In April 2015, the Dharampal Satyapal Group introduced a new hard-boiled candy in three states in India. The candy, named Pulse, had a distinctive raw-mango flavour and a spicy, tangy taste. It quickly became popular. Within two years, Pulse candy surpassed ₹3 billion in sales and became the leader in the hard-boiled candy segment, beating leading national and international brands. The company achieved all of this with a small advertising budget and very little promotion; rather, the candy’s success was largely a result of word-of-mouth and interest on social media. Demand exceeded supply, and competitors were beginning to launch similar and poorly imitated products. How could the group sustain the sales momentum of Pulse? Should it extend the Pulse brand to other formats and flavours and into other product categories? Should it take the candy to overseas markets, and if so, which ones?
In early 2017, 15 years after being launched, DMart was India's second-largest and most profitable food and grocery retailer. To achieve its stellar growth, the company had followed a no-frills, limited assortment model and had restricted itself to limited geographies within the country. The company was listed in the capital market and attracted very favourable views from investors. As a listed company, DMart might be expected by shareholders to expand to new locations and develop an online presence. Would DMart be able to meet the challenges of exploring new geographies and new formats? What strategies would it need to adopt to remain competitive?
In August 2015, a law student in Singapore came up with the idea for his first scooter when he needed a simple and economical mode of transport to get from his apartment to university. The student, who was Norwegian, and his Singaporean partner registered and incorporated Skutis Corporation Pte Ltd (Skutis) within only five days. The Skutis e-scooter emitted no fumes or noise and featured a quick folding design for easy storage. As new entrants in the industry, they felt confident that their combined study skills (law and business) would help them design and produce a more durable and dynamic scooter than those currently available. However, by April 2017, Skutis had already encountered major difficulties dealing with a Chinese manufacturer of its products. After 20 months of experience in the market, the two entrepreneurs were planning their company’s strategy for the future. Having experienced the lows and highs of the Chinese production market, they were searching for ways to make their business more profitable and develop a long-term trustworthy relationship with a reliable manufacturer who would produce their designs.
In 2013, two entrepreneurs launched the Virtual Market in Mexico City with a mission to transform small traditional retailers (the so-called “mom-and-pop” shops) into competitive market players. The family-owned shops were strongly embedded in the society, culture, and economy of Mexico and Latin America, producing 50 per cent of the region’s retail sales and 15 per cent of Mexico’s true gross domestic product. However, economic growth had increased consumers’ earnings, leading to previously low-income consumers gaining financial status. The traditional shops were unable to compete with the new demands for cashless payment methods, wider ranges of products and services, and lower prices. To remedy the situation, the Virtual Market gained the trust of the shop owners and worked to improve their financial, technological, and business literacy. By 2017, the Virtual Market had successfully worked with 10,000 shops but had still not attained break-even. Was its business model sustainable in the long term? Could it be replicated in other countries and with other cultures? How could it scale up and secure profits?
In late 2012, an executive vice-president faced a dilemma at Industrias Metalúrgicas Pescarmona S.A. (IMPSA), an Argentine multinational company that designed and produced cranes, dams, and components for power plants, and had recently begun building hydroelectric and wind power projects. The company’s chief executive officer had tasked the executive vice-president with recommending how IMPSA could be radically restructured to adapt to changes in the world marketplace for renewable energy. However, IMPSA was at the top of its game, and the company had a backlog of orders valued at US$3.3 billion. The executive vice-president knew that the chief executive officer would not accept a minor reorganization but would demand a major restructuring based on the firm’s existing resources, which was a strategy that, in the past, had proven to be successful for the company, particularly in emerging markets. The executive vice-president wondered how IMPSA could build on its existing wind power and hydroelectric dam business without abandoning the resources the firm had developed over the years.
The chief executive officer of Daimler Trucks and Buses China Ltd. was on an expatriate assignment in China. In November 2016, he faced a discomforting situation that could bring an abrupt halt to his career; an unfortunate incident in which he lost his temper led to fierce outrage in local Chinese and worldwide media. The media reaction threatened China’s prominence as a major source of revenue for Daimler, and sent Daimler’s share price on a downhill spiral. How should Daimler react, and what could it do to restore the company brand image?
