This case is set in 2015 as a team at Match Education, a high performing charter middle school in Boston, explores new staffing and technology approaches in their quest to obtain what they term "jaw dropping" results. The team hopes to test and model for other schools solutions to specific educational problems. In 2013, the team began to think about the redesign to create a school model in which students spend significantly more time reading, more individualized attention is provided to students and families, the challenge of finding outstanding teachers is addressed, and to do so in a cost-effective manner. In their redesigned school, Match Next, students receive all of their instruction from inexperienced newly minted college graduates called tutors, who are supervised by one master teacher, called a Director of Curriculum of Instruction (DCI). In addition, the Match Next team infuses technology into instruction (e.g. students watch instructional videos and complete online activities) and operations (e.g. schools keeps track of student assessment results and select activities and problem sets from online databases). After the first year as a full-day program, results on the state test were very strong in math but below expectations in ELA (English Language Arts). The case explores questions related to designing the school model, interpreting early results, and assessing the team's ability to disseminate their model to other schools.

The sole owner and chief executive officer of Delisle Industries received Delisle's 2010 financial statements from the company's auditors and compared the results with previous years. While she was very happy with Delisle's rapid growth, she had a number of serious concerns about its future. In particular, she was concerned about operating problems that had arisen as a result of rapid expansion as well as Delisle's dependence on one vendor, Eagle Wholesale Club, to distribute Delisle's product. She also had concerns about the establishment of a new production facility, wondered what could be done about the company's poor cash management and overreliance on debt financing, and was seeking opportunities to finance future growth.

On May 8, 2012, the president of Hefei Xingtai Financial Holding Group (Xingtai) received a message from a senior officer of the Hefei Municipal Government, the company's authorizing body, asking that Xingtai provide financial support to PanTeng Company (PanTeng), a solar power manufacturing company. In order to survive, PanTeng needed Xingtai to provide a guarantee for a ¥100 million business loan from a commercial bank. PanTeng had already been turned down by Xingtai Financing Guaranty, one of Xingtai's subsidiaries, because of the potentially high level of guarantee risk. If Xingtai provided a guarantee, it could be liable to reimburse the loan due to PanTeng's high-risk operation, lose its risk management expertise, and face further violations. However, denying the senior officer's request would hamper Xingtai's important relationship with the local government. Should Xingtai take a chance and approve the loan, or should it deny the guarantee?

Marketing strategy, part of the marketing planning process, flows directly from a company's goals and helps define how the marketing organization will help the firm achieve its objectives. Marketing strategy is guided by the goals and objectives of the organization, the business unit, or the particular product or service for which the plan is developed. The choice of which marketing strategy (or strategies) to pursue then guides the marketing mix decisions, which, taken together, become the value proposition offered to the target market segment(s). Marketing strategy involves four steps, and this note addresses the first three.

Steve Easterbrook became CEO in March 2015 after it became clear that his predecessor's turnaround strategy was not working. Financially, McDonald's is struggling, with declining sales growth, a 15 percent decrease in net income, and stock prices below their 2012 price point, while the overall market is on the rise. The company is not benefiting from the economic recovery, as consumer preferences (and especially millennials) are shifting toward healthier options for dining out. Meanwhile, competition is fierce, with several direct competitors (e.g., Wendy's), higher-end burger joints (e.g., In-and-Out Burger), and fast casual chains (e.g., Panera) all outperforming the burger giant. Internally, the company is struggling with defining its strategic identity. Menu diversification has increased operational complexity which has slowed service times. Efforts to attract new customers by adding higher-end items have shifted McDonald's price points upward, while customer perceptions of quality (and willingness to pay) are at an all-time low. McDonald's size makes it an easy target for labor activists and health advocates, further compounding its public perception issues. By trying to be all things to all people, McDonald's finds itself in a classic "stuck-in-the-middle" strategic dilemma. Easterbrook must find a way to be a strategic leader who is willing to make tough decisions and transform McDonald's into a "modern, progressive burger company."

CEO Hubert Joly has successfully tackled BBY's two main problems-declining comps and margins-and engineered a financial turnaround within his first three years on the job. Now Joly must develop and implement a strategic plan to create a sustainable competitive advantage for BBY in the highly competitive, electronic retail industry. With only 10 percent of revenues coming from online sales, BBY is still predominantly a bricks-and-mortar store with an online presence and has not yet transformed into a "bona fide, multi-channel retailer." To be successful, Joly knows that his strategy must garner the support and involvement of all of the company's main stakeholder groups: customers, employees, vendors, investors, and society. The case also provides an overview of BBY's main competitors: Circuit City (now defunct), Walmart, Target, Apple, and Amazon.com.

