Cool burst -- A Famous HBR case study

Main Issue:
Coolburst's growth is stagnant and saturated.

What are the reasons?

-- The most traditional approach of coolburst towards the markets and people. They did not consider the changing taste of people and the upcoming players in that segment.
-- The management likes to experiment, but they want to experiment in their traditional way.
-- The management failed to get the right people at the right time.
-- The mindset of the management has to change, they failed to see all the options that are available to leverage and expand.
-- The company has the feeling that they are the leaders and they took it for granted
-- The management couldn't see the potential in their well established supply chain
-- The new marketing director, failed to be flexible and inspite of being creative, he failed to convince his higher authorities.
-- They are not keen on the marketting strategy and limited themselves to school kids :)
-- The management didn't try to comeout of the loop and look at the company from the third person's perspective. They failed to see the problem, because they were stuck up in the pile.
-- Ideas from the employees and researchers were not taken up very easily.

Most of the times, the researchers, who are very good in creativity might not possess the capabilities to see the potential of their ideas. They should team up with the right people and harness the potential of them to convert their ideas into business plan.

In this case study, the researcher failed to findout the right person to market her idea. Being a marketing director Jenkins failed to convey his ideas in the way they could be accepted by the conservative management.

What might solve the problem ?

I see lot of potential in Coolburst. Its not that the company is not doing bad, its all about the growth being stagnant. This gives an implication that there is an well established market base for coolburst.

Luisa, CEO of Coolburst, has to change her mindset. She has to stop thinking that the company is not doing good or she should stop thinking that there is no other that she can increase the market share. I see Luisa's situation, similar to that of the parent's mindset which was discussed in the book "Seven habits of highly effective people". She has to get rid of it.
She should indulge in the activities, which gets her out of the tension and she can start a different vertical in the company, which is dedicated for Creativity and Innovation. So the dressing codes and the work timings of this team don't have effect on the people in the other teams, because this team is totally independent. Everybody know that they are the creativity team and employees in the other teams won't take ques from that team.

The employees in the company should be given to Stop & Think about what they are working on from so many years. Making employees to indulge in Training sessions, which make them focus on their creativity.
Let the dress code in the company to be formal and if they think thats what is stopping people from being creative, the management can allow the employees to be in casual dresses on certain weekdays (eg: friday casualwear).

Not just the employees, there are always their families, who can help the company in the growth. There are always lot of ideas, which sound really silly in the beginning, but if studied thoroughly they might help the company a lot.
This can be done by Organizing competitions to encourage creative ideas from the employees. There are scenarios where the employees in the lower level, suggested ideas to improve the work flow and they paidout heavily. So these case competitions will allow all the employees to share their ideas.

Coolburst can think about buy startups with very good potential. Coolburst's management should be open minded in evaluating the potential of the startup. Otherwise the buyout will not improve anything.

The management team can be aggressive and they can improve the number of drinks that cater to different people.

Coolburst can make alliances with the major food vendors and try to offer their new products as a part of Lunch/Breakfast package.

These are the ideas which I got into my mind, after going through the case study