Ayr Muir, founder and CEO of Clover Food Lab, has grown his restaurant chain from a single food truck to 11 thriving stores but he has no interest in running a regional chain. His ambition is to change the way America eats and his goal is national expansion. As he surveys the competitive landscape and the forces shaping the restaurant industry in 2016, however, he must decide whether to pause the company's planned expansion beyond the greater Boston area and pursue other opportunities for growth or continue to expand Clover's geographic footprint.

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) began as a stand-alone hospital in the heart of downtown Philadelphia in 1855. By 2016 the CHOP Care Network stretched across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the New York metropolitan area, providing a wide range of services from primary care to complex specialty care. In 2016, U.S. News and World Report had ranked CHOP as the number 2 pediatric hospital in the nation and among the top 10 in 10 pediatric specialties. CHOP's residency program for training pediatricians was also ranked number one in the country. Madeline Bell, who had been President and Chief Operating Officer, was named Chief Executive Officer in 2015. A pediatric nurse who became a hospital administrator, Bell saw the network as a means to serve more patients, improve pediatric care, and address the challenges posed by a rapidly changing health care environment.

In 2016, the managing director of Wingreens Farms, a social enterprise based in India, was considering the company’s future. Wingreens Farms partnered with rural Indian farmers living in poverty to produce and sell homemade processed foods, including salsas, dipping sauces, hummus, garlic butter, breads, teas, organic fresh pickled sprouts, microgreens, and wheatgrass. This small company had a unique, sustainable, and profitable business model with a managed sales turnover worth R160 million (US$2.4 million) in 2016. However, the managing director wondered whether Wingreens Farms could eventually transition from a small, personalized, family-owned company to a large systems- and process-driven organization. Could the company retain its commitment to ethical values and its handmade, labour-intensive production methods if it began competing against factory-produced, cheaper products from large, organized companies?

In 2016, the managing director of Wingreens Farms, a social enterprise based in India, was considering the company's future. Wingreens Farms partnered with rural Indian farmers living in poverty to produce and sell homemade processed foods, including salsas, dipping sauces, hummus, garlic butter, breads, teas, organic fresh pickled sprouts, microgreens, and wheatgrass. This small company had a unique, sustainable, and profitable business model with a managed sales turnover worth ?160 million (US$2.4 million) in 2016. However, the managing director wondered whether Wingreens Farms could eventually transition from a small, personalized, family-owned company to a large systems- and process-driven organization. Could the company retain its commitment to ethical values and its handmade, labour-intensive production methods if it began competing against factory-produced, cheaper products from large, organized companies?

In October 2016, Tesla asked its shareholders to ratify their $2.4 billion bid for SolarCity. Tesla had announced a series of large projects in the preceding months including the unveiling of the Model 3, the new Solar Roof, and pushing forward the opening of the Gigafactory. All of these projects required high upfront costs, and with SolarCity's debt burden, investors were left questioning whether the acquisition imposes too much financial risk on Tesla as well as the motives behind the move. Weeks prior to the merger, Tesla released its third-quarter financials, which reported record-breaking deliveries, GAAP profits (for the second time in the company's history) of $22 million, and positive free cash flow of $176 million. With Wall Street expecting a loss, these results came as a shock. Yet, questions remained regarding the quality of these earnings, which benefitted from the company's sales of zero emission vehicle tax credits and the cancellation of its resale value guarantee program. With the ISS backing Tesla's merger proposal in the days leading up to the final vote, institutional investors and shareholders wondered whether they should vote for or against the deal.

In early 2017, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Raintree Resorts International, Inc. was contemplating the next moves for the timeshare company he had founded in 1997. He and his team had focused their attention on creating and developing properties in the world's top destinations. The CEO felt privileged to have built the best vacation destinations for people, but the company was at a turning point. He was intrigued by disrupters in the broader industry of hospitality, such as Airbnb (the largest provider of rooms without hotel ownership) and Uber (the US$66 billion company that provided rides but did not own a single taxi). Should the CEO grow his company's existing properties, develop new ones, or do something else entirely?

QualityKiosk Technologies Private Limited (QualityKiosk) was an information technology company providing software application testing and quality assurance services to banks and insurance companies in India. In 2015, QualityKiosk had over 70 per cent penetration in the insurance sector in terms of numbers of customers, and only 30 per cent penetration in the banking sector. Anuroop Krishna, head of QualityKiosk's banking vertical, must put together a coherent sales strategy for 2016-17, and present his recommendations to QualityKiosk's chief executive officer.

