The chief marketing officer of a Dutch hospitality group considers whether she should invest a substantial portion of her budget in partnering with a start-up whose business model involves bypassing online travel agencies. Expert commentary comes from Ted Teng, president and CEO of The Leading Hotels of the World, and Michael Levie, COO at citizenM, a Netherlands-based hotel company.

Katie Couric talks about the difference between network news and digital news and between morning and evening shows.

The chief marketing officer of a Dutch hospitality group considers whether she should invest a substantial portion of her budget in partnering with a start-up whose business model involves bypassing online travel agencies. Expert commentary comes from Ted Teng, president and CEO of The Leading Hotels of the World, and Michael Levie, COO at citizenM, a Netherlands-based hotel company.

The chief marketing officer of a Dutch hospitality group considers whether she should invest a substantial portion of her budget in partnering with a start-up whose business model involves bypassing online travel agencies. Expert commentary comes from Ted Teng, president and CEO of The Leading Hotels of the World, and Michael Levie, COO at citizenM, a Netherlands-based hotel company.

Pancho's Burritos is a high-end fast-food restaurant located in Charlottesville, Virginia. Due to a recent surge in customers, the lines at the restaurant during peak hours are becoming very long and causing excessive customer waiting. To improve current customer wait times and plan for future growth requirements, Francisco "Pancho" Escoba, the proprietor, wants to get a better understanding of the current operational capacity. The key decision Escoba must make is how to redesign his burrito-making process to increase the capacity and reduce customer wait time. Suitable for an undergraduate or MBA course, the case can be used in an introductory operations course to teach capacity analysis and queuing. The case provides a relatable and understandable setting for students without an operations background to gain a better grasp of basic course concepts and illustrates how interactions between capacity and queuing affect one another. As an exam or review case it works well because it contains standard process calculations that all students should know how to perform.

In December 2014, after receiving poor service on a flight, a senior vice president at Korean Air lashed out at the flight attendants and delayed the flight's departure until the chief attendant was returned to the gate. Following a tepid apology from her father, Korean Air's chief executive officer, her actions drew a public backlash because they exposed the sense of entitlement prevalent among rich family conglomerates in South Korea. How should she have reacted in the face of the service failure? Why had she become the target of a public backlash? What could Korean Air do to mitigate the negative effects of this incident?

Glenorna Coffee, a manufacturer and exporter of coffee powder, had been in the business of instant coffee and roasted ground blends for 34 years. It sourced coffee from India and had buyers across the globe. In 2013, the owner of Glenorna had to decide whether or not to pursue backward integration and buy coffee gardens. He had called upon the company's accountant to find out whether it was viable to venture into the acquisition of coffee plantations or if the firm should remain with its existing business operations. With backward integration, Glenorna had a better chance of entering the specialty coffee business. If purchasing plantations was profitable, why had competitors such as Nestlé continued to source beans from the open market? Should Glenorna acquire plantations and venture into the specialty coffee business?

The recent internet storm has swept almost all industries. In China, Suning, the giant home appliance chain company, has implemented comprehensive internet transformation, the internet and communication companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Lenovo, LeTV and Xiaomi have invaded into the home appliance industry one after another, taking their advantage in content, platform, operation systems, and so on, and therefore greatly influenced the whole color TV industry. To cope with the post-PC changes, in 2013, Changhong has upgraded its previous "Three Coordinates" strategy (business model, value chain, industrial form) into a "New Three Coordinates" strategy (intelligence, network, collaboration), and launched its new generation of home appliance products, ChiQ series, intending to make remarkable breakthroughs to create new competitive edges. It has also extended its accumulated IT systems to set up centralized IT platforms for production, transaction, and R&D, and even tried to edge into the field of "intelligent home, intelligent community, intelligent city". Can these measures, however, represent new directions of the home appliance industry and internet companies and make Changhong, once the "King of Color TV" twenty years ago, gain its leadership in the new internet era?

