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In May 2022, Roche Group, one of the largest healthcare companies in the world, hosted its first ESG investor event focused exclusively on its efforts to impact access to healthcare. While Roche had recently set an ambitious goal to double the number of patients that had access to its innovative medicines and diagnostic solutions within ten years, it was not at all clear how the firm should structure its resource allocation criteria, performance evaluations, reporting and incentive systems to align efforts internally toward these goals. Group CFO and CIO Alan Hippe was presented with two options, none of which he was particularly enthusiastic about. One was to lower the hurdle rate for projects related to ESG issues, thus relaxing profit expectations. The alternative was to incorporate a set of minimum ESG requirements in all of Roche's new project proposals. In this case, however, the risk was to reduce the focus on ESG from a strategic priority to a compliance exercise. In the presentation shared with investors at the ESG event, access to healthcare had been positioned as Roche's greatest contribution to society. This type of public commitment required more than a compliance-level of effort. In September, Alan Hippe would sit down with the executive committee to chart a path for integrating ESG issues into Roche's project selection and business planning. Hippe went on to define three objectives for ESG at Roche, "we need to align on targets, we need to get resource allocation right, and we need to report both internally and externally."

The case is set in 2023; the protagonist is Chris Kempczinski, CEO of McDonald's Corporation. McDonald's is the world's largest hamburger fast-food restaurant chain, with 40,000 restaurants in over 100 countries, $23 billion in annual revenue, and a net income of $6 billion. Since being appointed CEO in 2019, Kempczinski launched the Accelerating the Arches strategic initiative (MCD, also the ticker symbol): maximize our Marketing, commit to the Core Menu, and double down on the 4 Ds of delivery, digital, drive-thru, and development. Although McDonald's has significantly outperformed the broader stock market for most of the past decade, Kempczinski wonders how long this can last. McDonald's faces significant headwinds, including recessionary pressure, high inflation, supply chain problems, rising wages, and significant labor shortages.

In the summer of 2022, the Lyric Opera of Chicago (Lyric), a major opera company, is facing a deepening challenge. Lyric has seen ticket sales decrease, declining from 54% of revenue in 1998 to 33% by 2018. Since 2010, the primary source of this decline has been a loss in subscribers--high-value patrons who attend several operas per year. This subscriber lack is concerning not just for the lost ticket sales but also because subscribers are far more likely than single-ticket buyers to make gifts (a stream that now constitutes 51% of Lyric's revenue). As it plans to counter this downward trend, Lyric's marketing team has two questions to answer: First, the team must decide which audiences to focus on to fill its empty seats--past subscribers, "opera-primed" lookalikes of past subscribers, more diverse audiences closer to Chicago's urban core, or millennials; then, once the team chooses a target audience, it must determine how Lyric should address that audience with its product, customer experience, and opera programming choices.

When staff as well as investors participate in a profitable exit by a global private equity firm, the industry pays attention. KKR's sale of CHI, a garage door manufacturer, for a 9.8X multiple of invested capital (MOIC) made headlines in early 2022 as one of KKR's highest returns since the 1980s and for CHI's hourly workers and truck drivers for whom the pay-out would be life changing. More than 600 strong blue-collar workforce got an average of US$175,000 each, rising to US$800,000 for the longest serving employees. KKR had acquired the company in 2015 for US$700 million, and sold it to Nucor Corp for US$3 billion in early 2022. The celebrations were the result of a movement led by Pete Stavros, Chairman of CHI, and also Co-Head of the Americas Private Equity platform at KKR, who had worked with CHI management to give every employee an equity stake in the company, allowing them to participate in its growth as well as a substantial return upon KKR's exit. The case shows the power of equity ownership and incentive structures, as well as the challenges of implementing such fundamental changes in any business, setting the scene for discussions that go beyond DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) to tackle issues such as social justice and the equitable distribution of wealth. https://publishing.insead.edu/case/kkr-chi

