From its humble beginnings as a start-up in China’s Jinjiang County in 1989, Joeone Company Ltd. (Joeone) had grown to become the country’s best-selling producer of men’s pants. Over the past three decades, the company’s founder and chairperson had faced several substantive turning points, including a quality crisis, a period of mediocre growth, and the need to enhance the sophistication of the company’s management approach. These turning points led to continuous business model innovation through the three stages of creation, sustaining innovation, and efficiency. By June 2019, the company was doing very well: an initial investment of ¥720,000 had built a company with sales of ¥500 million by the end of 2003, and the company had been publicly traded since its initial public offering in 2011. Clothes from Joeone’s three brand platforms were sold via direct sales channels in key cities and through major online shopping channels. However, the founder was still grappling with questions of how to align the company’s strategy to ensure its long-term success. Against the backdrop of pressures to further increase efficiency, expand the business (potentially internationally), and respond to changes in the larger competitive and political environment, how could the company sustain its competitive advantage and further improve its operational efficiency and flexibility? What lessons from the past 30 years could be applied to the company’s next 30 years of growth?

The SF Ballet was regarded as one of the top ballet companies in the world. It had an enviable earned revenue percentage of almost 50% and had an internationally recognized ballet school. However, by 2019 the Ballet faced a number of challenges. Ballet was a European art form that had gained popularity in the U.S. a century ago, but the demographics of the U.S. no longer reflected those European roots. In San Francisco, the Ballet had been a favorite pastime of the older, monied set, but the city's demographics had changed over the last few decades as young Millennials had flocked to San Francisco to join the burgeoning tech industry. The Ballet struggled to attract younger audiences and found itself competing with digital alternatives for how people spent their leisure time. Moreover, to make changes in programming, accessibility, and the Opera House venue to appeal to younger audiences, the Ballet risked alienating its loyal, older donors, who were the lifeblood of the Ballet's revenue model. Kelly Tweeddale, the newly hired Executive Director, had to consider the interests of various stakeholders--dancers, donors, audience, staff, board, and the local community--which often were at odds with one another. With limited resources, the Ballet needed to choose which changes to tackle first and those decisions were tied to how the organization prioritized its various constituents.

McDonald's reported its fifth consecutive quarter of declining same-store sales growth in early 2015. Despite McDonald's recent poor performance, Jonathon S. Jacobson, the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Boston-based Highfields Capital Management, had initiated a large position in McDonald's stock. Jacobson and his team believed that there was enormous upside in McDonald's stock if management successfully implemented what they perceived to be straightforward operational and financial changes. McDonald's needed to return to its core competencies of producing quick and reliable burgers and fries. In addition, they believed that financial restructuring could unlock sizable value for investors. Jacobson and his team debated whether to more forcefully articulate their vision for the company and began drafting a letter to Andrew McKenna, McDonald's Chairman.

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?

From its humble beginnings as a start-up in China's Jinjiang County in 1989, Joeone Company Ltd. (Joeone) had grown to become the country's best-selling producer of men's pants. Over the past three decades, the company's founder and chairperson had faced several substantive turning points, including a quality crisis, a period of mediocre growth, and the need to enhance the sophistication of the company's management approach. These turning points led to continuous business model innovation through the three stages of creation, sustaining innovation, and efficiency. By June 2019, the company was doing very well: an initial investment of ¥720,000 had built a company with sales of ¥500 million by the end of 2003, and the company had been publicly traded since its initial public offering in 2011. Clothes from Joeone's three brand platforms were sold via direct sales channels in key cities and through major online shopping channels. However, the founder was still grappling with questions of how to align the company's strategy to ensure its long-term success. Against the backdrop of pressures to further increase efficiency, expand the business (potentially internationally), and respond to changes in the larger competitive and political environment, how could the company sustain its competitive advantage and further improve its operational efficiency and flexibility? What lessons from the past 30 years could be applied to the company's next 30 years of growth?

