7 Favorite Business Case Studies to Teach—and Why

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FEATURED CASE STUDIES

The Army Crew Team . Emily Michelle David of CEIBS

ATH Technologies . Devin Shanthikumar of Paul Merage School of Business

Fabritek 1992 . Rob Austin of Ivey Business School

Lincoln Electric Co . Karin Schnarr of Wilfrid Laurier University

Pal’s Sudden Service—Scaling an Organizational Model to Drive Growth . Gary Pisano of Harvard Business School

The United States Air Force: ‘Chaos’ in the 99th Reconnaissance Squadron . Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School

Warren E. Buffett, 2015 . Robert F. Bruner of Darden School of Business

To dig into what makes a compelling case study, we asked seven experienced educators who teach with—and many who write—business case studies: “What is your favorite case to teach and why?”

The resulting list of case study favorites ranges in topics from operations management and organizational structure to rebel leaders and whodunnit dramas.

1. The Army Crew Team

Emily Michelle David, Assistant Professor of Management, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)

case study business growth

“I love teaching  The Army Crew Team  case because it beautifully demonstrates how a team can be so much less than the sum of its parts.

I deliver the case to executives in a nearby state-of-the-art rowing facility that features rowing machines, professional coaches, and shiny red eight-person shells.

After going through the case, they hear testimonies from former members of Chinese national crew teams before carrying their own boat to the river for a test race.

The rich learning environment helps to vividly underscore one of the case’s core messages: competition can be a double-edged sword if not properly managed.

case study business growth

Executives in Emily Michelle David’s organizational behavior class participate in rowing activities at a nearby facility as part of her case delivery.

Despite working for an elite headhunting firm, the executives in my most recent class were surprised to realize how much they’ve allowed their own team-building responsibilities to lapse. In the MBA pre-course, this case often leads to a rich discussion about common traps that newcomers fall into (for example, trying to do too much, too soon), which helps to poise them to both stand out in the MBA as well as prepare them for the lateral team building they will soon engage in.

Finally, I love that the post-script always gets a good laugh and serves as an early lesson that organizational behavior courses will seldom give you foolproof solutions for specific problems but will, instead, arm you with the ability to think through issues more critically.”

2. ATH Technologies

Devin Shanthikumar, Associate Professor of Accounting, Paul Merage School of Business

case study business growth

“As a professor at UC Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business, and before that at Harvard Business School, I have probably taught over 100 cases. I would like to say that my favorite case is my own,   Compass Box Whisky Company . But as fun as that case is, one case beats it:  ATH Technologies  by Robert Simons and Jennifer Packard.

ATH presents a young entrepreneurial company that is bought by a much larger company. As part of the merger, ATH gets an ‘earn-out’ deal—common among high-tech industries. The company, and the class, must decide what to do to achieve the stretch earn-out goals.

ATH captures a scenario we all want to be in at some point in our careers—being part of a young, exciting, growing organization. And a scenario we all will likely face—having stretch goals that seem almost unreachable.

It forces us, as a class, to really struggle with what to do at each stage.

After we read and discuss the A case, we find out what happens next, and discuss the B case, then the C, then D, and even E. At every stage, we can:

see how our decisions play out,

figure out how to build on our successes, and

address our failures.

The case is exciting, the class discussion is dynamic and energetic, and in the end, we all go home with a memorable ‘ah-ha!’ moment.

I have taught many great cases over my career, but none are quite as fun, memorable, and effective as ATH .”

3. Fabritek 1992

Rob Austin, Professor of Information Systems, Ivey Business School

case study business growth

“This might seem like an odd choice, but my favorite case to teach is an old operations case called  Fabritek 1992 .

The latest version of Fabritek 1992 is dated 2009, but it is my understanding that this is a rewrite of a case that is older (probably much older). There is a Fabritek 1969 in the HBP catalog—same basic case, older dates, and numbers. That 1969 version lists no authors, so I suspect the case goes even further back; the 1969 version is, I’m guessing, a rewrite of an even older version.

There are many things I appreciate about the case. Here are a few:

It operates as a learning opportunity at many levels. At first it looks like a not-very-glamorous production job scheduling case. By the end of the case discussion, though, we’re into (operations) strategy and more. It starts out technical, then explodes into much broader relevance. As I tell participants when I’m teaching HBP's Teaching with Cases seminars —where I often use Fabritek as an example—when people first encounter this case, they almost always underestimate it.

It has great characters—especially Arthur Moreno, who looks like a troublemaker, but who, discussion reveals, might just be the smartest guy in the factory. Alums of the Harvard MBA program have told me that they remember Arthur Moreno many years later.

Almost every word in the case is important. It’s only four and a half pages of text and three pages of exhibits. This economy of words and sparsity of style have always seemed like poetry to me. I should note that this super concise, every-word-matters approach is not the ideal we usually aspire to when we write cases. Often, we include extra or superfluous information because part of our teaching objective is to provide practice in separating what matters from what doesn’t in a case. Fabritek takes a different approach, though, which fits it well.

It has a dramatic structure. It unfolds like a detective story, a sort of whodunnit. Something is wrong. There is a quality problem, and we’re not sure who or what is responsible. One person, Arthur Moreno, looks very guilty (probably too obviously guilty), but as we dig into the situation, there are many more possibilities. We spend in-class time analyzing the data (there’s a bit of math, so it covers that base, too) to determine which hypotheses are best supported by the data. And, realistically, the data doesn’t support any of the hypotheses perfectly, just some of them more than others. Also, there’s a plot twist at the end (I won’t reveal it, but here’s a hint: Arthur Moreno isn’t nearly the biggest problem in the final analysis). I have had students tell me the surprising realization at the end of the discussion gives them ‘goosebumps.’

Finally, through the unexpected plot twist, it imparts what I call a ‘wisdom lesson’ to young managers: not to be too sure of themselves and to regard the experiences of others, especially experts out on the factory floor, with great seriousness.”

4. Lincoln Electric Co.

Karin Schnarr, Assistant Professor of Policy, Wilfrid Laurier University

case study business growth

“As a strategy professor, my favorite case to teach is the classic 1975 Harvard case  Lincoln Electric Co.  by Norman Berg.

I use it to demonstrate to students the theory linkage between strategy and organizational structure, management processes, and leadership behavior.

This case may be an odd choice for a favorite. It occurs decades before my students were born. It is pages longer than we are told students are now willing to read. It is about manufacturing arc welding equipment in Cleveland, Ohio—a hard sell for a Canadian business classroom.

Yet, I have never come across a case that so perfectly illustrates what I want students to learn about how a company can be designed from an organizational perspective to successfully implement its strategy.

And in a time where so much focus continues to be on how to maximize shareholder value, it is refreshing to be able to discuss a publicly-traded company that is successfully pursuing a strategy that provides a fair value to shareholders while distributing value to employees through a large bonus pool, as well as value to customers by continually lowering prices.

However, to make the case resonate with today’s students, I work to make it relevant to the contemporary business environment. I link the case to multimedia clips about Lincoln Electric’s current manufacturing practices, processes, and leadership practices. My students can then see that a model that has been in place for generations is still viable and highly successful, even in our very different competitive situation.”

5. Pal’s Sudden Service—Scaling an Organizational Model to Drive Growth

Gary Pisano, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

case study business growth

“My favorite case to teach these days is  Pal’s Sudden Service—Scaling an Organizational Model to Drive Growth .

I love teaching this case for three reasons:

1. It demonstrates how a company in a super-tough, highly competitive business can do very well by focusing on creating unique operating capabilities. In theory, Pal’s should have no chance against behemoths like McDonalds or Wendy’s—but it thrives because it has built a unique operating system. It’s a great example of a strategic approach to operations in action.

2. The case shows how a strategic approach to human resource and talent development at all levels really matters. This company competes in an industry not known for engaging its front-line workers. The case shows how engaging these workers can really pay off.

3. Finally, Pal’s is really unusual in its approach to growth. Most companies set growth goals (usually arbitrary ones) and then try to figure out how to ‘backfill’ the human resource and talent management gaps. They trust you can always find someone to do the job. Pal’s tackles the growth problem completely the other way around. They rigorously select and train their future managers. Only when they have a manager ready to take on their own store do they open a new one. They pace their growth off their capacity to develop talent. I find this really fascinating and so do the students I teach this case to.”

6. The United States Air Force: ‘Chaos’ in the 99th Reconnaissance Squadron

Francesca Gino, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

case study business growth

“My favorite case to teach is  The United States Air Force: ‘Chaos’ in the 99th Reconnaissance Squadron .

The case surprises students because it is about a leader, known in the unit by the nickname Chaos , who inspired his squadron to be innovative and to change in a culture that is all about not rocking the boat, and where there is a deep sense that rules should simply be followed.

For years, I studied ‘rebels,’ people who do not accept the status quo; rather, they approach work with curiosity and produce positive change in their organizations. Chaos is a rebel leader who got the level of cultural change right. Many of the leaders I’ve met over the years complain about the ‘corporate culture,’ or at least point to clear weaknesses of it; but then they throw their hands up in the air and forget about changing what they can.

Chaos is different—he didn’t go after the ‘Air Force’ culture. That would be like boiling the ocean.

Instead, he focused on his unit of control and command: The 99th squadron. He focused on enabling that group to do what it needed to do within the confines of the bigger Air Force culture. In the process, he inspired everyone on his team to be the best they can be at work.

The case leaves the classroom buzzing and inspired to take action.”

7. Warren E. Buffett, 2015

Robert F. Bruner, Professor of Business Administration, Darden School of Business

case study business growth

“I love teaching   Warren E. Buffett, 2015  because it energizes, exercises, and surprises students.

Buffett looms large in the business firmament and therefore attracts anyone who is eager to learn his secrets for successful investing. This generates the kind of energy that helps to break the ice among students and instructors early in a course and to lay the groundwork for good case discussion practices.

Studying Buffett’s approach to investing helps to introduce and exercise important themes that will resonate throughout a course. The case challenges students to define for themselves what it means to create value. The case discussion can easily be tailored for novices or for more advanced students.

Either way, this is not hero worship: The case affords a critical examination of the financial performance of Buffett’s firm, Berkshire Hathaway, and reveals both triumphs and stumbles. Most importantly, students can critique the purported benefits of Buffett’s conglomeration strategy and the sustainability of his investment record as the size of the firm grows very large.

By the end of the class session, students seem surprised with what they have discovered. They buzz over the paradoxes in Buffett’s philosophy and performance record. And they come away with sober respect for Buffett’s acumen and for the challenges of creating value for investors.

Surely, such sobriety is a meta-message for any mastery of finance.”

More Educator Favorites

CASE TEACHING

Emily Michelle David is an assistant professor of management at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS). Her current research focuses on discovering how to make workplaces more welcoming for people of all backgrounds and personality profiles to maximize performance and avoid employee burnout. David’s work has been published in a number of scholarly journals, and she has worked as an in-house researcher at both NASA and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

case study business growth

Devin Shanthikumar  is an associate professor and the accounting area coordinator at UCI Paul Merage School of Business. She teaches undergraduate, MBA, and executive-level courses in managerial accounting. Shanthikumar previously served on the faculty at Harvard Business School, where she taught both financial accounting and managerial accounting for MBAs, and wrote cases that are used in accounting courses across the country.

case study business growth

Robert D. Austin is a professor of information systems at Ivey Business School and an affiliated faculty member at Harvard Medical School. He has published widely, authoring nine books, more than 50 cases and notes, three Harvard online products, and two popular massive open online courses (MOOCs) running on the Coursera platform.

case study business growth

Karin Schnarr is an assistant professor of policy and the director of the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) program at the Lazaridis School of Business & Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada where she teaches strategic management at the undergraduate, graduate, and executive levels. Schnarr has published several award-winning and best-selling cases and regularly presents at international conferences on case writing and scholarship.

case study business growth

Gary P. Pisano is the Harry E. Figgie, Jr. Professor of Business Administration and senior associate dean of faculty development at Harvard Business School, where he has been on the faculty since 1988. Pisano is an expert in the fields of technology and operations strategy, the management of innovation, and competitive strategy. His research and consulting experience span a range of industries including aerospace, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, specialty chemicals, health care, nutrition, computers, software, telecommunications, and semiconductors.

case study business growth

Francesca Gino studies how people can have more productive, creative, and fulfilling lives. She is a professor at Harvard Business School and the author, most recently, of  Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life . Gino regularly gives keynote speeches, delivers corporate training programs, and serves in advisory roles for firms and not-for-profit organizations across the globe.

case study business growth

Robert F. Bruner is a university professor at the University of Virginia, distinguished professor of business administration, and dean emeritus of the Darden School of Business. He has also held visiting appointments at Harvard and Columbia universities in the United States, at INSEAD in France, and at IESE in Spain. He is the author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books on finance, management, and teaching. Currently, he teaches and writes in finance and management.

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Grow Your Revenue & Profit with Ecosystems, Copywriting, and CRO

29 Growth Marketing Case Studies

by Samuel J. Woods

More than anything else, I regularly come across people asking for growth marketing case studies .

It’s one thing to have a list of “growth hacks” and a general sense of growth marketing methodology and process.

But quite another to learn how other companies went from zero to traction, then scale and growth.

Everyone wants to discover what other companies have done successfully. And see what’s possible, across channels, growth processes , “growth hacking”, and growth teams .

But uncovering hidden growth opportunities takes time, effort, analysis, and constant testing.

So, I analyzed and studied how a number of companies did it.

What you’ll see in this article are a wide range of companies—SaaS, apps, marketplaces, e-commerce, platforms.

Many went from small to big, fast.

Here are 29 growth marketing case studies.

Growth Marketing Case Studies Reveal a Variety of Growth Paths

Given the spread in types of companies, you can expect to learn about various growth strategies, tactics, and the path they took toward exponential growth.

Some took years, others took months. But one way or another, they tapped into a market, a need, with a product or service that solved their problems.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #1: Etsy

From June 2005 to 2022, craft super seller Etsy went from a concept to nearly 14 billion in sales (in 2021), including more than 4 million sellers and almost 40 million active buyers.

Now, Etsy is a publicly-traded Nasdaq company (ETSY) with a $13 billion market cap.

How did they do it? Here’s the snapshot.

A Needed Change: Craft sellers were aggravated that eBay was so cumbersome, stingy, and seemed to lack care for sellers. These factors created an environment that was supercharged for a platform like Etsy.

They Weren’t Lazy: A marketplace is unique because it requires both buyers and sellers to be successful.

Without awesome products, there would be no need for buyers.

The founders went to every artisan flea market and craft fair to introduce them to the craft-specific selling platform.

Finding Buyers: Etsy was able to tap into a rise in the craft industry fueled by a renaissance of handmade crafters.

Some of these early product creators had built an audience but hadn’t interconnected or listed their items through an eCommerce platform.

Growing Organically: Typically, Etsy only pays for around 2-7% of their traffic (which is insane). This “grassroots” growth comes from getting out of the way of their sellers.

With 150 third-party apps and sellers who are empowered to grow their own business as they see fit, getting out of the way has led to the exponential growth of both sellers and buyers.

Continued Growth: Since its IPO, Etsy has continued to grow rapidly. Now, growth comes primarily through experimentation and a growth marketing strategy handled by teams of people.

Split testing, coming up with experiments, breaking down features, and changing small elements to gauge usefulness and user response has fueled growth.

Key Takeaways from Etsy:

  • Having a keen sense of market needs can lead to initial traction and validation.
  • One of the best ways to see growth in a new online business is to promote it through physical events to the public.
  • Provide the right tool(s) and network with key players (that have an audience that needs your stuff).
  • Figuring out ways to empower users to become brand ambassadors is a key to long-term and sustainable growth.
  • Large amounts of growth are possible at every level. Strategies may change, and teams may grow, but organized experimentation, failing fast, and setting up processes will help you succeed.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #2: Nasty Gal

From 2006 until 2008, Nasty Gal was an eBay business that bought and sold vintage goods for its founder (Sophia Amoruso) to try and make a living.

In 2008, she opened a stand-alone e-Commerce site, and by 2011, it hit $28 million in sales.

The following year, Nasty Gal reported $100 million in revenue and began experimenting with physical locations.

Here’s the brief on how.

Consistent Persistence: Amoruso started an eBay store (called Nasty Gal Vintage) back in 2006 to pay rent. She realized a heavy desire among millennials to dress in vintage clothes due to the unique styles of previous eras.

When she hit what would be a detrimental blow to most (her eBay store was shut down), it didn’t stop her.

That persistence led to an independent site with $28 million in revenue by 2011 (all from vintage clothing arbitrage).

Leveraging Platforms: Using share-worthy style, high margin vintage finds, and a few local models, Nasty Gal built a large following using eBay and social platforms like Myspace (well before Facebook ads).

Her strategy was simple in the early days. She made her models not only look but feel awesome and set out to “…sell things for more than you bought them.”

Perceived Value: Without even knowing what it was, Sophia knew that if she positioned clothing a certain way, it would drive up the price of the early eBay auctions.

Taking decades-old clothing and styling it on the right college-aged model with thoughtful positioning and accessories meant large profits early on and continues today. The way you present can alter the way products are perceived.

Initial Testing: Early eBay was a split-testing ground for Nasty Gal. Testing everything, including the headlines on auctions, the images available, product styles, and putting one article of clothing on several different models to try what hit and missed.

This experimentation led to gains week after week and a store that constantly performed better.

Raising the Stakes: Once the eBay store was shut down, the site came to life with a hefty social following and loyal fans. Selling out of merchandise led to Amoruso seeking a Nasty Gal line.

Through continued experimentation, social presence, and sticking to its core audience, the company has seen incredible growth.

With $100 million in revenue (2015), $65 million in VC funds last year, and two physical locations, the growth is set to continue.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #3: Growth Hackers

This look at Growth Hackers will speak strongly to the frustrated founder who has hit a growth plateau.

The company seemingly stalled at 90,000 users. Then, after a little focus and only 11 weeks, that number reached over 150,000.

Get ready for a straight dose of data as we look at how they did it.

High Tempo Time: Testing different growth strategies had slowed, and goals weren’t being met. These two factors led to a stagnant user growth chart and a company not living up to its name. Recognizing this was a huge first step to setting a goal of three experiments per week.

Defining Experiments: The types of things Growth Hackers identify as experiments aren’t just a simple split test (even though those are included). New initiatives, new/revamped product releases, and other things were included to test.

It Takes a Village: A team of people was gathered from around the company to be involved with generating the ideas for experimentation.

The Hackers cited that if one person is in charge of the idea process, the number of experiments to be tested will run out without seeing the type of growth that is desired.

Their efforts resulted in hundreds of ideas that had to be prioritized by potential benefit and ease/speed of implementation.

Pace Yourself (and Meet Often): Some of the experiments took more effort than others (which is normal). However, when these larger tests were run, it caused the crew not to hit their three-a-week goal.

