nespresso innovation case study

What Is a Case Study?

When you’re performing research as part of your job or for a school assignment, you’ll probably come across case studies that help you to learn more about the topic at hand. But what is a case study and why are they helpful? Read on to learn all about case studies.

At face value, a case study is a deep dive into a topic. Case studies can be found in many fields, particularly across the social sciences and medicine. When you conduct a case study, you create a body of research based on an inquiry and related data from analysis of a group, individual or controlled research environment.

As a researcher, you can benefit from the analysis of case studies similar to inquiries you’re currently studying. Researchers often rely on case studies to answer questions that basic information and standard diagnostics cannot address.

Study a Pattern

One of the main objectives of a case study is to find a pattern that answers whatever the initial inquiry seeks to find. This might be a question about why college students are prone to certain eating habits or what mental health problems afflict house fire survivors. The researcher then collects data, either through observation or data research, and starts connecting the dots to find underlying behaviors or impacts of the sample group’s behavior.

Gather Evidence

During the study period, the researcher gathers evidence to back the observed patterns and future claims that’ll be derived from the data. Since case studies are usually presented in the professional environment, it’s not enough to simply have a theory and observational notes to back up a claim. Instead, the researcher must provide evidence to support the body of study and the resulting conclusions.

Present Findings

As the study progresses, the researcher develops a solid case to present to peers or a governing body. Case study presentation is important because it legitimizes the body of research and opens the findings to a broader analysis that may end up drawing a conclusion that’s more true to the data than what one or two researchers might establish. The presentation might be formal or casual, depending on the case study itself.

Draw Conclusions

Once the body of research is established, it’s time to draw conclusions from the case study. As with all social sciences studies, conclusions from one researcher shouldn’t necessarily be taken as gospel, but they’re helpful for advancing the body of knowledge in a given field. For that purpose, they’re an invaluable way of gathering new material and presenting ideas that others in the field can learn from and expand upon.

• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service
• © 2023 Ask Media Group, LLC

Brought to you by:

Innovation & Renovation: The Nespresso Story

By: Kamran Kashani, Joyce Miller

Traces the development of the Nespresso System in a 100%-owned affiliate deliberately placed outside Nestle's main organizational structure. Highlights the team's successes and challenges in creating…

• Length: 24 page(s)
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2000
• Discipline: General Management
• Product #: IMD046-PDF-ENG

What's included:

• Teaching Note
• Educator Copy
• Supplements

$4.25 per student

degree granting course

$7.46 per student

non-degree granting course

Get access to this material, plus much more with a free Educator Account:

• Access to world-famous HBS cases
• Up to 60% off materials for your students
• Resources for teaching online
• Tips and reviews from other Educators

Already registered? Sign in

• Student Registration
• Non-Academic Registration
• Included Materials

Traces the development of the Nespresso System in a 100%-owned affiliate deliberately placed outside Nestle's main organizational structure. Highlights the team's successes and challenges in creating a new, small, niche segment in the mature coffee market and its prospects for growing the business from 150 million to 1 billion Swiss francs within the next decade. A radical departure from most Nestle lines of businesses targeted to the mass market, the Nespresso story offers provocative lessons about innovation in large, highly structured organizations.

Jan 1, 2000 (Revised: Dec 6, 2021)

Discipline:

General Management

Geographies:

Switzerland

Industries:

Food industry, Non-alcoholic beverage industry

IMD046-PDF-ENG

Product details

Teaching and learning

Time period, geographical setting, featured company, featured protagonists.

• Yannick Lang (male)
• Willem Pronk (male), General Manager

• Free Case Studies
• Business Essays

Write My Case Study

Buy Case Study

Case Study Help

• Case Study For Sale
• Case Study Service
• Hire Writer

Nespresso Case Summary

Tiffany Smith July 27, 2010 The Nespresso case traces the development of the Nespresso System in a 100%-owned affiliate deliberately placed outside Nestle ‘s main organizational structure. The case also highlights the team’s successes and challenges in creating a new, small, niche segment in the mature coffee market and its prospects for growing the business from 150 million to 1 billion Swiss francs within the next decade. The Nespresso system was a radical departure from most Nestle lines of businesses targeted to the mass market; the Nespresso story offers provocative lessons about innovation in large, highly structured organizations.

This case speaks about the history of Nespresso’s development and the challenges for its future.

We Will Write a Custom Case Study Specifically For You For Only $13.90/page!

