On August 3, 2015, Fitbit, Inc.'s (Fitbit) stock price hit an all-time high of $50.99. A few months earlier, when Fitbit went public on June 18, it had opened on its first day of trading at a price of $30.40 - 52 per cent higher than its initial public offering price. As what appeared to be the most successful initial public offering of the year, Fitbit attracted significant attention and inevitably drew controversy as well. Some investors saw great potential and a promising future for Fitbit. Others were less positive, calling it a fad without any real opportunity for future development. In the face of growing competition from rivals with more extensive consumer bases, Fitbit wanted to ensure that it achieved sustainable growth. What was Fitbit, and what could it become? The question concerned not only potential investors but also the chief executive officer of the high-tech company.

In October 2013 GT Advanced Technology closed a deal to supply industrial-sapphire material to Apple; the material was to be used to improve the quality of iPhone screens. Prior to this deal, GTAT had been a leading supplier of equipment used to create industrial-sapphire, not a producer of the material itself. Apple helped to finance the scaling up of GTAT's industrial-sapphire manufacturing facilities by providing GTAT with a prepayment that was secured by an equipment lien; however, their agreement did not stipulate that Apple had an obligation to purchase any of GTAT's industrial-sapphire output. In September 2014 Apple announced that its production plans had changed and its new iPhone would not have a sapphire crystal screen. Soon thereafter, GTAT filed for bankruptcy. This case asks students to consider why GTAT took on the terms of such a risky deal, how their risk might have been mitigated, and what options were open to both GTAT and Apple in the aftermath of the deal.

There is no escaping the Big Data hype. Vendors are peddling Big Data solutions; consulting firms employ Big Data specialists; Big Data conferences are aplenty. There is a rush to extract golden nuggets (of insight) from mountains (of data). By focusing merely on the mountain (of Big Data), these adventurers are overlooking the source of the revolution-namely, the many digital data streams (DDSs) that create Big Data-and the opportunity to improve real-time decision making. This article discusses the characteristics of DDSs, describes their common structure, and offers guidelines to enable firms to profit from their untapped potential.

Big data analytics has become an imperative for business leaders across every industry sector. Analytics applications that can deliver a competitive advantage appear all along the supply chain decision spectrum-from targeted location-based marketing to optimizing supply chain inventories to enabling supplier risk assessment. While many companies have used it to extract new insights and create new forms of value, other companies have yet to leverage big data to transform their supply chain operations. This article examines how leading companies use big data analytics to drive their supply chains and offers a framework for implementation based on lessons learned.

A signature story is an intriguing, authentic, involving narrative with a strategic message that enables a firm to grow by clarifying or enhancing its brand, customer relationships, organization, and/or the business strategy. Signature stories represent a critical asset that can be leveraged over time and which can provide inspiration and direction both inside and outside the firm. The challenges are to find, evaluate, gain exposure for, and give legs to signature stories.

How a social or political issue is framed shapes the "nonmarket" context that surrounds it. Issue frames are not random; rather they are the product of strategic behavior by firms, government agencies, NGOs, and similar actors. Frames are not fixed and issues can be reframed over time. Framing is a powerful strategic tool that enables firms to shape the structure of the nonmarket environment to their advantage. This article identifies and illustrates five distinct pathways through which firms can shape different dimensions of the nonmarket environment.

Driven by recent socio-economic developments, manufacturing firms increasingly adapt their business models along two dimensions. Apart from vertically integrating the entire product life cycle, traditionally separated tasks are re-allocated into new forms of horizontal stakeholder collaborations. Incorporating these two dimensions, this article develops a framework of nine business model archetypes that holistically capture the increasing openness of business models towards consumers in the emerging closed-loop value chain. Using illustrative examples, it demonstrates their broad applicability in different industries and derives important managerial implications for firm-consumer relationships, the relevance of consumer communities, new product development activities, and the sustainability of business models.

Competitive retaliation is a significant constraint to merger and acquisition performance that has largely been overlooked by management research. This article employs competitive dynamics theory to explore how acquisition characteristics impact the risk of competitor retaliation. It then outlines different tactics that acquiring firms can use to reduce competitor awareness, motivation, and capability associated with retaliation. It provides managers with a path to improving acquisition performance and also opens new avenues for research.