In August 2016, the global procurement manager at Hu-Friedy Mfg. Co., LLC, a large U.S. dental equipment manufacturer, realized that materials were being transported between suppliers and production facilities without a consistent strategy—potentially costing the company thousands of dollars each year. To evaluate the company's transportation needs, the manager considered a range of alternatives, including buying or leasing a truck or hiring a third-party logistics (3PL) provider to manage the transportation. To complete his analysis, the manager needed to develop a new set of routes for pickups and deliveries, evaluate the costs associated with owning or leasing a truck, determine the costs of a 3PL provider, and ultimately determine the course of action that would have the most impact on transportation costs with the least impact on daily operations.
In April 2016, the chairman of the partnership charged with building the $1 billion Highway 407 East Extension Phase 2 in Ontario was reviewing an e-mail from the procurement team that recommended allocation of more than $45 million in contracts for the purchase of granular base material for the highway construction. He knew that the procurement team had worked for several weeks to negotiate and analyze the supplier’s quotes, but after reviewing the recommendation, the chairman wondered whether the team’s recommendation captured the optimal supplier mix and the most cost-effective selection of suppliers. It was certainly a good solution, but was it the optimal solution? Even with an experienced team, this was a difficult optimization problem to solve.
By the 1930s, AT&T dominated the American phone industry, serving 10 million telephones and employing over 100,000 switchboard operators. But beginning in the mid-1910s, the company began changing from manually-operated switchboards to mechanical switching systems that were faster and more cost-effective and did not require human operators. By the 1930s, the changeover has been completed or is underway in most American cities with over 50,000 people. The rollout of the new technology is garnering a good deal of public attention, not just for the unfamiliar new "dialing" process that customers are required to learn, but also because of the mass layoffs of the women who served as operators. The job cuts have even resulted in reports from the Department of Labor and Congressional hearings. As the rollouts continue across the country, AT&T questions how to handle the layoffs and the reaction to the new system.
Partners in Health, a global NGO focused on delivering health care to residents of rural underserved communities, conducts a project on the cost of primary care at five sites in the Central Highlands of Haiti. It devises a simple approach for tracking the resources used by patients being treated for diverse medical conditions, as an input to a time-driven activity-based costing model. The results show considerable cost diversity across the five sites, but organizational leaders differ on the interpretation and action implications of the findings.
As part of a biennial supplier review, Jennifer Schramm, a purchasing manager in the cocoa and chocolate division at Cardinal Foods, had been considering several different cocoa cooperatives. She wanted to (1) source high-quality cocoa in the proper particle sizes, (2) source cocoa from environmentally and socially conscious producers, (3) keep the cost of cocoa sourcing as low as possible, and (4) not increase any reputational risks to the company. Information and data from three cooperatives is given to assist in making a recommendation. From an operations perspective, the purpose of the case is to teach the dual concepts of capability and natural variability. The case can be used as a lead-in to the concept of statistical process control. From an ethical sourcing perspective, the case addresses the complexities involved in making a principled decision in a global supply chain.
It was September 2009 when 21-year-old entrepreneur Lu Chengdui first considered entering the partnership that led to his becoming the chairman and general manager of Wenzhou Cijueshi Science and Technology Co. Ltd. (Cijueshi) in Zhejiang Province, China. Lu started his entrepreneurial efforts when he was in college; he became a serial entrepreneur and achieved great performance. His story drew the attention of both the media and the public. Lu was known for his perseverance and his courage in overcoming difficulties and pursuing his dreams for success. He was a role model for college students who wanted to be entrepreneurs. As he considered a possible involvement in Cijueshi, a company that specialized in developing, selling, and repairing pottery and porcelain, Lu wondered about entering a business in a field where he had no practical experience. What had made him so confident in his previous entrepreneurial success? How had he motivated himself to realize his entrepreneurial targets? He looked back at his entrepreneurial experiences to date to find answers to these questions and motivation for this new endeavour.
To survive—and even thrive—amid big bang disruption, companies must learn the new shape of new product diffusion and the four stages of this curve, one that loosely tracks the metaphor of the big bang theory of the universe. They must also embrace the new rules of strategy and competition that follow.