and the diagnosed prevalence to high accuracy
• We concluded with high precision (and by geography) that doctors treat 8 unique patients in a 3-month period
• A final summary of prevalence by patient segment and by country was obtained, allowing the client to adequately forecast and advance partnership discussions

4. Case Study

Preparing for a partnership: clinical development strategy and forecasting for novel prostate cancer molecule.

• A privately-held, development stage pharmaceutical company needed a strategic partner and, in preparation for this, wanted to clarify the current and future treatment landscape of prostate cancer, and forecast revenue across several potential indications for its novel asset
• The disease state is competitive, with multiple other products expanding their indications and targeted therapies expected to become more prominent
• Reviewed the current standards of care and identified treatment gaps and clinical development opportunities for potential indications alone or as a combination therapy Based on these potential indications, we identified patient segments and potential market sizing based on approvals.
• Using this, we forecast a range of peak year revenue based on variable clinical trial success and patient uptake
• Mapped the expected future treatment landscape, showing both line extensions within the same class and the emergence of targeted therapies
• Identified potential market size based on targeted indications
• Used completed and ongoing clinical trials in the therapeutic area as an analogue for expected clinical trial design
• Forecast peak year revenue based on variable clinical trial success and uptake across the targeted indications

5. Case Study

Ex-us opportunity assessment, view the case.

A mid-sized pharmaceutical company decided to take a fresh look at potential agents to in-license. Their question was simple yet challenging: are there any attractive opportunities among compounds currently marketed in ex-US territories that have never been reviewed by the FDA? Aquest built a sophisticated data gathering and screening tool (keying off such value drivers as strength of clinical evidence, therapeutic area attractiveness, commercial potential, regulatory pathway risk, and IP status). A process that started with over 10,000 compounds resulted in a prioritized list of 10 promising agents, several of which were selected for more intensive diligence.

6. Case Study

Drug delivery technology assessment.

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• A Game-Changing Business Development Strategy to Achieve Consistent Growth

Your business development strategy can be key to the success or failure of your firm. In this post, we’ll explore how to create a strategy and associated plan that can propel an individual, a practice or an entire firm to new levels of growth and profitability.

Business Development Defined

Business development (BD) is the process used to identify, nurture and acquire new clients and business opportunities to drive growth and profitability. A business development strategy is a document that describes the strategy you will use to accomplish that goal.

The scope of business development can vary a lot from organization to organization. Consider the model professional services organizations use to get new business shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The three stages of the business development funnel

The first two stages of the model, Attract Prospects and Build Engagement, are traditional marketing functions. The final stage, Turn Opportunities into Clients, is a traditional sales function. In its traditional role, business development would be looking for new channels of distribution or marketing partners.

But roles are changing and naming conventions evolve. In today’s world many firms refer to the entire marketing and sales process as business development. We know, it can be confusing. So let’s sort it out a bit.

Business Development vs. Marketing

Marketing is the process of determining which products and services you will offer to which target audiences, at what price. It also addresses how you will position and promote your firm and its offerings in the competitive marketplace. The result of all this activity should be an increasing awareness of your firm among your target audience — and a stronger flow of qualified leads and opportunities.

Download the Business Development Guide

Historically, business development has been a subset of the marketing function that was focused on acquiring new marketing or distribution relationships and channels. While this role still exists in many companies, the business development title has become interchangeable with many marketing and sales functions.  

Business Development vs. Sales

Sales is the task of converting leads or opportunities into new clients. Business development is a broader term that encompasses many activities beyond the sales function. And while there is some overlap, most traditional BD roles are only lightly involved in closing new clients.  

Business development is often confused with sales. This is not too surprising because many people who are clearly in sales have taken to using the title of Business Developer . Presumably this is done because the organization believes that the BD designation avoids the stigma sometimes associated with sales.

Nowhere is this practice more prevalent than in professional services. Accountants, lawyers and strategy consultants do not want to be seen as “pushy sales people.” This titular bias is firmly rooted despite the fact that developing new business is an important role of most senior members of professional services firms. Also, the many aspects of the traditional business development role (finding new distribution channels, for instance) don’t translate easily to the professional services environment.

Since so many clients want to meet and get to know the professionals they will be working with, the Seller-Doer role is well established in many firms. The preference for Seller-Doers also tends to discourage firms from fielding a full-time sales force.

As an alternative approach to leveraging fee-earners’ time, some firms have one or more Business Developers on staff. In the professional services context, these folks are often involved in lead generation and qualification, as well as supporting the Seller-doers in their efforts to close new clients. In other organizational contexts, this role might be thought of as a sales support role.

The result of this confusing picture is that many professional services firms call sales “business development” and make it part of every senior professional’s role. They may also include some marketing functions, such as lead generation and lead nurturing, into the professional’s BD responsibilities.

It is on this expanded role — in which business development encompasses the full range of lead-generation, nurturing and sales tasks — that we will concentrate on in this post.

See also: Heller Consulting Case Story

Business Development Examples

To clarify what the professional services business development role entails, let’s consider this business development example:

Bethany is the Director of Business Development at a fictional mid-sized architecture firm. She is not an architect herself. Nor is she involved in any aspect of delivering client projects. Instead, her role is exclusively focused on signing new business for her firm—whether new or existing clients. 

For new clients, Bethany spends much of her time responding to RFPs, communicating directly with inbound leads generated by the marketing/sales enablement team, and nurturing potential clients that she met at a recent industry conference. Bethany also collaborates with the marketing team in the development of any materials she needs to sell to new accounts.

When it comes to existing accounts, Bethany also plays a major role. She meets monthly with delivery teams to understand whether current client projects are on scope or if change orders are needed. She also maintains a relationship with clients’ key stakeholders. If an opportunity for more work opens, she knows that her relationship with the client is an important component of the potential deal.

In this example, Bethany is the primary driver of business development but that does not mean she is doing this alone. Her colleague, Greg, is a lead architect at the firm. While Greg’s primary focus is delivering for his clients, business development—and even marketing—is also an important part of his professional life. Greg often attends industry conferences with Bethany, where he is a speaker and subject matter expert and she is the primary networker. The business development dynamic should not end with Bethany, and it should permeate the whole organization.

In this business development example, you can see that the range of roles and responsibilities is wide. This is why it is essential that business development be delivered strategically. Let’s talk about what that means.

Strategic Business Development

Not every business development activity has the same impact. In fact, many are opportunistic and tactical in nature. This is especially true for many Seller-Doers. 

Caught between the pressures of client work and an urgent need to bring in new business, they cast about for something quick and easy—maybe a small piece of business at a low price point—that will produce short term results. Of course, this is no real strategy at all.

Strategic business development is the alignment of business development processes and procedures with your firm’s strategic business goals. The role of strategic business development is to acquire ideal clients—the kind that are highly profitable and aren’t overly demanding—for your highest priority services using brand promises that you can deliver upon.

Deciding which targets to pursue and strategies to employ can be a high stakes decision. A good strategy, well implemented, can drive high levels of growth and profitability. A poorly conceived strategy can stymie growth and frustrate valuable talent.

Yet many firms falter at this critical step. They rely on habit, anecdotes and fads — or worse still, that innovation killer, “this is how we have always done it.” In a later section, we’ll explain how to develop your strategic business development plan. But first let’s explore some of the strategies that might go into that plan.

Top Business Development Strategies

Let’s look at some of the most common business development strategies and how they stack up agains what today’s buyers are looking for .

Networking is probably the most universally used business development technique. It’s built on the ideas that professional services buying decisions are rooted in relationships, and the best way to develop new relationships is through face-to-face networking.

It certainly is true that many relationships are established in that way. And if you are networking with members of your target audience, you can develop new business. But there are limitations. Today’s buyers, however, are very time pressured, and networking is time consuming. It can be very expensive, if you consider travel and time away from the office.

Newer digital networking techniques can help on the cost and time front. But even social media requires an investment of time and attention.

A close relative of networking, referrals are often seen as the mechanism that turns networking and client satisfaction into new business. You establish a relationship, and that person refers new business to you. Satisfied clients do the same.

Without question, referrals are common, and many firms get most or all of their business from them. But referrals are passive. They rely on your clients and contacts to identify good prospects for your services and make a referral at the right time.

The problem is, referral sources often don’t know the full scope of your services or the range of ways you can help a client. So many referrals are poorly matched to your capabilities. Other well-matched referrals go unmade because your referral source fails to recognize a great prospect when they see one. Finally, many prospects that might be good clients rule out your firm before even talking with you. One  study puts that number at over 50%.

Importantly, there are new digital strategies that can accelerate referrals. Making your specific expertise more visible is the key. This allows people to make better referrals and increases your referral base beyond clients and a few business contacts.

Learn More: Referral Marketing Course

Sponsorships and Advertising

Can you develop new business directly by sponsoring events and advertising? It would solve a lot of problems if it works. No more trying to get time from fully utilized billable professionals.

Unfortunately, the results on this front are not very encouraging. Studies have shown that traditional advertising is actually associated with slower growth. Only when advertising is combined with other techniques, such as speaking at an event, do these techniques bear fruit.

The most promising advertising strategy seems to be well-targeted digital advertising. This allows firms to get their messages and offers in front of the right people at a lower cost.

Outbound Telephone and Mail

Professional services firms have been using phone calls and mail to directly target potential clients for decades. Target the right firms and roles with a relevant message and you would expect to find new opportunities that can be developed into clients.

