In 2016, the promoters of Savourites Hospitality Private Limited, which owned the fine-dining restaurant 6 Ballygunge Place, in Kolkata, were visiting London to explore possible future growth plans. Their foray into the market of Bengali cuisine through 6 Ballygunge Place had been successful and had developed into a strong destination brand. With a view to growing, Savourites’ promoters had ventured into newer product offerings and had tried moving into new geographical markets. In order to expand the brand’s range, they had launched a pan-Asian restaurant; launched the Bengal Lounge, which revived the Bengali penchant for never-ending chat sessions; and started fixed-menu outlets as variants of their core offering, hoping to tap into the middle-class market. They had also moved into other locations within Kolkata and to other cities. Their various expansions and diversifications had gone well, and the team found that the bulk of the growing consumer base was the Bengali customers that they had hoped to attract. They wondered how to keep the growth momentum going while still appealing to this clientele.

Scanteak Corporation was a furniture retailer founded in Singapore in the 1970s. By 2010, it had established more than 100 stores around the world. It had also become the first furniture company to be listed on the Taiwan OTC (Over-the-Counter) Exchange. The two founders had invested a great deal in developing the business and preparing their children to become their successors. In 2003, the two founders’ daughter joined the company to help grow the family business, achieving great success in brand promotion and market expansion. In 2010, the two founders’ son was asked to help with the business in Singapore or Taiwan but rejected their offer, stating that he would only agree if he could independently run the Japan division of the business, which was in deficit. The two founders questioned whether their recently graduated son could handle the business in Japan, and wondered how to respond to his bold request.

This part (B) of the case follows Scanteak: The Making of Successors in a Family Firm (A) to disclose how the founders of Scanteak Corporation responded to the proposal put forward from their second child, as described in part A of the case. While part A focuses on the issue of succession at the company, part B follows the business developments and discusses the transfer of management rights and family wealth to the next generation.

On October 10, 2017, the co-founders of Snapper Future Tech Private Limited (Snapper) were discussing the solutions they had proposed at a recent blockchain business conference. Snapper’s initiative envisaged digital solutions for smooth land registration, adding transparency, accountability, and good governance at every stage of the process. Snapper had developed a proof of concept for land records on a private blockchain in a cloud-based environment. Its live demonstration of the proposal was well received by the conference attendees; the challenge was whether the government would consider the solution and engage on a long-term basis with the company for blockchain solutions in land registrations. Would Snapper’s journey be acknowledged in the annals of the country’s digital revolution?

In 2017, Cathay Pacific Airways Limited (Cathay Pacific) began its largest transformation program in 20 years in response to business hardships the airline had been experiencing since 2016. The program used digital enablement and insight orientation to realign the company’s newly defined business focuses and to establish supporting pillars for further development. Information technology (IT) not only played a lead role in this corporate transformation, but it also became increasingly vital to Cathay Pacific’s future growth. In 2018, this transformation seemed successful, but important questions remained regarding the development of Cathay Pacific’s IT strategy over the previous decade, the company’s focus for its IT investments, and the factors that led the company into hardship. As it moved forward, how far could Cathay Pacific go with its digital transformation? How could IT influence the company’s future business strategy: could it help Cathay Pacific avoid further turbulence?

In 2018, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Zashita Inc. (Zashita) was contemplating the future strategic direction of his security and electrical contracting firm based in Irkutsk, Russia. The company had experienced outstanding sales growth since its founding in 2013, and this trend was expected to continue into 2019 with the existing business. Despite this, the CEO had identified a new, untapped opportunity in Irkutsk—smart home technology installations—and was trying to determine whether he should risk expansion into this expensive but potentially highly profitable market. Alternatively, he could focus on spending his resources on Zashita’s existing business or look elsewhere for new opportunities. The CEO needed to decide on the future strategic direction of Zashita and determine the best course of action for allocating the company’s resources to ensure future profitability for the company and its workers.

The Institute of Technical Education (ITE) was established by the Singapore government as a post-secondary principal provider of vocational and technical education (VTE). This case study chronicles ITE's transformation from a public education institution that was plagued by social stigma into an award-winning institution. It relates how in Singapore, VTE and ITE were destigmatized through a multi-pronged approach that encompassed social marketing, industry partnerships, strategic planning, and government support.

Many successful individuals cite fate or luck as significant factors in their success. But is luck at the root of success? Or is luck a second-hand explanation that fulfills other psychological needs? The author argues that success is not primarily a question of the opportunities that present themselves to an individual, but of whether an individual, first, even recognizes them as opportunities and, second, is able to make the most of them. Research shows that extroversion correlates with an increased probability that someone will encounter unexpected opportunities and actively exploit them. The identification and exploitation of chance occurrences is also the result of certain personality traits and attitudes. When successful people point to luck, this often serves as an unconscious defence against envy. Someone who has just enjoyed a particularly sweet (and, for others, envy-inducing) success might shrug their shoulders and say, “So what, I was just lucky.” In doing so, they are seeking to neutralize the envy that may be directed against them by pointing to a random, unpredictable, and uncontrollable power (or combination of powers) that is responsible for favourable or unfavourable outcomes. However, for happenstance, luck, or coincidence to contribute to great success, they must meet an individual with the requisite tacit knowledge—one who is able to recognize the opportunity and seize it.