This public-sourced case describes the latest restructuring efforts by Deutsche Bank (DB) and gives a short history of prior restructuring efforts from the decade before. In July 2019, Christian Sewing, the new CEO of DB, announced a series of measures that included, among others, the elimination of global equity trading, the layoff of 18,000 employees, the creation of a "bad bank" to transfer noncore assets, and the suspension of dividends until 2022. The case describes key decisions a bank CEO makes when a bank needs to change course to return to profitability and growth. The case offers an opportunity to debate these key decisions, as well as discuss some of the prior ones during earlier restructuring efforts, and put the students in the CEO's shoes: What would you do and why? The case also describes key banking performance metrics (e.g., ROE, ROA) and other critical variables such as those reflecting capital health (Tier 1 ratio), as well as gives an overview of the bank business model and factors impacting bank profitability and value.

Health care management requires careful planning for efficient operations, in an environment where technology, best practices, and patient demands continue to change rapidly. This case study presents an operations management decision at a large academic medical center in response to falling demand for cardiac catheterization (CATH) procedures and growing demand for electrophysiology (EP) procedures, and requires students to consider all angles of the decision. Merging two currently separate but clinically similar labs into a contiguous physical space would allow for more efficient scheduling and operational efficiency in the shared space, as well as affect clinical outcomes, and patient and staff satisfaction. In this case study, students analyze the operational decisions required to plan the merger of the two labs to achieve operational, financial, and clinical hospital objectives, using a dataset too large to analyze manually. The case asks students to create compelling visual representations of these data, use a discrete event simulation (DES) model, and present their results as if to hospital leadership.

Despite the wealth of research on effective teams â€" and regardless of individual effort and good intentions â€" organizations still struggle to deploy teams that achieve their potential. Our research suggests that mutually-reinforcing functional and cultural change processes, and the way in which these processes are combined, are critical for team-building success.

Lenovo origins date back to 1984 in China. Over time it became the number one PC company in the world. It now seeks to transform and become not just a PC maker but a solution provider to enterprises undergoing digital transformation. The chief HR officer must decide how she will ensure that Lenovo has enough competent leaders to ensure its successful transformation.

After raising $6 billion and buying 60,000 patents, Intellectual Venture was confronted with a changing legal environment. A number of important legal decision, including the Supreme Court's so-called "Alice" decision, IV had to shift strategy. IV sold off a substantial portion of its IP portfolio, and refocused its efforts on trying to innovate, using its acquired technologies.

Farmery’s mission was to supply fresh, pure cow’s milk, to households in the National Capital Region of India within 24 hours of milking. After two years of operations, Farmery had become profitable and had introduced many firsts in the consumer milk market in India. It delivered raw cow’s milk to 5,000 households daily, maintained a cold supply chain, and adopted a capital-efficient business model and end-to-end technology-driven operations and customer service. In early 2018, Farmery was facing a challenge in scaling the business for the next phase of growth. Farmery’s funding constraints prevented it from expanding in more than one direction at a time. Co-founder Arora therefore had to choose: should he consolidate Farmery’s operations within its existing geographic market and offer customers a wider portfolio of products, or should Farmery continue limiting its offerings to fresh milk products but expand geographically, in order to maximize new customer growth?

In FY2018–19, Prabhu Bank, an ‘A’ class Nepalese commercial bank, reported its operating profit of Rs1.74 billion, a significant decrease of 34 per cent from the previous year. The bank had aggressively grown through several mergers with local banks. In 2014, it merged with the problematic Kist Bank, and to everyone’s surprise, managed to recover a large amount of bad debts. In 2016, it decided again to merge with another ailing bank, which raised doubts about the health of the combined entity. The central bank of Nepal had continued to raise the paid-up capital and tighten the rules to strengthen the financial stability. Could Prabhu Bank continue to achieve its ambitious growth and profitability through such aggressive mergers?

Chunghwa Post launched a VISA debit card promotion campaign but unexpectedly caused trouble for the Taiwan Rabbit Saving Association. The purpose of the case is to explore the ethical issues and solutions when a promotional activity indirectly damages the interests of third parties.

