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Spreadsheet supplement for case 521079.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 521080.

Boond, a last-mile energy access company, was founded to serve the rural base of the pyramid market in India. The company operated in the two states of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh(UP). It came face to face with multiple challenges like low purchase capacity, lack of awareness about solar technology and difficulty of reaching out to the remote consumers. Boond innovated its business model to provide customized solution for energy access at an affordable price along with doorstep servicing. It created social capital that facilitated the collectivity of the stakeholders like banks, suppliers, grassroots organizations and community. This led to energy access and had a multi-dimensional impact on human well-being (health, education, employment, etc.), thereby improving lives of many. The challenge for Boond is in scaling up its business model for energy access to the other Indian states, each of which pose unique challenges along with varying environmental factors.

On July 29, 2020, Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc. (Amazon), testified before a United States House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law that was investigating the company for engaging in anti-competitive practices. Although the company offered low prices and did not distort consumer welfare principles despite its large market size, the Committee questioned whether it had exploited its sellers on both Amazon Marketplace and the Amazon Web Services Marketplace. The company was accused of not only exploiting sellers but also using their sales data for developing its private-label brands. As committee members were looking to redefine monopolistic practices, it was also recommended that Amazon should be split to avoid anti-competitive practices. Was it time for Bezos to proactively split Amazon and avoid antitrust actions against his company owing to its market dominance? What could he do to manage antitrust issues against his company?

In 2020, the head of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Academy, faced some tough decisions surrounding co-creation initiatives. The UEFA Academy was founded in early 2019 to address the learning needs of the football world with the aim of advancing the game. Since its inception, the UEFA Academy had been enthusiastically received by the sporting world. However, in pursuit of constant improvement, the head of the UEFA Academy wondered whether the use of co-creation could bring innovation and excellence to the UEFA Academy's programs. Which key stakeholders should the UEFA Academy involve in this initiative? What factors should be considered when formulating the UEFA Academy's value co-creation strategy? And what co-creating activities should the co-creation initiative focus on?

This case uses a start-up in the retail industry to explore the leverage of behavioral science to enrich a business model and structure a marketing campaign. The material unfolds the testing of an innovative process and use of persuasion in order to align business practices with human behavior and scale. In addition, it gives the opportunity to discuss how a minimal tech solution could bring in market data and provide a test platform to larger clients. The founder of Rohvi, Sara Whiffen, created a platform that allowed shoppers to buy clothing items from local retail stores, use them, and after a few wears, return the items for partial store credit. The business model was based on Whiffen's experience in the automobile industry with used cars. Following her first few years in the business, Whiffen had to make some decisions around engaging clients on two sides-retailers and consumers. How could an innovative start-up leverage behavioral science to persuade multiple stakeholders?

Pearson, which billed itself as the "world's learning company," faced a host of critical decisions in mid-2020. Several years prior, it had embarked on a new path that put the learner at the heart of the business and committed to a new strategic orientation. The new approach, under the heading of "efficacy," was meant to ensure that products and services were developed with measurable outcomes that mattered to learners in mind; and such offerings would further be taken to market with an emphasis on touting their efficacy credentials. While several efficacy reports had been produced on existing products to hone the framework, 2020 marked the first year Pearson launched a new product (the AIDA Calculus app) with efficacy in mind from the get go. As CEO John Fallon, the main architect behind efficacy, neared the end of his tenure at Pearson, he wanted to chart the next phase of the efficacy journey. In particular, should the company develop all its products and services with efficacy as the guiding principle? Which learner outcomes made the most sense to focus on in the future? How could Pearson better communicate efficacy in the marketplace and get it to resonate with various stakeholders-particularly educators and learners? With competitors following suit and using efficacy in their own communications, often without the same rigor that Pearson had applied, how should Pearson combat such "copy-cat" behavior? Was efficacy a pillar upon which to build the Pearson brand? In short, should he and his successor bet the "Pearson farm" on efficacy?

