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Case Study
Contabilizei: Freeing entrepreneurs from Brazil’s tax complexity

The case focuses on Contabilizei, a Brazilian startup providing online accounting services for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The case study delves into the challenges faced by the company’s founder and CEO, Vitor Torres, as he navigated Brazil’s complex social and economic landscape. Issues such as Brazil’s byzantine tax system, dis…

Entrepreneurship Business to Business Digital Strategy
By Benoit F. Leleux, Diego Dias, Ariella Pfenninger, Daniel Töller and Thomas Villiger
Case reference: IMD-7-2546, © 2024
Contabilizei: Freeing entrepreneurs from Brazil’s tax complexity
By Benoit F. Leleux Diego Dias Ariella Pfenninger Daniel Töller and Thomas Villiger
Case reference: IMD-7-2546 ©2024
Summary
The case focuses on Contabilizei, a Brazilian startup providing online accounting services for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The case study delves into the challenges faced by the company’s founder and CEO, Vitor Torres, as he navigated Brazil’s complex social and economic landscape. Issues such as Brazil’s byzantine tax system, disparate educational quality and accessibility, and the high cost of doing business in the country are explored. Despite these barriers, Contabilizei demonstrated impressive growth, transforming digital innovation into standardized services. However, the rise of competitors and persistent profitability concerns prompt Torres to thoroughly explore future strategies to maintain market leadership and improve financial performance. The case provides an in-depth analysis of Brazil’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, examining its business, educational, legal and infrastructural realities and their implications for startups as well as the difficult step for startups to become established companies.
Reference IMD-7-2546
Copyright ©2024
Copyright owner IMD Copyright
Organization Contabilizei
Industry Finance and Insurance, Financial Services
Available Languages English
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Case Study
Moon Creative Lab: Mitsui’s venture studio

This case follows the steps taken by Kaichi Yokoyama, Moon Creative Lab’s CEO, to establish the entity as a pioneering venture studio and entrepreneurial talent development entity within the Mitsui Group. As a corporate venture, the story began in 2018 when Kaichi embarked on a mission to reshape Mitsui’s deeply entrenched traditions and pursue …

Entrepreneurship Venture Capital
By Benoit F. Leleux, Jim Pulcrano, Adam Hansson Tönning, Alexandra Loboda, Anette Papuga and Daisuke Shinohara
Case reference: IMD-7-2544, © 2024
Moon Creative Lab: Mitsui’s venture studio
By Benoit F. Leleux Jim Pulcrano Adam Hansson Tönning Alexandra Loboda Anette Papuga and Daisuke Shinohara
Case reference: IMD-7-2544 ©2024
Summary
This case follows the steps taken by Kaichi Yokoyama, Moon Creative Lab’s CEO, to establish the entity as a pioneering venture studio and entrepreneurial talent development entity within the Mitsui Group. As a corporate venture, the story began in 2018 when Kaichi embarked on a mission to reshape Mitsui’s deeply entrenched traditions and pursue a new era of innovation and creativity, a need highlighted by the appointment of a task force entrusted with the role of charting the company’s strategic direction until 2030. Kaichi believed Mitsui needed to evolve from merely “connecting” to “creating” to remain relevant in an ever-evolving world and to avoid being disrupted from the outside, but rather the inside. His vision extended far beyond short-term profits; it was about investing in Mitsui’s most valuable asset: its people. Kaichi aimed to nurture curiosity, broaden employees’ perspectives and create a culture of innovation. Moon was the vehicle to bring the vision to life, a corporate venture studio that would revolutionize Mitsu’s conventional operations and mindsets by celebrating curiosity and innovation in a venture studio set up in Silicon Valley. Despite strong resistance from Mitsui’s middle management, Moon pressed on with its mission. By 2023, it had to take stock of progress and define the objectives for the next five years, as well as the KPIs that would ensure its continued relevance within the Mitsui Group in an era of increasing uncertainty.
Reference IMD-7-2544
Copyright ©2024
Copyright owner IMD Copyright
Organization Moon Creative Lab, Mitsui Group
Industry Finance and Insurance, Venture Capital
Available Languages English
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Case Study
UniMag: Quality of life on paper, on air and online

Terry Burns launched UniMag in 2007 and went on to develop its ecosystem of affiliated companies over several years. As most media were rapidly shifting online, UniMag established its brand as a high-profile magazine with a counter-intuitive focus on high-quality print and journalism. Since then, digitalization has increasingly shaped the media …

Strategy Disruption Entrepreneurship General Management
By Patrick Reinmoeller
Case reference: IMD-7-2540, © 2024
UniMag: Quality of life on paper, on air and online
By Patrick Reinmoeller
Case reference: IMD-7-2540 ©2024
Summary
Terry Burns launched UniMag in 2007 and went on to develop its ecosystem of affiliated companies over several years. As most media were rapidly shifting online, UniMag established its brand as a high-profile magazine with a counter-intuitive focus on high-quality print and journalism. Since then, digitalization has increasingly shaped the media landscape, opening many opportunities for Burns. By 2023 digital activities most effectively drive the business of the many affiliated companies in UniMag’s ecosystem. In contrast, its print magazine sales have stalled, and costs keep growing. Burns and her team must make a strategic decision: What to do and what to stop? Where to perform and where to transform? In the context of a transforming media industry, the case illustrates how to set strategic direction in the face of disruptive forces in order to drive change and open opportunities.
Reference IMD-7-2540
Copyright ©2024
Copyright owner IMD Copyright
Organization UniMag (Disguised)
Industry Media
Available Languages English
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Case Study
Galeneo Health: Scaling the hospital@home platform