There are a couple of key challenges with these strategies. First they are relatively expensive, so they need to be just right to be effective. Second, if you don’t catch the prospect at the right time, your offer may have no appeal relevance — and consequently, no impact on business development.

The key is to have a very appealing offer delivered to a very qualified and responsive list. It’s not easy to get this combination right.

Thought Leadership and Content Marketing

Here, the strategy is to make your expertise visible to potential buyers and referral sources. This is accomplished through writing, speaking or publishing content that demonstrates your expertise and how it can be applied to solve client problems.

Books, articles and speaking engagements have long been staples of professional services business development strategy. Many high visibility experts have built their practices and firms upon this strategy. It often takes a good part of a career to execute this approach.

But changing times and technology have reshaped this strategy. With the onset of digital communication it is now easier and much faster to establish your expertise with a target market. Search engines have leveled the playing field so that relatively unknown individuals and firms can become known even outside their physical region. Webinars have democratized public speaking, and blogs and websites give every firm a 24/7 presence. Add in video and social media and the budding expert can access a vastly expanded marketplace.

But these developments also open firms to much greater competition as well. You may find yourself competing with specialists whom you were never aware of. The impact is to raise the stakes on your business development strategy.

Combined Strategies

It is common to combine different business development strategies. For example, networking and referrals are frequently used together. And on one level, a combined strategy makes perfect sense. The strength of one strategy can shore up the weakness of another.

But there is a hidden danger. For a strategy to perform at its peak, it must be fully implemented. There is a danger that by attempting to execute too many different strategies you will never completely implement any of them.

Good intentions, no matter how ambitious, are of little real business development value. Under-investment, lack of follow through and inconsistent effort are the bane of effective business development.

It is far more effective to fully implement a simple strategy than to dabble in a complex one. Fewer elements, competently implemented, produce better results.

Next, we turn our attention to the tactics used to implement a high-level strategy. But first there is a bit of confusion to clear up.

Business Development Strategy Vs. Tactics

The line between strategy and tactics is not always clear. For example, you can think of networking as an overall business development strategy or as a tactic to enhance the impact of a thought leadership strategy. Confusing to be sure.

From our perspective, the distinction is around focus and intent. If networking is your business development strategy all your focus should be on making the networking more effective and efficient. You will select tactics that are aimed at making networking more powerful or easier. You may try out another marketing technique and drop it if it does not help you implement your networking strategy.

On the other hand, if networking is simply one of many tactics, your decision to use it will depend on whether it supports your larger strategy. Tactics and techniques can be tested and easily changed. Strategy, on the other hand, is a considered choice and does not change from day to day or week to week.

10 Most Effective Business Development Tactics

Which business development tactics are most effective? To find out, we recently conducted a study that looked at 824 professional services firms. The research identified those firms that were growing at greater than a 20% compound annual growth rate over a three-year period.

These High Growth firms were compared to firms in the same industry that did not grow over the same time period. We then examined which business development tactics were employed by each group and which provided the most impact.

The result is a list of the ten most impactful tactics employed by the High Growth firms:

• Outbound sales calls from internal teams
• Providing assessments and/or consultations
• Business development materials
• Speaking at targeted conferences or events
• Networking at targeted conferences or events
• Conducting and publishing original research
• Live product/service demonstrations
• Presenting in educational webinars
• Marketing partnerships with other organizations
• Case studies

There are a couple of key observations about these growth tactics. First, these techniques can be employed in service of different business development strategies. For example number four on the list, speaking at targeted conferences or events, can easily support a networking or a thought leadership strategy.

The other observation is that the top tactics include a mix of both digital and traditional techniques. As we will see when we develop your plan, having a healthy mix of digital and traditional techniques tends to increase the impact of your strategy.

Business Development Skills

Now that we have identified the key business development strategies and tactics, it is time to consider the business development skills your team will need. Business development skills require a broad range of technical skills but there are some that make a difference.

When the Hinge Research Institute studied marketing and business development skills in our annual High Growth Study , we found that the firms that grow faster have a skills advantage within their marketing and business development teams.

In Figure 2 below, we see which business development skills are the most important for the high growth firms:

Figure 2. Skill ratings by marketing function (High Growth vs. No Growth firms)

Let’s dive into the top three skills from this list. 

The number one business development skill high growth firms enjoy are strong project management skills. And for experienced business development specialists, this makes good sense. Staying organized, accurately tracking business development activity, and managing accounts are essential for building and maintaining strong business relationships. Sound project management practices also allow the business development team to product stronger proposals more quickly without sacrificing quality.

The next most important skill is simplifying complex concepts. In business development conversations, it is vital that team members are able to communicate your firm’s service offerings and capabilities in a ways that prospects can understand. Speaking in industry jargon or presenting overly complicated charts creates unnecessary confusion and friction. Therefore, it is no surprise to see that the fastest growing professional services firms have an advantage in communicating complex information in a way that buyers understand.

The third most important business development skill is data analytics. Firms that make a habit of regularly monitoring key metrics have a real advantage. They can see what marketing techniques are working and which are having problems. The allows them to make course corrections in near real time. Firms that rarely or never look at data are running blind, relying instead on potentially misleading anecdotal evidence.

Review the other business development and marketing skills in the figure above and determine which skills your team should aim to develop.  Developing these skills should be a key priority of your business development team.

How to Create Your Strategic Business Development Plan

A Business Development Plan is a document that outlines how you implement your business development strategy. It can be a plan for an individual, a practice or the firm as a whole. Its scope covers both the marketing and sales functions, as they are so intertwined in most professional services firms.

Here are the key steps to develop and document your plan.

Define your target audience

Who are you trying to attract as new clients? Focus on your “best-fit” clients, not all possible prospects. It is most effective to focus on a narrow target audience. But don’t go so narrow that you can’t achieve your business goals.

Research their issues, buying behavior and your competitors

The more you know about your target audience the better equipped you will be to attract their attention and communicate how you can help them. What are their key business issues? Is your expertise relevant to those issues? Where do they look for advice and inspiration? What is the competitive environment like? How do you stack up?

Identify your competitive advantage

What makes you different? Why is that better for your target client? Are you the most cost-effective alternative? Or the industry’s leading expert? However you position your firm, your claims need to be true, provable and relevant to your target audience. It is very useful to document this positioning as you will use it over and over again as you develop your messages and marketing tools.

Choose your overall business development strategy

Pick the broad strategy or strategies you will use to reach, engage and convert your prospects. You can start with the list of top strategies provided above. Which strategy fits with the needs and preferences of your target audiences? Which ones best convey your competitive advantage? For example, if you are competing because you have superior industry expertise, a thought leadership/content marketing strategy will likely serve you well.

Choose your business development tactics

A great place to start is the list of the most effective tactics we provided above. Make sure that each technique you select fits your target audience and strategy. Remember, it’s not about your personal preferences or familiarity with a tactic. It’s about what creates a connection with your audience.

Also, you will need to balance your choices in two important ways: First, you will need tactics that address each stage of the business development pipeline shown in Figure 1. Some techniques work great for gaining visibility but do not address longer-term need to nurture prospects over time. You need to cover the full funnel.

Second, you need a good balance between digital and traditional techniques (Figure 2). Your research should inform this choice. Be careful about assumptions. Just because you don’t use social media doesn’t mean that a portion of your prospects don’t use it to check you out.

When, how often, which conferences, what topics? Now is the time to settle on the details that turn a broad strategy into a specific plan. Many plans include a content or marketing calendar that lays out the specifics, week by week. If that is too much detail for you, at least document what you will be doing and how often. You will need these details to monitor the implementation of your plan.

Specify how you will monitor implementation and impact

Often overlooked, these important considerations often spell the difference between success and failure. Unimplemented strategies don’t work. Keep track of what you do, and when. This will both motivate action and provide a great starting place as you troubleshoot your strategy. Also monitor and record the impacts you see. The most obvious effect will be how much new business you closed. But you should also monitor new leads or new contacts, at the bare minimum. Finally, don’t neglect important process outcomes such as referrals, new names added to your list and downloads of content that expose prospects and referral sources to your expertise.

If you follow these steps you will end up with a documented business development strategy and a concrete plan to implement and optimize it.

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The Business Development Guide

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How to write a case study — examples, templates, and tools

It’s a marketer’s job to communicate the effectiveness of a product or service to potential and current customers to convince them to buy and keep business moving. One of the best methods for doing this is to share success stories that are relatable to prospects and customers based on their pain points, experiences, and overall needs.

That’s where case studies come in. Case studies are an essential part of a content marketing plan. These in-depth stories of customer experiences are some of the most effective at demonstrating the value of a product or service. Yet many marketers don’t use them, whether because of their regimented formats or the process of customer involvement and approval.

A case study is a powerful tool for showcasing your hard work and the success your customer achieved. But writing a great case study can be difficult if you’ve never done it before or if it’s been a while. This guide will show you how to write an effective case study and provide real-world examples and templates that will keep readers engaged and support your business.

In this article, you’ll learn:

What is a case study?

How to write a case study, case study templates, case study examples, case study tools.

A case study is the detailed story of a customer’s experience with a product or service that demonstrates their success and often includes measurable outcomes. Case studies are used in a range of fields and for various reasons, from business to academic research. They’re especially impactful in marketing as brands work to convince and convert consumers with relatable, real-world stories of actual customer experiences.

