Montes Calçados is a well-known, "fast-fashion" Brazilian manufacturer of casual, but fashionable women's shoes for women aged 18-35 in major cities worldwide. To boost its declining revenues, MC must evaluate two growth options: whether to expand distribution online (at the risk of diluting the brand, by attracting older customers) and whether to increase the frequency of introducing new styles (at the risk of more fashion "misses"). Altogether, Montes Calçados may need to rethink the "Brazilian" positioning of its brand. The case is suitable for strategy and general management courses because it raises questions about a company's basic direction and business definition, and the management of complex issues associated with doing business worldwide. Because this case suggests the overlap of key marketing decisions with strategic questions, it can also be used in both required and elective marketing courses, especially for topics on distribution of consumer products and brand management. This case can be used in advanced undergraduate, MBA, or executive-level courses.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 918513.

Malaysian palm oil company IOI Corporation Berhad (IOI) developed from a plantation company in Malaysia to become a vertically integrated manufacturing company with a range of higher value manufacturing businesses across Asia, Europe, and the United States. The rapid expansion into what the chief executive officer (CEO) called a "mini-multinational" placed greater demands on IOI and its leadership. The CEO had struggled to simultaneously achieve growth, innovation, control, and coordination, and the company had experienced a sustainability crisis in 2016. In early 2017, the CEO needed to decide whether to approve an ambitious growth strategy-proposed by IOI's specialty oils and fats team, which led most overseas operations and handled IOI's most innovative products-to be achieved by 2025. While he was eager to expand IOI and strengthen its position as a widely admired Asian family multinational, he also needed to weigh the constraints. He could not risk growing the company faster than the leadership's ability to control it.

It is March 2017 and TPG, a global alternative investment firm with $74 billion assets under management, has recently launched its inaugural impact investing fund-the $2 billion Rise Fund. In an effort to "take the religion out of impact investing," Mike Stone, CIO of Rise, has partnered with Chris Addy at The Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit consultancy, to develop an evidence-based methodology for quantifying the impact of prospective Rise investments. Together, they have come up with a framework that ultimately generates an impact multiple of money (IMM), a measure of the social value created by a company per equity dollar invested. If a company fails to meet the IMM threshold, Rise will not invest in it. The case finds Stone and Maya Chorengel (HBS MBA '97), Rise's senior partner for impact, debating whether to make Rise's first investment in EverFi, an educational technology company that offers a range of online educational programming to its K-12 school, university, and corporate clients.

In 2016, the newly appointed president and chief executive officer of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), an alcoholic beverages retailer and a Crown corporation of the province of Ontario in Canada, was weighing his options in developing and executing a strategy for organizational transformation. The trigger for transformation was external. The provincial government, which fully owned the LCBO, had decided to allow grocery stores to sell alcoholic beverages. What strategy should the chief executive officer use to ensure the LCBO would be relevant to its existing and future customers and therefore remain a competitive player in the market?

Since its founding in 1990, Shenzhou International Group Holdings Limited evolved from a small clothing manufacturer to a world-leading apparel supplier, serving well-known sports and leisure brands such as Uniqlo, Nike, Adidas, and Puma. Over the previous 10 years, the group experienced explosive growth. Yet, in an age of increasing consumer expectations, could it rely on existing models to achieve greater success? Comments made by the US president about reviving his country’s manufacturing industry encouraged many firms to invest in building factories in the United States. Despite being a traditional labour-intensive manufacturer, the company wondered if it should consider setting up a factory in the United States as part of its future strategic plans. If so, would the challenges outweigh the opportunities?

Omar Simmons, managing director of a private equity fund that owns 53 health club units, has to choose: Continue in private equity or shift his career to managing and growing the health clubs. An African-American graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Business School, Simmons has to weigh the financial implications of his choice -- as well as the career implications of whatever he chooses to do. Students will learn about private equity investing, health club franchises, and career decision-making.