The incidence of sexual harassment and assault is highest in male-dominated workplaces. And, like sexual harassment and assault, gender discrimination is more prevalent among male-dominated companies. Given the preponderance of mostly male or all-male boards, directors should ask what they can do to pre-empt and prevent #MeToo-type situations in the companies they govern. The author recommends six steps: 1) Diversify: Gender-diverse boards look at sexual harassment and discrimination through a different lens because there are assorted types of people in the room. 2) Examine the culture: Culture can normalize attitudes and behaviours that allow problems to perpetuate and allow silence to prevail. 3) Do a vulnerability analysis: Human-capital risk is part of enterprise risk management and human resources and compensation committees should put gender discrimination and harassment risk on the agenda. 4) Review policies and procedures. 5) Establish when and how the board should be notified: Policies should specify what situation is too small to merit board attention and, conversely, what requires the board’s guidance and how urgently. 6) Build a response plan. Ultimately, there is never a good time to face sexual harassment and discrimination problems; however, boards should have tough and sensitive discussions now. They should be informed, attentive, and realistic about the frequency of these problems, and should advocate a zero-tolerance policy.

In recent decades, observers from across disciplines have begun to apply the principles of natural swarm behaviour to artificial intelligence systems, humans, and business systems. Companies such as Spotify and Daimler are adopting swarm theory as a collective organizing framework. This may be because traditional group facilitation is hampered by prescriptiveness, horizontal growth, and groupthink and group polarization. Swarm facilitation is sustained by six core principles or beliefs: a) belief in collective behaviour and the collective intelligence of the group; b) belief that group work is part of a collaborative and complex adaptive system that is self-organizing and emergent rather than a controlled, prescriptive, and ready-made environment; c) belief that ideas collected in the group can contribute directly to organizational improvement or product development, or promote the wider networked learning organization; d) belief that diverse groups of collaborative stakeholders enhance innovation, decision making, and learning; e) belief that modern technology can support the filtering of information and ideas and enhance decision making; and f) belief that open innovation and collaboration promotes vertical growth. Research involving observing the migratory habits of honeybees offers five powerful lessons about what is needed for swarm facilitation to thrive: focus on real issues; split into teams; exercise collective leadership; embrace diversity; and use mechanisms to filter information. In the end, swarm theory is an organizing framework—inspired by the natural world—that promotes group collaboration and helps us navigate through complex adaptive systems.

Canada’s Department of Finance recently began consultations on open banking—a global trend enacted last year in Britain and the European Union and soon rolling out in Australia. Under open banking, you would be able to authorize apps developed by fintech companies to access your bank account in order to provide services you want, such as reporting, budgeting, or forecasting. The issues that need to be addressed to make open banking work for Canadians include scope, security, stages, and literacy. Data security (and privacy) is the #1 issue, and Canada eventually needs to establish both data protection standards and a code of consumer data rights to get the most out of the digital economy. Canada’s proposal does not include a digital identity system to replace physical documents (such as a passport or identity card). The country should adopt two standards to increase security: mandating standardized APIs that third-party developers can use to build banking apps, and mandating PCI DSS-compliance for fintech firms operating in payments. Canada should roll out open banking in stages, and it should be accompanied by a major effort to raise financial literacy—consumers need to be informed and protected.

The customer is the domain of the strategic marketer, yet less than 3 per cent of the largest company boards have marketing representation. Adding a customer expert to the board would bring the customer to the fore of board discussions and augment board competency, with proven expertise in creating and evaluating growth strategies. Filling the strategic marketing vacuum at the board level is increasingly urgent, given the convergence of three factors: the seismic change in customer attitudes and behaviours, the innovation imperative, and the relentless importance of building a company’s brand. To build a better board—one that is more effective and customer-centric—the author proposes three main strategies: a) bring a new emphasis to the creation and maintenance of vibrant revenue streams; b) augment board skills with strategic marketing expertise; and c) cultivate an understanding of new “quantum” customers and their impact on generating revenue. It is time for strategic marketers to take a seat at the board table. As Peter Drucker observed, “The single purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.” In these turbulent times, boards must cultivate a sharp and unwavering focus on the customer as the foundation for strong and sustained business vitality.

At the end of 2018, international markets were no longer paying a premium for Ecuadorian roses. Despite globally recognized product quality, mainly attributed to a longer vase life, Ecuadorian rose growers found it extremely difficult to achieve attractive levels of profitability. A multi-year analysis of US-based data showed just how pronounced this trend was (see Exhibit 1). Being one of Ecuador's chief exportable products, and generating more than 100,000 jobs, the industry needed a change. How could this small Latin American country reimagine how it competes in this global market?