MADRID (SPAIN), MARCH 2023. Jaime Garcia-Prieto, founder and CEO of Galeneo, was polishing the deck for the fundraising for his healthcare start-up. The seed round of €1 million would take him to the institutional A round scheduled for Q3-2024, a comfortable 18-month+ runway. His proposal to decentralize healthcare through a tech-enabled hospita…

Digital Transformation Disruption Entrepreneurship Operations Sustainability
By Benoit F. Leleux
Case reference: IMD-7-2496, © 2023
Galeneo Health: Scaling the hospital@home platform
By Benoit F. Leleux
Case reference: IMD-7-2496 ©2023
Summary
MADRID (SPAIN), MARCH 2023. Jaime Garcia-Prieto, founder and CEO of Galeneo, was polishing the deck for the fundraising for his healthcare start-up. The seed round of €1 million would take him to the institutional A round scheduled for Q3-2024, a comfortable 18-month+ runway. His proposal to decentralize healthcare through a tech-enabled hospital@home platform offered the solution people were looking for not only in Spain but also in most advanced economies. According to a recent Economist article, the NHS, like many healthcare systems, had become a sickness service, not a health service. To live up to the promise of its name would require a shift in focus, away from hospitals to the community, from centralized treatment to community-based prevention and bedside medicine. In other words, health systems needed to be investing in smoke alarms, not fire extinguishers. In 2020, as the Covid pandemic began, Jaime envisioned the future of in-home care for patients with chronic treatment needs. In 2021, he embarked on developing a platform to coordinate bedside medical care anywhere, anytime, in minutes. Galeneo was born. By 2023, it had integrated 200+ healthcare providers (HCPs) and 11+ institutional partners in the Madrid region, enabling the provision of general high-value services outside hospital. Revenues of €1.6 million in 2023 were expected, with a growth rate of about 8% every month and net profit breakeven reached in February. Things looked positive, but there were issues around scaling fast – although Jaime had found solutions. To counter the limited availability of qualified healthcare workers, he developed the Galeneo Academy to train future in-home bedside specialists. Tech-enabled standardization reduced operational complexity through an easy-to-use app and included real-time monitoring and quality control. Finally, the whole concept of community-based bedside medicine was still nascent, which meant market participants needed to adopt original approaches. But it was a large market with great potential.
Reference IMD-7-2496
Copyright ©2023
Copyright owner IMD Copyright
Organization Galeneo
Industry Healthcare, Health and Medical Services
Available Languages English
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Case Study
The rise and fall of Byton

Byton was a Chinese electric vehicle company founded in 2016 with the goal of developing affordable, connected EVs. Daniel Kirchert, a seasoned automotive industry executive with extensive experience in luxury cars in China, was invited to join the start-up. With Daniel’s leadership and vision, Byton quickly became one of the most talked-about s…

Entrepreneurship China Leadership
By Mark J. Greeven and Yunfei Feng
Case reference: IMD-7-2473, © 2023
The rise and fall of Byton
By Mark J. Greeven and Yunfei Feng
Case reference: IMD-7-2473 ©2023
Summary
Byton was a Chinese electric vehicle company founded in 2016 with the goal of developing affordable, connected EVs. Daniel Kirchert, a seasoned automotive industry executive with extensive experience in luxury cars in China, was invited to join the start-up. With Daniel’s leadership and vision, Byton quickly became one of the most talked-about start-ups in the EV industry. The company raised around $700 million in funding from prominent investors such as FAW Group, Qidian Holdings and CATL, and secured partnerships with suppliers and strategic partners to support its innovative designs and technology. Byton’s first car model, the M-Byte, was unveiled at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). However, despite the initial success and buzz, Byton faced financial difficulties and began experiencing delays in bringing the M-Byte to market. In early 2020, Byton entered bankruptcy proceedings due to a lack of cash flow and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the global economy. Daniel left Byton for another career.
Reference IMD-7-2473
Copyright ©2023
Copyright owner IMD Copyright
Organization Byton
Industry Automotive, Automobiles
Available Languages English
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Case Study
Drinkotec: Changing a company, changing a life (C): Dream big or go home

It is now four years later, and Drinkotec is scaling up fast. They’ve had to make some tough decisions in order to focus, have the best people and build the culture that they want, but today, major beverage companies are seeking their technology in order to go packaging-free. This case is about leadership, culture, sustainability and taking the …

Entrepreneurship Business to Business Digital Leadership Sustainability
By Jim Pulcrano, Giancarlo Luchetta Bedin, Srinivas Reddy (Srini) Mamidi, Anton Rozhkovskiy and Bakel Walden
Case reference: IMD-7-2488, © 2023
Drinkotec: Changing a company, changing a life (C): Dream big or go home
By Jim Pulcrano Giancarlo Luchetta Bedin Srinivas Reddy (Srini) Mamidi Anton Rozhkovskiy and Bakel Walden
Case reference: IMD-7-2488 ©2023
Summary
It is now four years later, and Drinkotec is scaling up fast. They’ve had to make some tough decisions in order to focus, have the best people and build the culture that they want, but today, major beverage companies are seeking their technology in order to go packaging-free. This case is about leadership, culture, sustainability and taking the leap to follow your dreams.
Reference IMD-7-2488
Copyright ©2023
Copyright owner IMD Copyright
Organization Drinkotec
Industry Consumer Goods;Consumer Goods, Food and Beverage
Available Languages English
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Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications