Abstract

Founded in 2005, eKoala is an Italian company born from an intuition of Daniele after becoming a father. As a past researcher in neuroscience, he was aware of the adverse impacts of Bisphenol A and phthalates contained in toys on children’s cognitive development. This reflection gave Daniele and his sister Beatrice the idea to set up a company manufacturing cool, safe and environmentally friendly toys. The added value is provided by the use of an innovative material, sourced from bio-based feedstock and potentially biodegradable. The COVID-19 pandemic situation, combined with the high cost of material supply, led the company to a challenging situation in 2020. In a meeting with a passionate consultant, Daniele asked her: What’s wrong with our business model? Inspired by Gloria, Beatrice and Daniele decide to rethink their business model. Aside from the considerable investments in innovative materials and processes, eKoala needs new business logic to ensure its long-term positioning. The case evidences how sustainable business models require a new mindset and way of doing business, going beyond the border of a single organisation to embrace multiple collaborations along value chains and use innovation as drivers for more reliable processes and operations. This case challenges students to reflect on the complexities associated with creating sustainable businesses. Moving from strategy to operations, the case reveals the necessity of considering sustainability as a horizontal factor that permeates all company units and stages of the value chain. As a consequence, the case inspires a discussion on the role of existing accounting systems in capturing this complexity and its capacity to measure multiple values.