This case provides an inside glimpse into the unraveling of crisis management effectiveness at the hands of an organization's leader. In the dark of night, a runaway train owned by the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA) jumped the track, setting off pools of fire that decimated the tranquility of the French-Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic. More than 1.5 million gallons of petroleum crude oil, spewed from 62 of the train's tank cars, turned the town into an inferno. Forty-seven townspeople were incinerated. In the heart of town, homes and businesses were destroyed. Every crisis tests the mettle of its leaders. This case captures lessons of what not to do when representing your organization in crisis. The tragedy is a dramatic platform to explore and evaluate the extraordinary challenges that leaders encounter in crisis, from untangling causes and contributing factors attributable to their organization, to facing into the devastating impact. Through verbatim transcripts contained in the case and publicly-accessible videos, details are brought to light as they unfolded, including crisis leadership offenses of speculation, finger-pointing and cross-cultural insensitivity.

This case provides an exceptional opportunity to evaluate attribution and fact, error and blame, active failures and latent conditions as an organization manages a crisis that it has caused. At approximately 1:30 a.m. on July 6, 2013, an unmanned runaway train owned by the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA) derailed, burst into flames, and set off explosions that destroyed the center of Lac-Mégantic, a quiet town in Québec, Canada. Forty-seven victims were incinerated as residential, commercial, and historical buildings and the people in them were swiftly reduced to ashes. Unlike many other crisis-based cases that focus on executives and managers, the protagonist is an operator, an MMA train engineer, who is publicly scapegoated by his company's chairman even before the facts are in. Despite facing charges of criminal negligence causing deaths, the engineer, out-of-towner Tom Harding, reaps the support of Lac-Mégantic residents, including many whose families, community, dwellings, and businesses have been decimated by the tragedy.

Although the global cost of natural disasters has increased sharply, traditional sources of funding--governments, nonprofits, and NGOs--have not kept pace. Corporations have taken up the slack, prompting researchers to ask: Does it matter whether the companies pitching in have local ties? And are they and their shareholders benefiting? The resulting studies show that countries with a large share of aid from locally active companies get help more quickly than their counterparts and recover more fully, and that the business impact of donations varies according to firm reputation rather than the amount donated. In particular, if the first donor is well regarded, that company and others that make similar donations stand to gain--but if the first donor has a poor reputation, it and others that follow suit will see a dip in local revenue that can't be explained by the impact of the disaster alone.

Though the research on meditation and mindfulness is almost universally positive, a new study points to a potential downside of being present in the moment: A significant decrease in motivation. Yet, surprisingly, the inspirational dip appeared to have no impact on task performance.

Mike Maples Jr. founded the micro-VC firm Floodgate in 2006, after a successful career as an entrepreneur with two startup IPOs under his belt. At the time, he had identified a group of overlooked founders in Silicon Valley: those who wanted to raise only $1 million or less, a growing group since costs involved in launching a company had been declining significantly as a result of technological advancements and innovative management approach, such as "lean startup". In the following decade, he invested in a stream of successful companies, including Twitter, Digg, Chegg, Twitch.tv, Demandforce and Weebly. In the mid-2010s, however, the Micro-VC category, which Maples had helped create, was quickly becoming crowded. Additionally, the sources for early-stage funding multiplied: angel investors, "super-angels", crowdfunding platforms and traditional later stage VCs expanding into seed investing turned into competitors. The combination of intense competition and high availability of investable funds had one natural consequence: founders could command higher valuations and choose from many potential investors - it was an entrepreneurs' market. Determined to preserve his position as a thought-leader and successful investor in Silicon Valley, Maples set off to understand how he could, once more, positively influence the VC industry through an entrepreneurial approach. Based on deep analysis of past investments, he developed a suite of frameworks to help entrepreneurs navigate their companies' trajectories at a time when getting to the next funding round and commanding ever-richer valuations became an obsession in the entrepreneurial community.

Pat Chan and Nicky Caxton, a married couple and co-owners of Chan & Caxton Booksellers, faced a difficult decision. Seven months before, they had changed their channel strategy, moving from their home-based business to a shared retail space to increase revenue and decrease lower-margin consignment sales. This new strategy was not generating the expected increase in sales; however, the space offered them both low cost and flexibility to deliver special events for their customers. Were these problems merely growing pains, or were they evidence that the bricks-and-mortar retail channel wasn't working out? Pat and Nicky thus found themselves pondering several options: staying in their current location, moving their business back to their apartment, renting an office space, or finding a stand-alone retail space in a better location. Each option had different potential implications for their business model, channel strategy, and their family life. This case is appropriate for upper-year undergraduate and graduate business courses or workshops in small business, small-business development, entrepreneurship, or family business. It explores the ongoing issues of managing and adjusting when a strategy fails in a context of small business and constrained resources. We use the business model canvas (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010) and the Diamond-E framework (Crossan, Rouse, Rowe, & Maurer, 2016)to illustrate the interrelationship between the industry environment, management preferences, and business model alternatives. As such, the case explores the role of management preference in a small family business.