The beginning of the article describes Nestle’s strategies for growth through innovation and renovation and describes the management’s practices and views on promoting a climate for innovation. The article then goes on to describe the challenges the company faced as the company tried to grow the Nespresso business towards 1 billion Swiss francs. The Nespresso case touches on opportunity recognition, the characteristics of the corporate entrepreneur, and the necessary organizational structure needed in order to be innovative in this industry.

The case also covers the delicate transformation of an initiative from the entrepreneurial stage to institutionalization for sustained growth. The Nespresso machines were highly innovative due to its outward simplicity and masked complexity. The extraction process for the Nespresso machines was considered highly innovative because it incorporated years of research and learning that would be hard for a competitor to replicate without patent infringement.

The Nespresso concept helped Nestle to outperform all of their competitors in quality and convenience.

Because Nestle held the patent for the Nespresso machines competitors could not copy their invention with committing patent infringement. The aim of the Nespresso product development was to combine Nestle’s research and development strength with its deep knowledge of the coffee business to bring a high quality coffee product to the market. The Nespresso product was established in order to give Nestle a larger presence in the roast and ground segment of the coffee market, while bring quality to the market as well.

In the beginning there were a number of technical problems to overcome, but Nestle’s R ; D organization resolved all issues.

The Nespresso product gained support from Nestle’s food service division in the beginning, but was soon abandoned in favor of the office coffee sector. Later the company approached Sobal, a Swiss company, to assist in the distribution in the Nespresso system in offices and other institutions. The 100%-owned Nestle affiliate was established in 1986 in order to speed up the process of seizing the market opportunity in the newly created individual portion coffee category.

The company developed its own commercial, distribution, and personnel policies separate from Nestle and was exclusively responsible for promoting products under the Nespresso brand name. A special production line was open in Switzerland at the Nescafe plant in order to produce the coffee capsules for the Nespresso system.

The Nespresso system was launched in Italy and Switzerland and by 1987 only half of the machines that had been manufactured had been sold. The company was behind target for the machines and the capsules.

There were also other worrying signs so they company had to rethink the Nespresso strategy. They hired Lang who rethought the Nespresso concept. This is where the renovation came in. They shifted the target market to the household market.

Lang’s strategy was to position Nespresso away from the more utilitarian office coffee and target consumers at the top of the household market. During this time Lang and his team introduced modifications to the designs, they renovated the coffee capsules to cut down on costs and make them recyclable.

Because they shifted their target market to the household Market Nespresso had to rethink the distribution process. This is when Lang came up with the idea of the Nespresso club, which handle service calls and offered consumers around the clock ordering, prompt delivery of fresh coffee, and personalized advice. The Club was an immediate success and was the first direct marketing experiment within the Nestle organization.

As a way to get the product out, the company contract with a few airlines to get them to start serving the Nespresso product onboard their first class long haul flights.

Top restaurants were solicited. Under Lang’s leadership, NCS broke even in 1995 and as a result became one of the fastest growing business units in the Nestle organization. Lang made sure to create a climate for innovation in order to keep the Nespresso concept alive, however in 1997 Lang left and William Pronk took the reins. Pronk worked to enhance the customer service side of the business.

Pronk established several renovations in order to create customer intimacy, to build long term loyalty and put Nespresso on the road to becoming a meaningful concept in the competitive coffee world.

While the Nespresso concept had created and dominated an entirely new gourmet coffee category, several issues still needed to be resolved in order to accelerate growth in NCS. Pronk was concerned about five issues which included: 1) attracting new customers 2) going down market 3) distribution to serve a wider market 4) diversification into non-coffee products and 5) blocking competitors. Although NCS had reached a satisfactory performance, NCS had still fell short of Nestle’s high ambition of 1 billion Swiss francs in sales and the question remained what must NCS do now to reach its ambitious growth targets?

Related posts:

• Nespresso Marketing Analysis
• Dr. Pepper Case Study Summary
• Executive Professional Summary
• Nike Case Study Executive Summary
• ITM all case study summary
• Be Our Guest Case Summary
• A case of identity Summary

Quick Links

Privacy Policy

Terms and Conditions

Testimonials

Our Services

Case Study Writing Service

Case Studies For Sale

Our Company

Welcome to the world of case studies that can bring you high grades! Here, at ACaseStudy.com, we deliver professionally written papers, and the best grades for you from your professors are guaranteed!

[email protected] 804-506-0782 350 5th Ave, New York, NY 10118, USA

Acasestudy.com © 2007-2019 All rights reserved.

Hi! I'm Anna

Would you like to get a custom case study? How about receiving a customized one?

Haven't Found The Case Study You Want?

For Only $13.90/page