This problem required that they set weekly meetings to identify problems and methodically sort through their experiment list.

The Process Works: Growth Hackers was able to grow the number of users (62,000) within 11 weeks. That same number of users took 32 weeks for the company to attain during launch.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #4: Slack

If you love growth stories, you’ve heard of slack. This would-be game company that turned its focus to team communication has received an incredible amount of attention.

From 15,000 users at launch (February 2014) to over 10 million daily active users now, their story is nothing short of amazing.

Here are the highlights of their early traction.

Defining a New Tool: For slack, defining itself was an issue at first. It was when they defined an entire software category that existed(but really didn’t) that they found their focus.

Offices around the world were using dozens of different tools to communicate with other team members and colleagues which made slack a no-brainer to create.

Selling the Dream: Slack is a useful tool, but offices had to be convinced they really needed it (borderline couldn’t live without it).

Since they were able to identify a whole new market, they also had to deal with educating their ideal customers and convincing them it was a need.

Once they were able to get this across, traction came like a flood.

Focus is Key: Early on, the slack founders were influenced to pick out the software’s key features and just do those as well as they possibly could.

Winning big where they won instead of even focusing across the board.

Features weren’t wholeheartedly denied, but an incredible level of care was spent perfecting file sharing and search synchronization (incredibly important to highly connected teams).

Once offices saw the results, word of mouth caused growth to catch fire again.

Give it Away: Slack followed suit of some of the most popular organization apps and offered a free service that was incredibly useful. Teams who saw that value would get the better options to a tune of a 30% conversion rate (free to paid).

A freemium model was a huge factor in the early growth that brought all of the media and VC attention, but the app itself kept paying customers.

Smooth Onboarding: Since it is a useful tool, slack had to be careful not to create a cumbersome learning curve for users.

The development of a simple and intuitive interface that allows teams to be created seamlessly and communicate immediately helped more people hit the ground running.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #5: New Relic

New Relic is an analytics company that reveals the deepest secrets of cloud software and apps.

From their start in 2008 until now, they’ve managed to gain 15,400 clients (as of 2020) and monitor over 1 million websites and 1 billion (with a b) apps.

Their customers range from startups to Fortune 500s and government agencies. Their growth is incredible.

So how’d they do it? Here’s how.

Solve a Problem: The basic rule of entrepreneurship is to solve a need, and New Relic knew that they would have to create something great for a market as picky as a development community.

Early traction can almost all be traced by the quality of their product and its usefulness, making their focus on providing an excellent tool worthwhile.

Create Salespeople: Early marketing efforts were heavily focused on not only selling to large development firms but specifically Ruby on Rails programmers.

This approach was different in the sense that New Relic went after people instead of agencies, leading to popularity among those who would actually use their product.

Things like t-shirts for users and meetups led to a sense of community all built around their excellent product.

Give It Away: A freemium model would give skittish developers a chance to view their program’s analytics, enticing them to upgrade to paid.

New Relic’s marketing was simple, convince prospects to sign up and deploy to get a t-shirt and let the product do the rest.

Spending Money: In addition to shirts, the company is spending money on social ads and traffic at a high rate to gain relevant traffic. The brand is also employing multiple tools and SaaS products to gather the data they need to grow even faster.

Addictive Personality: With the product just being so dang valuable, their customers actually get dependent on the insights gained from it.

This need for the data has led to an almost unheard of negative churn rate (meaning their customers spend more year over year).

This rare occurrence happens due to the amount of data created and the space taken up on servers. Talk about growth.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #6: Tinder

Shrouded in scandal and misinformation, tinder has a truly fascinating story.

Their growth has come from a mix of newsworthy attention as well as innovation in a stale and competitive market.

From the start in late 2012 until now, they’ve garnered 75 million monthly active users.

All those people use the iconic “swipe” feature over 1 billion times per day.

How much they’re worth and how much trouble they’ve seen maybe cloudy, but the best story is in their growth.

Here’s the snapshot.

Ground Game: Online dating is a notoriously tough niche, but tinder knew what it needed to succeed.

A large number of females using the app would then entice guys to join, but the supply of potential dates had to be there first.

They met this problem from sorority houses, getting girls to sign up one dorm at a time. Next, you just had to tell the college guys there were girls.

Make It Fun: The need for loads of users in each town led to the gamification of the tinder app itself.

By creating the ability to keep “swiping,” you create a sense of wonder and hope that you’ll hit the jackpot with another flick or two. This feature has been a huge factor in the overall success.

Make It Better: Tinder was able to not only create an app in a crowded market, they were able to highlight some common issues with the giants and make them better. Ladies are less likely to get heckled by countless heathens with features built into the app, making more women use (and even enjoy) the app.

Keep Going: To keep people’s profiles fresh and used, tinder continues to add features and tweak them into a more social experience (without losing its core value).

Add-ons like ‘matchmaker’, which allows someone to introduce two friends through the app, or ‘moments’, which allows a user to share edited visuals with matches.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #7: Stripe

If you want to create a company that attracts investors like a bug zapper on a front porch, listen to stripe’s story.

A couple of guys (with previous success) managed to create an online payment processor that attracted the attention of the guys who made one of the first (PayPal).

With a current market cap of more than $94 billion, Stripe processes billions more every year.

How’d it happen? Let’s see.

Addressing Elephants: While payment processors existed, they were incredibly cumbersome.

Connectivity and customers were growing at a far greater rate than the ability to take payments. This obvious problem led the three founders to have a simple goal, make it easy for ecommerce businesses to take payments.

Being Different: Figuring out the frustration of other popular processors (PayPal, Google), Stripe was able to develop a platform that was business friendly.

Features that set them apart included the ability for customers to stay on the seller’s site for the entire transaction, and reducing backend features that were confusing and difficult to navigate.

Close Customer Base: Stripe used its surroundings to find it’s first loyal customers. Since the company was part of a community of companies from an incubator, they were able to use that as leverage (most of them needed a payment processor).

Organic Growth: The product spoke well to online business owners and received incredible word of mouth exposure during it’s early days.

To accelerate this advocacy, stripe sent care packages, including shirts and stickers, to developers who used the product. There were also meetups and community events that fostered loyalty.

Constant Improvement: Stripe knows who their customers are and have continuously created new solutions for developers to keep them happy and talking.

From offering specialized support for all popular programming languages, to adding new features, there is always a better stripe in development. They’ve even begun to tackle mobile payments which almost ensures more growth in the coming months.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #8: Spotify

Spotify. You’ve probably heard the name. You’re likely one of the 406 million users.

The company was valued at $10 billion in just six years on the market.

Now, it’s publicly traded with a more than $20 billion market cap.

This story is incredible. We’ll take a quick look at the key ingredients to this explosive growth.

Be Different: Music is a giant industry, and the competition couldn’t be tougher.

However, there was a gaping hole in the market. Spotify launched in the U.S. with the simple, yet powerful difference of all the music you want for a low monthly fee.

From a per album and track pricing method to unlimited is almost the definition of disruption. Growth was immediate.

Deliver the Goods: There were other services, but with no options. These early versions were more like radio and lacked to ability to create a soundtrack to your life.

Spotify allowed people to be in control of their music, a feature that many would pay for instead of being fed music.

Free Growth: The freemium model is one often used to help disrupt industries. Spotify does this by delicately placing ads and limiting features as not to upset users or be classified as pirating (70% of ad income goes to song rights holders).

Multiple Launches: Before launching in the U.S. in 2011 (partnering with Facebook which was another huge proponent to early growth), the company beta launched and then officially launched in multiple European countries. These tiered released allowed them to hone their message and buyer personas.

U.S. and Facebook: Launching in the U.S. (after finding their voice) caused Spotify to explode, increasing web traffic well over a million visitors a month within four months time.

Their partnership with Facebook and integrating with the social network garnered another exponential growth session gaining 1 million new users within one month.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #9: Airbnb

Necessity may be the mother of all invention, but AirBnB almost didn’t succeed.

Sometimes it takes real tenacity to see growth and it worked out well for the lodging giant.

Now worth $100 billion and responsible for more stays than anyone else in the hospitality industry, this company has seen itself through tough times to sit on the top of an industry in record time.

We’ll give you the highlights.

Hustle Fund: Well before their 450 million in funding, the founders of AirBnB had to raise their own capital. Creating a couple of politically geared cereals (Obama-O’s and Cap’n MCcain’s) the team was able to raise 30k of crucial funds.

Using Your Skills: One of the most questionable factors to Airbnb’s growth is their pillaging of Craigslist.

These gifted developers engineered a solution that was able to pirate both visitors and rental listers from the popular community site.

This tactic isn’t easy and is borderline taboo, but was used to create the largest vacation property site on the internet.

Do What You Gotta: Early on, too many properties were struggling with revenue.

The problem was traced to bad pictures which created less interest. The solution was very hands on; renting an expensive camera and taking high quality photos of every property in New York.

The income doubled and eventually became an expensive (yet effective) program. AirBnB now employees 2000 freelance photographers and revenue has hit exponential growth since the program’s introduction.

Removing Fear: There are obvious concerns when renting your home to strangers (and vice versa).

The company realized that removing fears of those who were interested in using AirBnB (yet hadn’t rented or listed) was a crucial element of growth.

Introducing social integration allowed visitors to see connections and social proof of those who had stayed in a particular location.

Going WorldWide: With so many beautiful locations around the world, AirBnB has started to see another round of huge growth from international stays. This outlet will also be a focus for continued increase in the coming years.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #10: WhatsApp

WhatsApp started as a company that stuck to its guns to do one thing (allowing people to message inexpensively) and do it without ads.

This initial goal helped them attract users for the messaging app quickly, but had them second guessing any funding.

After some tenacious VC’s the app now boasts over two billion users and 1 million more daily!

Here’s the brief story of how it happened.

Pivot Power: Most companies don’t reach success offering their service they way it started. WhatsApp started as an app to let others know you weren’t available by phone. This idea failed to catch fire, until push notifications were invented.

This new feature allowed WhatsApp users to alert friends of their status instantly across the world, giving life to the idea for a messaging app.

Principle Power: The app’s founder has a note taped to his desk professing “no ads” among other things. Their product doesn’t use ads and is free for the first year($0.99 cents/year thereafter).

These core principles are still alive and set WhatsApp apart from dozens of competitors aiming for ad revenue and other gimmicks.

Pricing Power: WhatsApp is such a low-cost alternative to many other carriers and services in other countries that international growth is faster than most other famous startups combined (Facebook included). Pricing to scale is a popular feature among startups.

Timing Power: WhatsApp had expenses for the free service that required a paid option. This problem led to the $1 price point it has today, but the timing of the paid option came with an ability to share pictures which meant growth stayed steady.

Facebook Power: The app has been purchased by Facebook, which has more than added to the growth (to the tune of 25 million users a month). However, the change does come with skepticism due to Facebook’s privacy concerns.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #11: LinkedIn

Executives, middle class job seekers, and networking connectors love LinkedIn.

Within a year of going live (2003) the networking social platform had half a million users, and the growth didn’t slow down there.

It’s now a publicly traded company (LNKD) that boasts well over 810 million users and thousands of employees worldwide.

Here’s the quick look at their growth story.

Start With a Need: The need for quality prospects on both the employer and employee sides of the job coin warranted a solution.

While there were other options in the early 2000’s, none offered a place for executives and decision makers to find the connections they needed. The opportunity that LinkedIn capitalized on.

Niching Down: While the startup did find resistance in the beginning (tech bubble trouble), they were able to focus on Silicon Valley and find executives eager to fill their sparse staffs with qualified talent and connect with others.

This choice would eventually garner the acceptance of the professional community.

Not So Free: While LinkedIn did remain free, they weren’t making significant revenue from ads. When they added paid features like job listings, subscriptions, and more recently and ad platform, their revenue began to take shape.

Focus on Strength: Monitoring analytics allowed LinkedIn to notice that they were very good at engaging the initial traffic reaching their site, but not as good connecting with a cold email audience. This fact led them to focus on their homepage conversions rather than email, a difficult but effective solution that led to exponential growth.

Testing to Virality: Before the company would concentrate on revenue it had to secure its growth. To do this there was a heavy period of good old growth hacking experiments, tests, and analytics until they reached a planned viral loop.

Audience Before Business: Building a large and engaged community of users before concentrating on revenue gave LinkedIn the opportunity to build a business model around an audience they already knew (and had in their pocket).

This knowledge has led to acquisitions (Slideshare) and content platforms (Pulse) that are driving continued growth.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #12: Yelp

If you love a good not-so-underdog story, then Yelp’s story is probably one you’ll enjoy.

In a world of social review sites, yelp managed to rise above some big branded names and boasts over 95 million reviews.

The site received an average of 85 million views in the fourth quarter of 2015 on mobile devices alone.

It started from humble San Fran beginnings and has gone on to become a publicly traded company worth around $5 billion.

Openly Different: Yelp decided early on that reviews wouldn’t be anonymous (like the other review sites). Instead, users have profiles and are empowered to share more reviews becoming a valued member of a community.

Fostering Quality: Other review sites are often full of overly negative and one time reviewers. Yelp has created a system to reward regular reviewers with titles, ranks and other goodies to encourage a constant and accurate stream of reliable reviewers.

Start Small: Starting in the local San Francisco scene, the Yelp team was able to fix issues and gather a tight knit community. Afterwards, it was easier to take on city after city which made growth naturally exponential.

Genuinely User Friendly: So many review sites have to cater to advertisers. The problem with this model is that most ads are for the companies being reviewed (an obvious conflict of interest). However, Yelp has managed to keep the focus on a democratic review system and is seemingly unbiased.

Natural Growth: When you can create a user generated environment that allows visitors to genuinely find the best place to spend their money, you will have the type of growth that Yelp has seen. This growth has in turn spread to the businesses that deserve it. Local places that have the reviews see a jump in revenue.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #13: GitHub

Programmers and developers love the idea of open source, but had a cumbersome process to add value and create.

Seeing this need has led GitHub to an incredible amount of success.

From initial traction of 100,000 users in a year, to now having over 73 million active users with thousands more every day.

Here’s how it took shape.

Make Something Easier: The problem with using open source software was the process of downloading, making changes, and then actually seeing them used.

Essentially, it was the entire process that was broken. Creating a hub for git repositories that could easily be worked on and shared was the answer (namely GitHub).

Let It Ride: With developers loving the now easier (but not perfect) way to develop open source, it became a place that offered many new programs.

This supply led to those seeking (demand) and you had a rapid growth process that would eventually be a full audience of people developing solutions and others who needed them.

Making Money: Startups that offer a freemium model often times run into trouble getting users to pay for premium memberships. GitHub had a natural solution come to them. Businesses and other developers wanted a private repository and were willing to pay for it.

This structure created an entirely different membership that the company could charge to use.

Open Popularity: Since open source software is a huge deal, GitHub was in the perfect place to become the poster child of a movement. This position was in some ways deliberate, but in all ways has led to crazy user gains.

Fast Delivery: GitHub doesn’t linger on new features. The developers find a way to deliver things quickly and then work to improve it after feedback. This quality has led to continued growth and loyalty from existing users.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #14: Upworthy

While Upworthy may not be a SaaS app, or other type of software tool, its story is just as grandiose.

Scrolling through your Facebook feed you’ve seen posts from this popular viral site (or others who are emulating their success).

Endearing stories, funny videos, or multitudes of other entertaining posts are created to influence social users to visit the site.

Shortly after their launch (in 2012), Upworthy was seeing traffic to the tune of almost 90 million visitors a month (by November 2013).

Here’s how they did it.

Fast Changes: Originally, Upworthy wanted to capitalize on an election year and cover mainly political topics.

The team quickly realized that this material wasn’t getting them the traction that they needed, and switched to other topics that were already popular.

Strictly Wants: Instead of providing a need, Upworthy provides the types of content that people seem to naturally gravitate toward. Instead of text based articles, they concentrate on visual content that speaks to human emotions and behaviors.

Solid Formula: While they can’t bottle virality, they sure are good at it. Their success has come from a solid formula of curating content from around the web as well as a proprietary system of editing and evaluating it.

It essentially comes down to using data to find the content, tweaking (again by using the data), and analyzing it after it’s published (creating more data to use).

Conversions: Without a steady base of social traffic, the site wouldn’t have nearly as many visitors. To gain a steady increase of likes and followers, the team has had to A/B test various methods. These experiments have led the site’s facebook page to nearly 5 million likes since launch.

Emotions Driven: Since the click is performed by a human and the content isn’t a need, emotions play a major role in getting a visitor to the site.

The need to compel leads to tests of material, but more importantly headlines.

The click is the most important aspect so those few words that are shown are the most vital aspect (along with the image).

Future Growth: With mobile being the future, the brand has made changes to make mobile users just as click happy. In addition to mobile, the international market is ripe, but needs different forms of content and more testing is needed to see the growth already achieved in the states.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #15: HubSpot

Unless you’ve been under a rock over the past few years, you’ve heard the term “inbound marketing”.

You can thank HubSpot for that. On top of crafting a new term, they’ve become a billion dollar company.

Their story is great for those who have high dollar products, but still want to see rapid growth.

With each client bringing in an average of over $6000, they’ve managed to see incredible gains in a short time.

Here’s how.

Inbound Marketing: It’s no surprise that HubSpot practices what it preaches and uses inbound as an incredible source of growth.

Having multiple blogs (that provide intense levels of value) and a great overall compelling online presence, has given them a ton of success (and continues to do so).

Free Stuff: There are few other sources online (at least for marketing) where you can find so much value completely for free.

Guides, courses, templates, you name it and it’s there. One of their most successful drivers is the free website grader (it search 4 million sites in five years).

Tailored CTA: HubSpot offers multiple types of content (as mentioned), but if you read a blog post, your offer is going to be catered to that topic. Most B2B companies have one guide, whitepaper or resource for their ideal clients.

HubSpot continues their content marketing with content specific calls to action which increases conversions (and growth).

Webinars: Early adopters in the webinar game, HubSpot was able to tap into internet savvy companies and give them free tips in an online presentation.

Webinars are a key proponent of their social growth as well as the overall success of their brand.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #16: Evernote

If your company is fledging or even on the brink of shutting down, maybe you can derive a little inspiration from Evernote.

After almost closing their virtual doors, they’ve went on to gain 75 million users and a lot of VC attention (now 225 million).

They had to start somewhere and so do you, so let’s see what factors led to their success.

Surviving Trouble: Evernote was born in the midst of a world of social and new websites (not apps). This early trouble led them to only have a few weeks worth of funds in their accounts at any one time.

Fortunately, a lone user loved the product and at the last available minute wired enough funds to keep them going.

Good and Bad Timing: Evernote launched in the modern app era (2008). There were millions of users ready to download, and not a whole lot of other apps which helped early growth.