The best case studies tell the story of a customer’s success, including the steps they took, the results they achieved, and the support they received from a brand along the way. To write a great case study, you need to:

• Celebrate the customer and make them — not a product or service — the star of the story.
• Craft the story with specific audiences or target segments in mind so that the story of one customer will be viewed as relatable and actionable for another customer.
• Write copy that is easy to read and engaging so that readers will gain the insights and messages intended.
• Follow a standardized format that includes all of the essentials a potential customer would find interesting and useful.
• Support all of the claims for success made in the story with data in the forms of hard numbers and customer statements.

Case studies are a type of review but more in depth, aiming to show — rather than just tell — the positive experiences that customers have with a brand. Notably, 89% of consumers read reviews before deciding to buy, and 79% view case study content as part of their purchasing process. When it comes to B2B sales, 52% of buyers rank case studies as an important part of their evaluation process.

Telling a brand story through the experience of a tried-and-true customer matters. The story is relatable to potential new customers as they imagine themselves in the shoes of the company or individual featured in the case study. Showcasing previous customers can help new ones see themselves engaging with your brand in the ways that are most meaningful to them.

Besides sharing the perspective of another customer, case studies stand out from other content marketing forms because they are based on evidence. Whether pulling from client testimonials or data-driven results, case studies tend to have more impact on new business because the story contains information that is both objective (data) and subjective (customer experience) — and the brand doesn’t sound too self-promotional.

Case studies are unique in that there’s a fairly standardized format for telling a customer’s story. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for creativity. It’s all about making sure that teams are clear on the goals for the case study — along with strategies for supporting content and channels — and understanding how the story fits within the framework of the company’s overall marketing goals.

Here are the basic steps to writing a good case study.

1. Identify your goal

Start by defining exactly who your case study will be designed to help. Case studies are about specific instances where a company works with a customer to achieve a goal. Identify which customers are likely to have these goals, as well as other needs the story should cover to appeal to them.

The answer is often found in one of the buyer personas that have been constructed as part of your larger marketing strategy. This can include anything from new leads generated by the marketing team to long-term customers that are being pressed for cross-sell opportunities. In all of these cases, demonstrating value through a relatable customer success story can be part of the solution to conversion.

2. Choose your client or subject

Who you highlight matters. Case studies tie brands together that might otherwise not cross paths. A writer will want to ensure that the highlighted customer aligns with their own company’s brand identity and offerings. Look for a customer with positive name recognition who has had great success with a product or service and is willing to be an advocate.

The client should also match up with the identified target audience. Whichever company or individual is selected should be a reflection of other potential customers who can see themselves in similar circumstances, having the same problems and possible solutions.

Some of the most compelling case studies feature customers who:

• Switch from one product or service to another while naming competitors that missed the mark.
• Experience measurable results that are relatable to others in a specific industry.
• Represent well-known brands and recognizable names that are likely to compel action.
• Advocate for a product or service as a champion and are well-versed in its advantages.

Whoever or whatever customer is selected, marketers must ensure they have the permission of the company involved before getting started. Some brands have strict review and approval procedures for any official marketing or promotional materials that include their name. Acquiring those approvals in advance will prevent any miscommunication or wasted effort if there is an issue with their legal or compliance teams.

3. Conduct research and compile data

Substantiating the claims made in a case study — either by the marketing team or customers themselves — adds validity to the story. To do this, include data and feedback from the client that defines what success looks like. This can be anything from demonstrating return on investment (ROI) to a specific metric the customer was striving to improve. Case studies should prove how an outcome was achieved and show tangible results that indicate to the customer that your solution is the right one.

This step could also include customer interviews. Make sure that the people being interviewed are key stakeholders in the purchase decision or deployment and use of the product or service that is being highlighted. Content writers should work off a set list of questions prepared in advance. It can be helpful to share these with the interviewees beforehand so they have time to consider and craft their responses. One of the best interview tactics to keep in mind is to ask questions where yes and no are not natural answers. This way, your subject will provide more open-ended responses that produce more meaningful content.

4. Choose the right format

There are a number of different ways to format a case study. Depending on what you hope to achieve, one style will be better than another. However, there are some common elements to include, such as:

• An engaging headline
• A subject and customer introduction
• The unique challenge or challenges the customer faced
• The solution the customer used to solve the problem
• The results achieved
• Data and statistics to back up claims of success
• A strong call to action (CTA) to engage with the vendor

It’s also important to note that while case studies are traditionally written as stories, they don’t have to be in a written format. Some companies choose to get more creative with their case studies and produce multimedia content, depending on their audience and objectives. Case study formats can include traditional print stories, interactive web or social content, data-heavy infographics, professionally shot videos, podcasts, and more.

5. Write your case study

We’ll go into more detail later about how exactly to write a case study, including templates and examples. Generally speaking, though, there are a few things to keep in mind when writing your case study.

• Be clear and concise. Readers want to get to the point of the story quickly and easily, and they’ll be looking to see themselves reflected in the story right from the start.
• Provide a big picture. Always make sure to explain who the client is, their goals, and how they achieved success in a short introduction to engage the reader.
• Construct a clear narrative. Stick to the story from the perspective of the customer and what they needed to solve instead of just listing product features or benefits.
• Leverage graphics. Incorporating infographics, charts, and sidebars can be a more engaging and eye-catching way to share key statistics and data in readable ways.
• Offer the right amount of detail. Most case studies are one or two pages with clear sections that a reader can skim to find the information most important to them.
• Include data to support claims. Show real results — both facts and figures and customer quotes — to demonstrate credibility and prove the solution works.

6. Promote your story

Marketers have a number of options for distribution of a freshly minted case study. Many brands choose to publish case studies on their website and post them on social media. This can help support SEO and organic content strategies while also boosting company credibility and trust as visitors see that other businesses have used the product or service.

Marketers are always looking for quality content they can use for lead generation. Consider offering a case study as gated content behind a form on a landing page or as an offer in an email message. One great way to do this is to summarize the content and tease the full story available for download after the user takes an action.

Sales teams can also leverage case studies, so be sure they are aware that the assets exist once they’re published. Especially when it comes to larger B2B sales, companies often ask for examples of similar customer challenges that have been solved.

Now that you’ve learned a bit about case studies and what they should include, you may be wondering how to start creating great customer story content. Here are a couple of templates you can use to structure your case study.

Template 1 — Challenge-solution-result format

• Start with an engaging title. This should be fewer than 70 characters long for SEO best practices. One of the best ways to approach the title is to include the customer’s name and a hint at the challenge they overcame in the end.
• Create an introduction. Lead with an explanation as to who the customer is, the need they had, and the opportunity they found with a specific product or solution. Writers can also suggest the success the customer experienced with the solution they chose.
• Present the challenge. This should be several paragraphs long and explain the problem the customer faced and the issues they were trying to solve. Details should tie into the company’s products and services naturally. This section needs to be the most relatable to the reader so they can picture themselves in a similar situation.
• Share the solution. Explain which product or service offered was the ideal fit for the customer and why. Feel free to delve into their experience setting up, purchasing, and onboarding the solution.
• Explain the results. Demonstrate the impact of the solution they chose by backing up their positive experience with data. Fill in with customer quotes and tangible, measurable results that show the effect of their choice.
• Ask for action. Include a CTA at the end of the case study that invites readers to reach out for more information, try a demo, or learn more — to nurture them further in the marketing pipeline. What you ask of the reader should tie directly into the goals that were established for the case study in the first place.

Template 2 — Data-driven format

• Start with an engaging title. Be sure to include a statistic or data point in the first 70 characters. Again, it’s best to include the customer’s name as part of the title.
• Create an overview. Share the customer’s background and a short version of the challenge they faced. Present the reason a particular product or service was chosen, and feel free to include quotes from the customer about their selection process.
• Present data point 1. Isolate the first metric that the customer used to define success and explain how the product or solution helped to achieve this goal. Provide data points and quotes to substantiate the claim that success was achieved.
• Present data point 2. Isolate the second metric that the customer used to define success and explain what the product or solution did to achieve this goal. Provide data points and quotes to substantiate the claim that success was achieved.
• Present data point 3. Isolate the final metric that the customer used to define success and explain what the product or solution did to achieve this goal. Provide data points and quotes to substantiate the claim that success was achieved.
• Summarize the results. Reiterate the fact that the customer was able to achieve success thanks to a specific product or service. Include quotes and statements that reflect customer satisfaction and suggest they plan to continue using the solution.
• Ask for action. Include a CTA at the end of the case study that asks readers to reach out for more information, try a demo, or learn more — to further nurture them in the marketing pipeline. Again, remember that this is where marketers can look to convert their content into action with the customer.

While templates are helpful, seeing a case study in action can also be a great way to learn. Here are some examples of how Adobe customers have experienced success.

Juniper Networks

One example is the Adobe and Juniper Networks case study , which puts the reader in the customer’s shoes. The beginning of the story quickly orients the reader so that they know exactly who the article is about and what they were trying to achieve. Solutions are outlined in a way that shows Adobe Experience Manager is the best choice and a natural fit for the customer. Along the way, quotes from the client are incorporated to help add validity to the statements. The results in the case study are conveyed with clear evidence of scale and volume using tangible data.

