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In February 2018, the founder of Toronto-based Mixtape Social was wondering how to grow his business. He had spent the past two years bootstrapping the two-pronged business, which offered services to help professional athletes build their personal brands and creative advertising and social media campaigns for corporations and other entities. With a roster of professional athletes, including Mitch Marner, one of the top players for the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, the business had succeeded. Having gained momentum in the last year, the founder thought about how he should map out the next two years: Where should he focus? What services should he offer? How should he position his value proposition?

The director of operations at Canadian Pharmaceutical Distribution Network (CPDN), located in Mississauga, Ontario, had been asked by the company's president to develop recommendations that would address the growing problem of drug shortages. Managing shortages was taking up a significant amount time, which in turn negatively affected CPDN's customer service levels and drove up its distribution costs. There were also broader implications for patient care and total costs to the Canadian health care system. It was Friday, January 18, 2019, and the president was expecting to present the director of operations' recommendations to the board of directors the following month.

In March 2018, an analyst at an investment management firm in Toronto, Ontario, had to decide whether or not to recommend that his firm establish a position in shares of Restaurant Brands International Inc. (RBI). Formed after the merger of Burger King and Tim Hortons Inc., RBI was led by the private equity firm 3G Capital. RBI was a powerhouse-the third-largest, quick-service restaurant chain in the world. Although RBI was performing well and seemed to present an attractive investment opportunity, the company was facing issues from disgruntled franchisees, who were dissatisfied with the cost-cutting measures implemented at Tim Hortons Inc. as part of 3G Capital's acquisition. This led to class action lawsuits from franchisees as well as a business slow-down, as measured by same-store sales figures. With not much time left, the analyst had to determine and present a decision to the rest of his team on whether or not to invest in RBI.

In 2016, Toronto entrepreneur Andy Hoang was working to launch a new business, Aviron Interactive Inc., a developer and marketer of interactive rowing machines that would use gamification to allow users to work out with others through a virtual connection and an innovative, remotely-activated resistance adjustor. Hoang wanted to create the new business by wrapping an outsourced services model around a central core that included the key business insight, key differentiating product and technology features, and the leadership of a founding team. The other elements required of a startup-engineering, product design, product development, software coding, testing, quality assurance, marketing, sales, and so on-would be outsourced to various niche suppliers, and the central core would oversee the governance of the supplier portfolio. Hoang knew the company would be competing with similar video-based rowing machines as well as indoor rowing apps. He had a limited budget and wanted to design, develop, and launch the product quickly, to stay ahead of his competition. Would a traditional business model or a lean, agile model be best for this project?

Waste Management Inc. (WM), a company listed on stocks-to-watch in 2018 in North America - is a top provider for integrated environmental solutions. The waste management industry overall is transforming as more and newer waste treatment methods are deemed necessary to deal with growing populations and growing amounts of trash. The CEO at Waste Management Inc. (WM) is considering how to make the best use of the changing industry landscape. What direction should he take going forward to create shared value with societal constituents such as government agencies, communities and non-profit organizations? What investment should be made in technology, assets, and human resources? This case is useful for teaching strategic perspectives (e.g. external environmental variables) of the waste management industry or the company, WM. It includes an evaluation of WM's social, economic, and environmental impact on society. The discussion focuses around the exploration of environmental sustainability and green energy companies as prime models of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

This case details how semiconductor company PMC-Sierra implemented different corporate entrepreneurship strategies to take advantage of two major industry disruptions: 1) the transition from hard disk drives to solid state drives; and 2) the rise of cloud computing. The core business of PMC-Sierra's enterprise storage business was developing products called controllers that interfaced directly with hard disk drives. The company sold these controllers to the world's largest storage equipment manufacturers, including HP, Dell, and IBM. The case focuses on the years 2010-2012, during which the company strove to develop a new type of controller optimized for solid state drives-while maintaining the strength of its existing core hard disk drive business. With the rise of cloud computing, PMC-Sierra added a major new customer base: giant cloud service providers like Amazon, Google, and Facebook. As these cloud service providers grew in strength, they upended the industry supply chain, negatively impacting PMC-Sierra's traditional core customers such as Dell and HP. The big challenge, and opportunity, for PMC-Sierra was to retain its current large customers while capturing new growth opportunities. The case ends in 2012 at a decision point for PMC-Sierra. Should the company continue building solid state drive products internally, given that it was emerging from two major setbacks-or look for an acquisition possibility, which would be very expensive? Either way, the company had to decide how to organize its next development effort, drawing from corporate entrepreneurship lessons it had learned in the previous few years. Additionally, the company had to decide whether to develop a newer, but riskier, technology on the horizon. Could PMC-Sierra launch and maintain development of two new technologies, or would it have to choose one or the other?

