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This short technical note offers a multi-step process for how to analyze a strategy case. The technical note makes reference to frameworks and tools found in the following strategy textbook: Mary M. Crossan, Cara C. Maurer, W. Glenn Rowe, and Michael J. Rouse, Strategic Analysis and Action, 10th ed. (Toronto, ON: Pearson Publishing, 2021) [forthcoming]. This note explains that cases have no single correct answer and that if the analysis has no tensions, chances are that something is missing! Linkages between different elements may need to be reassessed; also, teams are a great asset for generating different perspectives and opinions. Finally, analysts must ask themselves if they are able to actually deliver the value they are promising to their customers and if their strategic goals are realistic given external conditions.

In May 2020, amid the lockdown in India brought about by COVID-19, P. C. Musthafa, chief executive officer of iD Fresh Food (iD), a food company located in Bengaluru, India, was preparing for a virtual meeting with his co-founders. The company offered customers the value proposition of "freshness" and operated in the ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat segments. iD's flagship product was batter for preparing idlis and dosas, which were popular Indian breakfast dishes. The co-founders had to decide how to address the challenges arising on both the demand and the supply side of the business brought about by the pandemic, including production and logistics challenges on the supply side, a dip in demand, and the growth of competitors in the segments. How should iD plan its production amid the disruption to the supply chains and logistics sector brought on by the pandemic and ensure that its products maintain the promised value proposition of freshness? How could it ensure that customers continued to trust iD? Could iD script a fresh story and reach its vision of becoming a ₹10-billion company by 2023, despite an economy ravaged by the pandemic?

Atrae Inc. was a Japanese software firm providing platform matching services for job recruitment in the software engineering industry. As compared to traditional Japanese firms, Atrae adopted a unique approach to managing its employees. Instead of the rigid hierarchy and top-down management approach that typified a Japanese firm, Atrae had a flat organizational structure and heavily relied on decentralized decision-making and individual motivation. The company's unique culture was viewed as a key driver of its business success-success that the company's founder and chief executive officer wanted to advance with a public listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. However, while the public listing would allow Atrae to grow substantially, it would also necessitate formal organizational checks and balances that could harm the company's organizational culture. Would a public listing propel Atrae to greater heights or would it result in the company's demise?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jeff Bezos, the chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc. (Amazon), became the world's richest person by adding US$6 billion to his net worth by the end of March 2020. While the worth of other billionaires was decreasing because of the unprecedented market volatility created by the pandemic, retail sales surged to a record level for Amazon. To meet the additional workforce requirements created by the sudden rise in demand, Bezos announced a new hiring drive for Amazon's warehouses and delivery network. The announcement came when Amazon's labour practices were under the scrutiny of New York State and New York City authorities for the disputed "wrongful termination" of a warehouse worker. Amazon's conduct was vehemently condemned by labour unions, labour supporters, the media, and New York City authorities. At the same time, Amazon employees expressed their concerns about the hiring of additional workers, as more workers could further aggravate the workplace safety issues at the company's warehouses. Bezos vehemently claimed to be committed to workers' health and safety and announced new paid sick leave and hazard benefits policies for workers who were not working from home. Was the authorities' scrutiny of Smalls' termination and the workplace safety measures at Amazon's facilities a signal of legal battles looming for Amazon? Was Bezos protecting the wellness of his employees? Did the new policies and safety measures point toward a change in Bezos's crisis management strategy? How could Amazon move from a greed/profit perspective to a profit with purpose perspective? How should Amazon manage in an almost permanent crisis-like situation?

Exercise for Revlon: Surviving Covid-19 (221084).

On the verge of failure, BlackBerry brought in John Chen as CEO in 2013 to orchestrate a bold turnaround of the company. Once an iconic leader in the smartphone market, BlackBerry was best known for its tactile QWERTY keyboard, strong security, and a focus on business users. By 2009 it had come to dominate the North American and global smart phone markets. But Apple and Android entered the market with a strong consumer focus and an extensive suite of apps. BlackBerry's subsequent efforts to emulate their competitors was too little and too late. With few options left, the board brought in Chen. Under Chen's leadership, Blackberry executed a full pivot from a hardware company to a software company, focused on the cyber security market. Leveraging their expertise in security, and funding it by monetizing their extensive real estate holdings and library of intellectual property, Chen led the successful transformation of the company into a software enterprise. Along the way came many challenges including how to delicately manage the ramp down of its hardware business as it ramped up its software business. By 2020, BlackBerry had $1 billion in software revenues, with strong gross margins, and positive operating cash flow. However, BlackBerry was at a crossroads. The stock price had stubbornly plateaued as investors waited for signs of significant growth. Yet in order to grow, BlackBerry might have to sacrifice profitability to gain market share as it competed against both deep-pocketed, large players and agile startups. The decision to invest heavily in growth would have far-reaching implications on BlackBerry's go-to-market strategy, pricing, and distribution. Focusing on market share would violate the model that Chen had worked so hard to put in place. Was this the right strategy? Were there other options the company should pursue?

