How important is it to maintain a happy workforce? With this question in mind, Lanco Medical Group, a small but fast-growing pharmaceutical distributor serving Latin America, approached the design of their employee benefits and incentives program. But there were gaps between what leadership believed motivated employees and what employees truly valued.

With ambitions for regional and market expansion in the next few years, motivating and retaining employees was a top priority for the leadership team. So, the organization systematized the collection of data about drivers of employee motivation. Priorities varied by age group, organizational role, and geographic locations. A one-size-fits all solution was unlikely to succeed.

In this episode, HBS Professor Susanna Gallani discusses the case “Lanco Medical Group: Fostering Happiness for Growth” with host Brian Kenny. They highlight the tensions between accommodating employees’ preferences, maintaining fairness, and operating a manageable incentive program amid the pursuit of aggressive international growth targets.

Porsche has reigned as one of the world’s leading sports and luxury car companies for nearly 80 years. Central to the German automaker’s growth strategy is creating stellar customer experiences and great products, such as the legendary 911 Carrera sports car.

But the automotive industry is undergoing disruptive changes and bringing new competitive challenges from around the world. Company leadership is adapting Porsche’s product portfolio, recently adding the electric model Taycan. They’re also innovating new customer experiences like the “Track Your Dream” program.

In this episode, Harvard Business School Professor Stefan Thomke explores how the storied company will continue to change in a bid to stay relevant—yet also remain true to its legacy—in the case “Porsche.”

Google formally announced the innovative video game service Stadia at the 2019 Game Developer Conference. The company invested substantial resources and time into building a network able to support the demanding requirements of cloud gaming. But the early uptake by premium video gamers was disappointing.

The leadership team faced a decision. Should they double down on the streaming strategy, refocusing Stadia on the casual gamer segment? Or should they pull the plug altogether?

In this episode, Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer Derek van Bever and coauthor Akshat Agrawal explore Google’s strategic choice, which is featured in their case “Google Stadia: Game On or Game Over?”

Cold Call is celebrating its tenth year of distilling Harvard Business School case studies into podcast episodes. To kick off the 2025 anniversary, the show’s production team has curated three of their favorite episodes from 2024.

Host Brian Kenny recommends How One Leader Overcame Career-Ending Adversity with HBS Senior Lecturer Tony Mayo.

Show producer Robin Passias offers How to Bring Good Ideas to Life: The Paul English Story with HBS Professor Frances Frei and entrepreneur Paul English.

And audio engineer Craig McDonald highlights Angel City Football Club: A New Business Model for Women’s Sports with HBS faculty member Jeffrey Rayport and football club cofounder Kara Nortman.

Artificial intelligence is changing how we live and work in ways large and small. It’s why Cold Call has tackled the topic several times. And it’s why today we’re sharing an episode of Harvard Business School’s Managing the Future of Work podcast, hosted by Professors Bill Kerr and Joe Fuller.

The show is all about the forces, like AI, that are reshaping the nature of work. In the episode “Microsoft’s AI perspective: From chatbots to reengineering the organization” from February 21, 2024, HBS Professor Bill Kerr talks to Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President of Modern Work and Business Applications at Microsoft.

They discuss how the tech giant is experimenting its way from AI assistants to autonomous agents as it engages with stakeholders. The conversation also touches on the company’s relationship with OpenAI and ensuring the technology is employed responsibly.

In 2022, Deion Sanders, known as “Coach Prime,” became head football coach of the University of Colorado Boulder (CU). Sanders was hired to bring CU’s struggling football program, which had only one winning season in the previous 15 years, back to glory.

Many observers were excited by the idea of having the Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee and two-time Super Bowl champion as CU’s new head coach. But some questioned whether Sanders had the experience needed to turn around a team in a highly competitive athletic conference. In addition, several wondered whether his “old school” leadership style, which demands a high level of discipline and personal accountability, would be effective with today’s student-athletes. Still others doubted whether his approach would be sustainable.

In this conversation with host Brian Kenny, Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer Hise Gibson discusses Sanders’ leadership style and effectiveness in the case “Deion Sanders: The Prime Effect.”

One of the oldest Black-owned security firms in the United States, Johnson Security Bureau, provided mainly unarmed guards to New York banks, public works, and hospitals. The company’s status as a woman-owned, minority-owned firm had been crucial to its competitive strategy since CEO Jessica Johnson-Cope took over the firm from her father.

In order to grow the family business, however, Johnson-Cope considered partnering with security firms in other states, something that threatened to put some of the company’s founding priorities on the back burner. She also considered expanding the business into cybersecurity.

In this conversation with host Brian Kenny, Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer Henry McGee and CEO Jessica Johnson-Cope discuss the issues of scaling a minority-owned family business that are at the heart of the case “Johnson Security Bureau: Building Multigenerational Success.”

Entrepreneur Duke Rohlen creates California-based Ajax Health under a new model for innovation and business growth. Calling it the “Chassis and Growth Drivers” model, he structures it to create innovative new products to capture a higher portion of the financial returns. Partnering with major private equity firms, Rohlen considers a $1 billion bid to buy Cordis.

If Ajax’s bid is successful, they will invest an additional $300 million to fund an off-balance sheet accelerator, which will develop innovative new products to drive revenue growth. Should Rohlen and his partners invest the $1.3 billion to implement this model? Is Cordis the right opportunity for Rohlen and his team?

Ajax Health founder Duke Rohlen (HBS MBA 2001) and HBS Professor Regina Herzlinger join host Brian Kenny to discuss the key success factors for both start-up and established medical technology firms. The case “Ajax Health: A New Model for Medical Technology Innovation” showcases how to structure a firm—in any industry—to maximize innovation and financial returns by better aligning incentives for the different skill sets required.

In 1985, pop music superstar Michael Jackson instructed his attorney, John Branca, to bid for the Northern Songs music catalog, which contained the songs of the Beatles. In a challenging negotiation, Branca secured the rights to the collection.

Over the next three decades, first as Jackson’s attorney and later as the executor of his estate, Branca undertook numerous complex negotiations to secure and expand Jackson’s music publishing empire until it became the largest music publishing company in the world.

Harvard Business School professor James K. Sebenius joins host Brian Kenny and a live audience of Harvard Business School alumni to discuss how to deal with tough negotiators effectively and ethically in his case, John Branca: “Negotiating the Beatles’ Northern Songs Catalog.”

With operations in 70 countries and 20,000 employees, Pernod Ricard is a leader in premium international spirits. The company had achieved its leadership position in the market largely through strategic acquisition and an ability to build and grow its brand over time. But pressure to continually expand its extensive brand portfolio in order to meet customer demand meant that its traditional analog processes were not allowing the company to effectively manage its huge portfolio of products.

In response, the company launched four key digital programs (KDPs) aimed at using data and artificial intelligence to automate processes and enable data-driven decision-making. Pernod Ricard’s future direction with the KDPs depended on addressing internal resistance, providing effective training and support, aligning with strategic goals, and overcoming logistical and data-related hurdles. The company needed to find a way to expand these programs into new markets while reinforcing adoption where they had already been launched.

Harvard Business School assistant professors Iavor Bojinov and Edward McFowland III explore the opportunities and challenges of the company’s digital transformation journey in the case, “Pernod Ricard: Uncorking Digital Transformation.”