Glenorna Coffee, a manufacturer and exporter of coffee powder, had been in the business of instant coffee and roasted ground blends for 34 years. It sourced coffee from India and had buyers across the globe. In 2013, the owner of Glenorna had to decide whether or not to pursue backward integration and buy coffee gardens. He had called upon the company’s accountant to find out whether it was viable to venture into the acquisition of coffee plantations or if the firm should remain with its existing business operations. With backward integration, Glenorna had a better chance of entering the specialty coffee business. If purchasing plantations was profitable, why had competitors such as Nestlé continued to source beans from the open market? Should Glenorna acquire plantations and venture into the specialty coffee business?

In December 2014, after receiving poor service on a flight, a senior vice president at Korean Air lashed out at the flight attendants and delayed the flight’s departure until the chief attendant was returned to the gate. Following a tepid apology from her father, Korean Air’s chief executive officer, her actions drew a public backlash because they exposed the sense of entitlement prevalent among rich family conglomerates in South Korea. How should she have reacted in the face of the service failure? Why had she become the target of a public backlash? What could Korean Air do to mitigate the negative effects of this incident?

This case considers Nestlé's creating shared value (CSV) strategy, which focused on the three categories of nutrition, water, and rural development. In the packaged food and beverage industry, pressure had mounted since the 1990s to improve supply chain sustainability and provide healthier, more natural foods, leading to consolidation and causing sales to decline in the 2010s. With 150 years' experience in the industry, Nestlé had transformed into a nutrition, health, and wellness company and made its CSV strategy explicit in the early 21st century. By 2014, Nestlé CEO Paul Bulcke considered how best to fully embed the company's CSV strategy and to communicate it to shareholders and external stakeholders.

The large-scale abandonment of property in inner-city Johannesburg had brought waves of crime, illegal building occupation and general disinvestment. The founder of Olitzki Property Holdings (OPH) saw that an improvement at a precinct level, through carefully constructed partnerships with government, other property owners, tenants and illegal residents, was the key to building a sustainable, inclusive and socially grounded entrepreneurial business. OPH identified and bought derelict or illegally occupied buildings, then renovated and leased them to a combination of blue-chip and start-up businesses. While there was no doubt that OPH was profit focused, the ability to see the important role of development was a cornerstone of its success. Could the company — and the city — expand and maintain that success?

The large-scale abandonment of property in inner-city Johannesburg had brought waves of crime, illegal building occupation and general disinvestment. The founder of Olitzki Property Holdings (OPH) saw that an improvement at a precinct level, through carefully constructed partnerships with government, other property owners, tenants and illegal residents, was the key to building a sustainable, inclusive and socially grounded entrepreneurial business. OPH identified and bought derelict or illegally occupied buildings, then renovated and leased them to a combination of blue-chip and start-up businesses. While there was no doubt that OPH was profit focused, the ability to see the important role of development was a cornerstone of its success. Could the company - and the city - expand and maintain that success?

This two-part case series is set in India and examines the challenges encountered by a leading Indian pharmaceutical company, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories (DRL), following its strategic decision to create Indura - a business unit dedicated to the rural market. In recent years, the strategic direction set by the new CEO and his "Health for All" vision has shifted the company's attention to its domestic market and the rural areas of the country. The case focuses on the implementation hurdles of such a vision and invites business executives to explore the role of strategy in building ecosystems that are essential for successful strategy implementation. Case A sets the scene by describing the business model of pharmaceutical companies in India and the rationale behind DRL's decision to pursue an alternative growth avenue. It presents the Indura project, which takes the company to rural markets. Given its large size and growth potential, rural India seems to offer a fascinating opportunity to DRL. The case highlights the unique obstacles Indura faced in its effort to access rural customers and concludes by putting the spotlight on the sustainability question: Can DRL translate its "Health for All" vision into a sustainable business model? Case B is a brief follow-on case that presents key actions taken by DRL's management during the period 2013-2015. Alok Sonig, the newly appointed leader of the India business, together with his direct report Rajaram Bagayatkar, changed the name of the unit to Pride and adopted a new plan of action, which focused on motivating the sales force. While this addressed most of the challenges, some issues remained. Case B invites participants to go beyond DRL management's actions and explore possible ways to leverage technology and social media and innovative approaches to address both the access and talent challenges.

