In June 2016, Mohammad Arif, the director of Student Biryani, seemed depressed about the all-time low performance of the franchise in Canada. Hard work and persistence not only enabled the company to become Pakistan's first and largest Pakistani food chain but also to establish a presence in global markets such as Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Oman, and Australia. But the all-time low performance of the Canadian outlet had put severe pressure on Arif because the brand image was at risk. Arif convened an urgent meeting with the management team. The meeting continued for three hours, but members seemed divided and the meeting was adjourned for the next day. Arif needed to find the causes of the problem and how to cope with them.
The Kamoriongo Poultry Co-operative consisted of 10 families who were involved in poultry farming in Nandi County, in the North Rift Valley of Kenya. The purpose of the co-operative was to pool savings to help individual families pay for tuition when their children came of age. Because of heavy rains during the region’s rainy season, many of the co-operative’s chickens were contracting waterborne illnesses that made them incapable of producing eggs. In order to keep up with demand from the wholesaler who bought from them once a week, the farmers had to find a way to keep their chickens healthy and to produce enough eggs to increase profits. In 2018, to combat this problem, the co-operative was considering purchasing either a new hen shelter or a commercial incubator. With a continuing decrease in egg production, the farmers needed to evaluate each alternative, determine how to finance these investments, and prepare both short- and long-term plans for sustaining their business.
In 2014, the founder and chief executive officer of Beyond Meat, Ethan Brown, reflected on the question that had led him to start the company: “How difficult can it be to change what you eat for dinner?” The small start up based in Los Angeles, California, had faced considerable challenges in changing customer perceptions and attitudes since it was founded in 2009. Its intention was to address both health and environmental problems related to meat consumption by creating plant-based meat. The company had successfully developed plant-based meats that were similar in taste, texture, and composition to regular animal meat. However, Beyond Meat needed to change customer perceptions and behaviours to persuade US consumers to switch from animal- to plant-based protein. What strategies could Beyond Meat use to market its disruptive innovation and become a game changer in the meat industry? Should the company invest in aggressive research and development to make its product taste and feel more like real meat, or should it focus on marketing the product based on its nutritional, health, and environmental benefits? Should it target vegetarians or meat eaters, and what demographic changes should it consider?
In 2014, the founder and chief executive officer of Beyond Meat, Ethan Brown, reflected on the question that had led him to start the company: "How difficult can it be to change what you eat for dinner?" The small start up based in Los Angeles, California, had faced considerable challenges in changing customer perceptions and attitudes since it was founded in 2009. Its intention was to address both health and environmental problems related to meat consumption by creating plant-based meat. The company had successfully developed plant-based meats that were similar in taste, texture, and composition to regular animal meat. However, Beyond Meat needed to change customer perceptions and behaviours to persuade US consumers to switch from animal- to plant-based protein. What strategies could Beyond Meat use to market its disruptive innovation and become a game changer in the meat industry? Should the company invest in aggressive research and development to make its product taste and feel more like real meat, or should it focus on marketing the product based on its nutritional, health, and environmental benefits? Should it target vegetarians or meat eaters, and what demographic changes should it consider?
In October 2017, the managing director at Ohtani Capital faced a critical decision-should the company divest its long-term investment in Toshiba Corporation (Toshiba)? Recent events surrounding Toshiba's disagreement with its auditor over how to best report the writedown of its US nuclear power unit (Westinghouse Electric Co. LLC) had negatively impacted the company's profitability and internal management, leading to the company's possible delisting from the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The managing director needed to decide if Toshiba could overcome its difficulties, improve its internal management, and return to profitability, which would then enable the company to secure the necessary emergency funding to survive.
The owner of Dunlop Livery Antiques in Dunlop, Ontario was considering a comprehensive marketing strategy with a focus on digital marketing. The industry was changing, popularity was wavering, sales were falling, and distribution channels were shifting. A new strategy was needed to increase revenue, profit, and brand awareness in the shrinking industry. Several placement choices were available, including selling online or at trade shows. A promotion plan also needed to be developed and implemented, which included advertising options such as Instagram and magazines. He needed to catch up with the competition in terms of promotion and distribution. With retirement looming, he had to make some tough choices-how could he promote and improve sales to ensure the future success of his antique business?
