Disruptive Change at Bossard with SmartFactoryLogistics.com?

Abstract

As Tee Bin Ong, Bossard’s vice president of sales and marketing, headed to the strategy meeting with Bossard’s management team and board, his expectations were high, and he was excited about the prospects. He had invested a substantial amount of time preparing for the meeting on “Smart Factory Logistics,” where the evolution of Bossard’s strategy around the “smart factory” and its implementation would be discussed. One of the key strategic questions was whether Smart Factory Logistics would be the trigger for Bossard’s digital transformation or an important differentiator for Bossard’s value proposition. The newly created website ► www.SmartFactoryLogistics.com would point in this direction. A third option was pointing in a very different growth direction, i.e., using the technology that was established by a fastener distributor to enter completely new markets with no connection to the fastener industry, e.g., hospitals.

EMBA Candidates Celine Relecom, Mikhail Efimov, and Maria Kokontseva prepared this case under the supervision of Professor Stefan Michel as a basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a business situation. Copyright © 2017 by IMD—International Institute for Management Development, Lausanne, Switzerland (► www.imd.org). No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of IMD.