On May 8, 2012, the president of Hefei Xingtai Financial Holding Group (Xingtai) received a message from a senior officer of the Hefei Municipal Government, the company’s authorizing body, asking that Xingtai provide financial support to PanTeng Company (PanTeng), a solar power manufacturing company. In order to survive, PanTeng needed Xingtai to provide a guarantee for a ¥100 million business loan from a commercial bank. PanTeng had already been turned down by Xingtai Financing Guaranty, one of Xingtai’s subsidiaries, because of the potentially high level of guarantee risk. If Xingtai provided a guarantee, it could be liable to reimburse the loan due to PanTeng’s high-risk operation, lose its risk management expertise, and face further violations. However, denying the senior officer’s request would hamper Xingtai’s important relationship with the local government. Should Xingtai take a chance and approve the loan, or should it deny the guarantee?

In 2011, the sole owner and chief executive officer of Delisle Industries received Delisle’s 2010 financial statements from the company’s auditors and compared the results with previous years. While she was very happy with Delisle’s rapid growth, she had a number of serious concerns about its future. In particular, she was concerned about operating problems that had arisen as a result of rapid expansion as well as Delisle’s dependence on one vendor, Eagle Wholesale Club, to distribute Delisle’s product. She also had concerns about the establishment of a new production facility, wondered what could be done about the company’s poor cash management and overreliance on debt financing, and was seeking opportunities to finance future growth.

Joyus is an ambitious and high-potential company just transitioning out of start-up mode. After three years operating in the growing online video shopping marketplace, all the while developing new technology, business partnerships, and fundraising, Joyus is positioning itself for the next level. The company’s goal is to become the dominant player in the rapidly developing video-based ecommerce marketplace. The chief executive officer and her management team need to analyze and evaluate the company’s strengths and weaknesses and decide on the strategic direction of the company.

Joyus is a growing online video shopping marketplace specializing in women’s health, beauty and fashion products. After three years of operations and having recently secured substantial funding, the company is poised for future growth. The co-founder and chief executive officer faces the difficult challenge of building the right management team and the appropriate organizational structure to support the company’s desired growth. She needs to structure the organization from a human resources perspective, by evaluating the organizational needs and determining the right mix of skills, abilities and personalities required for success.

HourlyNerd, a two-sided marketplace platform for matching freelance consultants with small companies looking for help, struggles to define a growth plan for the future. The company, started as a class project in HBS' FIELD 3 course, is assessing three growth paths: shifting their target from small and medium sized businesses to enterprise customers, expanding into new verticals to become the Amazon of freelance labor, and transforming its business model from a marketplace to software-as-a-service (SaaS). Each of the three paths was risky and required financial and human resource investment. Could and should the fledgling startup change its business model? Could they fundamentally change the way companies purchased consulting services? Or, should the founders play it safe by remaining focused on executing their original business model -- a proven winner?

There are change efforts, and there are change efforts. Edna Adan Ismail, referred to in the Western press as the Muslim Mother Teresa, created a small revolution when she founded the Edna Adan Maternity Hospital in Hargeisa, Somaliland. From securing buy-in and permissions from Siad Barre's government, acquiring land and struggling to keep it, and designing and constructing a new building, to educating a health care workforce, attracting physicians, and attending to the health care needs of a poor population, the case sets the stage for an analysis of change management. As Edna Adan Ismail feels the impact of globalization and the demands of global standards of care from the developed world, she faces some complex problems. How would she continue to add and improve hospital operations, educate the local population of health care providers and patients, and meet the objectives and standards of international actors? The material in this case presents complex problems around efforts to innovate and implement change on a grand scale.

Joyus is an ambitious and high-potential company just transitioning out of start-up mode. After three years operating in the growing online video shopping marketplace, all the while developing new technology, business partnerships, and fundraising, Joyus is positioning itself for the next level. The company's goal is to become the dominant player in the rapidly developing video-based ecommerce marketplace. The chief executive officer and her management team need to analyze and evaluate the company's strengths and weaknesses and decide on the strategic direction of the company.

Joyus is a growing online video shopping marketplace specializing in women's health, beauty and fashion products. After three years of operations and having recently secured substantial funding, the company is poised for future growth. The co-founder and chief executive officer faces the difficult challenge of building the right management team and the appropriate organizational structure to support the company's desired growth. She needs to structure the organization from a human resources perspective, by evaluating the organizational needs and determining the right mix of skills, abilities and personalities required for success.