Despite the hierarchical power structures in the military and government, as they reach more senior levels, leaders routinely operate in peer-to-peer teams. These environments require the ability to negotiate complex group dynamics-a skill which often goes undeveloped in typical hierarchies. Groups that succeed over time have three things in common: (1) they meet their performance goals, (2) their members feel satisfied that they are learning/benefiting from being a part of the team, and (3) the process the team uses to collaborate sets it up for future success. Recent research, however, suggests that only about 25% of teams meet these criteria. The rest of the teams typically experience less-than-ideal processes and a decline in performance and/or satisfaction. This technical note explores what goes wrong with teams, the ways in which conflict can both help and hurt a team, and how a team can harness the benefits and limit the liabilities of conflict.

Urban Health was emerging new priority in the healthcare sector in India owing to unprecedented migration of people to urban areas and the rapid growth of urban population increasing the vulnerability of urban poor, and lack of infrastructure for primary care. New health challenges of non-communicable diseases, vector-borne disease, malnutrition and unhygienic conditions in water-borne diseases in slum areas made it essential for governments to ensure preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative services in urban slums. Yet, densely populated slums left no space to create health facilities. To address the challenge, Government of Punjab had set up Health Kiosks (HKs). HKs ensured limited medical services to slum dwellers and the poor population at their doorstep.

Supplement to case E562. Between the back half of 2015 and early 2018 CircleUp had both grown and changed substantively. The company's core data and Helio platform had enabled the firm to offer a new set of equity and credit services to startup consumer companies that were too small for traditional private equity but needed growth capital. The transformation of the company was both exciting and a bit unexpected as CEO Ryan Caldbeck navigated the organization through tremendous change and growth.

Mhuri Enterprise had beaten the odds, and figured out a way to cut production costs to bring its pigs to market and make a profit. Small-scale enterprises faced a large number of financial, regulatory, and business barriers in Zimbabwe, a country where 70 percent of the population relied on agriculture as a source of income. Land reforms in 1998 had led to an increase in the number of small-to-medium enterprise farmers, but the lack of scale meant low productivity. This case study examines how Mhuri Enterprise, a cooperative pig farm that started with 30 families, restructured the value chain to cut production costs and established its own slaughterhouse facilities to circumvent monopolistic processing fees. The case offers a close look at the full range of fees and costs associated with a livestock ventures-including costs not unique to the situation in Zimbabwe.

In September 2008, Robert Steel presided over the sale of Wachovia, a top U.S. bank, less than three months after becoming its CEO. Wachovia's exposure to risky home loans led depositors and creditors to flee the bank on Friday, September 26, after the FDIC seized and sold a smaller bank with similar exposure, whose collapse nonetheless made it the biggest bank failure in U.S. history. Faced with Wachovia's impending bankruptcy, the FDIC intervened again, voting on Monday, September 29 to sell Wachovia's retail bank to Citigroup for $1 a share. Three days later, Wells Fargo offered $7 a share for all of Wachovia. Steel needed to decide whether to honor the terms of the deal and exclusivity agreement already sketched out with Citigroup or to approve a definitive merger agreement with Wells Fargo.

Supplement to case 418055. In September 2008, Robert Steel presided over the sale of Wachovia, a top U.S. bank, less than three months after becoming its CEO. Wachovia's exposure to risky home loans led depositors and creditors to flee the bank on Friday, September 26, after the FDIC seized and sold a smaller bank with similar exposure, whose collapse nonetheless made it the biggest bank failure in U.S. history. Faced with Wachovia's impending bankruptcy, the FDIC intervened again, voting on Monday, September 29 to sell Wachovia's retail bank to Citigroup for $1 a share. Three days later, Wells Fargo offered $7 a share for all of Wachovia. Steel needed to decide whether to honor the terms of the deal and exclusivity agreement already sketched out with Citigroup or to approve a definitive merger agreement with Wells Fargo.

