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With permission of Emerald

The most widely used indicator to measure the degree of innovation of an industry is each individual company's actual expenses on research and development (R&D), aggregated across the whole industrial sector. With the ESMT Innovation Index 2010 – Electricity Supply Industry, we suggest expanding the notion of innovation beyond R&D indicators to achievements in productivity and sustainability. We test the methodology of the innovation index with a set of 15 large European electricity utilities and find that innovation activities have substantially increased over the last four years. A German and a French utility, RWE and EDF, lead the ranking within our sample.

The case describes the challenges faced at BestCar Bank with respect to talent management and leadership development in the context of a difficult business environment, low-growth markets, and fundamental organizational changes. BestCar Bank is an automotive financial services provider, part of one of the Germany's most premium car manufacturers. After years of high growth and internationalization, the company is finding only limited growth opportunities in the developed countries of the Western World. The management attention has shifted to re-engineering initiatives to make the organization lean and efficient. The economic crisis has increased the pressure to reduce costs and increase efficiency. Despite a state-of-the-art talent management, BestCar Bank faces increasing difficulties in retaining and developing talent. The case can be used to facilitate a discussion and exchange on questions such as - how talent management can be adapted to a changing environment, - what driving and restraining forces influence the success of talent management, - how the link between strategy, change, and talent management can be re-established, - and how a modern management development today can look like.