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Product cover image for De Beers: Combatting Disruptive Forces from Lab-Grown Diamonds

De Beers: Combatting Disruptive Forces from Lab-Grown Diamonds

Arpita Agnihotri, Saurabh Bhattacharya

Product #:W47187
Supplier:Ivey
Discipline:Marketing, Strategy
Setting:South Africa, 2025
Details:Case (PDF) • 15 pages • 2026-02-18

Subjects:

Disruptive innovation

Industries:

Fabrication and manufacturing
Your Price:$10.54

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By April 2025, the chief executive officer of De Beers Group (De Beers) was contemplating whether the company should exit the lab-grown diamond (LGD) category and refocus solely on natural diamonds, where it traditionally held a dominant position. As LGDs were significantly cheaper than natural diamonds and retained similar properties, customers of fine jewellery, including in the wedding and engagement market, were shifting from natural diamonds to LGDs. In 2024, De Beers formed alliances in an effort to draw consumers' attention back to natural diamonds, but analysts predicted that LGDs would disrupt the natural diamond market for jewellery. Should De Beers exit or stay in the LGD category? How could it make natural diamonds more relevant for customers?

Learning Objectives

The case is intended for undergraduate- and graduate-level courses on strategic management, business strategy, strategic marketing, and innovation, where innovation and the VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) environment are common topics. Instructors can use this case mid-semester, after discussing the topics of macro-environment and innovation.

The case deals with the challenges a CEO experiences when a new category product disrupts the market for an existing product and the firm struggles to respond to this disruptive force. After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:

  • Critically analyze a CEO’s response to the threat posed by a new product category.
  • Explore when an innovation is disruptive.
  • Examine the strategies a CEO can take in a VUCA environment.
  • Explore possible strategies that a firm may use to attract customers for more expensive and authentic products.
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Case Study: De Beers: Combatting Disruptive Forces from Lab-Grown Diamonds (English version) | Ivey Publishing