Strategy

- February 21, 2025
- Article
How a Company’s Ownership Model Shapes the Mistakes It Makes

By: Josh Baron

Why do some companies continue to thrive for decades and others die after an initial run of success? Like many kinds of accidents, company failure is generally the consequence of cascading effects that combine to overwhelm a previously effective strategy. But the errors that lead to corporate death spirals often can be traced back to a common factor that receives insufficient attention: their ownership model. This article explores how ownership influences company success or failure across five main dimensions.
- February 21, 2025
- Article
How a Company’s Ownership Model Shapes the Mistakes It Makes

By: Josh Baron

Why do some companies continue to thrive for decades and others die after an initial run of success? Like many kinds of accidents, company failure is generally the consequence of cascading effects that combine to overwhelm a previously effective strategy. But the errors that lead to corporate death spirals often can be traced back to a common...
- February 2025
- Case
Hyperscaling Dreams: Ualá’s Path from Startup to Fintech Champion

By: Juan Alcacer and Manuel Franck

Ualá, founded by Pierpaolo Barbieri in 2017, is a fast-growing fintech company on a mission to revolutionize financial services in Latin America. Starting with a 14-person team and a prepaid card linked to a digital app, Ualá rapidly expanded into a comprehensive financial services platform. By early 2022, it served over 4 million users across Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia, offering solutions in payments, credit, wealth management, and business payment processing. Ualá’s hypergrowth was driven by a record-breaking $350 million funding round in 2021, enabling it to enter new markets, secure banking licenses, and acquire financial institutions. However, this rapid expansion surfaced key challenges, including regulatory pressures, leadership development, and the need to balance centralization with local market adaptation. Facing shifting investor demands for profitability over growth, Ualá confronted critical decisions about user acquisition strategies, leadership restructuring, and talent scaling to secure its position in the competitive fintech landscape.
- February 2025
- Case
Hyperscaling Dreams: Ualá’s Path from Startup to Fintech Champion

By: Juan Alcacer and Manuel Franck

Ualá, founded by Pierpaolo Barbieri in 2017, is a fast-growing fintech company on a mission to revolutionize financial services in Latin America. Starting with a 14-person team and a prepaid card linked to a digital app, Ualá rapidly expanded into a comprehensive financial services platform. By early 2022, it served over 4 million users across...
- January 2025
- Case
Sportradar (B): Innovative Resilience and Beyond

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, David M Wagner, Naomi Haefner and Oliver Gassmann
- January 2025
- Case
Sportradar (B): Innovative Resilience and Beyond

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, David M Wagner, Naomi Haefner and Oliver Gassmann

About the Unit

The Strategy unit studies firms as competitors in an economic landscape. Key issues include: the development and effectiveness of firm strategy at both a business and corporate level; the analysis of the competitive environment; and the sustainability of strategy over time.

Our research, course development, and teaching draws on multiple disciplines, including economics, sociology, and political science, and focuses on both domestic and global competition. The objective of the work is to generate findings and develop concepts that will help managers improve their strategic decisions while advancing the state of knowledge in the academic study of strategy and related disciplines.

Recent Publications

How a Company’s Ownership Model Shapes the Mistakes It Makes

By: Josh Baron

February 21, 2025 |
Article |
Harvard Business Review Digital Articles

Why do some companies continue to thrive for decades and others die after an initial run of success? Like many kinds of accidents, company failure is generally the consequence of cascading effects that combine to overwhelm a previously effective strategy. But the errors that lead to corporate death spirals often can be traced back to a common factor that receives insufficient attention: their ownership model. This article explores how ownership influences company success or failure across five main dimensions.

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Failure; Ownership

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Hyperscaling Dreams: Ualá’s Path from Startup to Fintech Champion

By: Juan Alcacer and Manuel Franck

February 2025 |
Case |
Faculty Research

Ualá, founded by Pierpaolo Barbieri in 2017, is a fast-growing fintech company on a mission to revolutionize financial services in Latin America. Starting with a 14-person team and a prepaid card linked to a digital app, Ualá rapidly expanded into a comprehensive financial services platform. By early 2022, it served over 4 million users across Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia, offering solutions in payments, credit, wealth management, and business payment processing. Ualá’s hypergrowth was driven by a record-breaking $350 million funding round in 2021, enabling it to enter new markets, secure banking licenses, and acquire financial institutions. However, this rapid expansion surfaced key challenges, including regulatory pressures, leadership development, and the need to balance centralization with local market adaptation. Facing shifting investor demands for profitability over growth, Ualá confronted critical decisions about user acquisition strategies, leadership restructuring, and talent scaling to secure its position in the competitive fintech landscape.

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Leadership; Venture Capital; Talent and Talent Management; Strategy; Credit; Banking Industry; Argentina; Mexico; Colombia; Latin America

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Educators

Google Quantum AI

By: David B. Yoffie

February 2025 |
Teaching Note |
Faculty Research

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Why Companies Thrive Or Die: Ownership and the Path to Perpetuation

By: Josh Baron

2025 |
Working Paper |
Faculty Research

Why do some companies continue to thrive for decades and others die after an initial run of success? Much like an airplane accident, company failure is generally the consequence of cascading effects that combine together to overwhelm a previously effective strategy. But the errors that led to those corporate death spirals often can be traced back to a common factor that receives insufficient attention: their ownership model. This paper explores how a company's ownership - whether it is privately held or publicly traded - affects its ability to succeed over the long-term.

Keywords: Ownership Type; Outcome or Result

Citation

eBee: Affordable Mobility for Africa

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Gamze Yucaoglu and Jordan Mitchell

February 2025 |
Supplement |
Faculty Research

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eBee: Affordable Mobility for Africa

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Gamze Yucaoglu and Jordan Mitchell

February 2025 |
Supplement |
Faculty Research

The case opens in March 2023, as Sten van der Ham and Jaap Maljers, CEO and co-founder of eBee, an electric bike (e-bike) company in Africa, are contemplating the different avenues for growth and path to profitability for the young and ambitious company. In 2023, the company had been gaining traction in Kenya under three business models and was also getting ready to raise a financing round of 8–10 million round. eBee had the first mover advantage of having introduced e-bikes and van der Ham and Maljers needed to decide which levers to pull for to best grow eBee going forward. The case chronicles the founding of eBee, provides details on its bike designed for the terrain in Africa, and its unit economics. The case then lays the ground transportation Africa complete with challenges, opportunities, and the competitive outlook. The case then goes into detail about the three go-to-market channels that eBee picked to penetrate into the Kenyan market. The case goes into detail about the three different busienss models, business models-- vehicle as a service, fulfillment, and direct sales—that eBee is piloting in 2023 as well as providing an understanding of what each operate, their financial prospects, and growth outlooks, as eBee tries to grow its sales. While each business model presented its challenges and were yet to prove profitable at scale, van der Ham and Maljers firmly believed the in the immense opportunity to grow e-bikes in Africa and in eBee’s first mover advantage. The duo was excited about geographical expansion. Others on the team and advisory board held that, obtaining proof of concept in Kenya first would be more helpful, while some suggested to eliminate some of the business models and focus more on others. What was the best way to grow eBee in Africa? Was the product–market fit good enough to build on? What was the best path to profitability for eBee? As eBee was still testing multiple business models, was it the right time for the company to embark on geographical expansion?

Keywords: Business Model; Value Creation; Competition; Logistics; Profit; Resource Allocation; Expansion; Corporate Strategy

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