In 2016, Alibaba, allowed their employees to bid for "Tao Doll" mooncakes on the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival. As a result, four engineers from the Information Security Department wrote a program and obtained 124 boxes of moockes in 2 hours. In the incident, these four engineers were fired by the company immediately, which triggered a series of discussions on ethical issues.

Founded in 2011 by the Swiss entrepreneur Viktor Calabrò, Coople operates the largest on-demand staffing platform in Europe. It has enjoyed rapid growth and is considered one of the most successful Swiss based tech start-up / platform company. The case features Viktor Calabrò, founder of Coople, and his thinking about the future of the company he founded in 2011. The case is set in 2019 where Viktor in his role as major shareholder, founder and Chairman of the board is faced with strategic choices how to continue to drive Coople's growth story and retaliate against copycats which are arising on the horizon. This strategy and business innovation case explores how innovative business models disrupt traditional industries, especially if those industries are not able to self-cannibalize. It covers the key elements of successful platform strategy (network effects, the importance of scaling and automation) as well as theplatform paradox and the strategic choices needed when growing from a start-up into an established company.

Jan Van Hasenbroek, an entrepreneur founder and managing partner of IG&H consulting firm, is in trouble. He is known in his company as the "red pencil" manager for his micromanagement of consultants' works, often with a red pencil correcting or modifying their presentations. That leadership was once tolerated but it has become increasingly dysfunctional leading to the departure of valued consultants and partners and a drop in the company's growth. Meanwhile, Jan's marriage has fallen apart due to his total devotion to his work at the expense of his family. The case raises choices faced by Jan, whether to step back and let someone else to lead IG&H, a company he has devoted his entire career to; or to stay on but with a different leadership behaviour-if he can or willing to make the change. The reader not only has to assess Jan's current leadership but also recommend an action that is in the interest of IG&H and its growth ambitions.

This 2-page case describes the decision Jan took to try to change the way he led IG&H, having been made aware of the harm his leadership was inflicting on the people he managed. He described this realization as "an emotional breakthrough." The case ends with his decision to attend an executive program on Leadership, raising the following questions for class discussion: Can a program change a career-long leadership behaviour? Why or why not? And what is possible and likely to change in Jan's case and what is not?

Rebecca Banquette, a recently hired executive coach and Lean consultant at a staffing firm in the health care industry, has experienced a change in her Lean management philosophy and approach. Previously, she focused heavily on Lean's technical process-improvement aspects, but after a period of personal exploration and growth, she has decided to focus first and primarily on the development of people. In this case, Banquette explains and reflects on her methods for utilizing Lean tools-including the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle, the A3 structured problem-solving process, and gemba walks-to create standard work in developing leaders. She also uses a holistic framework to provide focus to her development activities, including helping others ask the right questions and building personal qualities such as humility and courage. In doing so, she commits to being the type of coach who refrains from providing answers or direct advice. Instead, she presents new information and ideas and then supports her executives by asking questions designed to build self-reflection skills. This case is both a leadership-development story and a creative application of Lean tools in a context that supports the development of robust people. Just as a process is described as robust when it can accept a wide range of inputs and produce a consistent output, people can also be described as robust when they respond flexibly to competing and ever-changing circumstances and still produce consistent results. By utilizing the concept of standard work in a leadership-development setting, we codify the process of developing people with an intentional, Lean-based framework, and we emphasize the critical, primary importance of robust people in the overall operations of an organization.

In FY2018-19, Prabhu Bank, an 'A' class Nepalese commercial bank, reported its operating profit of Rs1.74 billion, a significant decrease of 34 per cent from the previous year. The bank had aggressively grown through several mergers with local banks. In 2014, it merged with the problematic Kist Bank, and to everyone's surprise, managed to recover a large amount of bad debts. In 2016, it decided again to merge with another ailing bank, which raised doubts about the health of the combined entity. The central bank of Nepal had continued to raise the paid-up capital and tighten the rules to strengthen the financial stability. Could Prabhu Bank continue to achieve its ambitious growth and profitability through such aggressive mergers?