When staff as well as investors participate in a profitable exit by a global private equity firm, the industry pays attention. KKR's sale of CHI, a garage door manufacturer, for a 9.8X multiple of invested capital (MOIC) made headlines in early 2022 as one of KKR's highest returns since the 1980s and for CHI's hourly workers and truck drivers for whom the pay-out would be life changing. More than 600 strong blue-collar workforce got an average of US$175,000 each, rising to US$800,000 for the longest serving employees. KKR had acquired the company in 2015 for US$700 million, and sold it to Nucor Corp for US$3 billion in early 2022. The celebrations were the result of a movement led by Pete Stavros, Chairman of CHI, and also Co-Head of the Americas Private Equity platform at KKR, who had worked with CHI management to give every employee an equity stake in the company, allowing them to participate in its growth as well as a substantial return upon KKR's exit. The case shows the power of equity ownership and incentive structures, as well as the challenges of implementing such fundamental changes in any business, setting the scene for discussions that go beyond DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) to tackle issues such as social justice and the equitable distribution of wealth. https://publishing.insead.edu/case/kkr-chi

Ambareen Musa started Souqalmal by adapting the business model of UK-based online insurance brokers (e.g., MoneySuperMarket) to the UAE context. This two-part case describes some of the ups and downs of her journey, emphasizing the need for innovation and nimbleness in a rapidly changing competitive and regulatory environment.

Ambareen Musa started Souqalmal by adapting the business model of UK-based online insurance brokers (e.g., MoneySuperMarket) to the UAE context. This two-part case describes some of the ups and downs of her journey, emphasizing the need for innovation and nimbleness in a rapidly changing competitive and regulatory environment.

Shelly Sun had founded BrightStar Care, a home health care and medical staffing agency, 20 years earlier and had grown the business to over 300 franchised locations and $654 million in annual system-wide sales. Sun had spent years working to get "the right people in the right seats" and now had a strong bench of executive talent. Sun loved being an ambassador for BrightStar and spent considerable time with external stakeholders, including policymakers. But there were times she still felt she needed to take the reins-after all, no one knew BrightStar like she did.

In August 2022, the Pentagon tasked U.S. Air Force Captain Victor Lopez to launch a new office for AFWERX, an Air Force innovation unit that leveraged commercial developers and military talent to acquire advanced technologies. This task was particularly arduous because Lopez would be the first and only member of this new office. Having been granted flexibility in the setup of the office, he pondered the complexities of his assignment, the decisions around organizational design he would have to make, and reflected on his recent experiences, particularly those as part of the team that launched the Air Force's AI Accelerator.

Singapore Airlines Ltd (SIA) is an aviation company headquartered in Singapore. It is majority-owned by Temasek Holdings, a Singapore government investment and holding company. SIA adopts various strategies to sustain and grow its business operations, even in the midst of the Covid 19-pandemic, while devising plans to propel it toward a bright future. The evolving key issues and challenges SIA faces include: (a) Covid-19 pandemic travel restrictions that have impaired SIA's business operations; (b) the lack of sustainable alternative revenue generating options outside of commercial and cargo flight services; (c) its inability to cover expenses and recurring payments that affected the optimization of its commercial flights operations that eventually led to its underutilization; (d) damage to its corporate reputation stemming from backlash from environmental activism groups in Singapore and other eco-conscious customers; (e) developing viable business strategies to bounce back while navigating the post-Covid-19 pandemic era. Aside from these, when examined from the decarbonization and environmental sustainability across its operations front, there are strategic systematic issues in SIA's usage of its new-generation aircrafts, adoption and implementation of low-carbon technology. The case is intended to help participants to better appreciate how an airline operates to sustain its business operations and growth.

While not every organization will need to build a brand in the metaverse or transact with cryptocurrencies, all organizations manage credentials as issuers, holders, and verifiers. That's why the one piece of Web3 technology that managers should begin looking at is decentralized credentialling systems based on blockchain. While it's still early days for this application area, pilot projects are showing promise, in addition to highlighting issues that must be addressed.