Approximately 80% of the 9,000 wineries in the US breakeven or lose money. An even greater percentage lose money on an economic basis (i.e., after a charge for the capital employed). Tegan Passalacqua, a Californian winemaker who specializes in making "old vine" wine (i.e., wine from grape vines that are at least 60 and up to 100+ years old), appears to have defied these odds. By day, he is the head winemaker at Turley Wine Cellars, a leading Zinfandel producer. In his spare time, however, he makes premium wines under the Sandlands label using Turley's facilities and "forgotten" grape varieties such as Carignane, Mataro, and Chenin Blanc. The objective is to understand what makes the industry so challenging, why Passalacqua has succeeded to date, and whether his success will persist into the future. The case is set in December 2017, as Passalacqua and his wife Olivia were deciding whether to buy a building and develop a winery for the Sandlands wines at a cost of up to $500,000. Because they already owned an old vine vineyard (the Kirschenmann Vineyard in Lodi, CA) and have limited financial resources and time, they must decide whether to make this investment or to save their resources for another investment such as a second old-vine vineyard.

This case highlights the business challenges associated with a financial technology firm, New Constructs, that created a technology that can quickly parse complicated public firm financials to paint a clearer economic picture of firms, remove accounting distortions, and aid investment analyses. Combining machine learning with human financial analysts, this technology automated the collection and classification of comprehensive quantitative data from annual (10-Ks) and quarterly reports (10-Qs). The technology parsed information from the face of the financials and from disclosures in the management discussion and analysis or the footnotes sections to the financial statements (e.g., gains and losses that are transitory in nature or off-balance-sheet liabilities like future operating lease payments). Using these data, New Constructs applied a set of transparent and clearly-defined adjustments to a firm's income statement and balance sheet to create alternative measures of its sustainable operating profits, invested capital, and return on invested capital. This case highlights the complexity of financial disclosures in 10-Ks and 10-Qs and how machine learning and human analysts can work together to improve the quality of investment research. This case also highlights how analysts may adjust income statements and balance sheets to understand firm performance better or facilitate forecasting. However, could the CEO of New Constructs convince market participants of the technology's (and the data's) value? What else could the company do to establish a toehold in an increasingly competitive market for financial and alternative databases?

This case provides a brief overview of the success and challenges of the HNA Group between 2015 and late 2017 when it grew rapidly through global acquisitions to became a Fortune 170 company. How would HNA face the challenges of being a truly global and prominent company in an era of increasing scrutiny of big businesses?

The founder and CEO of Identified Technologies, a Pittsburgh-based drone software and services company, faces a dilemma when San Francisco-based DroneDeploy begins to disrupt the industry with its drone software platform. Identified Technologies needs to consider network effects, customer needs, and the overall state of the drone industry to determine its future path.

Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler founded SoulCycle, an indoor cycling studio chain, in 2006 as more than a health club; they wanted it to become a lifestyle brand that would "empower riders in an immersive fitness experience." By early 2015, SoulCycle had grown to 38 studios in seven metropolitan areas. In March 2015, Equinox, a luxury fitness company that had financed SoulCycle's expansion in 2011, approached the co-founders with an offer to buy them out for $90 million each. It was an attractive offer but it would also likely circumscribe their responsibilities. Rice and Cutler had to decide whether to accept the Equinox offer as a prelude to smaller roles at the firm (even potential exit), or continue investing time, energy, and financial resources in growing the business.

This case is set in 2017, three years after Fullerton Myanmar (FFMCL), a microfinance institution (MFI) in Myanmar, was founded by Fullerton Financial Holdings (FFH), a Singapore-based firm that invests and operates financial institutions in Asian emerging markets. Since its inception, FFMCL has been able to establish itself as one of the top five MFIs in Myanmar in terms of loans outstanding, despite numerous challenges related to the country's limited infrastructure, competition from other MFIs, the dispersion of the population and the difficulty in reaching rural communities. To achieve its mission of "Enabling Success, Enriching Lives", FFMCL has demonstrated tremendous growth in providing loans to microenterprises in Myanmar through the use of technology. The company has established an ambitious growth plan of expanding coverage fivefold in the next five years, and its leadership is pondering what is the best strategy it should follow to achieve this plan. Given the advances in technology as it relates to mobile financial services and big data analytics, what role does technology play in FFCML's plan, and what strategy should the company follow to achieve its plan?