The story of Lenovo’s journey with Adobe is one that spans years of planning, implementation, and rollout. The Lenovo case study does a great job of consolidating all of this into a relatable journey that other enterprise organizations can see themselves taking, despite the project size. This case study also features descriptive headers and compelling visual elements that engage the reader and strengthen the content.

Tata Consulting

When it comes to using data to show customer results, this case study does an excellent job of conveying details and numbers in an easy-to-digest manner. Bullet points at the start break up the content while also helping the reader understand exactly what the case study will be about. Tata Consulting used Adobe to deliver elevated, engaging content experiences for a large telecommunications client of its own — an objective that’s relatable for a lot of companies.

Case studies are a vital tool for any marketing team as they enable you to demonstrate the value of your company’s products and services to others. They help marketers do their job and add credibility to a brand trying to promote its solutions by using the experiences and stories of real customers.

When you’re ready to get started with a case study:

• Think about a few goals you’d like to accomplish with your content.
• Make a list of successful clients that would be strong candidates for a case study.
• Reach out to the client to get their approval and conduct an interview.
• Gather the data to present an engaging and effective customer story.

Adobe can help

There are several Adobe products that can help you craft compelling case studies. Adobe Experience Platform helps you collect data and deliver great customer experiences across every channel. Once you’ve created your case studies, Experience Platform will help you deliver the right information to the right customer at the right time for maximum impact.

To learn more, watch the Adobe Experience Platform story .

Keep in mind that the best case studies are backed by data. That’s where Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform and Adobe Analytics come into play. With Real-Time CDP, you can gather the data you need to build a great case study and target specific customers to deliver the content to the right audience at the perfect moment.

Watch the Real-Time CDP overview video to learn more.

Finally, Adobe Analytics turns real-time data into real-time insights. It helps your business collect and synthesize data from multiple platforms to make more informed decisions and create the best case study possible.

Request a demo to learn more about Adobe Analytics.

https://business.adobe.com/blog/perspectives/b2b-ecommerce-10-case-studies-inspire-you

https://business.adobe.com/blog/basics/business-case

https://business.adobe.com/blog/basics/what-is-real-time-analytics

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Harvard ManageMentor: Business Case Development

By: Harvard Business Publishing

In this course, students will learn the process for creating a strong business case: defining the opportunity, exploring options, analyzing alternatives, assessing risks, creating an implementation…

• Length: 2 hours, 17 minutes
• Publication Date: Aug 27, 2019
• Discipline: Strategy
• Product #: 7089-HTM-ENG

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Harvard ManageMentor helps students develop the skills they need to thrive in the workforce. These online courses combine the latest in business thinking from management experts with interactive assignments to empower students with the skills employers seek.

In this course, students will learn the process for creating a strong business case: defining the opportunity, exploring options, analyzing alternatives, assessing risks, creating an implementation plan, and presenting the case to stakeholders. They will have the opportunity to learn strategies and best practices from business leaders, authors, and coaches like Lynda Applegate, Eddie Yoon, Scott Anthony, and Ray Sheen.

Students have the option to view the content in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese. This online course has been designed and developed with the intention of complying with WCAG 2.0 AA standards. Explore all Harvard ManageMentor courses at https://hbsp.harvard.edu/harvard-manage-mentor/

Learning Objectives

Understand the importance of business cases

Define the opportunity you want to pursue when building a business case

Explore alternatives for addressing an opportunity when building a business case

Analyze alternatives for your business case and identify the best option

Assess the risks associated with your business case proposal

Create an implementation plan for your business case proposal

Present your business case to decision makers

Aug 27, 2019 (Revised: Nov 4, 2014)

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Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, business development success in smes: a case study approach.

Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development

ISSN : 1462-6004

Article publication date: 8 August 2008

There are not many answers to the question of how the development projects launched to improve business performance in SMEs have succeeded. This study focuses on business development success in SMEs. The main objective is to structure and model the success dimensions that contribute to and can be used in evaluating the business development success in SMEs.

Design/methodology/approach

The study utilises multiple case study methodology, following the replication approach. The empirical evidence is based on data from four SMEs that have implemented a business development project. Two of the projects were perceived as successful and the other two as unsuccessful.

This study builds a framework for a business development project success in a SME context. In the SME context the business development project success seems to be dependent on several interrelated dimensions. Success in one area leads to success in other areas, and so creates an upward success spiral. Failure in one area seems to lead to failure in other areas, too, thus creating a downward failure spiral.

Practical implications

The results provide a basis for benchmarking one's business and evaluate how well one's own firm meets the success dimensions and its focus areas.

Originality/value

The framework for success dimensions has been developed providing a systematic way to analyse the business development project and its impact on the performing company. A setting for analysing the project success from different time perspectives in a SME context has been produced.

• Business development
• Project management
• Small to medium‐sized enterprises
• Business performance

Forsman, H. (2008), "Business development success in SMEs: a case study approach", Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development , Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 606-622. https://doi.org/10.1108/14626000810892382

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2008, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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How capital expenditure management can drive performance

One of the quickest and most effective ways for organizations to preserve cash is to reexamine their capital investments. The past two years have offered a fascinating look into how different sectors have weathered the COVID-19 storm: from the necessarily capital expenditure–starved airport industry to the cresting wave of public-sector investments in renewable infrastructure and anticipation of the next mining supercycle. Indeed, companies that reduce spending on capital projects can both quickly release significant cash and increase ROIC, the most important metric of financial value creation (Exhibit 1).

This strategy is even more vital in competitive markets, where ROIC is perilously close to cost of capital. In our experience, organizations that focus on actions across the whole project life cycle, the capital project portfolio, and the necessary foundational enablers can reduce project costs and timelines by up to 30 percent to increase ROIC by 2 to 4 percent. Yet managing capital projects is complex, and many organizations struggle to extract cost savings. In addition, ill-considered cuts to key projects in a portfolio may actually jeopardize future operating performance and outcomes. This dynamic reinforces the age-old challenge for executives as they carefully allocate marginal dollars toward value creation.

Companies can improve their odds of success by focusing on areas of the project life cycle— capital strategy and portfolio optimization , project development and value improvement, and project delivery and construction—while investing in foundational enablers.

Cracking the code on capital expenditure management

Despite the importance of capital expenditure management in executing business strategy, preserving cash, and maximizing ROIC, most companies struggle in this area for two primary reasons. First, capital expenditure is often not a core business; instead, organizations focus on operating performance, where they have extensive institutional knowledge. When it comes to capital projects, executives rely on a select few people with experience in capital delivery. Second, capital performance is typically a black box. Executives find it difficult to understand and predict the performance of individual projects and the capital project portfolio as a whole.

Across industries, we see companies struggle to deliver projects on time and on schedule (Exhibit 2). In fact, cost and schedule overruns compared with original estimates frequently exceed 50 percent. Notably, these occur in both the public and private sectors.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated and magnified these challenges. Governments are increasingly viewing infrastructure spending as a tool for economic stimulus, which amplifies the cyclical nature of capital expenditure deployments. At the same time, some organizations have had to make drastic cutbacks in capital projects because of difficult economic conditions. The reliance on just a few experienced people when travel restrictions necessitated a remote-operating model further increased the complexity. As a result, only a few organizations have been able to maintain a through-cycle perspective.

In addition, current inflation could put an end to the historically low interest rates that companies are enjoying for financing their projects. As the cost of capital goes up, discipline in managing large projects will become increasingly important.

Improving capital expenditure management

In our experience, the organizational drivers that impede capital expenditure management affect all stages of a project life cycle, from portfolio management to project execution and commissioning. Best-in-class capital development and delivery require companies to outperform in three main areas, supported by several foundational enablers (Exhibit 3).

Recipes for capturing value

Companies can transform the life cycle of a capital expenditure project by focusing on three areas: capital strategy and portfolio optimization, project development and value improvement, and project delivery and construction. While the savings potential applies to each area on a stand-alone basis, their impact has some overlap. In our experience, companies that deploy these best practices are able to save 15 to 30 percent of a project’s cost.

Capital strategy and portfolio optimization

The greatest opportunity to influence a project’s outcome comes at its start. Too often, organizations commit to projects without a proper understanding of business needs, incurring significant expense to deliver an outcome misaligned with the overall strategy. Indeed, a failure to adequately recognize, price, and manage the inherent risks of project delivery is a recurring issue in the industry. Organizations can address this challenge by following a systematic three-step approach:

Assess the current state of capital projects and portfolio. It’s essential to identify strengths, areas of improvement, and the value at stake. To do so, organizations must build a transparent and rigorously tested baseline and capital budget, which should provide a clear understanding of the overall capital expenditure budget for the coming years as well as accurate cost and time forecasts for an organization’s portfolio of capital projects.

Ensure capital allocation is linked to overall company strategy. This step involves reviewing sources and uses of cash and ensuring allocated capital is linked to strategy. Companies must set an enterprise-wide strategy , assess the current portfolio against the relevant market with forward-looking assessments and cash flow simulation, and review sources and uses of cash to determine the amount of capital available. Particular focus should be given to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations—by both proactively managing risks and capturing the full upside opportunity of new projects—because sustainability is becoming a real source of shareholder value (Exhibit 4). With this knowledge, organizations can identify internal and external opportunities to strengthen their portfolio based on affordability and strategic objectives.