Capitalizing on low-cost manufacturing in China, Bally Wedding Dress Company (Bally) had grown quickly by exporting inexpensive wedding dresses to customers in Western countries. However, due to a rise in labour costs, currency appreciation, and increased prices of raw materials, the low-cost advantage in the manufacturing industry had by 2014 been seriously eroded. Competition had intensified together with a shortage in qualified labour. As both the sales volume and turnover decreased, Bally had to consider how to survive. The crisis that it faced represented a common issue for many Chinese manufacturing enterprises.

Theranos Inc. (Theranos) was a medical diagnostics enterprise based in Palo Alto, California. Having developed an innovative blood-testing system for deployment in clinical trials by pharmaceutical companies, Theranos was keen on extending the use of its system to individual consumers in the United States and Mexico. In leveraging growth opportunities for its innovation in the burgeoning field of personalized medicine, the company’s chief executive officer faced two managerial dilemmas: How should Theranos navigate the chasm between early adopters (the pharmaceutical companies) and mainstream consumers? And how should Theranos navigate the cost-benefit trade-off, as perceived by individual consumers, in a bid to promote product adoption in the mainstream market?

The chief executive officer of Kvantum Inc. received a distressing email from the human resources manager at Data Research Services. The two companies shared office space, and Data Research Services had invested seed capital in Kvantum. However, a Data Research Services employee was now accusing one of Kvantum’s most competent junior data scientists of harassment. The Kvantum employee had apparently approached the Data Research Services employee personally and then again through a popular social networking website. If the allegations were verified, Kvantum could lose a valuable employee. Moreover, a workplace scandal could adversely impact the start-up’s reputation. The issue required immediate action. Should it be considered misbehaviour? If so, what kind of misbehaviour? Most importantly, how should Kvantum resolve the problem?

The chief executive officer of Kvantum Inc. received a distressing email from the human resources manager at Data Research Services. The two companies shared office space, and Data Research Services had invested seed capital in Kvantum. However, a Data Research Services employee was now accusing one of Kvantum's most competent junior data scientists of harassment. The Kvantum employee had apparently approached the Data Research Services employee personally and then again through a popular social networking website. If the allegations were verified, Kvantum could lose a valuable employee. Moreover, a workplace scandal could adversely impact the start-up's reputation. The issue required immediate action. Should it be considered misbehaviour? If so, what kind of misbehaviour? Most importantly, how should Kvantum resolve the problem?

Theranos Inc. (Theranos) was a medical diagnostics enterprise based in Palo Alto, California. Having developed an innovative blood-testing system for deployment in clinical trials by pharmaceutical companies, Theranos was keen on extending the use of its system to individual consumers in the United States and Mexico. In leveraging growth opportunities for its innovation in the burgeoning field of personalized medicine, the company's chief executive officer faced two managerial dilemmas: How should Theranos navigate the chasm between early adopters (the pharmaceutical companies) and mainstream consumers? And how should Theranos navigate the cost-benefit trade-off, as perceived by individual consumers, in a bid to promote product adoption in the mainstream market?

Capitalizing on low-cost manufacturing in China, Bally Wedding Dress Company (Bally) had grown quickly by exporting inexpensive wedding dresses to customers in Western countries. However, due to a rise in labour costs, currency appreciation, and increased prices of raw materials, the low-cost advantage in the manufacturing industry had by 2014 been seriously eroded. Competition had intensified together with a shortage in qualified labour. As both the sales volume and turnover decreased, Bally had to consider how to survive. The crisis that it faced represented a common issue for many Chinese manufacturing enterprises.