The team would also work hard to be in the new app stores on the first day opened. The funding factor wasn’t as good with the economic situation being so awful.

Useful and Impressive: Evernote desired to create an app that could act as your memory, storing anything of any size from anywhere.

On top of that, they wanted an interface that was easy to use, functional and enjoyable. Making something useful and easy are always key metrics for growth.

Freemium: One of the early adopters of the freemium model, Evernote used a basic free version of the app to entice new users.

The genuine usefulness of the product has led to a financial success to the tune of a billion dollar valuation. The value of the product increases with use, and so can the revenue.

Brand Ambassadors: Many companies hope to create advocates for their brand, but Evernote does it. Naming a select few from prominent industries as ambassadors for the app has led to incredible word of mouth and user success.

Meetups are held where the ambassador answers questions and shares the usefulness of the product in that particular field.

Continuous Improvement: In an effort to keep growth levels, Evernote has continuously put out new features and entire apps that make their initial success more useful. Every new product or acquisition has the same goal: to be useful, and beautifully functional which in the end can sell itself (with a little testing).

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #17: SnapChat

Sometimes your products aren’t used the way you intended and it can lead to problems.

The Snapchat founders understand that, but it didn’t lead to their growth stalling.

In fact, the popular picture/video sharing app has went from starting in 2011 to now having about 300 million users.

Provide Freedom: So often many young people feel the need for expression that can’t be obtained on most social channels. SnapChat offers users the ability to post a very expressive product that is live in real time with no lasting ramifications.

The freedom that comes from the ability to just hop on and share a moment (that won’t last) is a compelling feature that drives both engagement and growth.

Controversial Growth: Meant for colleges, the app found its start in high schools. It seems teenagers were attracted to the idea of messages that could be shared with friends and not be seen by anyone else (and no evidence).

However, the app received negative (potentially unwarranted) early press centered around the new “sexting” phenomenon. Growth continued.

Competitive Help: Facebook saw the popularity of Snapchat as a threat and created their own similar app (called Poke). The attention only gave more fuel to SnapChat’s popularity sending their growth even higher while Poke declined.

Natural Engagement: Due to the nature of the app, messages sent between users are rarely unopened. The wonder of what could be inside makes most open the messages they receive and compels them to send their own. This engagement also creates an excellent word of mouth.

Social Acceptance: More recently, heavy hitters in the online community (namely Gary Vaynerchuck among others) have begun to adopt the platform. This popularity has online audiences running to the platform and sure to equal growth.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #18: Uber

Continued growth on an exponential level is a rare thing when it comes to billion dollar brands.

Uber continues to amaze, more than doubling growth year after year even after they boast a $63 billion market cap.

Not to mention they’ve done all of this since 2009 starting out as a small local service.

Let’s take a brief look at how they accomplished so much.

Monopoly Buster: Cabs are terrible. Uber fixes that problem. While it’s not perfect, this new transportation method has become the very face of modern business disruption.

The added bonus of shaking an industry is not only the joy of being useful, but the media attention (negative and positive) that further fuels growth.

Strategic Launch: If you’re going to provide a service, it’s best to give it to those with platforms. Choosing San Francisco to be the first Uber city was a strategic choice.

A place of notoriously bad taxis and people who loved new technology and had blogs and audiences of their own (people like Tim Ferris).

Driver Love: Obviously, the travel brings the revenue. However, Uber understands that they are a liaison service between two parties (one being the driver). With better pay and putting laid off drivers back to work they created instants advocates in each new city.

Focused Launches: Each city isn’t just an expansion for Uber, it’s a new place to dominate. Taking each new location seriously has led to continued growth.

This tactic doesn’t mean slow growth, they have expanded rapidly as well as meticulously across the globe.

Testimonials: Word of mouth is still one of the biggest growth drivers in the world, but Uber gets it from those who have used their service. By someone sharing their experience with someone else (a testimonial) it becomes even more compelling.

Uber also gives free rides to have more and more people telling their story.

Creating Wow: Uber loves testing different experiences for their customers. Trying to ever improve the ride has led to some great experiments and an almost guaranteed good time across town (which creates more testimonial situations).

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #19: Belly

Everyone hates it when customers leave. The average churn rate of a company can destroy growth.

Belly Card started out to help small and medium sized businesses increase the retention rate of clients.

A unique business model that isn’t well known, but has over 1 million users and 5000 business clients.

The neatest part about them, is that it all happened in about 15 months!

Market Research: A key driver to growth is starting with something valuable. A lot of times it’s a hunch from a founder, but not in the case of Belly. The team hit the pavement and talked with hundreds of merchants to figure out how to improve customer loyalty for local businesses.

Getting It In: After creating the product to help, they got to work. Selling in person, on the phone, and other “traditional” methods helped get them their early traction and user base. Belly worked Chicago until people and merchants were talking about their service.

City by City: With a few successful city launches under their belt, the Belly team was able to roll out that strategy in new cities with the same success. Soon after, the word of mouth took off as users and merchants loved the engaging elements (gamification) that the product provided.

Selling by Data: While national chains of independent owners are a lucrative market, selling the owners equals a slowed rate of growth and selling to the chain may not be as effective either.

However, Belly was able to take the data of the independent owners that were already using the programs (places like Subways and Chic-Fil-A’s) to entice the chains to use the service.

This process would increase sales for Belly and (in most cases) chains/franchisors as well as garner loyalty for the owners themselves (win-win-win).

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #20: Square

Software companies can be one of the most attractive-looking ventures, but Square was able to do something different.

The company applied a payment processing company behind an attractive and conversation-starting trend centered around their hardware.

The growth is amazing, from starting in 2009 to being one of the most popular small business payment processors with more than 8000 employees.

Here’s a quick look at how they gained traction.

Needed Change: Square makes it possible for anyone to take credit payments. With the hardware (see next point), it had never been easier for small businesses to take multiple forms of payments and sell more stuff.

Whether it would be at flea markets, or in their home office everyone could take credit. Something that was needed and wanted and that created an environment for growth.

Physical Hardware: One of the most revolutionary things about Square is the invention of it’s iconic credit card processing hardware. It’s simple, easy and opens up credit payments to a world of entrepreneurs and business owners.

The company is still doing this with iPad integrations and register POS systems today. The wow factor and talking points definitely helped them with early traction.

Happy Customers: In addition to small business owners getting an easy way to take multiple forms of payments, they like it for other reasons too. Not only is the product useful, but incredibly attractive and hip.

Business owners often know others like them, fueling the number of people who are using the new device (and the processor of course).

Founder Foundation: Jack Dorsey (also cofounded Twitter) was an obvious piece to the early growth of the platform. It wasn’t just his name, but his approach. He wrote a list of those who may be interested in funding the startup.

The list laid out 140 reasons why the company may fail as well as their counterpoints. The gimmick worked and it has garnered significant investment and popularity.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #21: Canva

Back in the day, if you needed to come up with a flyer, a banner, or any design and you weren’t a designer, you had two options.

You could hire a designer or you could go through the painful process of doing it yourself on PowerPoint, or worse, use Word art.

Today you have Canva, which completely revolutionized basic graphic design for the average person.

Here’s how they’re growing.

Making it easy for everyone: There have always been other options for creating quick designs. But they had several shortcomings either in the way of UI, price, or ease of use. And these were the main things that Canva focused on since it launched.

The user interface was intuitive and had usable templates. It was web-based, so there was no need to download and install the software.

And most importantly, the free version was useful. So it was no surprise that Canva quickly became the de facto tool for anyone looking to do some quick design tasks.

Simple Pricing combined with a clear value proposition: An important aspect of Canva is that it made it easy for its users to choose to upgrade to the paid version.

The free version served the purpose of letting first-time users familiarize themselves with the platform until it became a part of their workflow. When that happened, it was a simple choice for users to upgrade to the paid version for additional features.

Also worth mentioning is that compared to their competition at the time, their pricing was in a goldilocks area for their key users.

From 0 to 15 million users: Canva’s first two years saw an impressive amount of growth. They went from 0 to 2 million monthly users.

And after seven years, they reached 15 million users, 300 thousand pro users, and are now a 3.2 billion-dollar company. To reach this massive amount of growth, they went about it with the tried and true formula of having a great product match for their audience and consistently investing in paid ads across the usual social media channels.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #22: Airbnb

The word disruption is used fairly loosely nowadays. But in reality, very few businesses disrupt an industry.

Airbnb is one of the few which have. And in doing so, they grew from a three-person operation making a couple of hundred bucks a week to now reporting over 1 billion in quarterly revenue.

Today, Airbnb is a 35 billion dollar behemoth with hundreds of employees and a global presence.

Here are 6 takeaways on how Airbnb grew its business.

  • Test your idea and iterate. Initially, the founders tried to make extra money by renting a spare air mattress. They took the same concept and iterated until they found the winning formula.
  • They focused on finding what the bottleneck to their growth was. At first, it was about the images of the properties; later on, it became payment processing. As they kept on growing, new growth problems were solved.
  • They bootstrapped and started small. Many new businesses want to immediately get funding to accelerate their growth. This is not necessarily wrong. However, AirBnb already was bringing in profits and had a working product by the time they took on venture capital. This made it significantly easier for them to raise capital and acquire investors.
  • They took over the industry by being themselves. Airbnb didn’t set out to compete with hotels directly. In the beginning, they offered a more affordable option for travelers, but what really set them apart was the fact that they were selling the experience of living in the place you were visiting instead of being a tourist as you would be with a traditional hotel.
  • They take care of their customers. One of the critical aspects of Airbnb is how the platform takes care of all its users. Airbnb offers a big insurance policy to their hosts so that they can have the confidence to rent out their properties.
  • Upsells and cross-sells have become a major source of revenue. Instead of limiting themselves, they decided to listen to their customers and incentivize their hosts to offer additional services that would help them increase their income. A win, win, win type of deal.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #23: Koala

In 2015, Koala made waves as one of the most successful businesses to launch in the recently created direct-to-consumer mattress space.

It quickly grew up to $13 million in sales in its first 12 months of operating.

During their first year, the team behind Koala did something that let them accelerate their growth. They had a laser focus on the digital marketing channels that brought them the most results.

Here’s a brief breakdown of how they went about strategizing their growth.

Have a great product and an amazing offer: To start off, Koala launched with a great product that was highly competitive compared with the traditional market. But what set them apart was the quality of the offer.

The offer was miles ahead of what their competition had at the moment. This is where free delivery, pickup, and a 120 free trial with no strings attached set them apart.

This amount of confidence in their product helped with making it easier for new customers to choose the new and innovative mattress company.

Laser-focus on what works: During their first year, Koala approached their marketing with a laser focus on one marketing channel: Facebook.

Instead of spreading themselves thin by diluting their budget across multiple channels, they decided to concentrate their efforts on dominating their chosen platform.

They did this by investing heavily in creating exciting and eye-catching ads and making the most out of Facebook’s retargeting capabilities.

This is why if you spent any amount of time browsing Facebook back in 2015, you probably came across an ad or two from Koala.

Make it easy for your customers to talk about you: The direct-to-consumer mattress business was still new and didn’t have widespread adoption back in 2015.

To address the novelty aspect of their business model, they relied heavily on having established processes that made it easy for their new customer to share their experiences.

Customer testimonials make a huge amount of difference for new businesses. They essentially shorten the amount of time needed for a new customer that is still on the fence about whether or not they want to try a new product.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #24: Hip Kids

Hip Kids is a children’s toy company that carved out a niche for itself by offering a more high-quality and durable alternative to the primarily disposable toys that are commonplace in the market.

This singular attention to detail and alignment to their core values helped them take their company to the 7-figure mark in sales.

But they reached a point where, even though they had a healthy marketing budget, they just weren’t seeing the growth they expected.

This is what they did to triple the revenue and spur growth for their already well-established brand.

Define the root cause of the problem: To understand the root cause of the problem, a little context is necessary.

HipKids started as an eBay store about a decade ago. They started small, and as the demand for their products grew, they were able to open up their own website and even open up a few physical locations for their brand.

Due to their organic growth, they added additional pieces to their marketing one at a time, and often from different agencies.

First they did their website, then they added an in-house designer, then they went with a PPC agency to get targeted traffic, and finally, they also invested in their SEO.

As you can imagine, after investing in each new marketing channel, they saw an initial spur of growth that quickly stagnated. It was this fragmented approach to their marketing strategy that made it difficult for their campaigns to work in unison and build up the momentum they needed to reach their growth goals.

Efficiency and optimization are key: Once the problem was defined, it became a matter of restructuring their marketing team to make sure that it was all moving in the same direction.

With a brand new marketing structure set in place, then it was possible for the marketing team to work on optimizing their campaigns and iterating over time to attract new traffic and improve conversion rates. This is what ultimately let HipKids triple its revenue.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #25: Dropbox

Dropbox has spent very little on advertising but has grown the company to $4 billion. This article shares some of Dropbox’s top techniques, specifically through word of mouth.

A decade ago, the internet was very different. To start off, it was much slower. The average download speed was only 5 Mbps.

Today, you’ll often find speeds 20x faster just about anywhere, even on mobile phones.

Due to these limitations, sharing and storing large files on the cloud was challenging and often expensive.

Cloud storage was mostly directed to businesses, and the consumer-level solutions available were clunky and unfriendly to the average user.

That is until Dropbox entered the market.

Tried and true old-school tactics: Even though Dropbox is a huge SAAS, it’s interesting to know that its initial growth did not rely on advertising of any form.

They went to the old school method of using word of mouth from their customers to reach the growth they were after.

The most valuable resource back then was storage space. So they gave out storage space to their existing customers so that they could motivate them to share their experiences with Dropbox.

This approach worked wonders, and Dropbox’s revenue quickly exceeded the $100 million mark.

Make it easy for your users: Dropbox wasn’t the first or only consumer-level cloud storage option in the market. But it was by far the easiest. Most of their competition, even those that were in the market before them, had cumbersome interfaces and poor customer support which made it difficult for users to sign up for their services.

Most of them had ads on their signup pages, so yes, it was ugly.

Dropbox, on the other hand, had a clean signup page that made it easy for users to sign up. Nothing unnecessary, and no ads were found on the signup page.

Incentivize sharing on social media: Back in 2011, social media reach was very effective in driving traffic. So to take advantage of this, Dropbox incentivized social media shares with free space. This worked out to be the perfect complement to their referral strategy. It decreased the friction in sharing and made it highly attractive for their existing users to become brand ambassadors.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #26: Dollar Shave Club

The marketing behind razors, up until the launch of DSC, was pretty consistent. Every “new” razor offered the exact same thing, a better way to shave.

And it worked to some extent because razors are an everyday product for a lot of people.

They just ended up buying them the same way they had always done.

Dollar Shave Club didn’t innovate the product they sold. Their product is, albeit high quality, just about the same as everything else in the market.

So why did they become so popular? Because they innovated the experience.

Make your marketing fun and memorable: Dollar Shave Club’s initial marketing was nothing short of genius. It was fun, and it was memorable. It was a welcome departure from the idealized and mostly non-relatable approach that the traditional brands had embraced decades ago.

This more honest, down-to-earth, and witty approach gave them something that the other brands didn’t have. It gave them a relatable personality.

And the consistency of their personality across every aspect of their brand made them feel reassuringly consistent and was enough to help them differentiate themselves from the rest of their competitors.

Create an experience: Since innovation on the product side of things wasn’t much of an option, they decided to innovate on their customer’s experience.

The first hint of this is in their name. Dollar shave club is exactly what they are. They’re a club, something you can be a part of.

And this feeling of inclusion and community, paired with the direct-to-consumer model, made the experience of getting your razors from Dollar Shave Club highly attractive.

Get customers for life: One of the biggest drivers of growth behind DCS is that they have an incredibly long ratio of lifelong customers. Simply put, their business model makes it easy for their customers to want to keep on buying from them.

It’s a simple and straightforward subscription model that most users can get on board with.

This is what ultimately helped them reach a $615 million dollar valuation and ultimately be bought out by Unilever for $1 billion in 2015.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #27: Casper

Casper is one of the best examples of how changing and improving the customer experience can revolutionize a segment.

Before Casper, if you were in the market for a new bed, you had to go to a physical location and well put up with being sold to.

That’s one of the reasons why so many people put up with an uncomfortable mattress.

The physical pain of a bad mattress wasn’t as bad as the pain of having to deal with the pain of going through all the hoops of buying a new mattress.

Casper changed this and led the way to a new trend of direct-to-consumer mattresses that revolutionized the entire sleep industry.

Understand your customer’s true pain: The traditional dealer-distributor model that has been in place for years made it so that buying a mattress was a less than pleasant experience for most customers.

It’s a model where salespeople were incentivized to sell but, unfortunately, got the reputation of using sleazy sales tactics.

Casper understood that this was the real reason why people wouldn’t buy a new mattress. They just didn’t want to go through that process, even though their old mattress was uncomfortable and even caused them health problems.

Casper gave its customers a much more viable alternative and had a high-quality product that their customers would be willing to try out.

Address all your customer’s concerns: One of the main challenges was to change the customer’s perception that they had to try-before-they-buy a mattress.

They tackled this head-on by offering an incredibly bold satisfaction guarantee and by providing plenty of educational content on their products so that customers could feel confident in their buying decision.

Then they followed up their product with SEO content centered around sleep and how it impacted health so that they could further establish themselves as sleep experts and gain their customer’s trust.

Leverage customer reviews: Casper did a great job at leveraging its customer reviews. They made it one of the central aspects of their retargeting and email marketing campaigns. Customer reviews are powerful tools since they provide a seemingly unbiased perspective of your product.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #28: Groupon

Everyone loves a great deal. It’s a simple concept, and Groupon leveraged it to go from zero to having a $12.7 billion IPO.

Equally impressive as their valuation is the rate at which they were growing on a yearly basis. To reach this huge amount of sustainable growth, they relied on a few tried and true growth tactics.

These tactics are so effective that you’ll see that several other businesses in this article followed them to great success.

This means that you don’t necessarily need to reinvent the wheel but rather spend your energy on making it turn as fast as possible.

Make sharing easy: Groupon is, at its core, a social platform. And as such, it makes it very easy to be social. Groupon has always made it easy for its users to share the deals that they are interested in.

It incentivizes it because if not enough deals are taken, the deal won’t be available. So it adds an element of scarcity and perceived exclusivity.

So when FOMO kicks in, Groupon users become highly motivated to share on their social channels and increase the likelihood of their deals coming to fruition.

This, in turn, has the benefit of making sure the Groupon brand is consistently shared.

Email is still very powerful: For some reason, there’s always someone stating that email is dead. That inboxes are too cluttered and that no one pays attention to them anymore. This couldn’t be further from the truth, and Groupon knows this. This is why they have made email a key part of their marketing.

It’s important to understand that if someone voluntarily signs up for your emails, then they are giving permission to reach out to them.