Optimize the capital portfolio to increase company-wide ROIC. Executives should distinguish between projects that are existing or committed, planned and necessary (for legal, regulatory, or strategic requirements), and discretionary. They can do so by challenging a project’s justification, classifications, benefit estimates, and assumptions to ensure they are realistic. This analysis helps companies to define and calibrate their portfolios by prioritizing projects based on KPIs and discussing critical projects not in the portfolio. Executives can then verify that the portfolio is aligned with the business strategy, risk profile, and funding constraints.

For example, a commercial vehicle manufacturer recently undertook a rigorous review of its project portfolio. After establishing a detailed baseline covering several hundred planned projects in one data set, the manufacturer classified the projects into two categories: must-have and discretionary. It also considered strategic realignment in light of a shift to e-mobility and the implications on investments in internal-combustion-engine vehicles. Last, it scrutinized individual maintenance projects to reduce their scope. Overall, the manufacturer uncovered opportunities to decrease its capital expenditure budget by as much as 20 percent. This strict review process became part of its annual routine.

Project development and value improvement

While value-engineering exercises are common, we find that 5 to 15 percent of additional value is typically left on the table. Too often, organizations focus on technical systems and incremental improvements. Instead, executives should consider the full life cycle cost across several areas:

Sourcing the right projects with the right partners. Companies must ensure they are sourcing the right projects by aligning on prioritization criteria and identifying the sectors to play in based on their strategy. Once these selections are made, organizations can use benchmarking and advanced-analytics tools to accelerate project timelines and improve planning. Building the right consortium of contractors and partners at the outset and establishing governance and reporting can have a huge impact. Best-in-class teams secure the optimal financing, which can include public and private sources, by assessing the economic, legal, and operational implications for each option.

A critical success factor is a strong tendering office, which focuses on choosing better projects. It can increase the likelihood of winning through better partnerships and customer insights and enhance the profitability of bids with creative solutions for reducing cost and risk. Best-in-class tendering offices identify projects aligned with the company’s strategy, have a clear understanding of success factors, develop effective partnerships across the value chain, and implement a risk-adjusted approach to pricing.

Achieve the full potential of the preconstruction project value. Companies can take a range of actions to strengthen capital effectiveness. For example, they should consider the project holistically, including technical systems, management systems, and mindsets and behaviors. To ensure they create value across all stages of the project life cycle, organizations should design contract and procurement interventions early in the project. An emphasis on existing ideas and proven solutions can help companies avoid getting bogged down in developing new solutions. For instance, a minimum-technical-solution approach can be used to identify the highest-value projects by challenging technical requirements once macro-elements are confirmed.

Companies should also seek to formalize dedicated systems and processes to support decision making and combat bias. We have identified five types of biases to which organizations should pay close attention (Exhibit 5). For instance, interest biases should be addressed by increasing transparency in decision making and aligning on explicit decision criteria before assessing the project. Stability biases can also be harmful. We have seen it too many times: companies have a number of underperforming projects that just won’t die and that take up valuable and already limited available resources. Organizations should invest in quickly determining when to halt projects—and actually stop them.

Setting up a system to take action in a nonbiased way is a crucial element of best-in-class portfolio optimization. Changing the burden of proof can also help. One energy company counterbalanced the natural desire of executives to hang on to underperforming assets with a systematic process for continually upgrading the company’s portfolio. Every year, the CEO asked the corporate-planning team to identify 3 to 5 percent of the company’s assets that could be divested. The divisions could retain any assets placed in this group but only if they could demonstrate a compelling turnaround program for them. The burden of proof was on the business units to prove that an asset should be retained, rather than just assuming it should.

An effective governance system ensures that all ideas generated from project value improvements are subject to robust tracking and follow-up. Further, the adoption of innovative digital and technological solutions can enhance standardization, modularization, transparency, and efficiency. A power company recently explored options to phase out coal-powered energy using a project value improvement methodology and a minimum technical solution. The process helped to articulate options to maximize ROI and minimize greenhouse-gas emissions. An analysis of each option, using an idea bank of more than 2,000 detailed ideas, let the company find solutions to reduce investment on features with little value added, reallocate spending to more efficient technologies, and better adjust capacity configurations with business needs. Ultimately, the company reduced capital costs by 30 percent while increasing CO 2 abatement by the same amount.

Designing the right project organization. An open, collaborative, and result-focused environment enabled by stringent performance management processes is critical for success, regardless of the contractual arrangement between owners and contractors. Improving capital project practices is possible only if companies measure those practices and understand where they stand compared with their peers. The organization should be designed with a five-year capital portfolio in mind and built by developing structures for project archetypes and modeling the resources required to deliver the capital plan. A rigorous stage-gate process of formal reviews should also be implemented to verify the quality of projects moving forward. Too many projects are rushed through phases with no formal review of their deliverables, leading to a highly risky execution phase, which usually results in delays and cost overruns.

As successful organizations demonstrate, addressing organizational health in project teams is as important as performance initiatives. McKinsey research has found that the healthiest organizations generate three times higher returns than companies in the bottom quartile and more than 60 percent higher returns compared with companies in the middle two quartiles. 1 Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger, Beyond Performance 2.0: A Proven Approach to Leading Large-Scale Change , second edition, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2019.

Project delivery and construction

Since the root causes of poor performance—project complexity, data quality, execution capabilities, and incentives and mindsets—can be difficult to identify and act on, organizations can benefit from taking the following actions across project delivery and construction dimensions.

Optimize the project execution plan. Organizations should embrace principles of operations science to develop an optimized configuration for the production system, as well as set a competitive and realistic baseline for the project. This execution plan identifies the execution options that could be deployed on the project and key decisions that need to be made. Companies should also break the execution plan into its microproduction systems and visualize the complicated schedule. Approaching capital projects as systems allows companies to apply operations science across process design, capacity, inventory, and variability.

Contract, claims, and change orders management. While claims are quite common on capital projects, proactive management can keep them under control and allow owners to retain significant value. Focusing on claims avoidance when drafting terms and conditions can head off many claims before they arise. In addition, partnering with contractors creates a more collaborative environment, making them less inclined to pursue an aggressive claims strategy. To manage change orders on a project, companies should address their contract management capability, project execution change management, and project closeout negotiation support. A European chemical company planning to build greenfield infrastructure in a new Asian geography recently employed this approach. It reduced risk on the project by bringing together bottom-up, integrated planning and performance management with targeted lean-construction interventions. By doing so, the company reduced the project’s duration by a year, achieved on-time delivery, and stayed within its €1 billion budget.

Enablers of the capital transformation

These three value capture areas must be supported by a capable organization with the right tools and processes—what we call the “transformational chassis.” To establish this infrastructure, organizations should focus on several activities.

Performance management

The best organizations institute a performance management system to implement a cascading set of project review meetings focused on assessing the progress of value-creation initiatives. Building on a foundation of quality data, the right performance conversations must take place at all levels of the organization.

Companies should also be prepared to reexamine their stage-gate governance system to shift from an assurance mindset (often drowning in bureaucracy and needless reporting) to an investor mindset. Critical value-enabling activities should be defined at each stage of the project life cycle, supported by a playbook of best practices for execution and implemented by a project review board. While governance processes exist, they often involve reporting without decision making or are not focused on the right outcomes—for example, ensuring that the investment decision and thesis remain valid through a project’s life. Quite often, companies provide incentives for project managers to execute an outdated project plan rather than deliver against the organization’s needs and goals.

Creating project transparency is also critical. Companies should establish a digital nerve center—or control tower—that collects field-level data to establish a single source of truth and implement predictive analytics. Equally important, companies must address capability building to ensure that the team has a solid understanding of the baseline and embraces data-based decision making.

Companies should stand up delivery teams that integrate owner and contractor groups across disciplines and institute a consistent and effective project management rhythm that can identify risks and opportunities over a project’s duration. Once delivery teams prioritize the biggest opportunities, dedicated capacity should be allocated to solve a project’s most challenging problems. Finally, companies should build and deploy comprehensive programs that improve culture and workforce capabilities throughout the organization, including the front line.

Capital analytics

Many organizations struggle to get a clear view of how projects are performing, which limits the possibility for timely interventions, decision making, and resource planning. By digitalizing the performance management of construction projects using timely and transparent project data, companies can track value capture and leading indicators while making data available across the enterprise. Using a single source of truth can reduce delivery risk, increase responsiveness, and enable a more proactive approach to the identification of issues and the capture of opportunities. The most advanced projects build automated, real-time control towers that consolidate information across systems, engineering disciplines, project sites, contractors, and broader stakeholders. The ability to integrate data sets speeds decision making, unlocks further insights, and promotes collaborative problem solving between the company that owns the capital project and the engineering, procurement, and construction company.

Ways of working

In many cases, executives are unwilling to engage in comprehensive capital reviews because they lack a sufficient understanding of capital management processes, and project managers can be afraid to expose this lack of proficiency. Agile practices can facilitate rapid and effective decision making by bringing together cross-functional project teams. Under this approach, organizations establish daily stand-ups, weekly showcases, and fortnightly sprints to help eliminate silos and maintain a focus on top priorities. Agility must be supported by an organizational structure, well-developed team capabilities, and an investment mindset. Organizations should also build skills and establish a culture of cooperation to optimize their capital investments.