Moshi, a fusion restaurant in an upmarket area of Dubai, had carved out a niche for itself with its unique menu, high-quality food, and excellent service—all offered at a reasonable price. As the young owner planned to launch another outlet, he pondered his options for growth. Was it time to create a chain, or should he give the new outlet a completely different feel and target a specific customer segment? Should he increase his product range or stick with his unique offerings? Because of its fusion theme (Nepalese cuisine and Japanese sushi), Moshi did not have a clear positioning in terms of its menu. Would Moshi’s unique offerings be enough to sustain its continued existence in Dubai’s competitive restaurant industry? Would this business be scalable? The owner had relied on word-of-mouth publicity thus far; however, was this method adequate? What sort of marketing strategy should he adopt?

Bank of Baroda was the second-largest commercial bank in India, but it was struggling with a decline in profits and an increase in non-performing assets. Only a week before the new chief executive officer's term commenced, Bank of Baroda was in the news due to reports of fraud occurring at the bank’s Ahmedabad and New Delhi operations. The frauds involved bill discounting schemes and money laundering. The bank’s violations of its know your client and anti-money laundering standards raised concerns about its risk management practices—or lack of such practices. The new chief executive officer was only the second executive from the private sector to head a public sector bank. He needed to prove his value in the world of public sector banking by managing the crisis, implementing a strategy to stabilize the bank’s financial health, and preventing a recurrence of the problems.

Following the surprise Brexit vote, business leaders need to stop worrying about the occasional Black Swan and understand that dealing with unexpected world-changing events is the new normal. Despite some opinions that Britain’s exit from the European Union could be good for Canadian business, nobody knows yet whether the Brexit vote will be good over the long term for Canadian exports, not to mention the loonie. Heightened uncertainty is where the lessons from the Brexit vote can be found for both the public and private sectors. For corporate leaders, the lessons of Brexit are about planning for unexpected events—a prevailing characteristic of the “new normal” caused by more robust mega-trends created by social, economic and political forces. Brexit should drive business leaders to review existing strategy in this much larger context. Winning firms will pay extra attention to agility when planning overall business models, including a portfolio approach to asset configurations and the particular locations of value creation and value extraction. The rise of socio-economic and political mega-trends will trigger the growth of “no-equity” corporations—businesses that are extremely agile and capable in managing across existing and emerging networks and boundaries, thanks to reduced reliance on equity-based business models. Instead of developing contingencies, leading firms will disrupt themselves to come up with new business models that allow them to stay ahead of the competition.

During the Holi festival in March 2012, the managing director of Ramcides, a family-run agrochemical business, was considering the path of the company that his eldest brother had started in 1973. Ramcides had a goal to achieve US$50 million in revenues by March 2014 and $130 million in the following five years. The managing director reflected on whether the company was on the right path towards achieving that objective. Much had changed since an infusion of private equity from a venture capital firm in 2008, but there was still much to be done. There was also the matter of the venture capital firm’s planned exit, and where the company would then secure additional funding. All the stakeholders were clear on promoting the future growth and success of Ramcides, but the next three to five years were a critical time of transition. What needed to be done to ensure continued success? The current manager viewed himself as the managing director in transition—the bridge between Ramcides’s history as a family-run firm and its future as a professionalized agrochemical company.

Lending Club follows the path of founder and CEO Renaud Laplanche as he scales his successful P2P lending company both pre- and post-IPO. From debating with bankers on the proper valuation metrics for the company, to managing customer acquisition costs as the competitive landscape rapidly changes, the Lending Club case explores several key challenges that come with operating a fin-tech company at scale.

The Chairman of the Priceline Group is considering the actions he must take to confront an evolving external environment, new direct competition, disintermediation and substitute offerings. Does his response require an increased coordination of each historically autonomous division or some other approach?