In August 2019, Harry Markopolos-the forensic accountant known for uncovering Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme-alleged that General Electric had committed accounting fraud totaling $38 billion, coining the term "GEnron" for perceived similarities with the 2001 accounting fraud at Enron that brought down that company and its auditor. Specifically, Markopolos claimed, GE would need to generate $29 billion in reserves against its insurance obligations, and restate its financials to recognize $9 billion in unreported losses on an oil subsidiary. Though GE management rejected these assertions, repeated writedowns and restatements of GE's performance since 2017 had made investors wary. They now scrambled to assess the merits of Markopolos's claims.

The case opens in September 2019 as Sacha Poignonnec and Jeremy Hodara, co-founders and co-CEOs of Jumia, the leading Pan-African e-commerce platform, are contemplating the company's path to profitability in the aftermath of a fragile investor sentiment, as the company announced two internal issues in August 2019. The case chronicles the founding and expansion of Jumia and the iterations of its business model and describes its competitive outlook. The case then provides a detailed overview of how Jumia built its three pillars-its marketplace, logistics, and payments arms-and how the co-founders decided on the company's strategic, customer, and product scopes over the seven years in which Jumia spread across 14 countries in Africa since its founding in 2012. The case also provides an overview of Jumia's vertical scope, its technology, marketing, and payments systems, and how the company's localization strategy brings complexities to its business model, as Jumia tries to adopt its approach, website, products, and services to each country to increase profitability. While there is for the most part no single competitor that serves the same geography as Jumia does, Jumia strives to educate the African market about shopping online and overcome various infrastructure problems in the continent to improve its margins and become profitable. While its second quarter 2019 financials show continued GMV and customer growth, the co-founders need to convince investors of the company's path to profitability and answer questions such as: Is Jumia's existing product-service mix and geographical coverage the best use of the company's financial and managerial resources, or does the company need to make some eliminations? Can Jumia's expansive approach be sustainable as the geography becomes more developed and the inevitable specialized players come in?

The COVID-19 pandemic brought enormous disruption to the movie industry, closing theaters indefinitely by mid-March 2020, halting television and film production, and throwing theatrical release schedules into disarray. Shell had assumed the CEO position at NBCUniversal just months before the beginning of the pandemic and now had several important decisions to make. One immediate decision he faced was how to handle the release of Trolls: World Tour, the highly anticipated sequel to a successful animated film, which had been scheduled to premiere in theaters nationwide in early April. Jeff's decision regarding the Trolls distribution strategy would not only impact the sequel's performance but would also likely have a far-reaching impact on the entire film industry, which had seen studios and theaters battle over the length of the theatrical window for decades. With the pandemic weakening the theater industry's bargaining power, had the opportunity finally arrived for film studios to significantly shorten, or even eradicate, the theatrical window?

After hitting an all-time low in 2008, Domino's Pizza underwent a vigorous rebranding, product development, and embraced innovative technologies to become the world's leading international fast-food retailer. Domino's considered itself as much a tech company as it was a purveyor of fast food, with digital orders accounting for a high percentage of sales. Domino's was run more like a Silicon Valley company than a fast food chain and was described by CEO Patrick Doyle as "a technology company that delivers pizza." As it bested rivals like Pizza Hut and Papa John's, Domino's declared itself "The Official Food of Everything." In 2020, as much of the world remained in lockdown Domino's, which offered delivery options from drones to driverless vehicles, saw a jump in sales. How did Domino's become the world's leading restaurant?

Aptiv's board must decide whether a joint venture with an auto maker is the right next step in the company's efforts to develop and commercialize a production-ready autonomous driving system. While many commentators believed that Aptiv's self-driving technologies had the potential to revolutionize vehicle use and generate enormous financial returns, the company was in a high-profile and increasingly capital intensive race among some of the world's technology giants to achieve that goal - and much more investment would be needed. As the management team began exploring the possibility of working with a partner to share the costs and accelerate their research and development activities, they turned to the board for strategic guidance. The case describes the role of the board and its Innovation and Technology Committee (ITC) in the company's transformation from a traditional auto parts supplier to a high-technology firm focused on the future of mobility and lays out the factors directors are weighing as they consider the possibility of forming a major joint venture with a vehicle manufacturer.

