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In February 2016, the principal dealer of several European luxury automotive dealerships learned from Audi of America LLC (Audi) that he would have to relocate one of his dealerships to a new location. The relocation would be to a new market area and the dealer would most likely lose his current customer base. Instead, the dealer used the opportunity to create a new business model for auto retailing that could enable him to maintain his market share without having to comply with Audi's relocation requirement. His new concept, named "Carcierge" and opened in 2016, was showing initial success, but the dealer wondered whether the boutique sales model he developed would be viable in the long run.

Bengaluru Airport began an expansion project worth US$2 billion in 2018, but by mid-2020 COVID-19 had severely impacted the aviation industry and reduced passenger volume at the airport by half. Although the airport's leadership team had detected the crisis early and taken swift action, with no cure for the virus in sight business continuity and staff safety were in jeopardy. The next board meeting was in August 2020, less than seven weeks away, and the pandemic threatened to derail the expansion plans. Among other pressing questions the leadership team had to address-including whether to continue with the expansion plan, reduce its scope, or delay it-was whether they had done enough throughout the crisis to inspire confidence.

This role-playing exercise aims to tackle issues related to inter-organizational collaboration to scale up innovations. The role-playing experience helps learners discover, appreciate, and learn to govern inherent tensions in inter-organizational collaboration. The exercise is set in the Canadian auto parts industry, which could benefit tremendously from more sophisticated robotic technology to assist the manufacturing process. The role play asks learners to engage in an inter-organizational collaboration agreement. Each participant will represent a company whose in-house knowledge, resources or capabilities can contribute to developing a robot.

In 2019, Paratent Event Rentals Ltd. was facing the possibility of year end net losses. The co-owners of this Canadian business had recently invested in premium inventory, but a lackluster first quarter showed that they were not forecasted to get return on their investments. A new method of cost allocation was proposed to get Paratent back on track. When choosing between three conflicting future contracts, both the old and new methods of cost allocation needed to be implemented and considered. Using qualitative and quantitative analyses, Paratent needed to decide which job would be the most profitable and which cost allocation method to use in the future.

Spreadsheet Supplement for Case W24214

Based in Shanghai, China, Huazhu Group, the world's third-largest hotel operator, was known for its standardized IT system. It helped the company boost efficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief Digital Officer Xinxin Liu also faced some longer-term challenges: What resources and digital strategy would the company need as it tapped into the higher-end hotel market to become a multi-brand hotel giant? How should Huazhu balance the needs between using its IT solutions to scale its own operations on one hand and to empower other hotels on the other?

Norman Müller and René Serrano, cofounders of Fondeadora, a Mexican "neobank," had lined up a $12.5 million in Series A funding round in 2020 only to run into a major obstacle: The lead investor was Gradient Ventures, a venture firm launched by Alphabet, Inc., and Mexican banking law would require personal financial disclosures from Alphabet's biggest owners, including Google's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. That would be a non-starter with them. To stay under a 5% ownership threshold, Mexican banking regulators had established for such disclosures, Müller and Serrano faced two choices: work with Gradient and the lawyers to try to put together an alternative structure or syndicate the round among multiple investors, with no lead for their Series A. Müller and Serrano had deployed new fundraising approaches before. They had tapped an early crowdfunding platform for money, as well as friends and family and other angels. They had used a Mexican adaptation of SAFE notes, a financial instrument created by YC for early-stage fundraising. Could two designers turned fintech entrepreneurs get creative once again?

The key objective of this case is to provide students with the skills and understanding of how out-of-home (OOH) advertising is utilized as a channel for brands to communicate their messages to consumers, as well as how a media company contributes to the value chain in the industry. The six examples cited in the case illustrate the concept in practice as well as the developing trend of the interactive outdoor-and-online (O&O) model going forward. The case describes a situation faced by Asiaray Media Group (Asiaray), a company founded by Vincent Lam in Hong Kong in 1993. Despite entering the market as a latecomer amid fierce competition, Asiaray has grown in stature as a media enterprise and gained a strong foothold in Greater China and Singapore. Its success was largely attributed to its innovative spirit, particularly in developing its Space Management concept as highlighted in the case studies. The pandemic which began in 2020 brought disruptive and unprecedented changes to the economy and the advertising landscape. Despite signs of recovery in the first half of 2021, the company recorded a net loss of HK$113.7 million in the period, and its share price had plummeted close to 75% from just before the pandemic. Based on what he and the company have learned and built in the past, Vincent must now seek and seize the next opportunity, with innovation being a key for survival in these changing times.