We do recognize that getting capital expenditure management right feels like a lot to do well. And although many of these tasks are somehow done by a slew of companies, pockets of organizational excellence can be undermined instantly (and sometimes existentially) by one big project that goes wrong or a strategic misfire that pushes an organization from being a leader to a laggard in the investment cycle. In some ways, capital expenditure management leaders face similar challenges to those in other functions that have already undergone major productivity improvements: often these challenges are not technical problems but instead relate to how people work together toward a common goal.

Yet we believe organizations have a significant opportunity to fundamentally improve project outcomes by rethinking traditional approaches to project delivery. Sustainable improvements can be achieved by resizing the project portfolio, optimizing the cash flows for individual projects, and improving and reducing individual project delivery risk.

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Vlerick Business School digitalizes entrepreneurship development with Pointerpro [case study]

• Written May 27, 2024
• by Jeroen De Rore

What do a top-tier international business school based in the capital of Europe and Pointerpro have in common? At the very least, an untameable desire to ignite the entrepreneurial fire in people. And what better way to spread that fire than by using digital channels?  Vlerick’s Learning Hub department does exactly that. Since 2022, our Pointerpro software and our professional services team have been helping them increase their impact. But don’t just take it from this intro. We sat down (digitally) with Learning Designer Anna Riepe and Learning Technologist Maud Van de Velde to get their view on Vlerick’s journey with Pointerpro.

Digital innovation in entrepreneurship development: The Learning Hub at Vlerick

Before pointerpro: the emerging need for streamlined online assessments and reports, realizations with pointerpro and pointerpro’s professional services team, the near future of working with pointerpro and the professional services team, summarizing the journey with pointerpro and tips for future users, can you briefly introduce vlerick and the department you’re part of at vlerick.

Anna Riepe: Definitely. Vlerick is one of the leading Business Schools in the Benelux area with offices in different locations in Belgium. As you probably know, we’re quite international and what we really love is getting people who work in different roles and businesses to do better. Our faculty are our content experts. They translate a lot of the research knowledge that’s around into very tangible ways for business people to do better in their organizations. Our particular department is called “The Learning Hub” and we help our faculty improve their teaching with the help of digital tools.

Can you give an example?

Anna Riepe: Sure. One example would be translating lectures that normally take place face-to-face into a self-paced online journey for the participants. But it can also entail VR or online assessments and surveys – which is what we’ll talk about today, isn’t it? So anything digital comes our way and then we help our content experts to better assess and get the results they want.

Very clear. And what are your specific roles?

Maud Vandevelde: So, our team is divided into various roles. Anna is a learning designer and I’m a learning technologist. That means I’m one of the builders who takes care of the technical side of things. Basically, I get the information that Anna processes and publish it online. Anna Riepe: Yes. You could call me a project manager and translator. So I listen to our faculty and try to understand their ideas or concepts. Then I also take into account their dreams and wishes and translate those into something that’s technically possible. And other colleagues, like Maud, will go into the very technical side of building something with that input.

Can you tell us more about the journey that led you to Pointerpro?

Anna Riepe: So, a good way to think of this is as a triangle . On one end we have our faculty, who are brilliant people with great ideas. They do all they can to make their learnings accessible to participants on the other end – so that these people can have more impact on their businesses. And then the third end of the triangle is our team that comes in to facilitate this. So here’s an example. A faculty member tells us: “In my course, I’m talking about how to grow scale-ups and start-ups. But as a conversation starter I need to have a more objective assessment of where my participants are today. Because based on that, I can focus on the most relevant aspect, whether it be HR, or doing marketing, or cleaning up finances…”

So, a sort of diagnostic assessment?

Anna Riepe: Yes, it’s like a quick “scan”, based on a lot of questions – and then all of these scans compiled with different benchmarks, based on different research data. With that report, a faculty member knows what participants need to focus on to have a greater impact. That’s where we step in and say: “Great idea, but let’s talk about the details.”

Now, in the past, a lot of this happened on different platforms that required a lot of backend work in Excel spreadsheets and then required manual work to get it into a nice-looking report.   And so coming back to our triangle: We have faculty that comes with content, The Learning Hub needs to make it happen technically, and then we have our participants. They are not researchers or data nerds or anything. They’re people like you and me who need something visually attractive, clear, and clean. And we obviously want these reports to be branded. Bottom line: If the content is great but you can’t read it because it’s too complex, then it becomes a waste of time.  So, with a great idea, and data to validate important questions based on research, the remaining question was: How do we get from here to something participants can digest and translate into action?  And that’s why we went scouting on the market for options – and that’s where Pointerpro came in.

Did you try other tools or systems before Pointerpro? And if so, where did they fall short?

Anna Riepe: I think we’re quite unique in our challenge. We’re not talking about insanely huge volumes of assessments, but we are talking about huge complexity. Why? Because we actually want to say something meaningful with the data we collect. It’s not like a simple form you create with Microsoft Forms to poll about who will require vegetarian food at a company event, right?  We’re talking about complex calculations, benchmarks, and the need to have this come together in a report. And there aren’t many real alternatives out there to achieve that. Plus, we want to have it automated as much as possible.

The system we had in the past required somebody in the backend, to download complex data into a CSV file, do manual calculations in Excel, and build a report from there .

In 2022, Vlerick’s Learning Hub started working on a major assessment project, for the first time with Pointerpro: A Digital Maturity Scan . This is a series of three assessments, all designed to evaluate the digital competencies in an organization through a different lens – and ultimately Vlerick uses those findings for tangible conversations in the classroom and in coaching sessions. 

• Digital Maturity Scan 3: A deep-dive assessment of fundamental and advanced digital mindsets and skills that constitute a digitally mature company culture. The result is a group report that compares different units in the organization.

Because of the depth and complexity of this highly professional assessment project – and to fully prepare their Learning Hub team for undertakings of similar scope in the future, Vlerick chose to onboard Pointerpro’s professional services program.   The first of the three assessments is up and running. Digital Maturity Scans 2 and 3 are in the process of being finalized, to become fully operational soon.

Pointerpro professional services in a nutshell: The Vlerick case

The successful development of diverse assessments for their businesses has emboldened many Pointerpro users over the years to take on more and more ambitious assessment projects at the core of their business.  To accommodate this, Pointerpro has formed a professional services team to provide a top-tier level of assistance. The program includes the following services to which Vlerick has subscribed:

• Integration of elaborate external respondent databases
• Conceptual and technical development of highly complex conditional logic and score calculations 
• Development of custom charts and report widgets
• Graphic design of fully and professionally branded questionnaires and reports

Within each professional service offering, the team integrates an iterative project management mechanism. This also incorporates a formal feedback loop upon project completion to validate that all of the predetermined objectives were delivered in full.  We asked Anna and Maud about their experience with Pointerpro as a software platform, but also – and especially – about how it has been to work with our Professional Services colleagues. Anna Riepe: What I take out of the collaboration in my role as a project manager is that I really appreciated working with your colleagues. Sometimes you get to the limits of what you can technically do because it gets quite complex.  Also, sometimes our resources are just limited, and our faculty sometimes have wonderful ideas, but they are not always easy to translate. They may want a very specific type of spider chart or pull different kinds of data and benchmarks.

And so, then we call your colleagues, saying: “This is the idea and this is the data we have. How can we integrate this into the flow of our assessment, and ideally, after the final click get a beautiful graph with the right information into that PDF report of the participant? And that’s always a great discussion. Your colleagues are really approachable to discuss these matters and to spend time to get into the nitty-gritty of the logic of our assessment. Bear in mind that every single project is different, the faculty behind it is different, the logic is different, the dataset is different… So it requires a lot of brainpower to delve into every single project. It’s not one project and then you just copy-paste. Every single one is different. And from there, they always find solutions – and the results really do look beautiful, don’t they Maud?

Maud Vandevelde: Yes, absolutely, I think so too!

From a technical perspective you’re in a transitional phase at the moment, aren’t you?

Maud Vandevelde: Well, right now the calculations are sometimes so very complex that we use an external tool. Now, as we speak, we’re looking into the newest Pointerpro feature called Aggregate Reports. This will hopefully eliminate those very complex external calculations. Even though it works quite nicely to do the calculations today, we still prefer not to have an extra tool involved and have it all centralized in Pointerpro. It’s more robust and of course, it makes the flow even more automated.

Speaking of which, Maud. You’re currently using our sandbox offer to get acquainted with advanced features like Aggregate Reports. Anything else you can share about that?

Maud Vandevelde: Yes, I’m working on an assessment called the “Adaptive Capability Scan” which basically evaluates how agile you are and can become as an organization.  So, it looks at different dimensions and one – for instance – is “awareness.” We have a certain number of questions linked to that specific dimension. The assessment reports on your personal average, compares it to your company’s average, or the average of your classroom group, and then gives the overall benchmark analysis of the dimension of awareness.

The calculations are again quite complex. Plus, we’re trying to set up an industry benchmark as well. But for certain industries we don’t have enough data yet to be representative. So, we want to combine benchmarks first, and as soon as we have sufficient data we want to be able to take this apart again into different industries.

Sounds like you have your work cut out for you. Is our professional services team helping?

Maud Vandevelde: I was in contact with Seppe last Friday and he really helped me to make sure the flow was correct and he’s now looking into setting up predefined filters . And he’ll get back to me because it could really help us in the future. You should know that I get the input from Anna and build the solution, but afterwards, it also gets into the hands of other colleagues in different departments who need to take the process further. So there will be a learning curve for them and so the less complex we can make it for them, the better.