On November 1, 2018, the Women's National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) informed the league that it had decided to opt out of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that had been signed in 2014 and was scheduled to run through 2021. The opt-out, which was not unexpected, triggered a period of negotiation that was described by WNBPA President Nneka Ogwumike as "incredibly complex." This case takes students inside this complicated negotiation process and reveals the dynamics of its successful outcome.

This case details the challenges Collin Wallace faced at FanGo, a mobile ordering technology company that he founded based on technology that he developed as a college student. The case explores critical decisions that Wallace had to make, including in which market to apply his technology, whether to pivot to another market, and whether to sell his company to a strategic acquirer.

The OpenGov: Bringing the Cloud to Government case presents the example of OpenGov founder and CEO Zachary Bookman, who creates and scales a high growth venture to serve government. Bookman demonstrates the mindset and skill set required of entrepreneurial leaders able to drive change across legacy institutions. The case unfolds as Bookman exhibits six skills that propel OpenGov to success. It starts with Bookman's ability to "Find the Gap" and spot an opportunity that others don't see. Soon Bookman and his team "Drive for Daylight" by outlining the long term vision for what they seek to accomplish. Through quick decision making and multiple iterations, they "Fly the OODA Loop." Bookman and his team Observe, Orient, Decide and Act to propel OpenGov's growth. Of course, they don't always get it right. They "Fail Wisely" by learning through setbacks and testing ideas through experiments to make failure cheap. At every stage of growth, Bookman and his team "Network Minds" to harness diverse points of view in order to solve problems in novel ways. Bookman is determined to build a culture in which employees "Gift Small Goods" by generously supporting each other. Throughout the case the skills are presented in the context of the entrepreneurial leadership challenge Bookman must deliver on in order to build a thriving business working with the legacy institution of government.

The Michelin case study is about business and cultural change through the implementation of a digital transformation. It describes how Michelin, a 130-years old leading global player in the tire industry, was facing intense competition from Asian low-cost players, who were commoditizing the core product. In addition, large digital platforms, such as Amazon or Alibaba, were disintermediating distribution and vehicle ownership patterns were also changing with the emergence of new rental and car-sharing models. These changes brought the message home to the management that Michelin needed to refocus on putting its customers at the heart of everything the company does, simplify operations, empower its people to make the change happen and innovate its business model to find new sources of value. Michelin embarked on a digital transformation that was the catalyst for all the transformation of the global business. The case details the steps taken by senior management to initiate and deploy its digital transformation and, in parallel, evolve what was a very strongly entrenched company culture. The success of Michelin's digital and culture change was in large part due to a strong commitment to digital transformation from senior management and a careful execution orchestration taking into account the highly decentralized and global nature of the organization.

On January 31, 2017, The Carlyle Group ("Carlyle") closed its $3.2 billion acquisition of Atotech, an international Specialty Chemicals and Equipment company. In Carlyle's Washington, DC headquarters, the US-based deal team - Martin Sumner, Greg Nikodem, Tanaka Maswoswe (HBS '10), and Luke Mehmeti (HBS '20) - breathed a sigh of relief as they reflected on the prior six months, shepherding the opportunity through a competitive bidding process and numerous international regulatory approvals to a signed and completed transaction. Getting the deal over the finish line had required a monumental, cross-border effort, with close collaboration among the US team, European buyout colleagues Friedel Drees and Willi Westenberger, and Asian buyout colleagues Herman Chang and Yi Yu. They all knew, however, that the real work lay ahead: executing on the transformation plan developed during the many months of diligence.

The Valuing Employment exercise can be used to show the importance of impact measurement in designing incentives and contracts. The exercise has two phases. In the first phase, participants play the role of managers at the State of Massachusetts Infrastructure Department. They are tasked with evaluating competing bids for a 10-year, $100 million project from two finalist companies: Infrastructure Bay and Infrastructure Gold. Participants are asked to evaluate the bids after taking into account workforce impact. To measure impact and determine the winning company, students must develop a methodology to create monetized impact figures for each company based on factors such as workforce diversity and injury rate. In the second phase of the exercise, participants are assigned to one of three teams: Infrastructure Bay, Infrastructure Gold, or State of Massachusetts Infrastructure Department. During this phase, the competing companies present their cases for why they should be awarded the bid, while the members of the Infrastructure Department must make a final decision and provide a rationale for who will win the contract.