The Kamoriongo Poultry Co-operative consisted of 10 families who were involved in poultry farming in Nandi County, in the North Rift Valley of Kenya. The purpose of the co-operative was to pool savings to help individual families pay for tuition when their children came of age. Because of heavy rains during the region's rainy season, many of the co-operative's chickens were contracting waterborne illnesses that made them incapable of producing eggs. In order to keep up with demand from the wholesaler who bought from them once a week, the farmers had to find a way to keep their chickens healthy and to produce enough eggs to increase profits. In 2018, to combat this problem, the co-operative was considering purchasing either a new hen shelter or a commercial incubator. With a continuing decrease in egg production, the farmers needed to evaluate each alternative, determine how to finance these investments, and prepare both short- and long-term plans for sustaining their business.
In March 2019, entrepreneur Greg Pahl was contemplating the next steps for Medicine Hat Meat Traders; the past year was the company's best in terms of beef jerky sales. Should Pahl keep the business running at its current state while focusing on streamlining the operations to realize some additional profits? Should he consider a partial expansion that would allow for a potential increase in sales? Or should he build or lease a new facility that would allow production to be tailored for current use and future expansion while also adding new product lines? Was there another option that Pahl had not yet identified? What were the risks and benefits of each of the options, and how could they influence Pahl's decision?
An up-and-coming staffer at a small family foundation was considering whether to recommend a corporate bond investment to the foundation's investment committee. Her exploration was inspired by an article that identified some attractive corporate bond investments, and she was examining the merits of specific bond issues from Allegiant Travel, GameStop, and Western Union. Information is provided that would support a variety of bond pricing analyses, with a focus on uncovering possible mispricing and the drivers of that mispricing.
In 2019, the chief executive officer of Carefirst Seniors & Community Services Association (Carefirst) was sitting in her modest office near Toronto, Ontario, Canada, looking back on 22 years of providing health care services to seniors and other clients in the Toronto area. Demand for its services had been growing steadily, as Canada's aging population continued to increase in numbers. The 2016 census reported that seniors outnumbered children for the first time in the survey's history. One in six Canadians was age 65 or older, and this age group was growing four times faster than the overall population. In addition, more than one in five Canadians lived with a chronic disease. With increasing financial difficulties for the Canadian government to meet the needs of its aging citizens, and with a diverse population reflecting Canada's comparatively open immigration policy, Carefirst was experiencing a changing external environment that demanded a swift pre-emptive response. A recent change in the provincial government had also led to a restructuring of the Ontario health care system. What would be its next strategic move, to ensure that it was better positioned for imminent changes?
The case opens in 2017 as Tim Murray, CEO of Aluminum Bahrain (Alba), the largest single-site aluminum smelter in the world outside China and a major contributor to the Bahraini economy, was contemplating the recovery options as the company was facing the most severe crisis in its history. The case provides background on Alba and chronicles a transformation process implemented by Murray. The company had historically underperformed expectations. It developed a hierarchical, engineering oriented culture. The large workforce, made up of multiple nationalities, exhibited uneven levels of process compliance and personal accountability. Those deficiencies manifested themselves in many ways. Most damaging was a consistently poor record of workplace safety. Alba suffered from a high rate of on-the-job injuries and fatalities. Murray undertook to change the company culture, using safety as the linchpin of a campaign to instill a greater sense of discipline and personal responsibility across all levels of the organization. The case occurs against the backdrop of Alba's largest expansion project to date, which was planned to increase its production capacity by 50%. Just as Alba was reaping the benefits of Murray's campaign, a total blackout at Alba's facilities leads to an explosion that severely damaged its largest production line while Murray is on home leave. As the extent of the damage becomes apparent, the management team begins reverting to old behaviors. The case follows the subsequent series of events as Murray seeks to get control of the situation. Murray has to choose between two options for restoring production: outsourcing the recovery efforts to a credible third party at a very high cost or letting his team take on the task. As he contemplated his options, he dwelled on an overarching question-what was the best mechanism for restoring the damaged production line without undermining the culture he had invested so much in trying to create at Alba?