Anna Riepe: What I think is remarkable for any of the Pointerpro projects I’ve been involved in – compared to a lot of other companies – is that there is the space to meet face to face.  For example, we had a very nice meeting with some of your colleagues a few weeks back just to look at where things are, what’s on the roadmap of Pointerpro, what are needs from our side, and how these things may be synchronized. And in that meeting, one of us said: “We have this complex assessment we’re working on. Could we also go through that together now?” And this type of thing always seems to be possible with your professional services colleagues, which is very much appreciated.

Maud Vandevelde: Yes indeed. I sent a message the other day to Seppe and he answered me the day after and told me: “I have two days with availability…” and it was actually the same week that I could have an extensive call with him.  And that’s really nice to have someone to re-clarify things sometimes – because it’s a really sophisticated tool with a lot of functionalities and new features. So yes, it’s really nice that we’re getting in contact and getting answers quite fast.

That’s very nice to hear…

Anna Riepe: …and by the way, when it comes to the easier assessments – as I said, my role is more to manage the projects – I did create one myself that was very small, but still fully automated with some calculations coming together… And I managed it. So it’s nice to see that for the easier things, it’s quite intuitive to get where I need to be, and for the really complex stuff your colleagues are around.

Maud Vandevelde: I think that says a lot. Anna just went into the tool and she made a – simple, but great-working assessment. That says a lot about the tool. Also important to mention is that besides the fact we have such great contact with the Pointerpro team directly, I also make very good use of the support pages . It’s a great log where you can find answers to your questions or freshen up your memory. So I also really like that.

Is it possible to summarize your journey of using Pointerpro-built assessments into a concrete result?

Anna Riepe: I think that’s very tricky because some of the assessments already existed in the past. And the ones we’ve re-built with Pointerpro so far are based on the same content and work we did manually in the past. However, some that exist are new – because using Pointerpro definitely gives you ideas. So one of the results surely is: We re-create an old assessment in Pointerpro, faculty members proudly tell everyone else about it… …and then another faculty member says: “Oh I also have an idea. Can we do one here? Let’s get working on it! Let’s do another one!” or  “Let’s develop new datasets.” or “Oh, I think this chart I saw looked so great. I also want to have that in my assessment!”  So that’s a nice effect of simply having better and better material. And that’s the overall objective, right? We’re here to make sure the assessments we use and the reports our participants get are top-notch. Faculty helps us make sure the content is right and meaningful, and your tool is there to translate findings into digestible and attractive reports.

Fantastic. To finish up: Do you have any tips for future Pointerpro users who take on similar scopes of projects?

Anna Riepe: I’d say the project management recommendation would be to always clear up first internally what you actually want to build , with whoever is involved. Really ask enough questions. Build in quite some testing time – not because the tool doesn’t do the calculations right, but because faculty is very busy and when they’re testing, they tend to come up with new ideas – and so otherwise you have no more buffer zone.

And of course, don’t hesitate to work with Pointerpro’s professional services team. Sometimes you may have a brilliant idea but you don’t see how to make it happen, and they actually might find a great workaround. Or for whatever reason: If you don’t have the resources, just hand over that project. They’ll do a very good job. Or if there are any other questions, I’d definitely consider them. Maud Vandevelde: From my side it would be to first try mini-versions of your questionnaires. When I first started building, I immediately built the whole questionnaire of 50 questions – in all its complexity. And then faculty would want to change wordings or I’d realize one type of logic wasn’t working.

It’s always better to first test with a couple of questions. For instance, with the “Adaptive Capability Scan” that analyzes different dimensions – which I talked about earlier – I just get one dimension right first, because I know for the other dimensions it will be the same calculation.

Some pearls of wisdom I’m sure our newest users will appreciate. Thank you both so much for this interview!

Anna Riepe: You’re welcome! Maud Vandevelde: With pleasure!

Create your own assessment for free!

About the author:.

Jeroen De Rore

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Business school teaching case study: risks of the AI arms race

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David De Cremer

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s search chief, was preparing for the Paris launch of its much-anticipated artificial intelligence chatbot in February last year when he received some unpleasant news.

Two days earlier, his chief executive, Sundar Pichai, had boasted that the chatbot, Bard, “draws on information from the web to provide fresh, high-quality responses”. But, within hours of Google posting a short gif video on Twitter demonstrating Bard in action, observers spotted that the bot had given a wrong answer.

Bard’s response to “What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can I tell my 9-year-old about?” was that the telescope had taken the very first pictures of a planet outside the Earth’s solar system. In fact, those images were generated by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope nearly two decades before. It was an error that harmed Bard’s credibility and wiped $100bn off the market value of Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

The incident highlighted the dangers in the high-pressure arms race around AI. It has the potential to improve accuracy, efficiency and decision-making. However, while developers are expected to have clear boundaries for what they will do and to act responsibly when bringing technology to the market, the temptation is to prioritise profit over reliability.

The genesis of the AI arms race can be traced back to 2019, when Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella realised that the AI-powered auto-complete function Google’s in Gmail was becoming so effective that his own company was at risk of being left behind in AI development.

Test yourself

This article is part of a collection of ‘instant teaching case studies ’ exploring business challenges. Read the piece then consider the questions at the end.

About the author: David De Cremer is the Dunton Family Dean and a professor of management and technology at D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University in Boston. He is author of ‘The AI-Savvy Leader: 9 ways to take back control and make AI work’ (Harvard Business Review Press, 2024).

Technology start-up OpenAI, which needed external capital to secure additional computing resources, provided an opportunity. Nadella quietly made an initial $1bn investment. He believed that a collaboration between the two companies would allow Microsoft to commercialise OpenAI’s future discoveries, making Google “dance” and eating into its dominant market share. He was soon proved right.

Microsoft’s swift integration of OpenAI’s ChatGPT into Bing marked a strategic coup, projecting an image of technological ascendancy over Google. In an effort not to be left behind, Google rushed to release its own chatbot — even though the company knew that Bard was not ready to compete with ChatGPT. Its haste-driven error cost Alphabet $100bn in market capitalisation.

Nowadays, it seems the prevailing modus operandi in the tech industry is a myopic fixation on pioneering ever-more-sophisticated AI software. Fear of missing out compels companies to rush unfinished products to market, disregarding inherent risks and costs. Meta , for exampl e , recently confirmed its intention to double down in the AI arms race, despite rising costs and a nearly 12 per cent drop in its share price.

There appears to be a conspicuous absence of purpose-driven initiatives, with a focus on profit eclipsing societal welfare considerations. Tesla rushed to launch its AI-based “Fully Self Driving” (FSD) features, for example, with technology nowhere near the maturity needed for safe deployment on roads. FSD, with driver inattention, has been linked  to hundreds of crashes and dozens of deaths.

As a result, Tesla has had to recall more than 2mn vehicles because of FSD/autopilot issues. Despite identifying concerns about drivers’ ability to reverse necessary software updates, regulators argue that Tesla did not make those suggested changes part of the recall.

Compounding the issue is the proliferation of sub-par “ so-so technologies ”. For example, two new GenAI-based portable gadgets, Rabbit R1 and Humane AI Pin, triggered a backlash, accused of being unusable, overpriced, and not solving any meaningful problem. 

Unfortunately, this trend will not slow: driven by a desire to capitalise as quickly as possible on incremental improvements of ChatGPT, some start-ups are rushing to launch “so-so” GenAI-based hardware devices. They appear to show little interest in whether a market exists; the goal seems to be winning any possible AI race available, regardless of whether it adds value for end users. In response, OpenAI has warned start-ups to stop engaging in an opportunistic and short-term strategy of pursuing purposeless innovations and noted that more powerful versions of ChatGPT are coming that can easily replicate any GPT-based apps that the start-ups are launching.

In response, governments are preparing regulations to govern AI development and deployment. Some tech companies are responding with greater responsibility. A recent open letter  signed by industry leaders endorsed the idea that: “It is our collective responsibility to make choices that maximise AI’s benefits and mitigate the risks, for today and for the future generations”.

As the tech industry grapples with the ethical and societal implications of AI proliferation, some consultants, customers and external groups are making the case for purpose-driven innovation. While regulators offer a semblance of oversight, progress will require industry stakeholders to take responsibility for fostering an ecosystem that gives greater priority to societal welfare .

Questions for discussion

Do tech companies bear responsibility for how businesses deploy artificial intelligence in possibly wrong and unethical ways?

What strategies can tech companies follow to keep purpose centre stage and see profit as an outcome of purpose?

Should bringing AI to market be more regulated? And if so, how?

How do you predict that the tendency to race to the bottom will play out in the next five to 10 years in businesses working with AI? Which factors are most important?

What risks for companies are associated with not joining the race to the bottom in AI development? How can these risks be managed by adopting a more purpose-driven strategy? What factors are important in that scenario?

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Docker Desktop 4.30: Proxy Support with SOCKS5, NTLM and Kerberos, ECI for Build Commands, Build View Features, and Docker Desktop on RHEL Beta

Vanessa Fournier

In this post:

Enhancing connectivity with SOCKS proxy support in Docker Desktop

Seamless integration of docker desktop with ntlm and kerberos proxies, docker desktop with enhanced container isolation for build commands.

