INSEAD Professors in The Case Centre's Top 50 Best-selling Case Authors of 2024-2025

The Case Centre has released its annual list of the “Top 50 best-selling case authors” for the academic year 2024-25. Six INSEAD faculty are featured, highlighting the enduring strength and impact of INSEAD’s case work. The prestigious ranking is based on the volume of sales from the preceding academic year.

Professors W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, co-directors of the INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute and the authors of ground-breaking books such as “Beyond Disruption” and the multi-million-selling "Blue Ocean Strategy", are ranked #3, marking their tenth consecutive year in the top 10. Their powerful cases illustrate the concept of creating a "blue ocean" of untapped market space rather than competing head-to-head with rivals. Among their best-selling cases is the recently released "Taylor Swift's Blue Ocean Strategic Moves: How She Stood Out and Succeeded in the Crowded Entertainment Industry”, co-written with Institute Fellow Melanie Pipino, which explores the star’s transformation from a country singer in a Nashville café into a billion-dollar global entertainment powerhouse. While talent, timing and luck played a role, it was a series of bold and innovative “blue ocean” strategic moves that created uncontested space in the industry.

Felipe Monteiro, Senior Affiliate Professor of Strategy and Academic Director of the Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI), is ranked #12. His best-selling case “The TAG Heuer Carrera Connected Watch (A & B): Swiss Avant-Garde for the Digital Age”, co-authored with Anne-Marie Carrick, explores how a nation achieves international success in a specific industry, and how multinational corporations benefit from the emergence of clusters. It won The Case Centre's “Outstanding Case Writer” competition in 2018. 

His case “Enel's Innovability: Global Open Innovation and Sustainability”, co-authored with Jose Miguel Garcia Benavente, is the winner of the Case Centre’s Awards and Competitions in 2021 in the category “Ethics and Social Responsibility” (find more here). The case discusses how large multinational corporations can make ‘open innovation’ a global strategy, setting up innovation hubs and putting sustainability at the core of the organisation.

In his recent case “WEG: From Global Player to Global Leader?”, co-authored with Anne-Marie Carrick, Betania Tanure, and Luisa Tanure, Professor Monteiro illustrates how the WEG’s strategy has progressively aligned with the evolving landscape of global green economy and energy transition, positioning the Brazilian company as a global leader through its focus on long-term vision, operational excellence, disciplined management, and a strong corporate culture.

Wolfgang Ulaga, Professor of Management Practice in Marketing and Senior and Co-Director of INSEAD's Marketing & Sales Excellence Initiative (MSEI), secured the #19 spot for the second consecutive year. His cases emphasise business model innovation and B2B customer solution sales. One of his best-selling cases,"Lemonade: Delighting Insurance Customers with AI and Behavioural Economics: A Disruptive InsurTech Business Model for Outstanding Customer Experience and Cost-effective Service Excellence", co-authored with Professor Ziv Carmon and Laura Heely (INSEAD MBA), won the marketing category award in The Case Centre competition in 2023 (find more here). The case explores how digital disruption has impacted the insurance industry and the digital transformation of the customer experience (CX). 

His recent case “PakTek-Artios: Unleashing Growth in B2B Business Relationships”, co-authored with Professor Christoph Senn, explores the strategic relevance of key customer-supplier relationships in business-to-business markets and identifies hands-on, action-oriented recommendations for growing the customer-supplier relationship. It is available in traditional and interactive versions.

Stanislav Shekshnia, Senior Affiliate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise, is a new entry in this year’s ranking, at #38. His best-selling case “Emmanuel Faber at Danone: Man on a Mission (A, B, C)”, co-authored with Professor Ludo Van der Heyden and Elin Williams, illustrates the importance of actively chairing a business board and shows the way activist investors can derail a leader.

Joerg Niessing, Senior Affiliate Professor of Marketing, ranks #48 on the bestseller list. Among his best-selling cases is “How Corporates Co-innovate with Startups: The BMW Startup Garage”, co-authored with Strategy Professors Laurence Capron and Nathan Furr, Pascale Balze and Julia Bodner. It examines BMW Group’s successful implementation of the Venture Client (VCL) model to engage with start-ups and boost corporate innovation.

Professor Niessing also authored "waterdrop®: Changing the Paradigms of the Beverage Industry with Limited Resources and Digital Marketing". waterdrop® disrupted the traditional beverage industry by creating a customer-centric culture, building a winning business model, applying digital technology at scale and leveraging real-time data analytics. Since its launch, it has grown by over 400% per year, with over 1.5 million customers. The case won the marketing category award in 2022. A new case featuring the phygital’ data-driven customer experiences at waterdrop® is currently in development.

Recognition from The Case Centre's “Top 50 Best-Selling Case Authors” reaffirms INSEAD’s commitment to research excellence and the case method. 

For further information on the top 50 best-selling case authors of 2024-25, read this announcement.