The case opens in 2017 as Tim Murray, CEO of Aluminum Bahrain (Alba), the largest single-site aluminum smelter in the world outside China and a major contributor to the Bahraini economy, was contemplating the recovery options as the company was facing the most severe crisis in its history. The case provides background on Alba and chronicles a transformation process implemented by Murray. The company had historically underperformed expectations. It developed a hierarchical, engineering oriented culture. The large workforce, made up of multiple nationalities, exhibited uneven levels of process compliance and personal accountability. Those deficiencies manifested themselves in many ways. Most damaging was a consistently poor record of workplace safety. Alba suffered from a high rate of on-the-job injuries and fatalities. Murray undertook to change the company culture, using safety as the linchpin of a campaign to instill a greater sense of discipline and personal responsibility across all levels of the organization. The case occurs against the backdrop of Alba's largest expansion project to date, which was planned to increase its production capacity by 50%. Just as Alba was reaping the benefits of Murray's campaign, a total blackout at Alba's facilities leads to an explosion that severely damaged its largest production line while Murray is on home leave. As the extent of the damage becomes apparent, the management team begins reverting to old behaviors. The case follows the subsequent series of events as Murray seeks to get control of the situation. Murray has to choose between two options for restoring production: outsourcing the recovery efforts to a credible third party at a very high cost or letting his team take on the task. As he contemplated his options, he dwelled on an overarching question-what was the best mechanism for restoring the damaged production line without undermining the culture he had invested so much in trying to create at Alba?
In 2018, after nearly two decades of success in the highly competitive consumer electronics market of Singapore, Asian Home Electronics (AHE) Limited was once again searching for new frontiers to break through for its retail business. Having evolved from the traditional brick-and-mortar business model to omni-channel and to experiential retail, AHE, a household name consisting of five retail stores in the city-state, had set its eyes on retailing solutions for the smart home of the future. The vision of a smart home was beginning to come together as worldwide sales of smart devices reached an all-time high in 2016, and the industry was poised for even stronger growth in the next decade. However, the smart home concept had not been as pervasive as imagined several years ago. While it may appear exciting to many people, the wide array and the complications of operating smart home devices are also daunting to the average consumer. To bridge the gap between technology and consumers, retailers, such as AHE, are in the best position to demystify the complexity surrounding the smart home concept. To address the challenges that might confront a new entrant in the smart home market, AHE solicited ideas from consultancy companies through a call for proposals. Three shortlisted submissions presented a myriad of ideas in crafting a smart home retail concept, and AHE would need to carefully evaluate them based on two key criteria: first, how well did the consultant proposals present the smart home concept to consumers through the communication of multiple product inter-operability and overall retail store design? Secondly, what kind of recruitment and training would be effective in transitioning salespeople to become smart home advisors? This case study adopted the retailer's perspective to understand an omni-channel approach in selling smart home solutions.
We're seeing a new species of disrupter emerging in our economy: experience disrupters. These organizations have great products but offer even better experiences, and they're successfully outmaneuvering their competition by excelling at this. In a nutshell, how they sell is why they win.
In 2019, the chief executive officer of Carefirst Seniors & Community Services Association (Carefirst) was sitting in her modest office near Toronto, Ontario, Canada, looking back on 22 years of providing health care services to seniors and other clients in the Toronto area. Demand for its services had been growing steadily, as Canada’s aging population continued to increase in numbers. The 2016 census reported that seniors outnumbered children for the first time in the survey’s history. One in six Canadians was age 65 or older, and this age group was growing four times faster than the overall population. In addition, more than one in five Canadians lived with a chronic disease. With increasing financial difficulties for the Canadian government to meet the needs of its aging citizens, and with a diverse population reflecting Canada’s comparatively open immigration policy, Carefirst was experiencing a changing external environment that demanded a swift pre-emptive response. A recent change in the provincial government had also led to a restructuring of the Ontario health care system. What would be its next strategic move, to ensure that it was better positioned for imminent changes?
In October 2018, the owner of Sam’s Pizzeria (Sam’s) in Orillia, Ontario, needed to determine how he should staff his business to keep up with an increase in demand on Halloween. Halloween had often been a source of frustration, as Sam's struggled to keep up with demand on that day. Providing customers with good-quality pizza and fast delivery was critical to Sam’s success. Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of the past, the owner knew that he would need a better plan to staff his pizzeria if Halloween were to be any different this year.
In late May 2018, Grant Sparling, chief development officer at Cowbell Brewing Co. (Cowbell), a high-growth destination brewery located in rural Blyth, Ontario, was considering the company’s long-term growth strategy. Whereas most craft breweries started in leased commercial space, Cowbell opened its doors in the summer of 2017 with a state-of-the-art brewing facility, packaging operation, bar, and restaurant, all housed in an iconic barn-style building on land owned by the Sparling family. Sparling was considering a range of expansion projects, including increasing Cowbell’s brewing capacity, launching a working farm concept, building a 15,000-capacity event venue, offering a bus shuttle service to and from London, constructing an on-premises hotel or inn, and opening a second restaurant location, possibly in Toronto. But how should he decide on the next offering to fuel Cowbell’s growth and expansion?