個案總覽

After discovering that their cancer diagnostic tool, designed to leverage the cloud computing power of IBM Watson, needed greater integration into the clinical processes at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, the development team had difficult choices to make. The Oncology Expert Advisor tool used a combination of machine learning and the latest cancer care research to make recommendations to clinicians in the field. Was automated cancer diagnosis the future of cancer care? The development team, comprised of clinicians and data scientists, reviewed the results of their experiment to augment their implementation plan and better evaluate the efficacy of the analytics tool.

Via (a) captures the early days of the data analytics startup as founders Gounden and Ravanis considered which markets offer the right opportunities for their firm and what kinds of experiments will help them narrow their choice. Supplement Via (b) reveals the experiments they ran, and what they learned. Via (c) explores the strategic choices they face about product and service offerings once they determine which market(s) to target.

Via (a) captures the early days of the data analytics startup as founders Gounden and Ravanis considered which markets offer the right opportunities for their firm and what kinds of experiments will help them narrow their choice. Supplement Via (b) reveals the experiments they ran, and what they learned. Via (c) explores the strategic choices they face about product and service offerings once they determine which market(s) to target.

In late 2020, an instructor at a Canadian university received an email from a concerned student about contract cheating (i.e., a student submitting someone else's work for credit) in her class. As the instructor read the email, many questions without obvious answers came to mind. She wondered what her professional and personal responsibilities were in dealing with the issues raised in the student's email. In particular, she was trying to come to grips with her responsibilities to her students, her colleagues, the program she taught in, and the university and society in general. She also wondered what she could do to make this type of cheating less prevalent and how she could better detect and discourage it. How could she and her colleagues support students to prevent them from seeking help from these types of companies, which promoted cheating under the premise of tutoring? Upon further considering the issues, the instructor wondered about potential risks to herself, her students, and the university that might result from various possible courses of action. She decided that, at the very least, she would talk to her students about contract cheating at the start of her next class, but she was not sure what she would say.

In May 2020, Benjamin Chua, the founder of Spic & Span, a cleaning company with a stated social mission to employ marginalized Singaporeans, was reviewing the company's strategic goals. Since its founding in 2017, the start-up had become an award-winning company, and with the introduction of its new cleaning technology, Speco, in September 2019, new job opportunities had been brought to the table for cleaners and management staff alike. The company's workforce had effectively doubled in size in less than a year. Spic & Span was expanding its services from condominiums and offices to schools, restaurants, hotels, transportations, hospitals, and homes. While the new technology had opened up new job opportunities for marginalized Singaporeans, it had also increased the level of job complexity. As a consequence, the turnover rate of newly employed staff had increased. Why were the cleaners not motivated by the new job opportunities? How could Chua motivate cleaners to stay with the company?

In December 2018, Dilip Shanghvi, the CEO and majority shareholder of Sun Pharma, scheduled an urgent investor call to address the questions raised about the level of corporate governance at Sun Pharma. A whistleblower complaint and an analyst report was being circulated in the market that highlighted concerns about the undisclosed related party transactions with promoter owned companies, unexplained loans with third parties, and subsidiaries being audited by firms related to a promoter, among other similar concerns. The stock markets responded negatively to the clarifications provided by Dilip Shanghvi, forcing Sun Pharma to reverse some of the transactions undertaken and constitute a corporate governance and ethics committee to restore investor confidence. The case provides extensive detail about the two primary governance issues raised viz., an insufficiently disclosed loan transaction with an unnamed third party and a related party transaction with a promoter owned entity, and tracks a few interesting reactions from market participants about the expectations of good governance from an industry leader. To provide a background to this discussion, the case also tracks the development of Sun Pharma from its inception in the 1980s to becoming the fifth largest generic pharmaceutical company in the world.

This case brings to life how an organization, Art of Living, developed around one man's lofty aspiration and then multiplied into a movement across geographies. It provides a tangible appreciation of an otherwise amorphous notion of "Purpose", by demonstrating how Art of Living moved beyond conventional levers of growth to creating offerings and galvanizing its members around its evolving purpose (that too in a context of limited resources, since it is predominantly volunteer-run). It further delves into the organizational culture Art of Living created that supported its continued growth. Set in 2020, during the global Coronavirus pandemic, it also invites the students to engage in a provocative discussion about Art of Living's future as it embraces social media and other online channels to help people deal with the crisis through its various on-line initiatives. The case opens with a glimpse of how the founder reaches out to the world in a new way, during the Coronavirus crisis of 2020. It rewinds to its origins in 1981, with the founder's aspiration of 'Bringing a Smile on Every Face', and traces the first phase of growth of Art of Living, as it built a second line that replicated the success of the founder's offering and grew the organization's reach over the 1980s and 90s, so much so that its 25th anniversary celebration demonstrably displayed its "global" reach. The next section (over 2006-2016), illustrates how Art of Living grew in scale and scope, by broadening its purview to include a series of programs and social projects that addressed different sections of society and their various needs. As it grew, it put in place an organization that 'enabled' rather than 'restricted' its entrepreneurial culture. The subsequent section (2017 to 2019), presents an interesting evolution of its core-from meditation to mediation-that the founder adopted to further widen Art of Living's purview to include a world without violence; while the last section (2020), presents

In the fall of 1956, under the shadow of the Soviet Union, Hungarian students revolted against the Communist Party in Budapest. But their calls for reform and a moderate government were silenced by Soviet troops. America's broadcaster to Hungary, Radio Free Europe (RFE), was wrapped up in the Hungarian Revolution due to its role as one key voice of the American government. Some blamed the radio station for an overly assertive tone, encouraging protesters, and even incitement. Others argued that the station was a mild factor, in addition to many others, and that revolution had been brewing for years. Looking back, a debate emerges: What was the role of American broadcasting in fueling public optimism for change, and even revolution, in 1956 Budapest?