• Docker Desktop for WSL 2: A leap towards simplification and speed
• Enhance your Docker builds experience with new Docker Desktop Build features
• Reimagining dev environments: Streamlining development workflows
• Docker Desktop support for RHEL beta

Docker Desktop is elevating its capabilities with crucial updates that streamline development workflows and enhance security for developers and enterprises alike. Key enhancements in Docker Desktop 4.30 include improved SOCKS5 proxy support for seamless network connectivity, advanced integration with NTLM and Kerberos for smoother authentication processes, and extended Enhanced Container Isolation (ECI) to secure build environments. Additionally, administrative ease is boosted by simplifying sign-in enforcement through familiar system settings, and WSL 2 configurations have been optimized to enhance performance.

In this blog post, we’ll describe these enhancements and also provide information on future features and available beta features such as Docker Desktop on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Read on to learn more about how these updates are designed to maximize the efficiency and security of your Docker Desktop experience.

Docker Desktop now supports SOCKS5 proxies, a significant enhancement that broadens its usability in corporate environments where SOCKS proxy is the primary means for internet access or is used to connect to company intranets. This new feature allows users to configure Docker Desktop to route HTTP/HTTPS traffic through SOCKS proxies, enhancing network flexibility and security.

Users can easily configure Docker Desktop to access the internet using socks5:// proxy URLs. This ensures that all outgoing requests, including Docker pulls and other internet access on ports 80/443, are routed through the chosen SOCKS proxy.

• The proxy configuration can manually be specified in Settings > Resources > Proxies > Manual proxy configuration , by adding the socks5://host:port URL in the Secure Web Server HTTPS box.
• Automatic detection of SOCKS proxies specified in .pac files is also supported.

This advancement not only improves Docker Desktop’s functionality for developers needing robust proxy support but also aligns with business needs for secure and versatile networking solutions. This new feature is available to Docker Business subscribers. 

Visit Docker Docs for detailed information on setting up and utilizing SOCKS proxy support in Docker Desktop.

Proxy servers are vital in corporate networks, ensuring security and efficient traffic management. Recognizing their importance, Docker Desktop has evolved to enhance integration with these secured environments, particularly on Windows. Traditional basic authentication often presented challenges, such as repeated login prompts and security concerns. 

Docker Desktop 4.30 introduces major upgrades by supporting advanced authentication protocols such as Kerberos and NTLM , which streamline the user experience by handling the proxy handshake invisibly and reducing interruptions.

These updates simplify workflows and improve security and performance, allowing developers and admins to focus more on their tasks and less on managing access issues. The new version promises a seamless, secure, and more efficient interaction with corporate proxies, making Docker Desktop a more robust tool in today’s security-conscious corporate settings.

For a deeper dive into how Docker Desktop is simplifying proxy navigation and enhancing your development workflow within the Docker Business subscription, be sure to read the full blog post .

Docker Desktop’s latest update marks an important advancement in container security by extending Enhanced Container Isolation (ECI) to docker build and docker buildx commands. This means docker build/buildx commands run in rootless mode when ECI is enabled, thereby protecting the host machine against malicious containers inadvertently used as dependencies while building container images.

This update is significant as it addresses previous limitations where ECI protected containers initiated with docker run but did not extend the same level of security to containers created during the build processes — unless the build was done with the docker-container build driver. 

Prior limitations:

• Limited protection: Before this update, while ECI effectively safeguarded containers started with docker run , those spawned by docker build or docker buildx commands, using the default “docker” build driver, did not benefit from this isolation, posing potential security risks.
• Security vulnerabilities: Given the nature of build processes, they can be susceptible to various security vulnerabilities , which previously might not have been adequately mitigated. This gap in protection could expose Docker Desktop users to risks during the build phase.

Enhancements in Docker Desktop 4.30:

• Rootless build operations: By extending ECI to include build commands, Docker Desktop now ensures that builds run rootless, significantly enhancing security.
• Comprehensive protection: This extension of ECI now includes support for docker builds on all platforms (Mac, Windows, Hyper-V, Linux), except Windows WSL, ensuring that all phases of container operation — both runtime and build — are securely isolated.

This development not only strengthens security across Docker Desktop’s operations but also aligns with Docker’s commitment to providing comprehensive security solutions. By safeguarding the entire lifecycle of container management, Docker ensures that users are protected against potential vulnerabilities from development to deployment.

To understand the full scope of these changes and how to leverage them within your Docker Business Subscription, visit the Enhanced Container Isolation docs for additional guidance.

Docker Desktop for WSL 2: A leap toward simplification and speed

We’re excited to announce an update to Docker Desktop that enhances its performance on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL 2) by reducing the complexity of the setup process. This update simplifies the WSL 2 setup by consolidating the previously required two Docker Desktop WSL distributions into one.

The simplification of Docker Desktop’s WSL 2 setup is designed to make the codebase easier to understand and maintain, improving our ability to handle failures more effectively. Most importantly, this change will also enhance the startup speed of Docker Desktop on WSL 2 , allowing you to get to work faster than ever before.

What’s changing?

Phase 1: Starting with Docker Desktop 4.30, we are rolling out this update incrementally on all fresh installations. If you’re setting up Docker Desktop for the first time, you’ll experience a more streamlined installation process with reduced setup complexity right away.

Phase 2: We plan to introduce data migration in a future update, further enhancing the system’s efficiency and user experience. This upcoming phase will ensure that existing users also benefit from these improvements without any hassle.

To take advantage of phase 1, we encourage all new and existing users to upgrade to Docker Desktop 4.30 . By doing so, you’ll be prepared to seamlessly transition to the enhanced version as we roll out subsequent phases.

Keep an eye out for more updates as we continue to refine Docker Desktop and enrich your development experience. 

Enhance your Docker Builds experience with new Docker Desktop Build features

Docker Desktop’s latest updates bring significant improvements to the Builds View , enhancing both the management and transparency of your build processes. These updates are designed to make Docker Desktop an indispensable tool for developers seeking efficiency and detailed insights into their builds.

Bulk delete enhancements:

• Extended bulk delete capability: The ability to bulk delete builds has been expanded beyond the current page. Now, by defining a search or query, you can effortlessly delete all builds that match your specified criteria across multiple pages.
• Simplified user experience: With the new Select all link next to the header, managing old or unnecessary builds becomes more straightforward, allowing you to maintain a clean and organized build environment with minimal effort (Figure 1).

Build provenance and OpenTelemetry traces:

• Provenance and dependency insights: The updated Builds View now includes an action menu that offers access to the dependencies and provenance of each build (Figure 2). This feature enables access to the origin details and the context of the builds for deeper inspection, enhancing security and compliance.
• OpenTelemetry integration: For advanced debugging, Docker Desktop lets you download OpenTelemetry traces to inspect build performance in Jaeger . This integration is crucial for identifying and addressing performance bottlenecks efficiently. Also, depending on your build configuration, you can now download the provenance to inspect the origin details for the build.

Overall, these features work together to provide a more streamlined and insightful build management experience, enabling developers to focus more on innovation and less on administrative tasks. 

For more detailed information on how to leverage these new functionalities and optimize your Docker Desktop experience, make sure to visit Builds documentation .

Reimagining Dev Environments: Streamlining development workflows

We are evolving our approach to development environments as part of our continuous effort to refine Docker Desktop and enhance user experience. Since its launch in 2021, Docker Desktop’s Dev Environments feature has been a valuable tool for developers to quickly start projects from GitHub repositories or local directories. However, to better align with our users’ evolving needs and feedback, we will be transitioning from the existing Dev Environments feature to a more robust and integrated solution in the near future. 

What does that mean to those using Dev Environments today? The feature is unchanged. Starting with the Docker Desktop 4.30 release, though, new users trying out Dev Environments will need to explicitly turn it on in Beta features settings. This change is part of our broader initiative to streamline Docker Desktop functionalities and introduce new features in the future (Figure 3).

We understand the importance of a smooth transition and are committed to providing detailed guidance and support to our users when we officially announce the evolution of Dev Environments. Until then, you can continue to leverage Dev Environments and look forward to additional functionality to come.

Docker Desktop support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux beta

As part of Docker’s commitment to broadening its support for enterprise-grade operating systems, we are excited to announce the expansion of Docker Desktop to include compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) distributions, specifically versions 8 and 9. This development is designed to support our users in enterprise environments where RHEL is widely used, providing them with the same seamless Docker experience they expect on other platforms.

To provide feedback on this new beta functionality, engage your Account Executive or join the Docker Desktop Preview Program .

As Docker Desktop continues to evolve, the latest updates are set to significantly enhance the platform’s efficiency and security. From integrating advanced proxy support with SOCKS5, NTLM, and Kerberos to streamlining administrative processes and optimizing WSL 2 setups, these improvements are tailored to meet the needs of modern developers and enterprises. 

With the addition of exciting upcoming features and beta opportunities like Docker Desktop on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Docker remains committed to providing robust, secure, and user-friendly solutions. Stay connected with us to explore how these continuous advancements can transform your development workflows and enhance your Docker experience.

• Read Navigating Proxy Servers with Ease: New Advancements in Docker Desktop 4.30 .
• Authenticate and update to receive the newest Docker Desktop features per your subscription level .
• New to Docker? Create an account . 
• Learn how Docker Build Cloud in Docker Desktop can accelerate builds.
• Secure your supply chain with Docker Scout in Docker Desktop .
• Subscribe to the Docker Newsletter .
• Have questions? The Docker community is here to help .

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