Groupon makes the most out of this by sending daily emails with highly valuable content.

Copywriting makes a big difference: The quality of how you communicate with your customers makes a big difference in how effectively you can retain their attention. Groupon learned this early on and has characterized itself by sending interesting and fun-to-read emails.

It’s important to remember that nobody likes boring and bland content. Your customers will read what you have to say, but only if it’s well written and grabs their attention.

case study business growth

Growth Marketing Case Study #29: Porch.com

The home improvement market is enormous. It’s $500 billion and continues to grow at a steady rate.

So it was only a matter of time until a startup would try to revolutionize a market that had historically lacked innovation.

Enter the Seattle-based Porch.com. In 2013 porch set out to become the “Uber” of home improvement projects by helping connect construction professionals with homeowners that needed help in completing their tasks.

Amongst its achievements, Porch.com can mention:

  • 300000 active professionals across the US.
  • Nasdaq IPO in the year 2020.
  • They reach approximately 66% of the homeowner market.

However, back in 2018, before they went public, their growth had started to plateau. Something had to be done. So they made a concentrated effort to improve their search engine visibility so that they could get a more sustainable and cost-efficient source of traffic. To achieve this goal, they went with the tried and true strategy of increasing their backlinks.

Link building can be transformative for your traffic: The reason why link building was chosen is that since they had started to rely on paid advertising for their lead acquisition, their cost per lead had started to increase.

This rise in cost per lead was eating into their profit margins, so from an ROI perspective, investing in cultivating high-quality backlinks was a good strategy to follow.

Porch’s marketing was able to obtain over 931 backlinks from unique domains throughout the year. This helped them make a significant boost in their organic traffic and helped decrease the total cost of their lead acquisition.

Here are some of the growth strategies they followed:

  • They didn’t limit themselves to home renovation topics but rather created content across a broad range of related topics to expand the number of high-quality websites they could be relevant to.
  • This broad range of content helped them land mention on television and local radio across several major cities.
  • Some of the results generated by the campaign were 257 mentions from relevant publishers, 180 regional media mentions, and over 38000 social shares.

[…] If you want real-life examples of what other companies have done, take a look at these growth marketing case studies. […]

[…] can also find more examples and ideas in our growth marketing case studies […]

[…] You can find real-world examples in our list of growth marketing case studies. […]

[…] You can discover a variety of strategies and tactics in this guide to growth marketing case studies. […]

[…] You can discover more growth marketing case studies here. […]

[…] are more ideas, strategies and tactics in this article on growth marketing case studies, […]

Growth is a process, stop improvising .

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This listing contains abstracts and ordering information for case studies written and published by faculty at Stanford GSB.

Publicly available cases in this collection are distributed by Harvard Business Publishing and The Case Centre .

Stanford case studies with diverse protagonists, along with case studies that build “equity fluency” by focusing on DEI-related issues and opportunities are listed in the Case Compendium developed by the Center for Equity, Gender and Leadership at the Berkeley Haas School of Business.

ClearMetal, a supply chain software-as-a-service startup, exemplifies the challenges of innovating in the global container shipping industry. Under CEO Adam Compain, the company developed a solution to reduce the costly repositioning of empty shipping…

Board Dynamics at Defy, Inc.: When is the Right Time to Raise the Next Round?

Defy, Inc. developed individual safety software solutions for highly automated aircraft operation through its FlySafe modular platform. Defy’s cofounders saw great potential in flying drones to solve the last-mile problem in deliveries. In addition to…

Founders Fund: Every Moment Happens Once

Apa technologies.

APA Technologies, a startup in the trucking industry, faced a significant challenge with its innovative product, the Tyro - an automatic tire inflation device. Founders Brad Miller and Jeffrey Howell, Stanford mechanical engineering students, developed…

APA Technologies (A): Just When We Were Hitting Our Stride

Apa technologies (b): no good deed goes unpunished, apa technologies (c): a potential partnership, apa technologies (d): reveal, senaca east africa (a): a family security business grapples with expansion.

Senaca East Africa, aka Sentry & Patrols, is a Kenya-based security guard firm founded in 2002 by John Kipkorir, a longtime member of the Kenyan police. At the time, there were only a few well-known Kenyan-owned security companies, and crime was rising…

Jason Scott: Creating a Dream Job to Find and Fund Entrepreneurs Across the Globe

Jason Scott’s superpower had always been his ability to connect people and ideas across industries, sectors, and geographies. After graduating from Stanford GSB, he pursued his professional North Star of finding the best entrepreneurs in the world and…

Impact Engine: Measuring Impact Across Investment Stages

Senaca east africa (b): a family security business grapples with expansion, senaca east africa (c): a family security business grapples with expansion, the ai academy: leveraging education in ai to unlock tajikistan’s economic potential, included health: a vision for integrated care in america.

This case tells the story of Included Health, a U.S. health care venture born from the unification of a major virtual care provider and two health care navigation platforms. The company’s overarching mission is to raise the standard of health care for…

Sustainable Human Behavior: A Guide to Building More Sustainable Selves, Teams, and Planet

The threats that are prevalent in today’s environment often seem unconquerable. Increasing disruption, increasing rates of stress and burnout in high-pressure jobs, and decreasing trust of institutions can lead to an environment that does not feel safe or…

New Leaders: A New Paradigm in Educational Leadership

Bonnier news group in 2023:sustaining profitable digital growth, celonis: expanding sales into the u.s., indonesia and the global coal conundrum, global deep technology startup stories.

Across the globe, inspiring startup founders are creating a meaningful impact on people’s lives and generating economic growth through new applications of deep technology.

This category, often called “deep tech” for short, includes ventures whose key…

Automation Anywhere in 2023: 100 Million Digital Workers and Counting

Automation, robots, and artificial intelligence (AI) were driving massive change by the 2020s—and it was perhaps only a matter of time before the planet had billions of digital workers executing standardized, repetitive tasks. In the 20 years since its…

Deutsche Telekom in 2023: Building the World’s Leading Digital Telco

CEO Tim Höttges had successfully led Deutsche Telekom (DT) on an ambitious mission to become Europe’s leading telecommunications service provider. All the more impressive, the company had achieved this goal while also navigating the expansion of T-Mobile…

Tesla In 2023: Building A Radically Innovative Operating System

For CEO Elon Musk, Tesla’s mission required not only new technologies to create electric vehicles, but innovation on the software that connected every aspect of the organization. Tesla was founded in 2003 with the goal of revolutionizing the automotive…

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Case Studies

Banking on innovation: How ING uses generative AI to put people first

Banking on innovation: How ING uses generative AI to put people first

case study business growth

From farm to tablet: Building a new business to solve an old challenge

Rewired book logo - tangled yellow, red, purple, green, and blue wires meshing together into one solid blue line

Rewired in action

Kiwibank staff helping customers using a tablet

Kiwibank: Building a better bank for the future of New Zealanders

Overhead night-sky view of a large metropolis

Xcel Energy: Driving towards net zero with the power of digital

Old State House, Boston National Historical Park - stock photo

Partnering on America’s toughest challenges

Made in Africa: Catalyzing stronger, sustainable, and inclusive economies

Made in Africa: Catalyzing stronger, sustainable, and inclusive economies

Young African American biochemist using microscope while working on scientific research in a laboratory.

Charles River Labs: Accelerating drug development as a digitally-enabled trusted partner

How a government agency is preparing workers to thrive in the skills-based economy

How a government agency is preparing workers to thrive in the skills-based economy

case study business growth

How a global components manufacturer built an ambitious carbon reduction roadmap

How a major New Zealand retailer reinvented itself around customer satisfaction

How a major New Zealand retailer reinvented itself around customer satisfaction

How a logistics company digitally transformed amidst a global supply chain crisis

Undaunted by global disruption, a logistics company embraces bold transformation

How 988 is helping reimagine the way the US handles behavioral health crises

988: Three digits and the nationwide effort to help millions in crisis

case study business growth

An AI power play: Fueling the next wave of innovation in the energy sector

How a manufacturing moonshot was made

How a manufacturing moonshot was made

case study business growth

Protecting workers through award-winning design

How Telkomsel transformed to reach Gen Z

How Telkomsel transformed to reach digital-first consumers

Flying across the sea, propelled by AI

Flying across the sea, propelled by AI

How a steel plant in India tapped the value of data—and won global acclaim

How a steel plant in India tapped the value of data—and won global acclaim

How will real estate be different in the next normal?

Reimagining the real estate industry for the next normal

Inside a mining company’s AI transformation

Inside a mining company’s AI transformation

New at mckinsey blog.

Technician works inside machinery

JobsOhio and the long-term, innovative revitalization of a state’s economy

Worker with laptop adjusting solar panels

McKinsey’s new Sustainability Academy helps clients upskill workers for the net-zero transition

Two people working on code in a modern office.

Tearing the ‘paper ceiling’: McKinsey supports effort driving upward mobility for millions of workers

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case study business growth

The Growth Mindset: How To Avoid Being Too Effort Focused

James Sanders understands the importance of constant learning and development - personally and professionally. Co-founder and CEO of Scoot Education, James speaks about the challenges of creating a growth mindset culture; one that is collaborative - where ideas and opinions matter - without being solely effort-focused.

case study business growth

How To Transform One Arm Of A Business Into A Separate Entity

Since 1992, LEAP has become the world's largest provider of legal practice management software for law firms. But with increased demand from customers for personalised websites and online marketing, LEAP decided to rebrand one area of its business into a separate entity, called Zaliet, in 2016.

case study business growth

Transitioning Your Side-hustle To A Larger Business

While working full-time in a rehabilitation hospital, Fiona White established Own Body, a mobile physiotherapy and rehabilitation service that has now grown to 30 team members.

case study business growth

Why Sustainable Corporate Social Responsibility Is Good Business

Like many businesses, when The Fruit Box Group started out, social responsibility wasn't on their radar. Their focus was just chasing the sale and hoping that something stuck! Once the company had some revenue to work with, getting a positive cash flow became their mantra. This alone took them over 7 years.

case study business growth

How To Survive & Thrive After A Funding Cut

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How To Get Your Business Award Ready

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Staying Relevant In A Shifting Industry

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Implementing Conscious Business Growth

Business growth is a much smoother affair if you plan for it. Setting up systems, hiring the right people and thinking about delegation are all important components of consciously growing a business.

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Overcoming The Challenges Of A Disruptive Business

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How To Launch And Sustain A Global Online Business

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All in on digital transformation: Creating a stronger, nimbler, more resilient PwC

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Business and professional services

Changing how business gets done with BXT, automation and a focus on people

BXT <br/> Emerging Tech

Growth was strong, but costs and frustrations were rising

For more than 165 years, PwC was known for delivering high quality services and for being a place where employees could thrive. But we knew we needed to raise the bar even higher to meet the demands of the digital age. We had to keep growing, make work less manual and more data-driven for our people and deliver an ever-better and more tech-driven experience for clients. And we had to do it without costs getting out of control.

Our business was growing, but costs were rising even faster. So were tech-related frustrations among our employees. If we didn’t make changes we’d fall behind our competitors and our financial goals, and most importantly, be unable to deliver for our clients and our people.

We needed to go all in on a digital transformation to change the course of the firm and to bring our people with us into the future. That meant overhauling our business from the inside out to be more nimble, cut unnecessary costs, increase automation and allow people to do more meaningful work. If we could stop doing the things that weren’t productive or helping us get to those outcomes, we could invest those dollars into technology, experiences and strategies that would help drive the business forward. We had to reinvest to secure our future in a way that would bring our strategy to life and provide return on our investment. As critical: we had to stay focused on our shared values and purpose and keep our people and culture at the heart of these changes. This was going to be a community effort, even the hard parts, from the start. The transformation had to make  all  of us stronger, more resilient and much more agile.

Key drivers for our change

What drives change? It’s never just one thing. These triggers, combined, drove our transformation. They’re not so different from the motivations of many companies. The difference: We dove in and are seeing the results.

In 2016, leadership changes within PwC prompted a new strategic direction that more clearly aligned our organization with our values and purpose to support long-term sustainable growth. We focused on why we do what we do, what we want to achieve, and how we could innovate the way we do it.

Workforce of the Future

New leadership

In 2016, PwC set a new strategic direction

For nearly a decade, our revenues continued to grow each year, but costs to run the firm were increasing faster. We applied PwC’s own Fit for Growth approach to streamline processes and technology, enabling our people to help drive efficiencies and reduce cost to run the business.

Fit for Growth

Profit pressures

Costs to run the firm were increasing

We knew we had to disrupt how we work to meet our clients’ demand for more value, higher quality and a technology-enabled experience, at a lower cost. We leveraged cost savings to strategically reinvest in our people, processes and technology.

Growth strategy

We knew we had to disrupt how we work

Our people wanted skills to remain relevant in a digital world and be leaders in their field. We invested in tools, technologies and our people to help future-proof our workforce and establish a continuous improvement culture.

New World. New Skills.

Workforce Transformation

Our people wanted skills to grow in their careers

By listening to the “voice of the customer,” we identified pain points in functions and processes that were slowing our people down. We invested in cloud technology and used human-centered design to help improve the customer experience across business services functions.

Finance transformation

IT transformation

Legacy processes

Outdated processes and technologies were slowing us down

We needed a way to empower people to develop and share citizen-led innovations across the firm. We established a technology strategy arm to centralize intellectual property IP and help us efficiently address clients’ needs.

Workforce productivity

We needed to enable our people to create efficiencies and work smarter

A people-first approach to save time and money, and boost the client experience

We began our digital transformation in 2016 by examining PwC Business Services, our back office and shared services center and functions, located primarily in Tampa, Florida. We identified operational improvements that could reduce costs and reinvested some of those savings into a transformation, based on PwC’s Fit for Growth methodology. We committed to “leave no one behind” with a firm-wide program that would help both accelerate adoption and upskill employees. 

Bringing together people with business strategy focus (B), human-centered design experience (X), along with the right technologies (T), we used our BXT approach to plan, develop and implement solutions together.

The only way we could transform our back office was to put the experience of our people first. We needed to know exactly where the pain points were in Business Services. First, we sent a survey to our 3,500 partners, asking what slowed down their work and the work of the people who worked for them.

By tapping into the entire community, we quickly identified 25 processes that had to change, including human resources, learning and development, finance, IT, real estate and administrative services. Everyone had something to address to help transform our process and our people, especially since our processes impact multiple activities. 

We also asked leaders of our individual Business Services functions to help us figure out how to use that information to create more value from our transformation for the people who do the work day to day. And that also had to create a better user experience for their people. They identified approximately $100 million in cost savings, largely from eliminating manual and repetitive activities that took up employee time. As importantly, these leaders, with the help of their teams, identified areas that would benefit from investments in automation as well as other types of service delivery. Every leader and staffer also thought about what new skills were needed to help our people deliver greater value. 

Ultimately, all of this would bring our back office talents to the “front office” to help our client service teams develop products and services that benefit our clients and society.

“Going all-in on digital transformation has made us resilient in a turbulent 2020, allowing us to be nimble and meet the evolving needs of our people and seamlessly guide our clients through some of the toughest decisions of their careers.”

Tim Ryan US Chairman and Senior Partner, PwC

Toss what isn’t working and strategically re-invest in what works for the future

We needed to focus on a strategy that could simplify our business and invest in new, technology-focused areas. We focused on automation to help eliminate transaction-related inefficiencies, and we launched a new intranet and cognitive assistant that gets stronger as it integrates with other applications. It helps our people do almost everything from resetting passwords to recording time, quickly and easily, to save them time for more important tasks and the firm money to reinvest in the transformation.

We aim to build innovative technology solutions that differentiate us from our competitors and digitize the business. From a business strategy perspective, putting flexible and adaptive processes in place helped us create an industry-leading back office that’s able to meet the needs of our business faster, while generating better insights, and at a lower cost of delivery.

Part of that included a strategic decision to invest in upskilling programs so our 55,000 people could learn how to use digital tools for data visualization as well as automation, data cleansing and more. If our people could use these tools to solve common problems, they’d help us become more efficient and growth-oriented now and more innovative later in Business Services and beyond. Now, employees are learning to build bots – over 2,400 have been created so far – to automate workflows. We continue to invest to make processes more intuitive using machine learning and eventually artificial intelligence (AI). These are key to working faster and solving problems differently for ourselves and our clients.

Making everything easier, faster and more intuitive

We know that the way people work will keep changing, which is why we have worked hard to create a culture of infinite learning where everyone can understand and feel connected to our organization’s purpose, values and goals. That required reassessment of how our people would adapt and learn, and importantly, apply what they learned immediately (which is a better way to incorporate training and new skills). We had to inspire people to challenge themselves and make it stick. We brought together people from individual functions—from finance to human resources—and had client services professionals from across the firm join in for a BXT-style session and used what we learned from our Partner survey as a guide.

We wanted better insights from the data we were gathering. That meant improving self-service options, for people to build automations themselves to help make their work easier. This was key to changing the experience for our people. Getting there hinged on a culture of citizen-led digital innovation , introduced through digital academies for our people so they could learn how to make data work harder, faster. Rather than just offer up a process and press go, we taught everyone how to make their own automations.

We also selected people across the firm to become digital ambassadors, training them with deeper experiences in digital, agile thinking and problem solving so they could go back to their teammates and bring them forward. Creating easy and usable interfaces, quick courses and incentives has made it simpler for employees to create and use our automation tools, which in turn helps them reduce their time spent on repetitive tasks. We created an interactive lab for our people to collaborate on and share new automations and ideas, incenting time spent exploring and creating. And digital badges let our people learn and earn credentials.

We began to see time and cost savings as people applied the new tools and learnings in their day-to-day work. More than this, we saw our culture shift to one of innovation and experimentation.

“We were trying to get to new ways of doing things faster and better, and at a lower cost for us and our clients. And if you can't replicate that across all employees, then it's not going to be a success. You're just going to have little pockets of change.”

Joe Killian US Finance and Shared Services Leader, PwC

Simplify, integrate, scale and innovate for the win

To succeed, we needed to streamline processes, from contracts to our firm-wide analytics platform. We invested in and adopted Robotics Process Automation (RPA) and Business Process Integration (BPI), which helped automate a lot of the transactional work we do. We also replaced hundreds of pages of written business rules with an automated process and as a result, created a more intuitive experience for client service professionals. At the same time, we adopted user friendly, mobile cloud solutions to provide self-service access to data and insights that help meet the needs of our people no matter where they are working. This end-to-end automation transformed processes to help eliminate inefficiencies in our routine transactions.

By investing more in data analytics and artificial intelligence to pull data from disparate systems and platforms into one visual dashboard, we get a snapshot into team performance and business metrics. This will easily integrate and give more insights as a new intranet and cognitive digital assistant are added. The system can also nudge people to take important actions and meet critical deadlines.