Developers of many new AI solutions produce statistics showing that the tools make critical decisions with greater accuracy and efficiency than humans. But managers tasked with evaluating these applications need to peel back the layers of developers' performance claims and focus on the ground truth used to train and validate the AI tool. This article explains what ground truth is, how to identify it for a given tool, and how to understand the implications for tool quality.

Much of the quantum research community is focused on showing quantum advantage that a quantum computer can perform a calculation that is impossible on a classical computer. The authors contend that enterprises should focus instead on seeking opportunities for quantum economic advantage when a quantum computer provides a commercially relevant solution faster than a classical computer could, or when a quantum computer provides viable solutions that differ from what a classical computer yields.

Tackling the big, systemic challenges confronting many organizational business leaders will increasingly require strategizing across organizational boundaries, but doing so is more complex than making strategy within a single organization. The authors developed a new approach to collaborative strategy in working with a global public health organization. Lessons learned can help leaders in individual organizations work with others to achieve both shared and individual strategic priorities.

In June of 2022, Jada Abimbola, chief executive officer and owner of Workplace Safety Trainers (WST), needed to develop a strategy for the business after experiencing stagnating profits during the coronavirus pandemic. WST was one of Ontario's foremost private occupational health and safety companies, providing training for businesses that needed to comply with the standards of the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training, and Skills Development. Abimbola was considering several alternatives to revive the business while remaining committed to its new employee-centred focus: maintain the status quo, offer first aid training, or develop and sell a new line of physical goods. Abimbola was also considering cashing in on her investment by selling the business and moving on. This case will also serve as a talking point for the importance of occupational health and safety in various industries.

The turnaround coordinator at Chem-ARC Industries (Chem-ARC) had to solve a dispute involving multiple stakeholders within the Turnaround Scheduling and Planning Department. Chem-ARC had been only two days into a company-wide shutdown when a delay on the plant floor sent the outage schedule into disarray. Members of the department started to blame one another for the issues Chem-ARC was facing. With a group of disgruntled employees, a costly problem that urgently needed fixing, and a senior management team pressing for answers, the coordinator had to find a way to improve teamwork within her department while conveying to upper management that she was capable of her position as leader.

The case outlines the development of Boston-based start-up Rethink Robotics Inc., a leader in a rapidly growing part of the booming robotics market: collaborative robots (cobots), which work side by side with humans. This case also traces the moves of a mid-sized German hardware engineering company, HAHN Automation, a leader in integrated automation systems. With a keen interest in cobots, HAHN Automation had invested in the start-up and acquired the rights to distribute, sell and service Rethink Robotics' products globally. This had made HAHN Automation a leader in the growing global market for cobots. When Rethink Robotics suddenly announced that it was liquidating, HAHN's leaders needed to act. They saw three options: acquire, develop IP in-house or find another solution.

This case follows Sam Byker, the Founder and CEO of Atticus, as he creates, scales, and fundraises for the company. Atticus is a platform that serves individuals in need by connecting them with law firms that can help. The case covers the company's history from its inception through to its Series A financing. The case explores the tension Byker faces between Atticus' opportunities for growth and maintaining focus on the company's mission when selecting a lead investor. The first vignette leaves Byker choosing between two Series A term sheets: one from an impact-focused investor, and the other from a venture capital firm with a track-record of building iconic brands. The second vignette explores a set of strategic decisions Byker must make that place growth and impact in tension with one another.

This case focuses on the use of modern data analytics to alleviate crowding at the branches of United Overseas Bank, a full-service bank headquartered in Singapore. The case is set in 2020 against the backdrop of the COVID-19 global pandemic when vaccines were not yet available and social distancing was a key tool in the fight against the spread of the disease. How should the bank develop and deploy predictive analytics to accurately anticipate future branch crowds? How should the bank trade off key design considerations?