This case describes the 2012-2020 effort at IBM to implement design thinking throughout the company and hire thousands of designers to serve on every product team alongside technical engineers and developers and product managers. IBM's design transformation is told through the development of the Design Program Office-a new centralized function led by General Manager Phil Gilbert to support the organizational change effort-and the adoption of design thinking at several key business units: IBM's Z mainframes business; IBM Security; IBM's data and artificial intelligence (AI) business; and the Digital Strategies and Interactive Experience (DS/iX, or just iX) group, within IBM Services. The case contains details about IBM's approach to design thinking frameworks and how IBM integrated design thinking and designers to center end-user needs in its product development teams and processes.

New research shows that organizations seeking innovative ideas from crowdsourcing platforms can gain more responses to their problem statements by engaging contributors' imaginations while not limiting their creativity. The authors suggest five best practices for using crowdsourcing sites: personalizing the problem, challenging solvers to surpass the status quo, explaining customer needs, asking engaging questions, and highlighting tensions to be resolved.

Rick Welts has been one of the most successful and lauded business executives in professional sports. He made remarkable contributions to the NBA league office, and was president of three NBA teams which won seven championships during his tenure. He was elected to the basketball Hall of Fame in 2018, a rare distinction for a business-side executive who was not an owner or commissioner. In 2011, he became the first openly gay high-level sports executive in U.S. male professional team sports. He subsequently became an advocate for, and inspiration to, gay youth. This case describes Welts's career, from his days as a ball boy for the Seattle Supersonics, through college, and the NBA. It includes transcripts of interviews with individuals who shed light on Welts's career, leadership style, and impact.

The Ayangue community is a tourist destination in the municipality of Santa Elena in Ecuador known for its tranquil waters and its proximity to the El Pelado Marine Reserve a popular place for scuba diving, snorkelling, and leisure trips. The community was facing a series of issues in its pursuit to boost tourism in the area among which stood out: inadequate infrastructure, the informal nature of tourism businesses, controls on beach capacity being ignored, and the potential loss of biodiversity in the area. The Santa Elena municipality, through their state-owned company for tourism, developed a series of participatory plans to boost tourism in the municipality; to do this Ayangue Council formed a committee to create a project that would provide the necessary boost to tourism. The Committee had to analyse their current situation in order to identify the main issues, outline the best way to address them, and attract more tourists while conserving the natural attractions found in the area and improving the lives of community members. The Committee faced challenges over what kind tourism in Ayangue should focus on and how to achieve it.

As a new CEO, Thomas Schinicker, who took over Roche Diagnostics Centralized Point of Care Solutions (CPS) in early 2018, he faced a dilemma. HIs executive team had already engaged in a lengthy one-year strategy development process in 2017 mapping out the scenarios for the future and defining where Roche Diagnostics should play and how it should win. All they needed was his sign-off to go ahead and announce the new strategy. What should he do?

The CEO decided to hold off on announcing anything before including everyone, all 1600 employees in Roche Diagnostics, in engaging in the strategy development process, in getting their views on where the company should play and how it should win in the future. Frank Desiere, VP Strategy and Business Development, Roche Diagnostics CPS now faced a dilemma. After all of the discussions and decisions made in 2017 based on the approach he facilitated, how was he going to engage 1600 people in developing the strategy, when the strategy had already been developed?

Frank Desiere, VP Strategy and Business Development, Roche Diagnostics CPS and his team including Guido Bartalena, Head of Strategy, Roche Diagnostics CPS had together created a 6 months journey called BOOST or Building our Organization's Strategy Together of engaging 50% of the organization (through volunteer sign-ups). BOOST comprised 58 interactive workshops that ran between February and June 2018 across all CPS's main sites and several additional locations. The workshops were facilitated by 72 senior leaders from across the organization and 803 employees took part in the sessions, both from within CPS and from other Roche Diagnostics business areas. Over 11,300 ideas were generated during the program and Bartalena's team qualified and clustered all of them, to ensure that every contribution was considered. However Bartalena was now faced with a critical fork in the road. How was he going to incorporate these ideas into the overall strategy, and how would it be communicated back to the community?

What has been the impact of the Affordable Care Act (2010) on healthcare coverage in the United States? While this significant piece of legislation put America's healthcare system on a long-awaited path towards universal healthcare coverage, the struggle to provide coverage to millions of uninsured people is far from over. The case examines aspects of the national healthcare system including Medicaid and Medicare, employer-based insurance and healthcare exchanges. It also examines what the ACA left undone and how legislative changes in 2017 and the COVID pandemic highlighted the fragility of health care provision in the US.