Aptiv's board must decide whether a joint venture with an auto maker is the right next step in the company's efforts to develop and commercialize a production-ready autonomous driving system. While many commentators believed that Aptiv's self-driving technologies had the potential to revolutionize vehicle use and generate enormous financial returns, the company was in a high-profile and increasingly capital intensive race among some of the world's technology giants to achieve that goal - and much more investment would be needed. As the management team began exploring the possibility of working with a partner to share the costs and accelerate their research and development activities, they turned to the board for strategic guidance. The case describes the role of the board and its Innovation and Technology Committee (ITC) in the company's transformation from a traditional auto parts supplier to a high-technology firm focused on the future of mobility and lays out the factors directors are weighing as they consider the possibility of forming a major joint venture with a vehicle manufacturer.

Thomas Keller, the first and only American-born chef to hold multiple three-star ratings from the prestigious Michelin Guide, and Joe Essa, the immediate past Board Chair of the National Restaurant Association and the CEO of Keller's restaurant group, were class guests in the HBS course "Challenges and Opportunities in the Restaurant Industry" on March 12, 2020. Then, that night, they began to confront a situation they could not have imagined, the declaration of a national emergency and the immediate closure of all of their restaurants. Pondering how they could best save their restaurants, their staff, their communities and the restaurant industry, they examine how to navigate uncharted waters locally within their restaurant communities and nationally in an upcoming meeting with the President of the United States.

In June 2020, XP and Itaú faced intensified competition and tension in their partnership, with the latter owning a minority stake at XP. Two years earlier, in May 2017, Itaú had announced it would acquire 49.9% of XP for $1.8 billion, followed by three additional stages leading to company control. Yet in August 2018, Brazil's Central Bank, partially barred the deal, stating Itaú could become a minority shareholder. Tensions surfaced as soon as the deal was formalized, with both companies engaging in public attacks across several marketing campaigns, with Itaú estimated to lose around $27 million a day to XP from client migration. Moreover, XP faced increased competition from emerging investment platforms that were gaining ground in Brazil´s market. By mid-2020, XP´s financial results had skyrocketed, taking in $190 million in net income and $743 million in total revenues. As Guilherme Benchimol, XP´s CEO, looks ahead, he must define what strategies they should pursue to achieve further growth, considering competitive forces and market opportunities at hand.

Following the March 10, 2019, crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, en route to Nairobi, Kenya and the October 29, 2018, downing of Lion Air flight 610 as it took off from Jakarta, Indonesia, Boeing's 737 Max jet, the model flown in both instances, was grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration and regulators all over the world. During its 20-month grounding, airline customers cancelled or put in question more than 1,000 orders for the Max. By the time regulators allowed the 737 Max to fly again, in November 2020, Boeing faced challenges due to the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on air travel in 2020 and the negative medium and long-term outlook for the airplane manufacturing industry. This case examines the challenges faced by Boeing and CEO David Calhoun as the company sought to recover from the financial consequences of the grounding and the pandemic and to re-gain the trust of passengers, airlines, regulators, investors, employees, and the media.

Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM) is a global mining company that has made its first foray into the Canadian far north with its Meadowbank gold mining site. The case describes how AEM has worked with the local government to gain its support, signing an Inuit Impact and Benefit Agreement (IIBA). This IIBA outlines a number of commitments that AEM must meet in order to ensure equal representation of Inuit people within the mine. The case follows the superintendent of human resources (HR). Facing a turnover rate of 83 per cent and high levels of absenteeism among AEM's Inuit workforce, AEM is dealing with a talent management crisis of unprecedented proportions. The superintendent of HR must remedy the situation while operating within an environment characterized by resource constraints and a diverse workforce.

Organizations are held back by an obsolescent work operating system that was built for the Second Industrial Revolution, with work defined as "jobs" and workers defined as "job-holding employees." Leaders must adopt and implement a new approach to organizing work that deconstructs jobs into tasks and deploys workers based on their skills, not job descriptions.