Human judgment relies not only on reasoning but also imagination, reflection, examination, valuation, and empathy, giving it an intrinsic moral dimension. The authors argue that just as over-reliance on navigation systems may cause us to forget how to use our innate sense of direction, over-reliance on AI-based decision support systems puts us at risk of abdicating our moral responsibilities.

Since 1989, US companies have been trying--mostly unsuccessfully--to marry the ease of ordering groceries online with the convenience of home delivery. All have learned that the combination of customer demands and logistical challenges has made it difficult to be profitable in this space. Unlike retailers of standard items (such as books), sellers of groceries had to exercise judgment when selecting fresh meat, fruits, and vegetables to satisfy consumers' tastes. Once selected, many items needed to be packed in specific ways and required timely delivery to maintain freshness and quality. In addition, the "last mile" of delivery was costly and highly variable between high-density urban customers and those in more dispersed suburban and rural communities. Customers were familiar with in-store prices and resisted paying more, a preference reinforced by Amazon and other online retailers, which had created an expectation that online prices should be the same as--or even lower than--prices in stores. In addition, customers had a strong aversion to delivery charges, even if delivery saved them time. They also much preferred the convenience of narrow time windows for delivery and had a low tolerance for mistakes.

In a historic agreement on 8 October 2021, 136 countries approved the OECD two-pillar solution in a major overhaul of the century-old international taxation system. At the G20 Summit in Rome on 30 October 2021, the leaders of the world's biggest economies endorsed the two-pillar solution, decades in the making but which will be implemented in 2023. The new agreement will overcome the tax challenges arising from the digital economy and will ensure that big businesses pay a fair share of taxes on profits from market jurisdictions where they operate. The case explores the two parts, placing a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% on the profits of the world's largest businesses; and shifting tax revenues to market jurisdictions where large businesses have their customers and sell their products. Protagonist Janet Yellen, Secretary of the US Treasury, played an instrumental role in getting reluctant finance ministers on board. President Joe Biden supported the OECD plan in part because it will stop growing tensions between G20 countries over digital service taxes.

Karim Beguir and Zohra Slim were the co-founders of InstaDeep, a deep tech startup focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. Instadeep was one of the few companies globally that were partnering with DeepMind, an AI subsidiary of Google [Alphabet Inc.]. InstaDeep employed DeepMind's reinforcement learning approach in its business solutions. When Beguir and Slim founded the company in 2014, it was a web design company that aimed to build a globally competitive enterprise and create impact by hiring talent in Africa. Beguir, a mathematician by training, figured out that AI could be employed to solve century-long industrial problems such as container packing or route optimization, so the duo shifted the company's focus to AI in 2017. They then had the option to either apply for proprietary IP and monetize their intellectual property rights or to publish the idea as a research article on an open access platform, which would allow all scientists to benefit from it. By 2021, InstaDeep had created two major branded products: DeepPCB, an AI-powered printed circuit board routing system, and DeepChain, an AI-based protein design system to speed time to market for new drugs being developed by scientists. They had two other products in development, and the possibility of developing many more verticals was in the cards. But Beguir and Slim had to decide whether to position InstaDeep as an extremely horizontal AI company that could push innovation in a multitude of verticals, or to focus on just a few. The former would create big impact by fully leveraging the capabilities of the AI team in a wide range of fields. But focusing on a few verticals and managing fewer customers had its advantages, too. What should they do?