With frequent water main breaks, leaking pipes, and lead contamination, the water infrastructure of many countries is in bad shape, and improvements are urgent in light of climate change and increasing water stress. Discussion in recent years has focused on the role of private companies in a sector that has traditionally been in public hands. Since the privatization of the United Kingdom's water infrastructure in the late 1980s, a whole range of novel modes of cooperation have been identified, from 100% private to 100% public ownership. This note focuses on the economics of public-private partnerships (PPPs). PPPs offer a contractual approach to the delivery of infrastructure goods and services that are typically provided by the public sector or by heavily regulated private operators such as public utilities. They tend to involve relatively long-term contracts, in which the public sector shares some decision-making authority and property rights with private companies. This overlap of ownership and decision-making powers between the public authorities and private operators is both the appeal and the challenge of water PPPs.

An examination of the strategic marketing challenges facing Thinx as it tries to grow in the face of menstruation taboos and competition from large incumbents.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 621064.

In 2011, Michael Ku became Pfizer's Vice President of Global Clinical Supply (GCS) after the company had undergone three large-scale mergers and acquisitions. As Ku and his new leadership team set out to build a proactive, end-to-end, digital and physical clinical supply chain, they put in place a "Patients First" culture, developed their digital capabilities, and built out their global footprint. By 2019, GCS had made significant progress toward becoming the agile, innovative organization necessary to support Pfizer's new ambition to focus exclusively on developing innovative medicines and vaccines. Ku and his leadership team felt the time had come to implement a new cross-functional decision-making hub. They also decided to pilot a 24-hour, 5 day a week workforce model with a team of clinical pharmacists in Manila. Just as they were beginning to onboard their first hires, COVID-19 struck. GCS found itself on the front lines, having to supply Pfizer's vaccine candidate and investigational antiviral studies, while also ensuring continuity of clinical supply to hundreds of other trials across the globe. By July 2020, the five-person Manila team-all of which had been on-boarded virtually-had come to play a critical role in GCS's productivity. With Phase 3 of the vaccine candidate trial looming, Ku and his leadership team had decided to double the size of the Manila team by the end of 2020. The question was, who would lead the team?

Komatsu, Japan's leading construction equipment manufacturer, is considering investing in a digital platform "Smart Construction" that will digitise the entire work process on a construction site, allowing for substantial reductions in cost and time while improving safety. The platform will combine data from drones, automated construction equipment, subcontractors, etc., on a single integrated online website. However, there are many impediments, both internal and external, to the adoption of "Smart Construction" and takeup of the initiative has been slower than hoped even in Japan. The case describes the origins and development of "Smart Construction" within Komatsu as well as the advantages to its usage, and a description of the construction industry in Japan and the possible causes of its slow adoption.

Located in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, RLS Logistics offered temperature-controlled logistics solutions. On a Tuesday morning in October 2019, RLS Logistics' business development manager learned that a large baked goods manufacturer was seeking a logistics provider who could lower the bakery's transport costs and alleviate problems with delivery delays. The delays, in particular, were blocking the bakery's attempts to improve its relationship and scale up operations with big-box retailers such as Walmart Inc.. RLS Logistics' business manager secured a meeting with the bakery for the following Monday. In the meantime, he and his team needed to analyze delivery data from the bakery and prepare a delivery model that would showcase RLS Logistics' value and appeal to the bakery.

XCMG was a leading construction machinery manufacturer in China, competing in a highly competitive international market. This case describes XCMG's chairperson Wang Min's role in the company over several stages of development. In the late 1990's, he eliminated corruption among XCMG's management personnel, pushed for the consolidation of dozens of unprofitable affiliates, and led the group through a period of turmoil into high growth. In the early 2000's, he actively sought a capital injection to power XCMG's next stage of growth. In a period of market downturn after 2011, his determination to stay in the construction machinery business reassured employees at XCMG and boosted their morale. In the following years, he steered the company towards two new strategic goals-internationalization and digitalization. This case provides students with an example of a long-serving leader who has exerted significant personal influence over his organization, and has played different roles in the highs and lows of the company. It is suitable for a discussion of how a leader's vision and values can impact the strategic goals of the company and its corporate values. The open-ended topic of this case is-What should a company do to pass on its corporate culture and spirit to the next generation of leaders, especially when the company is developing rapidly or experiencing dramatic changes in its business environment?

The Irish company Kerry Group, one of the leading global players in the taste and nutrition industry, wants to ensure its future growth in developing and developed markets. Founded in 1972 as a dairy cooperative, it had grown into a provider of taste and nutrition solutions through many acquisitions, but also through organic growth. In 2020, Kerry rolled out its new sustainability strategy, "Beyond the Horizon", with the goal of reaching 2 billion people a day with sustainable nutrition solutions by 2030. In order to reach that goal, Kerry had identified channels where it could grow and that were compatible with environmental sustainability, namely food waste reduction, plant-based protein, and proactive health products. Kerry's customer base was changing as well, with many FMCG companies losing market share to new, innovative market entrants in the food and nutrition space. Kerry was looking for ways to attract those new customers, while helping its existing customers shift to more sustainable solutions as well. Kerry had already adapted its recruitment strategy to meet its changing needs, but it still had to simplify its organization to better integrate new acquisitions and talent. Would this be enough to reach the 2030 goal of 2 billion people reached daily?