The (B) case starts with PMC-Sierra's decision to acquire for $100 million a solid state drive controller business, which included a prototype and a team of 50 people. The company also acquired intellectual property required to build PCIe switches-a related product family that was newer and cutting edge, but riskier to develop. After the acquisition, PMC-Sierra created a new, isolated business, the Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group (NSG), and protected NSG's resources. To encourage rapid decision making, PMC-Sierra rolled marketing, R&D, and technical support under NSG's leader. NSG was indeed able to move quickly to produce a new product. At the same time, carving out this dedicated business meant that PMC-Sierra lost some efficiencies in the company as a whole. The acquisition and formation of NSG also put some burden on other parts of PMC-Sierra, as NSG required dedicated attention and resources during its start-up phase. A few months after the acquisition, PMC-Sierra leadership shut down the existing internal group working on the solid state drive controller, because the company had two teams and two sets of products. This proved to be one of the company's biggest tradeoffs-and an unpopular decision. Along with that decision, the company opted to develop the newer, riskier product that it had acquired the intellectual property for, PCIe switches.

In August 2017, MoviePass dramatically lowered its subscription price from $50 per month to just $10 for up to one movie per day. The idea was to rapidly scale the business to the point where it could generate incremental revenue streams from related businesses (e.g., a share of ticket and concession revenues from theaters, advertising revenue from movie studios; and revenue from ride-sharing companies). Within two days, Moviepass had gotten 150k new subscribers; within six months, it had more than 2 million. But as of February 2018, the company faced three challenges: theaters were resisting the concept, investors were shorting the stock in record numbers as losses mounted, and competitors were beginning to appear. Could CEO Lowe convince investors that the company was viable and it could, indeed, monetize the growing subscriber base? At the same time, Lowe had to decide whether to raise subscription prices to cover the growing losses or keep prices low to grow the subscriber base as quickly as possible.

After long dominating Mexican microfinance, Compartamos Banco faces the emergence of fintech, just as for the first time its loan portfolio and clients have declined. Enrique Majós, CEO of GENTERA, the bank´s parent company, is keenly aware of the profound changes since the Compartamos IPO in April 2007, when it was valued at $1.5 billion and became the first bank wholly dedicated to microfinance to be quoted in a major stock exchange. Since then, the market has become intensely competitive, with both large established institutions and new entrants vying for the same customers. Simultaneously, the digital era has spawned fintech, threatening to disrupt Compartamos' highly successful model but also providing opportunities for the bank to reshape it. While challenged to manage key innovation within a leading incumbent, Majós must consider whether to commit his team to a major cost reduction in the next few years to his board of directors at their next meeting at the end of the month.

On January 6, 2019, HelloSelf, a London-based "BrainTech" company, founded a year earlier by Charles Wells, soft launched. The proposition was simply to help its members "Be your Best Self." The company provided its registered members with access to a clinical psychotherapist, a life coach, and an AI engine that personalized advice. The platform provided members with the ability to set goals, track progress, and discover new things about themselves. Throughout the previous nine months, over 500 people had registered interest in the proposition, price points had been tested, competitors analyzed, members and specialists interviewed, and wireframes developed, but there were several questions still crossing Wells' mind. Did the subscription LifeCoach bot model combined with pay-as-you-go therapist sessions make sense? How could he attract an early cohort of users? How would HelloSelf interact with the broken mental health solutions in the UK? How quickly would the platform scale and learn to provide meaningful AI support for both therapists and the LifeCoach bot? And most importantly, would the platform deliver on the mission "to help everyone discover, understand and experience their Best Self"?

