The general manager at Gati, a well-known logistics services company in India, was worried about the number of complaints the company had received. The popular supply chain solutions and logistics service provider had introduced a premium express service scheme five months ago and, since then, had 231 complaints concerning the late delivery of goods. This new scheme charged a considerable markup and guaranteed shipment of goods within 72 hours. Being dedicated to ensuring quality, the general manager had to decide whether the process was under control and if the company was operating within tolerable error limits. Could he find a solution to streamline the delivery process and achieve a target defect of 0.0005 per cent? Using MS Excel, statistical techniques were used to unravel the multi-faceted dilemma and help in decision-making.

This case simulates the decision of choosing a bank account through the eyes of a new couple on the verge of getting married. Bill Donlon has no prior experience in banking, choosing instead to accumulate his savings in cash. Donlon's fiancée, Melissa Ivy, had a bank account in college, but rarely used it other than to withdraw funds occasionally. After their marriage, the couple will move from Norfolk, Virginia, to Roanoke, Virginia, to start new jobs. Donlon will be working as a salesman at the local Ford dealership and Ivy will be a pharmaceutical sales rep for Actavis, Inc., working mostly from her car as she visits accounts. Both Donlon and Ivy will be paid via direct deposit by their new employers, thus necessitating a bank account. This motivates Donlon to talk with his uncle Ned about banking and sends Ivy to the internet to compare banks and account options.

Fernandez Hospitals (FH) was a unique health services organisation focused on women and newborns, based in Hyderabad, India. Its vision was to promote natural childbirth and respectful maternity care across India, make pregnancy safe for women and their babies, promote midwifery training and birth without interventions, and to always lower costs for patients. A strong advocate of natural birth, FH's Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Evita Fernandez, had long opposed the growing trend of caesarean section (C-Section) births that had largely been driven by private hospitals across the country seeking to maximise their profit margins. Since 1990s, as the country's economic growth surged, women from the affluent classes, as well as educated working women, had emerged as a large and growing segment that could pay premium prices for high-quality maternity services that also provided a premium experience. Given FH's reputation as a caring institution in the field of obstetrics, gynecology, neonatal care and allied areas, FH made the decision in 2016 to establish Stork Home as a hospital in the upscale neighborhood of Banjara Hills that would cater to the premium maternity services segment of Hyderabad. However, even after two years of operations, Stork Home was languishing in terms of low inpatient occupancy and poor financial performance, which was also affecting the profitability of FH as a whole. It seemed that good intentions had run aground on the harsh shores of a highly competitive landscape. The case delves into the causes of poor performance, contrary to the expectation that FH's ability to attract patients would carry over to the premium Stork Home brand. The case poses a series of questions centering around the future 'go-to-market' strategy for Stork Home. These questions are posed against the backdrop of intense competition from well-established large hospital chains with aggressive marketing efforts and a focus on maximising profits.

This case describes the evolution of Kazakhstan's rail connectivity strategy post-collapse of the Soviet Union and its now central role in China's Belt and Road Initiative. This meant shifting from a north-south orientation towards east-west, as well as the development of new border-crossing facilities, special economic zones, and a new middle route that crossed the Caspian Sea. Unlike many other BRI initiatives that involved loans from China, Kazakhstan funded the modernization and upgrade by itself. Now the question was how soon demand would grow to fill the waiting capacity, as other bottlenecks on the Trans-Eurasian land route connecting China with Europe were beyond the country's control.

In June 2017, Legrand, a global specialist in electrical and digital building infrastructure which was a serial acquirer, announced it had signed an agreement to buy Milestone AV Technologies, a leading designer and manufacturer of branded audio-video products. This case describes Legrand's approach to screening, pursuing, and integrating targets as well as the criteria used to evaluate if a deal is successful.

After the establishment of his critically-acclaimed upscale vegetarian restaurant, King's Joy, in Beijing, chef and entrepreneur David Yin must decide whether or not to expand to other locations or continue to invest in his existing location in order to fulfill his mission of promoting vegetarian cuisine.

A financially struggling administrative assistant needs information to help her decide whether she can return to school.

B case to 820002 In 2016, senior management at Moz, a venture capital-backed startup providing software tools for digital marketing professionals, must decide how to address a looming cash flow crisis precipitated by failed efforts to broaden its product line. Seattle-based Moz had originally focused only on search engine optimization (SEO) software. Aiming to accelerate growth, over the past three years the startup had launched products targeted at content marketers, social media marketers, and small local businesses. Adoption of these new products had been disappointing, and the resource drain and distraction of launching them had reduced the growth of Moz's core SEO product. Management was wrestling with whether to either: 1) shut down or sell the new products; or 2) double down on the new products, funding further investment in them by selling the core SEO business or milking it as a "cash cow."

C case to 820002 In 2016, senior management at Moz, a venture capital-backed startup providing software tools for digital marketing professionals, must decide how to address a looming cash flow crisis precipitated by failed efforts to broaden its product line. Seattle-based Moz had originally focused only on search engine optimization (SEO) software. Aiming to accelerate growth, over the past three years the startup had launched products targeted at content marketers, social media marketers, and small local businesses. Adoption of these new products had been disappointing, and the resource drain and distraction of launching them had reduced the growth of Moz's core SEO product. Management was wrestling with whether to either: 1) shut down or sell the new products; or 2) double down on the new products, funding further investment in them by selling the core SEO business or milking it as a "cash cow."