Saving, improving and change at every level

Simplifying helped us save millions of dollars and created a workforce that is more satisfied, productive and skilled. We eliminated more than 50 processes in Business Services to save money and time. For example, simplifying with RPA has allowed us to reduce the time it takes to complete a contract by as much as 80%. Many manual processes are now automated. Data to drive insights is easy to pull, analyze and visualize so every team can make decisions more confidently. 

In fiscal 2019, we saved almost 160,000 hours through automation across our Internal Firm Services functions including administrative support, controller operations, HR shared services and real estate operations.

A focused investment in our people and their skills changed the culture and abilities at the firm—jobs and functions that either did not exist or required external hires can now be filled by our own staff. Learning & Development (L&D) expanded virtual training programs to help reduce resource needs and travel costs—which made continuing and enhancing training when travel stopped due to the pandemic simple and seamless. 

More than this, the firm is agile, more purpose-focused and people-driven. We’re better positioned to control costs and the quality of Business Services is higher than ever.

Results by function:

A focus on digital upskilling, tighter coordination through an end-to-end process that lasered in on collaboration among teams and technologies and automating once-manual processes, helped drive our transformation. Every back office function in Business Services improved some processes and eliminated certain costs, though headcount in the division declined by just 2% overall.

Information technology

Administrative services, learning and development, security and real estate, human resources, acceleration centers.

We shifted from a traditional waterfall delivery approach toward agile delivery using the scrum framework where people work in short sprints and solve problems as they arise, to deliver value quickly and continuously. IT filled more than 100 positions within six months to equip the team with the skills needed to make change real. That meant hiring scrum masters to embed agile principles in delivery teams, developers and cloud engineers to help build strong technology and application development skill sets.

Our IT transformation has been instrumental in helping drive change companywide and delivering the firm’s tech-enabled priorities. Everyone in IT, regardless of their role, is trained in agile methodology and lean process training, the backbone of this new way of working. Business owners now have a closely linked IT team leader for end-to-end collaboration – in many cases, they no longer have to move between different groups. Leaders are also learning agile methodology to work alongside IT. The agile model is helping to vastly improve the employee experience across our teams, and that is helping lead to better outcomes.

We used to have a 1:1 ratio of executive assistants to senior leaders. Now our administrative services work with people throughout the firm via a centralized, virtual executive concierge structure. Our teams pool resources and while they still specialize, they’re also getting broader experience. As a result, people are better able to support client teams tackling specific problems that in the past 1:1 assistants might never have encountered. We adopted human-centered approaches to help keep the culture of trusted relationships alive. “We provided new hires with rigorous onboarding and training, which was a combination of existing soft skills, technical skills, and teaming activities so they can rely on one another to help deliver white-glove service,” said Jose Limardo, Support Operations Leader.

Four of the top nine issues identified in the initial 2016 assessment were finance-related processes. The insights gleaned from the finance function’s challenges helped validate and steer our entire transformation efforts. “It was painfully obvious we had a user experience problem that we needed to fix,” said Controller Tom Alexander. The group, which wanted to be an industry leading, modern finance team, allocated resources to innovation and shifted their culture to help drive continuous improvement. They reimagined the way they work by adopting a structure centered on the skills needed to succeed and scale.

The Controller Operations (CO) saved 30,000 hours each year for nearly four years by automating repetitive tasks, reimagining processes and applying more agile ways of working, which has led to efficiencies, improved job satisfaction and more time spent on activities that are adding value. Today, more than 40% of the Controller Operations team consists of data engineers, data scientists and data architects who are helping to pinpoint and address the business’s data needs.

As we continue to upskill people, we are making L&D a better experience. We shifted 70% in-person training to about 40% in-person, and created a virtual learning environment and infrastructure that made for seamless delivery when the pandemic of 2020 turned our workforce remote. As a result, the firm saved nearly $70 million, while also saving our people the burden of travel and hotel stays.

PwC’s security team uses a tool that enables our people to report back to us during a critical event, whether in office, during travel or at a client site, instead of piecing together information from different systems. This has proven to be invaluable for our employees throughout the pandemic and during natural disasters. But it doesn’t stop there. Our real estate business intelligence teams are using occupancy sensors to gather data about how workspaces are used. Through dashboards and data visualization tools, they are turning millions of reports into clear snapshots of how people use workspaces today and how they may be used over the next three to five years.

Our HR professionals have always been a repository of institutional knowledge of our business and operations. We developed an internal platform to help automate staffing needs. It is a go-to for teams to look at skills and availability of staff, and to help forecast engagement needs and assign our internal client service staff to those projects. The process of staffing and projecting now takes minutes, not days. Leveraging automation in the platform can help significantly reduce the resources and time required to process information that’s needed in order to staff an engagement. As a result, we are able to move our own people to higher-value work.

Over the last few years, PwC Business Services has automated about 400,000 hours of work that would have otherwise been done by our client service professionals, on- or offshore, or by third parties. Our Acceleration Centers (ACs) have been at the heart of this transformation, helping drive new, digital ways of working and creating savings for our firm and our clients. For our back offices alone, this translated into cost savings of around $50 million for work that was previously done by third parties.

Since 2018, PwC Labs has become integral to our technology strategy. We are empowering our people and our clients to reach their digital potential, at scale. We are leading the charge on creating innovative solutions designed for humans, driven by data, that utilize intelligent automation. Our people are reimagining how we build technology, collaborate and improve the quality of our deliverables. By embedding the latest AI and automation into our culture, our people can develop a growing digital inventory that can be tailored to meeting our clients’ unique needs.

Explore PwC's case study library

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See how PwC transformed its business services and finance groups through BXT, automation and a focus on people.

Joe Killian

Joe Killian

US/MX Business Services Leader & Tampa Campus Leader, PwC US

Dr. Deniz  Caglar

Dr. Deniz Caglar

Principal, Strategy&, Strategy& US

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6 Brilliant Case Study Examples for Small Businesses

Explore case study examples for small businesses. Discover strategies to tackle common challenges like managing expenses, building a brand, hiring skilled staff, staying current with trends, to ensure your growth and success.

6 Brilliant Case Study Examples for Small Businesses

Every business starts small.

The success of a business lies in its strategy to overcome any challenge during its journey.

If you are trying to take your business to new heights, start identifying challenges and create solutions.

The best way is to learn from sundry success stories.

There are several case studies of different businesses that can teach you which strategy to take for selling your product and attracting the target audience.

In this article, we will discuss some of the top case study examples that can assist in upscaling small businesses.

Let’s begin.

Challenges Faced by Small Businesses

As far as businesses go, there are always hurdles that need to be defeated. Starting a business is itself a big achievement for entrepreneurs, but the main challenge is maintaining one.

There are three common challenges businesses need to overcome. These include managing the expenses, hiring people, and following new trends to develop a customer base.

1. Increased Expenses

Every business revolves around money. There are different areas where businesses have to spend their money. But the issue is handling the financial hurdles. With an unplanned budget and financial advice, businesses will be spending more than they need to.

Keeping an eye on expenses is important because the expenses determine the profit the business will make.

However, it is not easy to reduce the expense. It’s affected by demand and supply. If businesses need to keep up with the market’s demands, then the chance of increasing expenses is 100%.

2. More and Skilled Manpower Required

Businesses don’t run themselves. They need manpower with skills to handle different departments. Generally, the number of employees in a small business ranges from 1 to 500 people. Getting this manpower is easy but getting a skilled one is difficult and time-consuming.

Whenever looking for manpower, businesses need to decide what skills they want in their candidate. The problem is candidates can’t always fulfill all the requirements. Besides, hiring manpower also increases the expenses.

3. Keeping Up With the Latest Trends

The market is fluid. It changes and introduces new trends. Small businesses need to keep up with the changing trends to keep their business growing. But this is where many businesses start to fall apart.

The thing about new trends is that businesses need to sell their products at the right time. It means they have to keep on studying the market to speculate their next products. If a small business fails to deliver during the peak of the trend, then it will suffer a heavy loss.

Solutions to Grow a Small Business

The best thing about businesses is that there is an attempt to find a solution for every challenge. It brings out the competition in the market, which is huge for surfacing different kinds of solutions a business can adopt.

1. Reduce the Expenses

When it comes to expenses, businesses are focused on spending huge sums on communication because communication is the key element of increasing customers and revenue. It’s not a big problem for big companies, but it is expensive for small businesses.

Fortunately, the cloud telephony system has removed the dilemma while making business budgets because cloud phone services are cheaper than plain old telephone services.

It reduces the initial cost of new businesses up to 90%. Recent surveys suggest that over 74% of businesses prioritize cloud phone systems as their urgent investment.

The same goes for marketing which is necessary to attract potential customers. Small businesses don’t have enough budget to advertise their products.

The best solution for this is using social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. to promote and sell their products .

Case Study: Coffman Engineers

Coffman Engineers clearly states that although the cost of using a virtual phone number adhered to cloud phone is 50% more per employee, it still provides overall 25% more savings than plain old telephone service (POTS).

Coffman Engineers have been relying on cloud phones ever since their one office location faced a disaster. Now they have a disaster recovery feature built into their cloud phone system. It helped them to be ready for any disasters without losing communication with employees.

Not just that, they found all the necessary features bundled into one subscription package in a VoIP phone system. Such a facility enabled them to handle all their business communication using only one platform.

Key Takeaways

  • Small businesses must invest in cloud telephony for business communication.
  • Extensive use of social media to promote and sell your products/service.

2. Improve Employee Productivity

As we have already discussed earlier, manpower is a big challenge for small businesses. Hiring more employees doesn’t mean higher productivity. Businesses need to hire the right candidates to keep their expenses in check and improve productivity.

There are different tools available that can monitor what the employees are doing. Time tracking tools and workforce management tools are key components every business needs.

Especially in remote working scenarios, these tools are crucial to getting the full effort for the employees. Companies have seen a 35%-40% rise in productivity in employees working remotely with the use of tracking tools.

Case study: On The Map Marketing

On The Map Marketing , a digital marketing agency, used time tracking tools that showed that remote working employees tend to work more hours since they can work at flexible hours.

On The Map Marketing first started using the time tracking tool when they were opening their office in Riga, Latvia. The CTO of the company wanted the time spent on different tasks on his computer as well as managing the remote working employees.

Using a time tracking tool , they were able to track their productivity with a detailed report of their daily activities during office hours. It helped them calculate salary bonuses. They also found the productivity level of each employee to determine their value for the company.

  • Small businesses should use a time tracking tool to make sure employees focus on their office work.
  • Small businesses can track the performance of each employee at office locations or remote working locations.

3. Reward Your Customers

A business becomes successful when it can keep its customers happy. In efforts to upscale a small business quickly, the marketplace has seen a decline in the quality of products and services. It is a primary reason for customer dissatisfaction.

About 45% of business professionals rate customer experience as their top priority for growing a business.

Survey says more than 85% of buyers are willing to spend more for a better customer experience. Therefore, small businesses need to focus on improving their quality of products and services, which is a powerful indicator of customer experience.

Case study: Starbucks

Starbucks introduced a Reward Loyalty Program in which customers collect stars to get exciting rewards. This program drives 40% of Starbucks total sales .

By adapting the gamification method, Starbucks added a reward loyalty program to their already established app. This move drastically increased sales and digital traffic. They brought mobile payment, customer loyalty, and content partnership in one powerful app.

Customers started registering for My Reward via their app. They are given stars(points) in exchange for their interaction in the app or purchase made. The higher the number of stars a customer gets, the better rewards they get.

  • Small businesses can give different forms of rewards for more customer engagement.
  • Improvement in customer service can drive more sales and attract more customers.

4. Build Your Brand

Small businesses should learn to build their brand image . While marketing any product or service, the brand image is a key factor for understanding how people view your business.

A brand image must first include mission, vision, and values. It also requires a brand positioning statement that can set your business apart from the competitors.

It’s important to create a unique brand personality. For this, businesses need to design a good logo because customers are most likely to recognize a business looking at a logo. They will have to identify their target audience to craft a good brand image.

According to a study, around 89% of users stay loyal to a business with a good brand image .

Case study: Apple

Apple logo is a well-recognized design that reflects the brand value. Over the years, the Apple logo has gone through several design changes.

The most important rebranding of the company came when Steve Jobs changed the logo which impacted the overall personality of the company. Now, this logo is the most recognized logo in the world.

Looking at the Apple logo, customers can feel a sense of trust, reliability, and innovation . It is the main reason for the huge sales of all the Apple products across the globe.

  • Branding helps a business build strong relationships with prospects and attract them to be loyal customers.
  • Small businesses need to create a strong brand image to sell their products efficiently.

5. Prioritize on Partnerships

Partnerships and collaboration can lift the businesses to maximize their cost savings. It allows businesses to strengthen their programs using available resources and tools.

This has a direct effect on improving the efficiency of their operations. It improves the credibility of the business in the marketplace.

Case study: RENAULT & NISSAN

Renault and Nissan have a strong partnership in automobiles. Their partnership made a remarkable achievement of making up 10% of new car sales worldwide .

Renault and Nissan chose to make an alliance rather than a merger because an alliance has many stronger benefits than a merger would give.

With an alliance, they can access more geographical areas where foreign investments are restricted. These companies got better chances to enter each other’s territory where they were already established companies because of the alliance.

Although they faced numerous challenges including fluctuation in price share, they managed to resolve issues and succeed.

  • Small businesses can collaborate with other businesses to increase their chances of higher product sales and profit for everyone.
  • Partnership with other businesses allows all parties to take benefits from each other’s strong areas.

6. The Right Marketing Strategy

Every business requires to sell its product and services to the market. Without marketing, a business cannot compete in the marketplace. The first thing about marketing is knowing your target audience and competitors.

When small businesses know who they are competing against, it will help them to see how the competitors are executing their business and attracting their customers.

One such way is to grow your website traffic which can bring you more leads and eventually customers. And how do you increase your website traffic? SEO. If done right, Search Engine Optimization can drive huge traffic to your website to reach your marketing goals.

Case study: Zapier

Zapier used an SEO strategy revolving around long-tail keywords for generating organic traffic to their website. They created 25,000 unique landing pages for unique keywords.

Zapier had a structure and layout for each page including well-optimized human written content. They outsourced SEO content and focused on a playbook for the onboarding process and launched new apps so that they can get partners to write content for them.

On top of that, they also outsourced link building to their partners. These partners wrote valuable guest post content of Zapier on their site and gave a backlink to Zapier. It helped Zapier to get new users as well as drive their website traffic.

  • Small Businesses should improve their website traffic by adding more landing pages with relevant content.
  • Backlinks through guest posts on other websites can drive more website traffic and attract more prospects.

Now that you have a fair idea of the business challenges and solutions, there is a good chance of delivering a good strategy for growing your small business.

On top of that, the case study examples above will help you view how other businesses overcome their situation to take their business to new heights.

The most important aspect of upscaling a small business is understanding the customer’s needs. Therefore, you should design a persuasive marketing strategy to attract customers and compete with other businesses in the market.

And a good marketing strategy for any business must include social media. And to make the most of your social media marketing efforts try SocialPilot for free today.

Frequently Asked Questions

🌟 How do you upscale a small business?

Upscaling a small business is a very challenging process. Whether it's making a budget or hiring employees, you have to focus on things that are best for your business. Planning, targeting prospects, marketing strategy, etc. are crucial steps for upscaling businesses and competing with big companies.

🌟 What is a small scale business?

Small scale businesses or Small scale industries (SSI) provide products and services on a small level. Normally in the US, a small business consists of less than 250 employees. Also, it has small capital investments and less office space.

🌟 Why do entrepreneurs find it difficult to scale up?

New entrepreneurs find difficulty in scaling up their businesses because they don’t know what to do. Even if they know, they have to face many challenges like market research, finding loans, allocating space, etc. Also, legal matters are always a major concern for making changes.

🌟 Why is scalability important in business?

Scalability is important because it directly impacts business competition, profitability, brand image, and product quality. Since small businesses have huge growth potential and high return on investment (ROI), they have to properly focus on scalability.

🌟 When should you scale a business?

A small business should look for upscaling its business if it has achieved a minimum annual growth of 20% over 2-3 years with only 10 or more active employees.

About the Author

Picture of Sujan Thapaliya

Sujan Thapaliya

Sujan Thapaliya is the CEO and Co-founder of KrispCall . He has a wealth of computer, communications, and security experience. Through KrispCall, he aspires to make business communication safer, reliable, and more affordable.

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Case Interview Types: Master Common Ones Before Your Interview

  • Last Updated January, 2024

Rebecca Smith-Allen

Former McKinsey Engagement Manager

On Case Study Preparation , we described what a case interview question is and how you should approach answering one. You can think about that page as your Consulting Case Interview 101 course.

But if we could tell you how to ace your consulting case interview in just one page, Bain, BCG, McKinsey, and other top consulting firms would give out a lot more offers than they do every year.

On this page, we discuss the most common types of case study interview questions . We’ll take your understanding of how to answer these to the next level by outlining the key issues to consider when structuring your answer.

Let’s get started!

Here are the types of cases you might come across during your case interview :

  • Profitability Cases 1.1 Profit Optimization 1.2 Revenue Growth 1.3 Pricing Optimization 1.4 Market Entry 1.5 M&A 1.6 Cost Optimization 1.7 Startup / Early-Stage Venture
  • Non-Profitability Cases 2.1   Lives Affected 2.2 Retention 2.3 Industry Landscape and Competitive Dynamics
  • Market Sizing Questions (also called dinner conversation cases)
  • Case Interview Math (also known as consulting math) 4.1 Consulting Math Example 4.2 Summary of Key Things to Remember on Consulting Math Questions

How To Make the Most of Case Interview Practice Time

Help with case study interview preparation.

Nail the case & fit interview with strategies from former MBB Interviewers that have helped 89.6% of our clients pass the case interview.

Profitability Cases

On this page , we discussed case interview  frameworks   that can help you structure your answers to case study interview questions, we introduced the profitability equation. It’s 1 of 2 basic business frameworks you can use to answer any type of case question. 

This formula can help ensure you address all the key aspects of straightforward profitability cases like the following:

A sports apparel retailer has experienced declining sales in its stores over the past year and declining profits. How would you recommend they address their profitability problem?

A cell phone manufacturer is experiencing declining profitability despite strong sales. What should they do to improve their bottom line?

For more detail on the components in this formula and an example of how to use it to solve a case interview question, see our  Case Interview Frameworks  page . Below, we’ll discuss types of profitability problems that go beyond the basics.out

Profit Optimization

Perhaps a company is profitable… just not profitable enough . 

Maybe its margins are lower than those of an industry rival. 

Maybe they’ve dipped below its own prior-year performance. 

Perhaps management sees an opportunity to launch a new product, leapfrogging the competition, but needs to generate more cash to invest in development. 

Any of these can be reasons to improve the performance of an already profitable company. 

