Yesterday, Jamie Anderson and his colleagues won the Strategy and General Management category at the ‘Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2017’. The Centre granted him the award for having written the most commonly-used case in current business education.

The Case Center is the resource for business education remediation case studies worldwide. The Case Center’s services include the organization of annual awards and competitions known as the “Case Method Oscars”.

The winning case this year was the Nespresso Case written by Jamie Anderson, Nader Tavassoli and Mark Collins. This is the bestselling case in current business education in the sense that it is taught to the largest number of students globally. Cases that receive this award are those used in the largest number of organizations worldwide over the past year. The Nespresso case owes its success to its examination of the phenomenal success of one of the world’s most prestigious and profitable coffee brands: Nespresso.

The case

Nespresso has proved a very interesting case since its original concept, which started the coffee business boom, began to evolve from a prestige brand towards a mass product. The brand became the dominant force in the premium single-serve coffee market by launching their own single-serve concepts thereby unleashing a competitive battle on the new coffee market.

Other brands started to produce similar products compatible with the Nespresso concept whilst other alternatives started to pop up. Nespresso had to understand the degree to which it could sustain its competitive advantage in the premium single-serve coffee market in the face of growing competition, and develop strategies to address the growing threat of competitors who were offering Nespresso-compatible capsules.

Education

This case study helps students develop a deeper understanding of such concepts as innovation, branding, business system fit, sustainable competitive advantage and tackling low-cost competitors. The Nespresso case is intended for MBA courses in Strategic Management, Innovation and Marketing but it can also be used in executive education programs, for example as part of a competitive strategy program to discuss issues around strategy, competitive advantage and responding to low-cost rivals.

Jamie Anderson

Jamie Anderson is joint Adjunct Professor of Strategic Management at Antwerp Management School and the Lorange Institute of Business, Zurich. Furthermore, he is co-founder of the thought leadership network, Connected Visions. He has also held permanent and visiting lectureships at some of the world’s top business schools, such as the London Business School, IMD, ESMT Berlin, and the University of Melbourne. He was named one the world’s “top 25 management thinkers” by the Business Strategy Review. In 2012, Jamie was awarded with an Honorary Doctorate by RISEBA Business School for his research on the creative industries. He also won the EFMD – European Federation for Management Development’s case-writing awards three times. He has been referred to as a true “management guru”, a title which is richly deserved.

Find more info on this award-winning case here.