In mid-2020, Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber) acquired Latin American-based mobile application Cornershop, which delivered online grocery purchases to the consumer’s home. The operation involved technology firms based on multisided platforms. Uber, which focused on the intermediation of passenger transport, had expanded to businesses such Uber Eats for the delivery of restaurant meals, while Cornershop’s focus was the purchase and delivery of supermarket .....more

In 2020, Falabella, one of the largest Latin American multi-format and multi-country retailers, faced increasing competition from the online world. The growth of online giants posed significant challenges for Falabella’s senior executives, who needed to decide how to allocate investments in this highly competitive environment. There were also growth opportunities in the brick-and-mortar business in many Latin American countries. Falabella needed to .....more

At the start of 2020, the main strategic challenge for UBits (a start-up focused on online corporate training in Latin America) was how to continue to scale up the operation. Although UBits had gained a foothold in Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, the company had no presence in Brazil—Latin America’s largest economy—or in any other major regional economies, including Chile and Argentina. UBits was offering only one type of service—subscription-based courses .....more

In June 2020, UBits faced the uncertainties of a global health crisis—the COVID-19 pandemic. The company had experienced several temporary setbacks, but the chief executive officer and co-founder was encouraged by the shifts in market dynamics that seemed to hold a bright future for online training. However, major competitors had also intensified their efforts to capitalize on the new opportunities in the market. UBits needed to re-evaluate its options .....more

Amazon.com Inc.’s (Amazon’s) global expansion from 1998 to 2020, started with investment in the United Kingdom and Germany and ended with investment in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In 2019, as one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies, Amazon had a 15.1 per cent share of the worldwide e-commerce market with operations in 16 countries, including both developed and emerging markets. However, the company was showing unbalanced performance across .....more

Following the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, the US government set out to modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement, threatening to revoke it if a new favourable deal was not reached with Canada and Mexico. Among other demands, the United States wanted to increase its access to Canada’s protected dairy markets and was calling for the Canadian dairy supply management system to be dismantled. But the health of the .....more

This note introduces how supply and demand frameworks can be applied to understand distortions in the economy.

The chief executive officer of Ambhar Global Spirits LLC joined the company in 2003, when its Tequila Ambhar brand was immersed in financial and image problems. He dedicated himself to reconfiguring the positioning of Tequila Ambhar, establishing it as a product of high quality and sophistication for knowledgeable consumers. With this conviction, he worked closely with a tequila industry consultant to modify product and marketing components and perfect .....more

Cinepolis S.A. de C.V. (Cinepolis), an innovative private Mexican firm—and one of the largest movie theatre companies in the world—had developed an over-the-top (OTT) streaming product, KLIC, and launched it in Mexico. But by late 2017, the Mexican OTT market had become competitive and crowded, with Netflix, Claro Video, Blim, Amazon Prime Video, iTunes, and others in the space. KLIC initially faced challenges with finding a proper niche and had not .....more

In 2013, two entrepreneurs launched the Virtual Market in Mexico City with a mission to transform small traditional retailers (the so-called “mom-and-pop” shops) into competitive market players. The family-owned shops were strongly embedded in the society, culture, and economy of Mexico and Latin America, producing 50 per cent of the region’s retail sales and 15 per cent of Mexico’s true gross domestic product. However, economic growth had increased .....more