Sample questions:

A nationwide fast-food chain failed to meet Wall Street expectations on its latest investor call and as a result, its stock price fell significantly. Management wants help identifying opportunities to improve the bottom line.

The CEO of a regional hospital chain is concerned that his company’s profitability is half that of the market leader. How can the company grow its net income?

Use the Profitability Equation

In structuring your analysis of a profit optimization case, you should touch on all 4 components of the profitability equation to understand what the company is doing well and where things have taken a turn for the worse. 

But the underlying problem in this type of case may be more subtle than in a basic profitability question. 

Instead of a big jump in costs or the loss of a large customer wiping out a significant chunk of revenue, the company may be experiencing a couple of small problems that add up to bad news for the bottom line. 

Benchmark Relative to Competition of Past Performance

For example, if our client is a TV manufacturer and we find out that our cost of producing a TV has increased overtime while our prices have remained the same, we can see that rising costs is the reason for our profits declining. 

To turn around the situation, we could look into what the competition is doing to reduce costs. For example, if a competitor is sourcing the same materials as us but from a cheaper supplier, we want to see if we can lower our cost by sourcing from the same supplier.

Benchmark One Business Segment to Another

Another way consultants benchmark performance on revenue and cost levers is by comparing the performance in one business segment or type of end-customer to another . 

Continuing with our TV manufacturing example, we might find that the client has seen costs rise on components in its high-end models but remain constant for its low-end models. 

We can look into what is being done differently in the low-end product group: low-cost sourcing, process improvement, etc. to find opportunities to improve the cost position in the high-end segment.

Use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

The company may also need more disciplined business processes and a system for measuring key performance indicators . 

Our TV manufacturer might institute a system for measuring cost per unit on a weekly or monthly basis in order to ensure they have an early warning system to monitor if costs are getting out of line.

To go with these KPIs, a regular process for reviewing the costs and taking necessary action could be instituted. Disciplined processes and performance indicators will help to fine-tune operations over time, taking them from good to best-in-class.

Key concepts to consider when addressing a profit optimization case:

The profitability equation including all its components,

  • Benchmarks of cost and/or revenue relative to best-in-class competition and prior year performance.  
  • Benchmark the company’s performance segmented by product or type of customer .
  • Opportunities for business process improvement and key performance indicators that will allow management to monitor profitability more closely. 

Revenue Growth

Revenue growth case questions focus on companies that, while already profitable, still want to grow. 

They can do this by increasing market share, by selling their existing products to new markets, by selling new products to their existing customers, or by pursuing a combination of these opportunities. 

They can also capture more revenue by increasing prices.

A national chain of fitness centers wants to leverage its brand equity by selling additional products and services to its client base. What incremental products and services can profitably grow revenue?

The president of a printer and ink manufacturer thinks there is an opportunity to provide after-sale service to its customer base. What might be the impact on revenue from entering this market?

Capture Additional Market Share

As its name suggests, this type of case study focuses on the first half of the profitability equation — revenue = price x quantity of units sold. in examining units sold, you should consider the company’s ability to capture additional market share for existing products in the markets it already serves. , what is the company’s current share of the market that of its largest competitor what would it take to capture additional share product improvements a shift in marketing and promotion.

If a chain of fitness centers was our client, for example, we’d look at whether the primary competition was 1 or 2 large chains or a number of small, single-location gyms and tailor our strategy to increase market share accordingly. 

If the competition was single-location gyms, we could promote flexibility for members to use our facilities in multiple locations to bring in new customers. We could also leverage the client’s greater size to outspend the small gyms on advertising.

Branch into New Products or Markets

Also, consider the new products and/or markets the company could branch into . What products do competitors sell that the company doesn’t? Does the company have capabilities that would help them  succeed in other markets?

Our fitness center client could consider selling new products like fitness apparel or vitamins. They could expand into new markets, such as towns and cities adjacent to ones currently served.

Offer Services to Existing Customers

In addition, consider  services that can be sold to existing customers . Post-sales support for equipment, for example. Or consumables used with their products, like ink for a printer manufacturer. Our fitness center client could look into providing personal fitness coaching services to members.

Review Pricing

Lastly, consider the company’s  flexibility to raise prices . Where do their prices stand relative to competitive products or services? Do their products or services have higher quality or value-added capabilities that would command a higher price?

For more examples of revenue growth case interviews, see our  Revenue Growth Case article. 

Pricing Optimization

A company must have a solid product or service offering to be able to take a price increase without seeing a significant loss of sales to competitors. 

If their products or services are strong, then optimizing price can be an important lever to grow revenue.

A manufacturer of kitchen knives sells a range of products, from low-end to professional, to customers at different price points. They’ve developed a new line of knives in collaboration with a celebrity chef and would like help setting the prices for these products.

The airline industry has experienced significant changes in its pricing model over the past few years, with some airlines charging separately for checked baggage, meals, and beverages. A global carrier has asked us to help optimize the pricing of the additional services it provides to customers who fly with them.

Elasticity of Demand

When prices rise, demand for a product goes down and when prices fall, demand rises. You’ll remember this from Economics 101, or perhaps just from common sense. Pricing optimization is all about how much . 

If you can raise prices with demand going down just a little, you can improve a company’s revenues by raising price. If a change in price has a big impact on demand, then raising price could be a big mistake.

The term for this is Price Elasticity of Demand . If demand for a product or service changes a lot in response to a change in price, it’s said to have price elasticity. Products with many substitutes or ones that consumers can easily do without are the most sensitive to price changes. 

For example, if McDonald’s raised the price of the Big Mac, more customers might go to Burger King, Taco Bell, or just eat lunch at home. McDonald’s hamburger sales would fall dramatically.

Substitutes

For some products, demand is relatively insensitive to changes in price. This can be the case for luxury goods, for products that have few substitutes , or for when there are large switching costs. When the cost of home heating oil rises, some customers consider switching to natural gas to heat their homes. But if doing so will require buying a new furnace to run on gas or paying for pipes from their house to the gas distribution network, they won’t make the change unless the change in price is dramatic and/or expected to persist for a number of years. 

3 Methods for Setting Prices

Competitive-based pricing — Setting prices based on the prices of other similar products in the market. This is the simplest method for setting prices. Companies who use competitive-based pricing are price takers.

Cost-based pricing —Setting prices as a function of the cost to provide a good or service plus a profit margin. Cost alone can’t be used to set pricing because if a company’s costs are out of line with its competitors, it may price itself out of the market.

Value-based pricing — Setting prices based on the value provided to customers. Luxury goods are priced well above the cost of their production because customers of these products value association with the prestigious image the product conveys. Products that provide significant value to customers in terms of saving time or providing features not found in other products can be priced higher because they are worth more to customers.

Value-based pricing the best pricing method but it can only be used for products and services that are sufficiently differentiated in the eyes of the customer that they will not change their buying behavior in response to higher prices.

Market Entry

Significant start-up costs will be incurred to develop and manufacture a new product, to launch the marketing campaign, or to build the sales force needed to find customers. 

To ensure that spending money on start-up costs are worthwhile, due diligence needs to be done to estimate the size of the market being considered and the cost of successfully entering it.

A teen fashion retailer has seen its sales boom in the North American market for the past 5 years. They’re considering expansion into international markets. They’d like help identifying which markets provide the best opportunities for their line of clothing.

A not-for-profit organization has been successful at hiring the long-term unemployed to manufacturer furniture made from pallets and other recycled items. They’ve not only designed and created beautiful pieces of indoor and outdoor furniture, but also helped to improve the lives of individuals in one city. They’d like to expand to other products and potentially to other cities and have asked for our help in assessing their options.

There are  4 parts to any market entry case : market size, market attractiveness, costs of entry and capabilities required. Let’s look at each.

Market size

Market sizing is sometimes used as a case interview question on its own. See below for more details . It’s also usually the first part of a market entry case. It addresses how large a market is in terms of annual revenue, number of units sold, or both. The underlying issue is whether there is enough opportunity in a market to make it worth the up-front cost.

To determine whether the amount of sales revenue or unit volume is “enough,” estimate the size of the market based on the information provided by your interviewer or by using factors you can reasonably estimate about the market. You can then consider profit margins and what portion of the market the company must capture to break even.

Market attractiveness

The market a company is thinking about entering may be huge, but it can still be unattractive. Key questions include: What is the profit margin for companies already in the market?  What does the competition in the market look like? Large firms with huge marketing budgets or small companies? 

Costs of entry

Will new technology, equipment, sales staff, or something else be required to succeed in the new market? If so, what will it cost? The greater the investment required to enter a market, the more difficult it will be to recoup the initial investment.

Capabilities

Does the firm being discussed have what it takes to succeed in the new market? In some markets, the key to success is marketing expertise and distribution. In others, it’s low costs and disciplined business processes. Identify the key attributes of success in the market and whether the company possesses those attributes.

To learn how you can structure and break down a case such as these, visit the  Case Interview Frameworks  page can help you think through important factors in this type of consulting case interview question.

Above, we looked at how to analyze a market entry case. 

If a market is attractive but the client does not have all the capabilities required to succeed in it, it may decide to buy the right capabilities through a merger or acquisition (M&A). 

They could also consider M&A opportunities if they need to enter the market fast rather than build capabilities over time.

The number 3 competitor in the cellular phone services market is at a disadvantage relative to its larger competitors. Providing cellular phone service has high fixed costs—for the equipment that transmits calls, the retail stores that sell phones and provide in-person customer support, and the marketing spend that is key to customer attraction and retention. The CEO is considering acquiring a smaller competitor in order to gain market share. He would like our help thinking through this decision.

The president of a national drug-store chain is considering acquiring a large, national health insurance provider. The merger would combine one company’s network of pharmacies and pharmacy management business with the health insurance operations of the other, vertically integrating the companies. He would like our help analyzing the potential benefits to customers and shareholders.

When you get this type of case, ask your interviewer why the company is considering the merger or acquisition. They may provide key information on the size and attractiveness of the market the target company is in. Assuming the target company is in a large, attractive market and has the critical capabilities required to succeed in that market, then you should consider whether it is better to build the new business internally or undertake a merger or acquisition. 

If two companies are considering a merger, they still have to persuade their shareholders that the 2 companies would be more valuable working together than on their own. The value the companies can create by working together is called  synergy .

Synergies from a merger or acquisition can be on the cost side, the revenue side, or both. Cost synergies include leveraging fixed costs across more business or cutting costs duplicated in both firms’ operations. Revenue side synergies include selling a broader range of products through the existing sales force or distribution channel. 

The synergies created by the merger or acquisition must be greater than the premium that must be paid to secure the deal in order for the transaction to make sense.

Integration

Mergers and acquisitions are large and complicated transactions. They require  integrating  the talent, systems, policies, and processes of the 2 organizations. Synergies that look good on PowerPoint slides do not always accrue in real life. In addition, key employees may quit during the disruption and uncertainty the M&A activity causes. Even if substantial synergies are identified, a company should consider whether it can successfully undertake the integration.

Regulatory Approval

Lastly, mergers of large companies in regulated markets (financial services, telecommunications) and concentrated markets (ones with only a few large competitors) can require government approval . The possibility of the government blocking the merger or acquisition should be considered in this type of case.

Cost Optimization

A top-3 home improvement retailer has seen price increases from several of its vendors, squeezing its bottom line. The company wants to know how it can cut costs to restore its margins to their previous levels.

The head of an automobile manufacturer has seen its production costs rise over the last several years. She wants your help in turning around this trend.

The most important thing to understand when addressing this type of case is what is going on with fixed costs and variable costs . The costs can be broken down and compared to competitors’ costs or costs in prior years to identify opportunities for improvement.

As a reminder, here are the definitions of fixed and variable costs:

Fixed Costs

Costs that you incur just because you are in business regardless of how many units you sell. Examples: factory rent, equipment depreciation, compensation for salaried employees, and property taxes. A way to think about fixed costs is that a cost that does not change over the short-term, even if a business experiences increases or decreases in its sales volume.

Variable Costs

Costs that only incur when you begin to produce units (if you sell nothing you have no variable costs). Examples: sales commissions, credit card transaction costs, and sales taxes. A way to think about variable costs is that a cost that does change over the short-term. More sales volume will mean more variable costs.

Startup / Early-Stage Venture

Startup and early-stage venture cases have some similarities to market entry cases. 

Ensuring that the market the company is going after is big enough and has high enough margins to be attractive is important, as is understanding their competition. 

Startups are small, nimble companies with only a handful of key employees and limited access to cash. These factors need to be taken into account.

A student from Iceland studying in the U.S. has determined there’s a big opportunity to bring Icelandic-style yogurt to this market. How would you recommend he proceed?

A software company has developed video technology that can be used to quickly and easily create short videos that can be sent to a colleague in place of typing a long email. This disruptive technology will take advantage of the cameras built into cell phones and laptops as well as consumers’ preference for watching a video rather than reading text. The company has a small number of beta customers and is looking for advice on how to ramp up their product to attract a wider audience.

When answering this type of case, focus on the key things that help these small, fast-growth ventures move with agility as they search for the product and business model that will attract customers and investors. 

The Right People

They need the right people —ones with product savvy, marketing savvy and investor savvy to make it. 

A Minimum Viable Product

They need a minimum viable product . This is an initial version of their product offering that will attract paying customers, allowing them earn money and to collect feedback that can be used to improve the product. It will also serve as a proof-of-concept to investors. 

A Business Plan

Start-up and early stage venture also need an initial business plan addressing how they will bring their product to market.

Non-Profitability Cases

Some might focus on charitable organization. Others might focus on businesses issues that don’t relate directly to profits, such as employee retention or understanding the competitive dynamics in an industry. 

An overview of how to approach non-profitability cases is found on this page .

This section focuses on key concepts to address in a few common types of non-profitability cases.

Lives Affected

Government agencies and charitable organizations don’t aim to maximize profits. Nonetheless, they do important work that affects many lives. 

They might hire a consulting company to help them improve their effectiveness, or a consulting firm might take on an important project for a charitable organization on a pro-bono basis. 

The state agency that administers the free summer lunch program for children of families under a certain income threshold wants to increase the reach of its program. How would you advise they approach this? 

Malaria is a devastating disease, affecting hundreds of millions of individuals each year. It’s transferred to humans by mosquitoes, with most of the cases occurring in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Though drugs to treat the disease exist, many in the affected regions don’t have access to or can’t afford these drugs. The disease is a strain on the economies of several nations, perpetuating the cycle of poverty. What can be done to alleviate this disease and its adverse economic effects?

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

A detailed example of how to approach a lives affected case is provided  here .  As discussed in that case, the key to answering this type of question is to find the key performance indicator (KPI) the organization is trying to improve. In the case of the first sample question above, this is the number of free lunches served to needy children. 

Benchmarking

Once you’ve established the KPI, the case can be answered in the same way you’d answer any case question on business improvement. You can benchmark the organization’s performance by looking at trends in the KPI over time or comparing the growth of the organization’s KPI to that of other organizations serving the same target population to assess whether the agency is doing a good job meeting their mandate or falling behind. If they are falling behind, drill down into the factors that might be causing them to do so.

Cases focused on employee retention are not directly about profits, though the loss of key skills when employees depart and the cost of training new hires require hurts the profitability of organizations with high turnover. 

A fast-food chain is experiencing an increase in the already-high rate of employee turnover typical in its industry. It’s also experiencing trouble attracting qualified new employees. What would you suggest?

The school system in a middle-class suburban town is experiencing higher-than-normal rates of teacher attrition. With a tight budget, they are unable to simply raise salaries to hold onto experienced teachers. What options does the school system have for increasing teacher retention?

Conducting retention interviews —interviews with departing employees to find out why they’re leaving the organization—is a standard practice in most organizations. Because of this, there should be data available on what employees like about their jobs, don’t like about their jobs, why they looked for new opportunities and what new job they’re taking. Ask your interviewer for this information, as well as survey data on the job satisfaction of all employees. It can be used to develop a multi-pronged approach to improving employee retention.

  • Look for opportunities to enhance aspects of the job that appeal to employees and change the negative aspects of working for the organization. For instance: What about the job is appealing? 
  • Do employees see the work of the organization positively impacting the broader community? 
  • Do employees like their colleagues, recognition they receive from management, the financial package provided? 

Industry Landscape and Competitive Dynamics

Cases focused on the landscape of an industry and its competitive dynamics are about the big-picture strategic issues that must be taken into account to compete effectively in that industry.

The traditional newspaper industry is facing heavy pressure from free online news organizations that don’t face the cost of printing a traditional newspaper and are able to leverage Internet ads as a source of revenue. The publisher of an award-winning regional paper would like your help in assessing and responding to this new threat.

The food and beverage industry faces disruption to their traditional brands as organic and small-batch products gain favor with consumers. How should companies in this industry respond to this new of competitive threat?

When analyzing this kind of case, first look for what is changing in the industry —consumer preferences, brand loyalty, barriers to entering the market, regulation, the industry’s cost structure, etc. Ensure you know what the source of change is before you begin to look for a strategy to help the client succeed in the new marketplace. 

For tips on structuring a case like these, visit the  Business Frameworks page . SWOT analysis and other frameworks include some factors to consider in this type of consulting case interview question.

Market Sizing Questions (Also Called Dinner Conversation Cases)

Market sizing cases are focused on establishing the size of a market in terms of annual revenue or the number of units sold rather than determining how to compete successfully in the market. 

Consulting firms often ask market sizing questions early in the consulting interview process or in interviews of undergraduate students who may not have a deep business background. 

They can also be one component of complicated, multi-step cases in later-round interviews. Market sizing questions focus on making logical estimates, showing creativity, and doing basic math.  

What is the size of the market for organic toothpaste in the United States?

How many golf balls would fit inside the Empire State building?

What Are Consulting Interviewers Looking for on Market Sizing Cases?

With case interview questions of this type, you’re not expected to know the answer, but instead to show a logical way of deducing it. Committing a few key facts to memory would serve you well. For example, knowing the population of the United States (or the country you live in) would give you a good place to start as you think through the size of the market for various retail goods. Gross domestic product can help with sizing industrial markets.

Key Statistics to Know for Market Sizing Case Questions:

The Population of the United States 2019 – 329 million according to the US Census Bureau .

World population in 2015 – 7.4 billion according to the United Nations DESA / Populations Division .

2018 Gross Domestic Product of the United States – $20.5 trillion according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce .

Statistics like these give you a good foundation to start your market size analysis. For instance, you could begin estimating the size of the U.S. market for organic toothpaste with the US population. From there, make logical assumptions:

  • How many times a day does the average American brushes their teeth?
  • How many toothpaste applications are in the average tube of toothpaste?
  • How much does the average tube of toothpaste cost?

These assumptions will allow you to calculate the size of the overall toothpaste market in terms of annual revenue. To get to the annual revenue of organic toothpaste you’ll also need to estimate:

  • What portion of toothpaste consumers prefers organic toothpaste?