Karim Beguir and Zohra Slim were the co-founders of InstaDeep, a deep tech startup focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. Instadeep was one of the few companies globally that were partnering with DeepMind, an AI subsidiary of Google [Alphabet Inc.]. InstaDeep employed DeepMind's reinforcement learning approach in its business solutions. When Beguir and Slim founded the company in 2014, it was a web design company that aimed to build a globally competitive enterprise and create impact by hiring talent in Africa. Beguir, a mathematician by training, figured out that AI could be employed to solve century-long industrial problems such as container packing or route optimization, so the duo shifted the company's focus to AI in 2017. They then had the option to either apply for proprietary IP and monetize their intellectual property rights or to publish the idea as a research article on an open access platform, which would allow all scientists to benefit from it. By 2021, InstaDeep had created two major branded products: DeepPCB, an AI-powered printed circuit board routing system, and DeepChain, an AI-based protein design system to speed time to market for new drugs being developed by scientists. They had two other products in development, and the possibility of developing many more verticals was in the cards. But Beguir and Slim had to decide whether to position InstaDeep as an extremely horizontal AI company that could push innovation in a multitude of verticals, or to focus on just a few. The former would create big impact by fully leveraging the capabilities of the AI team in a wide range of fields. But focusing on a few verticals and managing fewer customers had its advantages, too. What should they do?

Aleph Farms, an Israeli food-tech start-up, was hoping to play a major role in disrupting the conventional meat sector. Compared to intensive agricultural practices, Aleph's cultured (or lab-grown) meat solution held the promise of considerably reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the use of land and water, while providing a new source of food for a rapidly growing world population. With much of the science already worked out, the company was now facing a host of challenges as it planned to launch its first product-a cultured steak. In particular, Aleph's CEO, Didier Toubia, and his management team had to figure out the best way to position and bring to market its innovative steaks, with a debut expected in late 2022 in Singapore. Management fully recognized potential barriers to consumer adoption and strived to build a relevant brand image. On the production side, the company knew it had to scale quickly and continue to bring down costs so that its steaks approached price parity with conventional meat. Yet given the intensive capital expenditures involved, this was no simple feat. Planning for the longer term, the company was beginning to consider its next product line.

Many individuals and organisations have started working alongside AI. AI, and its influence on work and employment, has been studied with much interest by researchers and managers. The implementation of AI has brought commercial gains as well as challenges. This case outlines these challenges in an operations context and offers a hands-on analytical exercise for selecting the right strategy as well as addressing challenges. It also offers hands-on lessons about how to weather the wind in the organisation when introducing AI bots. Students will navigate the decision-making process regarding AI implementation, under the circumstance of AI bots working alongside humans.

California-based Intel Corporation (Intel) was one of the world's leading semiconductor circuit firms. In July 2020, manufacturing delays with Intel's 10 nanometre (nm) and 7 nm chips were adversely affecting the company's customers at a time when demand for personal computers and laptops was at its peak. Unlike its competitors, Intel was vertically integrated. Competitors such as Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. had outsourced their chip manufacturing to leading contract manufacturers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (TSMC) and were experiencing better market capitalization growth by focusing on designing chips for PCs and other product categories. TSMC had become the leading contract manufacturer for chips globally. Intel's former chief executive officer (CEO) believed that Intel's chip quality was the best because its manufacturing facilities were in house. At the same time, geopolitical issues between Taiwan, the United States, and China meant that regulatory authorities in the United States were not in favour of outsourcing critical chip manufacturing. In January 2021, Intel's newly appointed CEO would have to decide whether Intel should outsource chip manufacturing to a contract manufacturer like TSMC and whether, in the long run, Intel should remain a vertically integrated unit or spin off its manufacturing division.

Many people thought of knitting as a hobby for grandmothers, but the time-honored craft had evolved into a booming business with loyal, passionate, and interactive customers worldwide. The Spanish e-commerce business We Are Knitters (WAK) spent the last decade growing into what investors called the "world leader in online knitted kit sales," a segment of the global $100 billion knitting industry. WAK's sales soared by 240 per cent between April 2019 and April 2020 due to the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. By February 2021, while WAK's co-founders were still grappling with pandemic-related challenges, ahead of WAK's 10-year anniversary, they also started to look ahead to consider plans for further growth and internationalization while maintaining their business model and competitive advantages.