DHAN is a non-government organisation with a difference. It is neither a philanthropic organisation nor a service organisation but a development organisation focused on grassroots development, aided by professional management. At the same time, its vision is to be only an enabling institution rather than a directing agency. Dedicated to the mission of poverty eradication through grassroots development action, DHAN had made a significant impact on the Indian scene in the years since its inception in 1997. By 2011, when the events in the case were taking place, it had touched the lives of over 920,000 households across 12 states in India. In its mission to combat poverty, DHAN initially employed two major thematic interventions, namely, community banking and water management. However, over a period of time, it forayed into several other domains such as healthcare, education and livelihood generation, in response to the dynamic requirements of its community of beneficiaries. The case, divided into two parts, focuses on the theme of climate change adaptation and, more specifically, the promotion of climate resilient corps (small millets) and the associated production, processing, marketing and value chain management challenges, which have significant lessons for both the development and corporate sectors, on how to prepare the economically disadvantaged communities to the inevitable impact on their lives of impending climate change.

DHAN is a non-government organisation with a difference. It is neither a philanthropic organisation nor a service organisation but a development organisation focused on grassroots development, aided by professional management. At the same time, its vision is to be only an enabling institution rather than a directing agency. Dedicated to the mission of poverty eradication through grassroots development action, DHAN had made a significant impact on the Indian scene in the years since its inception in 1997. By 2011, when the events in the case were taking place, it had touched the lives of over 920,000 households across 12 states in India. In its mission to combat poverty, DHAN initially employed two major thematic interventions, namely, community banking and water management. However, over a period of time, it forayed into several other domains such as healthcare, education and livelihood generation, in response to the dynamic requirements of its community of beneficiaries. The case, divided into two parts, focuses on the theme of climate change adaptation and, more specifically, the promotion of climate resilient corps (small millets) and the associated production, processing, marketing and value chain management challenges, which have significant lessons for both the development and corporate sectors, on how to prepare the economically disadvantaged communities to the inevitable impact on their lives of impending climate change.

On June 22, 2018, Stephanie Wilkinson, co-founder of the Red Hen, a small farm-to-table restaurant in rural Virginia, was caught off guard when a frantic call from her chef told her that the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, had just sat down to eat at Wilkinson's restaurant. Staff at the Red Hen were tense because they fundamentally disagreed with Sanders's support of the Trump administration on issues such as immigration and transgender rights. Wilkinson was equally concerned because she had kept politics off the menu at the Red Hen for over 10 years in a politically charged city. Now, Wilkinson had to decide whether to side with her employees and her own moral values and ask Sanders to leave, or permit Sanders to stay at the restaurant. Either way, Wilkinson knew that there would be consequences and that the media would be knocking at her door.

On June 22, 2018, Stephanie Wilkinson, co-founder of the Red Hen, a small farm-to-table restaurant in rural Virginia, was caught off guard when a frantic call from her chef told her that the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, had just sat down to eat at Wilkinson's restaurant. Staff at the Red Hen were tense because they fundamentally disagreed with Sanders's support of the Trump administration on issues such as immigration and transgender rights. Wilkinson was equally concerned because she had kept politics off the menu at the Red Hen for over 10 years in a politically charged city. Now, Wilkinson had to decide whether to side with her employees and her own moral values and ask Sanders to leave, or permit Sanders to stay at the restaurant. Either way, Wilkinson knew that there would be consequences and that the media would be knocking at her door.

While several tactics can drive company performance by instilling a sense of shared ownership among employees, perhaps the most direct is to actually share ownership with employees. Many public and private companies across industries have done just that, and studies have found that sharing ownership with employees can benefit a number of workplace performance metrics. This note summarizes the historical context from which shared corporate ownership grew, presents the three key decisions that leaders need to make when offering shared ownership (how broadly to do so, with what accountability, and with what rights), details the strategies that companies can use to share ownership with employees (e.g., profit-sharing, Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), etc.), illustrates different strategies particular companies have employed, and concludes with open questions for future leaders. The goal of the note is to educate future leaders and managers on the implications of shared ownership decisions on employee engagement, and ultimately, long-term company performance. The note also provides a basic how-to user's guide to familiarize future managers with approaches to sharing ownership more broadly with employees.

Making good hiring decisions is a critical management activity, yet many leaders just "wing it" when interviewing candidates to fill openings by having an organic conversation to assess the candidate's fit, unknowingly subjecting the process to unconscious bias. Instead, organizations should employ structured interviewing techniques to carefully assess the skills needed for a given opening, to determine a consistent approach for fairly evaluating candidates' skills, and ultimately to make the best possible hiring decision. This note aims to help the reader acquire the skills necessary to be an effective interviewer and to champion best-practice interviewing within his or her organization. Beginning by briefly summarizing the pitfalls of unstructured interviewing, the note proceeds to explain three types of structured interviewing techniques, the steps hiring managers should undertake to prepare for and conduct interviews, and tips for making evidence-based assessments.

90% of the GDP in the world is created through family-owned businesses. Family businesses are frequently thought to be exclusively mom-and-pop, small businesses. Most fail to realize that Walmart, Fidelity, Cargill, Koch Industries, and Ford, to name a few, are all family-owned or controlled businesses. Family businesses can be private or public, sometimes with a dual-class stock structure. They can also be 100% family-owned or have outside investors. Family businesses come in all shapes and sizes, and they are here to stay globally, gaining power and influence by the day. In this module note, we provide an overview of the Demystifying the Family Enterprise Course course, which explores each of the three Family organizations, (1) Family, (2) Operating Company, (3) Family Office, as well as what it takes to create an enduring Family legacy.