You can (and should) bring paper and a pen into consulting interviews. Use these to keep track of your assumptions as you work through them and to do the basic math required to come to a conclusion.

 Our Market Sizing Questions article has a list of the 7 steps to answering this type of question.

Key Things to Remember When Answering a Market Sizing Question:

  • Ask clarifying questions. Does the interviewer want the market size in terms of dollars or units? For the United States, North America, the world?
  • Use round numbers for simplicity. For instance, using $20 trillion for U.S. GDP rather than $20.5 would be fine.
  • Creativity in your approach to approximating the market is important, but so is good sense. Don’t be so creative that your answer lacks credibility.
  • Practice case math so you can do it quickly and correctly even under the stress of an interview.
  • Give your answer a sniff-test at the end. Does it make sense? This will both show that you are careful in your analysis and give you the chance to fix an arithmetic mistake if you find you’re way off. 

Case Interview Math (also known as consulting math)

Management consulting interviewers screen candidates to ensure that they can do basic math. 

Don’t worry if you didn’t ace multivariate calculus, the math is usually basic arithmetic—addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and fractions/percentages. You may also be asked to extract data from charts and convert from one unit of measure to another.

As mentioned in the discussion of market-sizing case questions above, you can and should bring a paper and pen into the interview. It’s fine to write out your calculations.

Consulting Math Example

In each step, we’ll provide a sense of how we are making the estimate so that the interviewer knows we’re not just grabbing a number out of the air. We want our answer to be as grounded in fact as possible. 

The population of the United States: 329 million. We’ll round to 330 million for simplicity.

The number of times the average American brushes their teeth – 2 times per day. Some people brush at lunchtime too, but that’s probably offset by people who only brush once a day.

330 million people brushing 2x’s per day gives us 660 million toothpaste applications/day.

To get to an annual number of toothpaste applications, we need to multiply by 365. That’s 241 billion toothpaste applications. We’ll round to 240 billion for simplicity.

A tube of toothpaste usually lasts me about 2 months. That means we need to divide by 120 toothpaste applications per tube to come up with the number of tubes sold annually (2 months x 30 days/month x 2 applications/day). 240 billion toothpaste applications / 120 applications per tube = 2 billion tubes of toothpaste sold in the U.S. every year.

The cost of toothpaste ranges from $1 for inexpensive brands to $4 for expensive brands, but the average cost is probably about $2. This means the total revenue for toothpaste sold in the U.S. is 2 billion tubes x $2 or $4 billion.

The percent of the toothpaste market that’s organic is a little tricky to estimate. In the grocery store I shop in, there’s 1 aisle of organic goods in a store that has 20 aisles – that means organic products make up 5% of shelf space (and presumably also of sales). 

I think that people would be less likely to buy organic toothpaste than organic food, because you eat organic food, but you spit organic toothpaste out into the sink. Organic products always cost more and organic toothpaste doesn’t seem quite as important to your health. 

Conclusion: Based on that, I’ll say that 1% of the market for toothpaste is organic, so if $4 billion in toothpaste is sold in the U.S. every year, $40 million of it is organic toothpaste.

Is our answer right? 

Probably not exactly. There are different sizes of toothpaste tubes, a complication that we did not consider in this analysis. There might be some people who don’t brush their teeth every day. That would mean that we overestimated consumption. 

But our estimate of the market size for organic toothpaste is reasonable and grounded in logical assumptions. We could sniff-test our answer by comparing it to a market size we know, or to GDP, one of the facts we suggested having in your back pocket for market sizing case questions. 

U.S. GDP was about $20 trillion in 2018. Our estimations suggest that the overall toothpaste market is $4 billion. That means toothpaste is 1/5,000 of the U.S. economy, and the market for organic toothpaste is 1% of that. 

That sounds plausible. If your answer showed that the market for organic toothpaste was larger than U.S. GDP, it would be a clear indication that you made a mistake somewhere along the way.

For the 4 types of math problems you’ll be asked to compute as part of case studies, read Case Interview Math.

Above, we’ve provided you with 11 different types of case interview questions you might be asked during your consulting interviews. We’ve also told you that you need to get great at doing case math. 

Overwhelming? It can be.

But it doesn’t have to be.

The best way to prepare for your consulting case interviews is NOT to spend hundreds of hours reading every case study question and answer you can get your hands on. Instead, see our page on Case Interview Practice  to find out how to make the most of your interview prep time. In addition, check out this video where Davis Nguyen, Founder of My Consulting Offer, talks about how mastering the case interview is made easier when you focus on the most common types of cases. 

Here in an online workshop he conducted for  Columbia University, NYU, and Cornell students, you can see why this approach is so effective:

After studying the information on this page, you have an in-depth understanding of the types of cases you could be asked to analyze in consulting interviews. From Davis’s video, you know why this is so important to focus on the main types of cases. You’re well prepared to find a case study practice partner and begin practicing.

As you prepare for case interviews, you should use this page in conjunction with  Case Interview Examples , where you’ll find links to sample case study questions and their answers. Remember that while it is important to discuss all the appropriate aspects of a business case, it’s important to structure your analysis and your answer. Refer back to our page on  Case Interview Frameworks   to ensure that you’re not just practicing more cases, but doing them better.

If you still have questions, leave them in the comments below. We’ll ask our My Consulting Offer coaches and get back to you with answers.

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case study business growth

Business Growth Strategy of Google: A Case Study.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), apart from being the search giant, is also the leader in the digital advertising industry. The company has enjoyed enormous growth over the last five years, driven by increased technology usage worldwide and a fast-expanding smartphone user base. While Google is the undisputed leader in search advertising, it also enjoys the lion’s share in digital advertising overall. In 2019, Google surpassed Apple to become the world’s most cash-rich company. The pandemic has affected Google’s advertising income, but it has also boosted revenue across the cloud segment. After Amazon and Microsoft, Google is the third-largest brand in the cloud industry. The pandemic has brought some changes that will alter the shape of the digital advertising and cloud industries.

The pandemic has brought a transition, and its impact could be long-lasting. However, in the near term, the effect on Google’s digital ad revenue could be severe. The company has continued to expand its line of products and services. Throughout its lifespan, Google also made several important acquisitions that enabled it to strengthen its core business. For several years it has been following the build or buy strategy to grow its overall market influence. However, there are also many challenges in its way, including the antitrust challenges that are currently the biggest hurdle in its way. Finding stronger growth in the future would require Google to reduce its reliance on digital advertising and build new growth channels. As spending on cloud services grows worldwide, the Google Cloud Platform could become the next growth driver. Here we will discuss the core pillars of Google’s business growth strategy and how they are enabling Google to advance after in the US and the global markets. However, before we proceed to analyze its growth strategy, let’s take a look at the main customer segments Google is targeting.

Who are Google’s customers?

Google’s mission  is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. This also gives us an indication of the customer segments that Google is targeting. The company strives to make all the information accessible to people around the world via the internet. It means everyone who needs and uses the internet to search for information is a potential target user for Google. It includes everyone who can use the internet and search online from kids to the elderly. However, you will see that the company has brought a large range of products that target mainly the tech savvy millennial customers. Millennials are the core segment of customers that use the internet enabled products and services. They are a highly tech savvy generation and have been using technology since they were kids. The millennial users have grown up with technology and use a large range of Google products on a daily basis. They are the most avid and also the most active segment of users of Google products. From the chrome browser to Google search and Gmail as well as other Google products like the android platform and Google play, the millennial users are among the core customers of Google.

The millennial customers are also the largest group of internet users. According to a research study by Pew Research Center carried out during early 2019 in the United States, millennials were the largest target customer segment for technology brands. While they stood out for their technology usage, the elder groups were also growing more active on the internet and in terms of technology use. According to the study, 93% of the millennials owned and used smartphones. While around 100% of the millennials are now internet users, 19% of them use internet only on smartphone devices. However, around 91% of GenXers and 81% of Baby Boomers also use the internet. Google is a global brand and has users from around the world. Its Android smartphone OS is used globally by the largest number of smartphone users.

However, apart from the regular or average users, Google also has a large target market in the form of corporate users. Worldwide and in various industries, Google products are used by a large number of companies including tech, cloud, education, entertainment and other industries. Its cloud products target a vast base of corporate users. Among the leading customers of Google’s Cloud Platform are HSBC, Home Depot, Target (retail brand), Paypal, McKesson, 20th Century Fox and The NewYork Times. However, its cloud segment contributes to only a small part of its net revenue. The main target market of the company are the advertisers including big and small advertisers. Google lgenerates a substantial part of its revenue from advertising. Even the large tech brnds like Amazon are among the leading customers of Google’s digital advertising services.

In 2016, Amazon was Google’s largest advertising customer based on the number of desktop text ads clicks followed by weather.com, Macys, HomeDepot, Expedia and Walmart. Google still acquires the lion’s share in each advertising dollar spent on digital ads in the US as well as around the world. So, Google’s target market includes students, professionals, and business customers mainly. However, Google targets a large base of users that includes both males and females. Highly educated customers are among its main target customer base who make heavy use of the internet for search or media consumption. Gogle’s growth has also bene driven by a fast growing customer base of smartphone users worldwide. Overall, the core users of Google products lie mainly in the 20-40 age group. These include the students and professionals mainly. While Android dominates as the leading smartphone OS on and average across nearly all age groups, reports show Google’s Android is less dominant against Apple’s iOS in the elderly customer segments. The median annual income of the Android user is $61,000 which is less than the iPhone users.

Main Pillars of Google’s Business Growth Strategy:

Expanding the line of products and services:.

To grow its user base globally, Google has continued to expand its product line. Starting from the search engine, Google has vastly expanded its product portfolio. Apart from the chrome browser and the Gmail and its advertising business, the company has added several more apps and services. Some of these were built in-house, whereas the others were acquired from outside. Google acquired Android as well as YouTube and Double Click. Its acquisition of the Android operating system proved to be great in expanding the presence of the brand across the mobile segment. Google Play houses millions of apps and generates a sizable revenue for the company each year. However, Google’s business has also boosted the company’s expansion into the cloud industry.

The tech giant is already the third-largest player in the cloud industry and expects faster growth in the near term. Despite a much lower annual revenue run rate than the two largest firms in the cloud industry – Amazon and Microsoft – Google has been able to win some massive deals, which indicate its strengthening clout in the cloud sector. Its revenue from YouTube ads has also grown. In most business segments, Google’s position against its rivals is a lot stronger except for the cloud sector. It is ahead of Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft in search advertising. In the longer term, too, the company can continue to find growth by introducing new small and large apps and services.

Focus on technological innovation:

Google’s focus on research and development has continued to grow since most of its growth has mainly been driven by technological innovation. It is among the most innovative tech firms globally and one of the leading spenders on research and development, where Amazon leads the entire industry. Several factors necessitate an aggressive focus on R&D in the tech industry. The level of competition in the tech industry has continued to intensify, and all the tech leaders are investing aggressively in research and development. The tech industry is evolving very fast, and most of the R&D efforts of the companies are focused on the latest technologies like AI, Cloud Computing, IoT, and machine learning. These are the main technologies driving sweeping changes industrywide. During the pandemic, businesses’ reliance on digital and cloud technologies grew very fast, leading to a boost in revenue for the cloud players, including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.

Google has also continued to grow its R&D spending significantly. According to its 2019 annual report, the company spent around $26 billion on research and development in 2019, which was around 16.1% of its net revenue for the year. Compared to that, Google had spent only $21.4 billion on research and development in 2018 or 15.7% of its net revenue for the year. In just a year, Google’s R&D expenditure grew by more than $4.5 billion. The other brands in the tech industry and Google’s closest rivals are equally aggressive about research and development. Amazon is the one that has the highest R&D budget, followed by Google. In 2019, Amazon spent more than $35.6 billion on research and development, while Microsoft spent around $16.9 billion on research and development. Facebook’s R&D expenses were also around $13.6 billion during the same period. 

Apart from the higher competition in the tech industry, there are other factors, too, like the focus on user experience and the demand for high-quality products and services that are making brands like Google devote more resources to research and development. However, Google’s business model rests on innovation, which decides its growth and popularity. So, the company has made technological innovation a central pillar of its business strategy.

Growth across the mobile segment:

The mobile segment of consumers is now attracting more focus of the tech brands. As the internet and smartphone usage has continued to climb worldwide, more and more users are found online from their mobile devices. Whether it is for online shopping, entertainment, or social media, people stick to their mobile phone screens longer than ever. The mobile segment’s consumer base is growing very fast, and mobile advertising is now driving a significant part of the revenue for the tech giants like Google and Facebook. Google has a strong presence in the mobile segment, mainly because of its Android operating system used on the largest number of smartphones worldwide. The Android user base is growing, and so are Google’s revenues from the Android-based services, including sales of apps in Google Play.

Google is consistently growing its focus on mobile users since they are now the largest part of its consumer base. Apart from its digital assistant , Google also introduced several more apps like its Photo app to drive higher Google Products usage on smartphones. In other areas, too, Google’s focus on smartphone users or mobile customers has increased over the past few years. The number of smartphone users is expected to reach 3.8 billion by 2021. This denotes a sizable increase in the user base of mobile apps and can be highly profitable for Google in terms of mobile advertising and sales of apps on Google Play. According to Statscounter , Android enjoys around 74.43% market share in smartphone OS, followed by Apple’s iOS. Based on these factors, Google is in the best position to exploit the opportunities generated by smartphone users’ growing base.

Diversification:

Google’s core source of revenue is digital advertising.  However, over time, the company has also continued to diversify its revenue sources by acquiring new businesses or creating new channels of growth. While Google’s dependence on advertising revenue has not reduced substantially, the company has still cemented its position in the digital advertising and cloud industries. As already discussed, the company follows the strategy of building or acquiring to grow its user base and diversification. Android, YouTube, Double Click, and some other services of Google were acquired from others. These are also among its leading products and services. However, they have still helped the company secure its position in the industry.

With the acquisition of YouTube, the company hacked into an entirely new segment of social media users. However, it seems Google is also working on diversification more actively than before. Its cloud platform has started generating significant revenue, and the annual revenue run rate reached $12 billion in the second quarter of 2020. While Google’s position is not as strong as Microsoft or Amazon, it is in the third position and has acquired some impressive deals which show its position in the cloud industry continues to grow solid. Apart from that, Google has also emerged as a concrete counterweight to Amazon and Microsoft’s cloud business.

Acquiring the right talent for faster growth:

One key factor that plays a vital role in any business’s success in the technology sector is the organization’s human capital. It is why the tech brands are also engaged in an aggressive battle for acquiring talent human resources. Each of the leading tech brands, including Google and its competitors like Amazon and Facebook , spends a fortune each year hiring the most talented programmers and computer engineers. These companies’ growth depends heavily on their human resources who are a core source of competitive advantage for each of these brands. 

Moreover, these companies pay their employees fat salary packages and attractive benefits to retain them for longer. The turnover rate in the technology industry and, therefore, apart from fat salaries and benefits, companies also need to focus on other factors like organizational culture and the work environment. While Google has been dealing with several HR-related issues in recent years, its focus on attracting talent has not dwindled. It is because talent acquisition remains critical to the growth of the brand. 

Focus on customer experience:

Among the various differentiating factors that affect the demand for a particular brand’s products and services in the tech industry, one of the most important is customer experience. In the case of Google, customer experience depends on various factors, including the accessibility of its products, usability, pricing, and overall quality and efficiency. Google has always focused on user experience, which becomes clear from its Chrome browser and search engine. While Google search is the most advanced search engine, Chrome is the fastest browser of all. Focusing on innovation has also enabled Google to provide superior customer experience and grow its user base over the years.

Even the search engine of Google and its other products like Gmail have evolved a lot with time. The search engine is not what it was initially and now presents more refined searches in a fraction of a second compared to years ago. It has acquired a new, improved look, and so has Gmail. Google continues to work on its existing products, including its advertising services, to improve them. It ensures that it delivers better ROI to its customers than its competitors in advertising, which is the main factor that drives the higher popularity of Google’s advertising services. In the cloud segment, too, the company offers superior efficiency and speed to its customers who buy cloud-based products and services from Google. 

Strengthening brand image:

Among the several factors that affect the growth and success in the technology sector, brand image is one of the most important. Many underlying factors affect the brand image in the tech industry. Some of the leading factors that can impact brand image and reputation include product quality, innovation, user experience, and organizational culture. Google has maintained a clear focus on improving its image in the industry. Apart from the other things that matter, the company is investing in innovation to bring outstanding products that attract users more than the rivals. However, another crucial factor is Google’s customer orientation. It is also known for the user-friendliness of its apps and services, which is the main reason that several of its products enjoy the largest market share in the industry, including search, browser, advertising, and Android.

While its reputation was maligned to some extent when allegations related to sexual harassment at Google by one of its executives came up, the company has decided not to turn back in time. It will continue to maintain its focus on key factors like organizational culture and inclusion, and diversity. It recently committed $310 billion to initiatives related to diversity and inclusion organization-wide. Apart from investing in marketing, Google also invests in CSR and sustainability to maintain a strong social image. During the pandemic, the company offered several resources to help people and businesses around the world. Google and Facebook also devoted significant resources to fight misinformation during the Coronavirus pandemic. Brand image has become more critical than ever for the technology giants. In this regard, apart from its culture and work environment, its focus must remain on gaining a stronger reputation socially.

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The Morning

What’s going on with the u.s. economy.

The economic picture is simpler than the swirl of economic indicators sometimes suggests.

People carrying bags crossing a busy street.

By David Leonhardt

The economy is probably headed toward a recession. No, it’s actually booming again.

Inflation is plummeting. No, it has started rising again.

If you find the cacophony of economic indicators to be confusing, don’t feel bad. It is confusing. Some numbers point in one direction, while others point in the opposite. Partisans from both political parties have an interest in promoting one type of news and downplaying the other.

Yesterday’s inflation report added to the muddle. Inflation — a major concern for many families and already a 2024 campaign issue — has been falling for the past year and half. Americans’ economic mood has improved slightly as a result . But the numbers released yesterday showed inflation to be higher than forecasters had expected. In response, the S&P 500 index fell 1.4 percent , its second-biggest daily decline this year.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll give you a framework for thinking about the state of the U.S. economy by describing the four main phases of the past several years. I can’t tell you what will happen next, but I do think the picture is simpler than the swirl of economic indicators sometimes suggests.

1. The pre-Covid boom

The American economy has been disappointing for much of the past half-century. Income and wealth growth has been slow for most families, and inequality has soared. Perhaps the starkest sign of the problems: Life expectancy in the U.S. is now lower than in any other high-income country, and it isn’t especially close .

Still, there have been a few brief periods when the economy has boomed. One of them began late in Barack Obama’s presidency and continued during Donald Trump’s term. The country finally emerged from its hangover after the housing crash, as businesses expanded and consumers spent more.