AbbVie made headlines in March 2015 when it announced its $21 billion acquisition of Pharmacyclics. AbbVie, a research-based pharmaceutical company was founded in 2013 when Abbott split into AbbVie and Abbott Laboratories. Pharmacyclics is a biotechnology company that had received FDA approval in late 2013 for its flagship asset Imbrivica (ibrutinib), a biologic treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia and two other even rarer blood malignancies. Entering it's second year on the market, Imbrivica was considered a breakthrough, with revenue expectations of $1 billion in 2015. At the time of the acquisition, AbbVie received more than 60% of its sales from the biologic drug Humira, a biologic agent used to treat several autoimmune diseases and malignancies. However, Humira would soon lose patent protection and face competition from the new class of follow-on biologics, or biosimilars.

There is no question that coaching has accelerated leadership development at companies big and small, including some of the most successful members of the Fortune 500 club. But what exactly is coaching, and why is its importance growing significantly in the corporate world? Despite all the ambiguity that surrounds coaching, there are three fundamental principles associated with the process of helping people identify the blind spots that derail them from progress and effectiveness as well as the sweet spots that accelerate their journey through the realization of potential. These are: 1. Coaching leads the coachee to revisit his/her assumptions — the core engine of belief systems. 2. Coaching triggers the coachee to review his/her image in the light of feedback from his/her surroundings. 3. Coaching enables the coachee to update his/her portrait. Executive coaches help coachees stress-test ideas, viewpoints, and perspectives before they are vocalized. They do so by addressing executive isolation, providing strategic sound-boarding, and creating a safe and motivating feedback loop for change. Accomplished coaches systematically lead their coachees to see their resistance to change, examine the root causes of this resistance, and understand how resistance limits personal growth and transformation.

In October 2012, the executive vice-president (EVP) at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Canada's leading bank, faced managerial dilemmas with regard to the launch of a mobile wallet. RBC had developed a cloud-based application that differed from industry standard SIM card–based payment methods. The EVP was evaluating areas of contrast between the two models as part of arriving at a decision. There was likelihood that the cloud solution was disruptive. But would it become the dominant solution? Would it give RBC a first-mover advantage among its peers?

In October 2012, the executive vice-president (EVP) at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Canada's leading bank, faced managerial dilemmas with regard to the launch of a mobile wallet. RBC had developed a cloud-based application that differed from industry standard SIM card-based payment methods. The EVP was evaluating areas of contrast between the two models as part of arriving at a decision. There was likelihood that the cloud solution was disruptive. But would it become the dominant solution? Would it give RBC a first-mover advantage among its peers?

This case explores the experiences of three Manhattan-based hospitals during Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Beginning with an overview of how the hospitals prepared in the months and days leading up to the storm, it focuses primarily on decisions made by each institution, as Sandy approached, about whether to shelter-in-place or evacuate hundreds of medically fragile patients -- the former strategy running the risk of exposing individuals to dangerous and life-threatening conditions, the latter being an especially complex and difficult process, not without its own dangers. Ultimately, each of the three hospitals profiled in the case took a different approach, informed by their differing perceptions of risk and other unique circumstances. The case illustrates the very difficult trade-offs hospital administrators and local and state public health authorities grappled with as Sandy bore down on New York and vividly depicts the ramifications of these decisions, with the storm ultimately inflicting serious damage on Manhattan and across much of the surrounding region.

In September 2014, an American expatriate project manager at High-Tech Construction Pvt. Ltd. (High-Tech) received a late-night call saying that an engineer at a remote project site in India was extremely ill after consuming alcohol at an employee party. The driver would not take the sick employee to the hospital unless the project manager gave permission, but would giving permission drag High-Tech into a complicated situation? The expatriate manager was unsure of the legal ramifications involved in death or injury due to drinking. In addition, he was concerned about the effect on the company if the media was involved. Because he was an American in a multinational company with Indian employees, the story was potentially more saleable. Furthermore, was it prudent to inform the sick employee's parents yet, or should he call the head of the human resources department for advice? As the project manager, he would have to make the final decision. It had been just a couple months since he arrived in India and less than a month since the start of work on the current project, and now he had a crisis to deal with.