STRATEGY. DISSECTED
CaseCraft
Strategy. Dissected.
Case studies, analysis and book reviews on the decisions that make and break industrial companies. Built on primary sources, written by an operator, for executives, investors and boards.
Strategy without operational understanding is theory. Operational excellence without strategic clarity is motion without direction. CaseCraft works between the two.
Every case is written from the decision point, with the information the decision-maker had at the time, and stops before the outcome. Read it the way a board would: before you know how it ended, and with your own organisation in mind.
The library
Every company case and analysis published so far, grouped by the question it addresses. See all articles
| Topic | Company case | Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| Strategy and coherence | Costco Wholesale: The Coherent StrategyShimano: Freewheeling | The Hidden Economics of Ecosystem Lock-In |
| Pricing and value capture | Apple: The Greatest Business Ever Built | Value-Based Pricing and the Good-Better-Best ModelInvented Here, Captured Elsewhere |
| Operations and organisation | Toyota: The Machine Nobody Could Copy | The Metrics That LieThe Architecture of Great Work |
| Innovation and reinvention | Intel Corporation: The $100 Billion QuestionFujifilm: The Second FoundationThe Same Bet Twice: Corning | The Excellence Trap |
| Leadership and culture | What Happened to Boeing?Ford Motor Company: Reinventing Itself AgainStarbucks and the Aristocracy Trap | The Anatomy of a Transformational Leader |
| Industry structure and supply chains | – | Chinese Manufacturing: An Ecosystem, Not a FactoryThe World’s Least Profitable Industry |
| Corporate longevity | – | What Survives: The Seven Factors of Corporate Longevity |
How CaseCraft is made
Three pieces each month: a company case, an analysis and a book review.
Strategic case study
A named decision-maker at a dated decision point, verified financial exhibits, and four discussion questions with no clean answer.
Analysis
One thesis on a strategic theme or industry dynamic, defended with primary data and named companies.
Book review
A verdict on a defining business book, tested against what happened after it was written.
Report
Long-form research across many companies, built to answer a single question with evidence.
- Every figure carries a source: company filings, licensed journalism or academic research.
- Companies and executives are named. Failure is called failure.
- Cases are reconstructed from the decision point, not narrated from hindsight.
- Every book review ends in a verdict, including on what the book got wrong.
About the author
Venky has spent more than twenty years running industrial businesses across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Most recently he was EVP International at Phoenix Services, an Apollo Global Management portfolio company, based in the UAE and France. Before that he served at N.V. Bekaert as US President and VP North America, President Director in Indonesia and site General Manager in Pune, after earlier roles at Weil-McLain (SPX) and Eastman Machine.
The cases here examine decisions of the kind he has made: M&A, pricing, operational transformation and capital allocation in public, private-equity-backed and family-owned companies. He holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University at Buffalo, completed the General Management Programme at CEDEP–INSEAD, and is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt.
If a case describes your organisation
Some readers recognise their own company in a case: a pricing structure that leaves margin on the table, a cost base that has drifted from its logic, a strength that has become a constraint. Venky is available for advisory and board conversations. They start with an email.
Email Venky