In 2003, a garment factory in Pakistan burned down, leaving the owner with over US$1 million in debt and no way to fulfill his orders. In the wake of the fire, the owner needed to determine how to use the resources he still had to meet his delivery obligations and pay the raw materials suppliers-as well as what to do next with his company.

Spanx Inc., founded in 2000, was a U.S. intimate apparel company that sold body shaping undergarments known as shapewear. Through word-of-mouth marketing by celebrities and consumers, Spanx achieved 2016 sales of US$400 million globally. However, Spanx's leadership position was being threatened by a shift in consumer preferences, medical concerns over the dangers of compression wear, and competitors launching more comfortable products in the active wear category. Would Spanx be able to sustain its growth or was it beginning its decline?

Supplement to case W17762. This technical note covers statistical models such as scorecards, decision trees, random forest models, and neural networks for decision making. The Basel II framework and Rete algorithm are also expressed. This technical note is best used with product 9B17M177.

In September 2011, the chief risk officer of Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia Berhad (CGC) was mulling over a pressing problem. CGC was looking to expand its business in Malaysia from just giving guarantees to small and medium enterprises to also providing direct loans (direct-lending products). The change required a major overhaul in business strategy and an increase in eligibility criteria. Previously, most criteria were checked manually by CGC for each of its clients-a slow and unreliable process. Given the recent developments, how could CGC revise its business rules in order to accommodate its expansion strategy?

In September 2016, German-based Bayer AG (Bayer) and U.S.-based Monsanto Company (Monsanto) agreed to merge entities to create a global leader in agriculture. The combined entity would benefit from Monsanto's expertise in seeds and traits, and from Bayer's wide range of crop protection products. Bayer would acquire Monsanto for $128 per share, a high 44 per cent premium in an all-cash transaction. There were issues with the deal, which included antitrust concerns, which could require subsequent divestments, and Monsanto's brand image, owing to its involvement in controversial business operations. Given these issues, would Bayer's diversification into agrochemicals by merging with Monsanto be able to create sufficient synergies and deliver economic benefits to shareholders, while meeting expectations from other stakeholders at different levels?

The president of the Belgian consumer goods subsidiary of a large American conglomerate thought he had inherited a loyal, lean, efficient, and capable management team to help him accelerate the growth and profitability of the decades-old, moderately successful subsidiary. Yet after six months in his current position, not much had improved. Financial performance had not regressed-just not expanded or accelerated.

Supplement to case UV7401. The president of the Belgian consumer goods subsidiary had made a conscious effort to engage his direct reports in ways that he felt aligned with their personalities. He had noticed some modest changes in the weekly management team meetings-all team members had begun taking advantage of opportunities to contribute to the deliberations, posing questions, and raising some minor concerns. Now a replacement must be picked to replace the senior marketing executive who had retired.

The case illustrates how Microensure deploys strategies for the bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) as the cornerstone of a successful, cost-efficient scale-up that aims to democratize insurance in countries where consumers have very low incomes.

The case illustrates how Microensure deploys strategies for the bottom-of-the-pyramid (BoP) as the cornerstone of a successful, cost-efficient scale-up that aims to democratize insurance in countries where consumers have very low incomes.

Agility is often mentioned but seldom defined or clearly illustrated. This case discusses UNICEF's response to the sudden disruption of its aid supply chain to Yemen after the bombing started in 2015. It illustrates how a forwarding hub was quickly established in Djibouti and dhow vessels were used to reach small Yemeni ports from there. The case analyzes the supply chain, the organizational and strategic aspects of agility and discusses how UNICEF can further develop its strategic agility as an organizational capability. It can be used in supply chain and strategy classes, as well as classes on change management and fast decision making processes in organizations. If you buy the case you will get access to all three parts, A, B, and C. Part A outlines the events leading up to the Yemen Crisis and presents the challenges faced by UNICEF. Part B then describes UNICEF's response to the crisis, and part C gives an analysis of this response. Parts B and C are restricted to instructors and only available on the dedicated case website https://cases.insead.edu/humanitarian-agility, but can be distributed to students as well.