INSEAD Professors Win Case Centre Awards 2014

INSEAD, the leading international business school, announced today that three of the school’s professors have won top honours for producing exemplary cases that meld academic rigour with business relevance to advance knowledge about innovation and competitive advantage. INSEAD has distinguished itself in the annual Case Centre Awards, a global contest that attracts the world’s best management minds. Associate Professor of Strategy, Jasjit Singh, won in the Strategy and General Management category for his case titled, “GE Healthcare (A): Innovating for Emerging Markets.” Assistant Professors of Marketing Hernan Bruno and Hilke Plassmann won in the New Case Writer category for their co-authored work “Michel et Augustin Cookies: Culinary Adventures Competing Against Food Industry Giants.”

The Case Centre Awards have been presented annually since 1991 to recognise global excellence in case writing and to raise the profile of the case method as a tool for advancing management knowledge. Awards are bestowed in up to nine functional categories as well as one overall winning case. There are two additional competition categories: one to recognise outstanding scholarship by a new case author and another to honour a case that focuses on an emerging urgent topic. Awards are also given to reward superior innovation in case teaching and to recognise an outstanding individual contribution to the case method.

Professor Singh’s case, illustrative of strategic innovation in the emerging market context, describes how GE Healthcare developed an electrocardiogram (ECG) device optimised for low-income mass markets in India. The case also examines the organisational changes that GE had to make to better serve the so-called “base-of-the-pyramid” market segments. Professors Bruno and Plassmann, in their winning case, explored how a young gourmet cookie and dessert brand, Michel et Augustin, has successfully competed against larger mass-market rivals, with the firm’s eponymous co-founders often injecting their edgy personalities into the company’s marketing strategies.

“We were inspired to create this case in part because of the dynamic, entrepreneurial qualities of the firm we studied. This same kind of vibrant spirit has defined INSEAD’s approach to management research and teaching. We think what our case demonstrates, and what INSEAD itself proves, is that genuine value creation depends on innovation and the courage to compete”, jointly commented Assistant Professor Hernan Bruno, a quantitative marketing scientist, and Assistant Professor Hilke Plassmann, an expert in consumer decision-making and strategic marketing that draws upon the insights of neuroscience and consumer psychology. “Michel de Rovira, from Michel et Augustin, was one of our students at INSEAD in 2004”, they added.

For Singh, the Case Centre Awards also highlighted the important role that entrepreneurial thinking can play in ventures of all kinds—even in a well-established corporation like GE. Even more, he says such innovative thinking can help companies come up with inclusive business models that integrate societal impact considerations into their core business strategy rather than just delegating these to standalone Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts that typically have a more limited impact.“

The base-of-the-economic-pyramid offers significant opportunities for business, but also challenges,” says Singh, an economist whose expertise includes emerging market strategy and innovation. “In these situations, there is often room to design win-win strategies that create long-term value both for the firm and for the society at large, but doing so properly requires significant commitment, vision and creativity from the organisation.”

The Case Centre Awards, formerly known as the ecch Case Awards, are highly competitive and objective, with winners selected by a panel of experienced case teachers and writers. All cases registered with the Case Centre during the previous five years are put forward for consideration. The winning case in each category is the one that has achieved the highest growth in popularity among scholars worldwide, as based on the number of organisations ordering and teaching the case during the calendar year. Interest in the Case Awards attracts global attention. This year, in the New Case Writer category alone nearly 50 cases were submitted from 41 institutions across 17 countries.

INSEAD faculty members have performed very well in the Case Centre Awards throughout the years, including by winning the top overall case category in 2012. In January, the Case Centre celebrated its 40th anniversary by highlighting the best-selling cases distributed by it over the last four decades. Of these, INSEAD boasted six of the top 10 and 14 overall.

“INSEAD is a great research place and case studies are an important teaching tool. It is wonderful to see INSEAD’s thought leadership well-represented in the Case Centre Awards,” said Dean Ilian Mihov, who congratulated the winning faculty members. “INSEAD’s mission is founded on creating and sharing knowledge that builds stronger organisations and a more prosperous society. Case writing represents one important way that our school advances sustainable innovation and success.”

The Case Centre is the largest single source of management case studies in the world, with more than 75,000 documents in its catalogue and available through www.thecasecentre.org. It was established in 1973 as an initiative combining the thought leadership of 22 higher education institutions who were seeking a clearinghouse for sharing case knowledge among business scholars.