The unemployment rate fell below 5 percent in 2016 and below 4 percent in 2018. The tight labor market — combined with increases in the minimum wage in many states — raised income for all income groups.

Change in median weekly income

Compared with two years earlier, adjusted for inflation

case study business growth

By early 2020, the U.S. economy’s short-term performance was as healthy as it had been since the dot-com boom two decades earlier.

2. The Covid crash

Then the pandemic arrived.

People stayed home and cut back on spending. Businesses laid off workers, and the unemployment rate exceeded 10 percent. Experts understandably worried that the economy could fall into a vicious cycle, in which companies went out of business, families couldn’t make loan payments and banks went under.

Many economists believed that the federal government had been too timid with stimulus after the early-2000s housing crash. During the pandemic, members of Congress vowed not to repeat the mistake and passed huge stimulus bills, which both Trump and President Biden signed.

3. The too-hot recovery

Those stimulus programs worked — a bit too well.

For all the misery that Covid caused, it ended up being less economically destructive than the housing crash. The unemployment surge was temporary. And thanks to the stimulus, the typical American family’s finances improved during the pandemic — a very different situation than the aftermath of the housing crash.

In effect, Washington overlearned the lesson of the previous crisis. It pumped so much money into the economy during the pandemic that families were able to go on a spending spree. Businesses, in response, raised prices.

The pandemic’s supply-chain disruptions played a big role, too. This combination — high demand and low supply — led to sharp price increases.

Year-over-year change in Consumer Price Index

case study business growth

excluding food

in Jan. 2024

4. The healthier recovery

Once inflation rises, it can remain high for years (as it did from the late 1960s to the early 1980s). Workers demand bigger raises, and businesses, facing higher costs, raise prices even more. The dynamic is reinforcing.

When inflation soared in 2021, some economists thought the pattern was repeating. They predicted that only a deep recession would bring a return to normalcy. These dark predictions turned out to be wrong , though. Instead, inflation started falling rapidly in 2022. The end of the stimulus programs, combined with the end of most supply-chain problems, was enough to reduce price increases.

For the past several months, the economy has again looked healthy, with both employment and wages growing nicely. Yesterday’s report doesn’t change that: Annual inflation fell to 3.1 percent in January, from 3.4 percent in December. It’s just that forecasters had expected it to fall more than it did.

Why didn’t it? Maybe last month’s number was just a statistical blip. But maybe it is a sign that the economy has again become too strong for inflation to keep falling.

“Hiring picked up in January, wage growth was solid, and consumers continue to spend,” as my colleague Jeanna Smialek explains. “Some analysts have suggested that in an economy this hot, wrestling inflation the rest of the way to normal will prove more difficult than the progress so far.” Economists generally consider the ideal inflation rate to be around 2 percent.

By almost any measure, the economy is in better shape today than most forecasters predicted even a year ago. Still, it hasn’t fully recovered from the pandemic.

Related: The American economy has seen a burst of productivity recently. Read more about economists’ views on whether it will continue.

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He is the first sitting cabinet member to be impeached. Read what could happen next .

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Arab governments are privately discussing a new vision for governing Gaza, according to a senior adviser . Their idea includes an independent Palestinian leader and an Arab peacekeeping force.

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Hezbollah fired missiles into northern Israel , injuring at least two people.

Two Michigan students have opposing views on the war. Read about their civil, if awkward, conversation on campus .

After a crackdown on drunken driving, motorbikes are filling impound lots in Vietnam.

A South Korean court found three former police officers guilty of destroying evidence tied to a Halloween crowd crush that killed nearly 160 people in Seoul in 2022.

Two major parties in Pakistan agreed to form a coalition government. They withheld power from candidates aligned with former Prime Minister Imran Khan, even though his allies recently won the most seats.

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China, faced with declining foreign investment, is trying to soften its image abroad. One Communist Party official has played a prominent role.

Other Big Stories

The East Coast is sinking , research has found. A major culprit: overpumping of groundwater.

Better memory: OpenAI is releasing a new version of ChatGPT . It will store what users write and apply the information to future chats.

A vehicle crashed into a hospital emergency room in Austin, Texas, killing at least one person and injuring five others.

As artificial intelligence takes over technical tasks, the human side of work — collaboration, empathy, communication — will become more valuable , Aneesh Raman and Maria Flynn argue.

Don’t buy flowers for your valentine . There are more environmentally friendly ways to show love, Margaret Renkl says.

Here are columns by Ross Douthat on inflation and Thomas Edsall on isolationism .

MORNING READS

Anti-Valentine’s Day: Single, anti-consumerist or just not a romantic? There’s a market for you, too .

Small acts: Times readers shared the little things they do to show affection all year long.

Your brain on love: Roses are red, violets are blue. This is how romance can mess with you .

Modern Love podcast: Hear how a couple navigated getting “un-married” while staying together .

New gig: Grover, the furry blue Muppet from “Sesame Street,” is becoming a reporter. Journalists aren’t optimistic .

Lives Lived: Bob Moore leveraged his grandfatherly image to turn the artisanal grain company Bob’s Red Mill into a $100 million-a-year business. He died at 94 .

N.F.L. draft: Read about the top 100 prospects in this year’s class.

N.B.A.: The Knicks are said to be filing a protest to dispute their 105-103 loss to the Rockets .

No. 32: The Orlando Magic retired Shaquille O’Neal’s jersey , making him the second player in N.B.A. history to have a jersey retired by three different franchises.

ARTS AND IDEAS

The closer: When the comedian Taylor Tomlinson began her tour, she was happy with everything in her set except for her closing joke. So, over months of live shows, she refined it, adding punchlines and tweaking details. A new story by the Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman follows her through the process, showing how small changes led to big laughs .

More on culture

Meghan Markle has found a new podcast partner . Markle and Prince Harry’s deal with Spotify ended after they delivered just one show, Variety reports.

The creators of “Six,” about the six wives of Henry VIII, announced that their second musical , “Why Am I So Single?,” will premiere in London in August.

Paramount, which owns Nickelodeon and MTV, is laying off hundreds of employees as it moves away from traditional television.

Late-night hosts discussed Trump recommending Lara Trump for co-chair of the R.N.C.

THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …

Combine just a few ingredients to make a simple, romantic spaghetti carbonara .

Listen to love songs about crushes .

Shop more sustainably .

Clean your blankets .

Here is today’s Spelling Bee . Yesterday’s pangrams were applicable and clippable .

Celebrate Valentine’s Day with this month’s bonus crossword puzzle , which has a rom-com theme.

And here are today’s Mini Crossword , Wordle , Sudoku and Connections .

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox . Reach our team at [email protected] .

David Leonhardt runs The Morning , The Times’s flagship daily newsletter. Since joining The Times in 1999, he has been an economics columnist, opinion columnist, head of the Washington bureau and founding editor of the Upshot section, among other roles. More about David Leonhardt

College of Nursing

Driving change: a case study of a dnp leader in residence program in a gerontological center of excellence.

View as pdf A later version of this article appeared in Nurse Leader , Volume 21, Issue 6 , December 2023 . 

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) published the Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Practice Nursing in 2004 identifying the essential curriculum needed for preparing advanced practice nurse leaders to effectively assess organizations, identify systemic issues, and facilitate organizational changes. 1 In 2021, AACN updated the curriculum by issuing The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education to guide the development of competency-based education for nursing students. 1 In addition to AACN’s competency-based approach to curriculum, in 2015 the American Organization of Nurse Leaders (AONL) released Nurse Leader Core Competencies (updated in 2023) to help provide a competency based model to follow in developing nurse leaders. 2

Despite AACN and AONL competency-based curriculum and model, it is still common for nurse leaders to be promoted to management positions based solely on their work experience or exceptional clinical skills, rather than demonstration of management and leadership competencies. 3 The importance of identifying, training, and assessing executive leaders through formal leadership development programs, within supportive organizational cultures has been discussed by national leaders. As well as the need for nurturing emerging leaders through fostering interprofessional collaboration, mentorship, and continuous development of leadership skills has been identified. 4 As Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) nurse leaders assume executive roles within healthcare organizations, they play a vital role within complex systems. Demonstration of leadership competence and participation in formal leadership development programs has become imperative for their success. However, models of competency-based executive leadership development programs can be hard to find, particularly programs outside of health care systems.

The implementation of a DNP Leader in Residence program, such as the one designed for The Barbara and Richard Csomay Center for Gerontological Excellence, addresses many of the challenges facing new DNP leaders and ensures mastery of executive leadership competencies and readiness to practice through exposure to varied experiences and close mentoring. The Csomay Center , based at The University of Iowa, was established in 2000 as one of the five original Hartford Centers of Geriatric Nursing Excellence in the country. Later funding by the Csomay family established an endowment that supports the Center's ongoing work. The current Csomay Center strategic plan and mission aims to develop future healthcare leaders while promoting optimal aging and quality of life for older adults. The Csomay Center Director created the innovative DNP Leader in Residence program to foster the growth of future nurse leaders in non-healthcare systems. The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of the development and implementation of the Leader in Residence program, followed by suggested evaluation strategies, and discussion of future innovation of leadership opportunities in non-traditional health care settings.

Development of the DNP Leader in Residence Program

The Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle has garnered substantial recognition as a valuable tool for fostering development and driving improvement initiatives. 5 The PDSA cycle can function as an independent methodology and as an integral component of broader quality enhancement approaches with notable efficacy in its ability to facilitate the rapid creation, testing, and evaluation of transformative interventions within healthcare. 6 Consequently, the PDSA cycle model was deemed fitting to guide the development and implementation of the DNP Leader in Residence Program at the Csomay Center.

PDSA Cycle: Plan

Existing resources. The DNP Health Systems: Administration/Executive Leadership Program offered by the University of Iowa is comprised of comprehensive nursing administration and leadership curriculum, led by distinguished faculty composed of national leaders in the realms of innovation, health policy, leadership, clinical education, and evidence-based practice. The curriculum is designed to cultivate the next generation of nursing executive leaders, with emphasis on personalized career planning and tailored practicum placements. The DNP Health Systems: Administration/Executive Leadership curriculum includes a range of courses focused on leadership and management with diverse topics such as policy an law, infrastructure and informatics, finance and economics, marketing and communication, quality and safety, evidence-based practice, and social determinants of health. The curriculum is complemented by an extensive practicum component and culminates in a DNP project with additional hours of practicum.

New program. The DNP Leader in Residence program at the Csomay Center is designed to encompass communication and relationship building, systems thinking, change management, transformation and innovation, knowledge of clinical principles in the community, professionalism, and business skills including financial, strategic, and human resource management. The program fully immerses students in the objectives of the DNP Health Systems: Administration/Executive Leadership curriculum and enables them to progressively demonstrate competencies outlined by AONL. The Leader in Residence program also includes career development coaching, reflective practice, and personal and professional accountability. The program is integrated throughout the entire duration of the Leader in Residence’s coursework, fulfilling the required practicum hours for both the DNP coursework and DNP project.

The DNP Leader in Residence program begins with the first semester of practicum being focused on completing an onboarding process to the Center including understanding the center's strategic plan, mission, vision, and history. Onboarding for the Leader in Residence provides access to all relevant Center information and resources and integration into the leadership team, community partnerships, and other University of Iowa College of Nursing Centers associated with the Csomay Center. During this first semester, observation and identification of the Csomay Center Director's various roles including being a leader, manager, innovator, socializer, and mentor is facilitated. In collaboration with the Center Director (a faculty position) and Center Coordinator (a staff position), specific competencies to be measured and mastered along with learning opportunities desired throughout the program are established to ensure a well-planned and thorough immersion experience.

Following the initial semester of practicum, the Leader in Residence has weekly check-ins with the Center Director and Center Coordinator to continue to identify learning opportunities and progression through executive leadership competencies to enrich the experience. The Leader in Residence also undertakes an administrative project for the Center this semester, while concurrently continuing observations of the Center Director's activities in local, regional, and national executive leadership settings. The student has ongoing participation and advancement in executive leadership roles and activities throughout the practicum, creating a well-prepared future nurse executive leader.

After completing practicum hours related to the Health Systems: Administration/Executive Leadership coursework, the Leader in Residence engages in dedicated residency hours to continue to experience domains within nursing leadership competencies like communication, professionalism, and relationship building. During residency hours, time is spent with the completion of a small quality improvement project for the Csomay Center, along with any other administrative projects identified by the Center Director and Center Coordinator. The Leader in Residence is fully integrated into the Csomay Center's Leadership Team during this phase, assisting the Center Coordinator in creating agendas and leading meetings. Additional participation includes active involvement in community engagement activities and presenting at or attending a national conference as a representative of the Csomay Center. The Leader in Residence must mentor a master’s in nursing student during the final year of the DNP Residency.

Implementation of the DNP Leader in Residence Program

PDSA Cycle: Do

Immersive experience. In this case study, the DNP Leader in Residence was fully immersed in a wide range of center activities, providing valuable opportunities to engage in administrative projects and observe executive leadership roles and skills during practicum hours spent at the Csomay Center. Throughout the program, the Leader in Residence observed and learned from multidisciplinary leaders at the national, regional, and university levels who engaged with the Center. By shadowing the Csomay Center Director, the Leader in Residence had the opportunity to observe executive leadership objectives such as fostering innovation, facilitating multidisciplinary collaboration, and nurturing meaningful relationships. The immersive experience within the center’s activities also allowed the Leader in Residence to gain a deep understanding of crucial facets such as philanthropy and community engagement. Active involvement in administrative processes such as strategic planning, budgeting, human resources management, and the development of standard operating procedures provided valuable exposure to strategies that are needed to be an effective nurse leader in the future.

Active participation. The DNP Leader in Residence also played a key role in advancing specific actions outlined in the center's strategic plan during the program including: 1) the creation of a membership structure for the Csomay Center and 2) successfully completing a state Board of Regents application for official recognition as a distinguished center. The Csomay Center sponsored membership for the Leader in Residence in the Midwest Nurse Research Society (MNRS), which opened doors to attend the annual MNRS conference and engage with regional nursing leadership, while fostering socialization, promotion of the Csomay Center and Leader in Residence program, and observation of current nursing research. Furthermore, the Leader in Residence participated in the strategic planning committee and engagement subcommittee for MNRS, collaborating directly with the MNRS president. Additional active participation by the Leader in Residence included attendance in planning sessions and completion of the annual report for GeriatricPain.org , an initiative falling under the umbrella of the Csomay Center. Finally, the Leader in Residence was involved in archiving research and curriculum for distinguished nursing leader and researcher, Dr. Kitty Buckwalter, for the Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging, the University of Pennsylvania Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, and the University of Iowa library archives.

Suggested Evaluation Strategies of the DNP Leader in Residence Program

PDSA Cycle: Study

Assessment and benchmarking. To effectively assess the outcomes and success of the DNP Leader in Residence Program, a comprehensive evaluation framework should be used throughout the program. Key measures should include the collection and review of executive leadership opportunities experienced, leadership roles observed, and competencies mastered. The Leader in Residence is responsible for maintaining detailed logs of their participation in center activities and initiatives on a semester basis. These logs serve to track the progression of mastery of AONL competencies by benchmarking activities and identifying areas for future growth for the Leader in Residence.

Evaluation. In addition to assessment and benchmarking, evaluations need to be completed by Csomay Center stakeholders (leadership, staff, and community partners involved) and the individual Leader in Residence both during and upon completion of the program. Feedback from stakeholders will identify the contributions made by the Leader in Residence and provide valuable insights into their growth. Self-reflection on experiences by the individual Leader in Residence throughout the program will serve as an important measure of personal successes and identify gaps in the program. Factors such as career advancement during the program, application of curriculum objectives in the workplace, and prospects for future career progression for the Leader in Residence should be considered as additional indicators of the success of the program.

The evaluation should also encompass a thorough review of the opportunities experienced during the residency, with the aim of identifying areas for potential expansion and enrichment of the DNP Leader in Residence program. By carefully examining the logs, reflecting on the acquired executive leadership competencies, and studying stakeholder evaluations, additional experiences and opportunities can be identified to further enhance the program's efficacy. The evaluation process should be utilized to identify specific executive leadership competencies that require further immersion and exploration throughout the program.

Future Innovation of DNP Leader in Residence Programs in Non-traditional Healthcare Settings

PDSA Cycle: Act

As subsequent residents complete the program and their experiences are thoroughly evaluated, it is essential to identify new opportunities for DNP Leader in Residence programs to be implemented in other non-health care system settings. When feasible, expansion into clinical healthcare settings, including long-term care and acute care environments, should be pursued. By leveraging the insights gained from previous Leaders in Residence and their respective experiences, the program can be refined to better align with desired outcomes and competencies. These expansions will broaden the scope and impact of the program and provide a wider array of experiences and challenges for future Leaders in Residency to navigate, enriching their development as dynamic nurse executive leaders within diverse healthcare landscapes.

This case study presented a comprehensive overview of the development and implementation of the DNP Leader in Residence program developed by the Barbara and Richard Csomay Center for Gerontological Excellence. The Leader in Residence program provided a transformative experience by integrating key curriculum objectives, competency-based learning, and mentorship by esteemed nursing leaders and researchers through successful integration into the Center. With ongoing innovation and application of the PDSA cycle, the DNP Leader in Residence program presented in this case study holds immense potential to help better prepare 21 st century nurse leaders capable of driving positive change within complex healthcare systems.

Acknowledgements

         The author would like to express gratitude to the Barbara and Richard Csomay Center for Gerontological Excellence for the fostering environment to provide an immersion experience and the ongoing support for development of the DNP Leader in Residence program. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

  • American Association of Colleges of Nursing. The essentials: core competencies for professional nursing education. https://www.aacnnursing.org/Portals/42/AcademicNursing/pdf/Essentials-2021.pdf . Accessed June 26, 2023.
  • American Organization for Nursing Leadership. Nurse leader core competencies. https://www.aonl.org/resources/nurse-leader-competencies . Accessed July 10, 2023.
  • Warshawsky, N, Cramer, E. Describing nurse manager role preparation and competency: findings from a national study. J Nurs Adm . 2019;49(5):249-255. DOI:  10.1097/NNA.0000000000000746
  • Van Diggel, C, Burgess, A, Roberts, C, Mellis, C. Leadership in healthcare education. BMC Med. Educ . 2020;20(465). doi: 10.1186/s12909-020-02288-x
  • Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Plan-do-study-act (PDSA) worksheet. https://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/Tools/PlanDoStudyActWorksheet.aspx . Accessed July 4, 2023.
  • Taylor, M, McNicolas, C, Nicolay, C, Darzi, A, Bell, D, Reed, J. Systemic review of the application of the plan-do-study-act method to improve quality in healthcare. BMJ Quality & Safety. 2014:23:290-298. doi: 10.1136/bmjqs-2013-002703

Return to College of Nursing Winter 23/24 Newsletter

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