This note provides a perspective and some tools to predict and shape interactions with other players when making strategic decisions. As a strategist, you must consider that your firm's actions evoke reactions from other players in the market and that, reciprocally, you may need to respond to their actions. The note on Strategic Interactions introduces students to the fourth module of the RC Strategy course. We look at strategic interactions in three contexts: between players along the supply chain, between symmetrically placed rivals, and between asymmetrically placed rivals. Common themes run through the three circumstances, but there are important distinctions as well.

Tucker Company Worldwide Inc. (TCW), located in Haddonfield, New Jersey, specialized in providing supply chain logistics solutions to companies in the energy, pharmaceuticals, and food sectors; and to government organizations. On Friday, June 1, 2018, TCW's president and chief operating officer received a bidding solicitation from a refinery in Reading, Pennsylvania. He tasked his most responsible carrier sales manager with responding to the bid. Both men knew that winning this bid was important for the company and would be a valuable gain. However, the bid needed to be submitted by the end of the day, and the sales manager was challenged with how to effectively showcase TCW's value, address all practical transport options, and remain consistent with the company's core practices.

BloombergQuint (BQ) was started as a collaboration between Quintillion Media (QM) and Bloomberg in April 2016. In the competitive landscape of business news broadcasters in India, it started by providing stock updates, financial sector news and opinion articles on financial issues on its website. BQ later expended by providing video content in September 2017. It had applied for a television broadcasting license and awaited approval from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. The lack of a suitable television channel obligated BQ to use alternate distribution channels for ensuring that its content reached a wider audience. One of the alternate channels used by Ankit Dikshit, Manager, Digital Marketing, at BQ, was WhatsApp, a mobile messaging app widely used in India. This case explains the process whereby BQ grew its user base through WhatsApp. Growth by WhatsApp has led to Anil Uniyal, the CEO of BQ, setting ambitious targets for Dikshit. Class participants have to guide Dikshit on the way forward for BQ.

CareerWise Colorado (CWC) is an organization that equips high school students with the skills to build successful careers through apprenticeships. Founded in 2016, the young organization has attracted interest from different groups and civic leaders from across the U.S., some of whom want to replicate CWC's model, and others who want CWC to bring and then operate its program in their localities. Noel Ginsburg, CWC's founder and CEO, and Ashley Carter, COO, now have to decide how, when, and where to grow CWC. They both believe in CWC's apprenticeship model's widespread applicability, but so far it is still a relatively small-with just over 200 active apprentices spread across two cohorts; all of whom live in Colorado-and unproven entity. As of late 2018, no apprentices had yet completed the three year program. They did not want to scale the program too soon, but Ginsburg and Carter also did not want to miss out on the attractive opportunities being presented to them. How should they scale this organization?

This case should accompany the (A) and (C) cases, "Gender and Free Speech at Google" (318085) and (319097).

This case reveals Google's response to a list of employee demands aiming to combat sexual misconduct in the workplace. This case should accompany the (A) and (B) cases, "Gender and Free Speech at Google" (318085) and (319085).

By mid-2016, five years of aggressive growth had transformed Fetchr from a small logistics startup to a 1,000-employee, full-fledged last-mile delivery company operating across four countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Already beneficiaries of the largest Series A round to the Middle East from an American firm, CEO Idriss Al Rifai and the Fetchr team had ambitions of raising another $40 million in Series B and deliberated continuing international expansion. But first, Al Rifai and his team needed to address the operational efficiency and profitability issues that led their investors to threaten the discontinuation of funding, and put the company's future at stake. The case provides background information on the logistics sphere in the Middle East and the challenges companies face in the region. The case then takes the reader through Al Rifai's journey of founding and growing Fetchr, backed with innovations like their patented GPS-based delivery technology. Finally, the case zooms in on Fetchr's management team as they race against time to perform evaluations of their operational efficiency, weigh cost-cutting options, and explore strategies to improve profitability.