The case provides an example of an individual who meets harsh criticism, personal attacks, and broad resistance despite clear evidence that what he is proposing is right and could save the lives of thousands of human beings. The case recounts the story of Dr. Ignaz Philip Semmelweis, a pioneer in medical antiseptic procedures who is today known as "the savior of mothers." In 1847, Semmelweis discovered that the practice of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics can effectively eliminate the outbreak of puerperal fever ("childbed fever"), a condition that killed up to 30 percent of mothers and babies in maternity clinics at the time of the case. The relatively short case - which is designed to be handed out during class - is divided into three parts. Part A describes the situation at Vienna General Hospital in 1846, when Semmelweis is assigned to head one of the two maternity clinics. Much of this part is dedicated to describing the natural experiment that Semmelweis encountered when learning that the two clinics had vastly different mortality rates. Part B lists the many hypotheses that Semmelweis had formulated and refuted, reports on his discovery that the contamination of women by doctors performing anatomical dissections of corpses is causing puerperal fever, and reveals his findings that it can be easily and effectively treated through hand disinfection. Part C provides an account of the resistance he faced from the medical establishment, despite the overwhelming evidence that Semmelweis had collected in support of his findings.

Saudi Aramco launched an internal venture capital arm in 2011, which promptly became the world's largest investor in energy related startups. In choosing to proceed, the company's New Business Development unit (NPD) wrestled with a number of challenges. How should the fund be structured, as a fully independent, venture capital partnership or as a business unit? How should it be governed, and how should the investment committee function? Could mechanisms be developed that ensured the expertise of Saudi Aramco's famously conservative engineering resources could be harnessed in the investment process and its business units enlisted to work with portfolio companies? How could the fund be structured to reflect Saudi Aramco's role in modernizing the economy of Saudi Arabia? The case provides a vehicle for discussing the basics of corporate venture capital and the challenges large corporations face in participating in the world of startups. It also describes how certain industries, like energy, are poorly suited to the investment profile of traditional venture capitalists. The product development cycle is too long and the capital required to develop and test products too great for ordinary, general partnerships to sustain. The case also introduces interesting themes in the role of parastatals in contributing to national economic competitiveness.

Sky Germany is the leading pay TV provider in Germany and Austria. In 2010, the company was losing money and facing a lot of operational challenges such as a slow subscriber growth, a high customer churn rate, high fixed costs and frequent product stock-outs. In 2010 Sebastian Hauptmann joined Sky as VP of Logistics to help turn the company around. He had to act swiftly to address short-term problems while developing and implementing the strategy for long-term operational success. He put in place a multi-year strategic turnaround program led by supply chain team, a culture of continuous improvements (CI), and a world-class team. By 2014 all important KPI's had improved significantly, and the company was on the path to turnaround, largely driven by the wide-ranging improvements in supply chain management. In 2016, for the first time in its history, Sky Deutschland reported positive operating results. With his continued success, Sebastian successively increased his responsibilities to become first SVP of Supply Chain, Procurement & CI and then EVP of Operations in 2016. The German Pay TV market remains a large opportunity for Sky Deutschland and rapid technology changes in TV and media present new challenges to the Sky group across Europe.

Sky Germany is the leading pay TV provider in Germany and Austria. In 2010, the company was losing money and facing a lot of operational challenges such as a slow subscriber growth, a high customer churn rate, high fixed costs and frequent product stock-outs. In 2010 Sebastian Hauptmann joined Sky as VP of Logistics to help turn the company around. He had to act swiftly to address short-term problems while developing and implementing the strategy for long-term operational success. He put in place a multi-year strategic turnaround program led by supply chain team, a culture of continuous improvements (CI), and a world-class team. By 2014 all important KPI's had improved significantly, and the company was on the path to turnaround, largely driven by the wide-ranging improvements in supply chain management. In 2016, for the first time in its history, Sky Deutschland reported positive operating results. With his continued success, Sebastian successively increased his responsibilities to become first SVP of Supply Chain, Procurement & CI and then EVP of Operations in 2016. The German Pay TV market remains a large opportunity for Sky Deutschland and rapid technology changes in TV and media present new challenges to the Sky group across Europe.

This series of eight short two-part cases ("caselets") is written to highlight some of the most challenging and potentially destabilising moments in everyday work life in the Asian context. With globalisation, many Asian organisations are becoming increasingly diverse. Managers and employees often have to deal with tensions arising from workplace diversity. At some point in most people's career, they will inevitably encounter these difficult situations either as seen by the protagonists of the cases or as the bosses who have to manage the protagonist; or might be friends, colleagues or family members of the protagonist. It is hence important that these situations can be managed from different perspectives.

This series of eight short two-part cases ("caselets") is written to highlight some of the most challenging and potentially destabilising moments in everyday work life in the Asian context. With globalisation, many Asian organisations are becoming increasingly diverse. Managers and employees often have to deal with tensions arising from workplace diversity. At some point in most people's career, they will inevitably encounter these difficult situations either as seen by the protagonists of the cases or as the bosses who have to manage the protagonist; or might be friends, colleagues or family members of the protagonist. It is hence important that these situations can be managed from different perspectives.