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In early 2017, 15 years after being launched, DMart was India's second-largest and most profitable food and grocery retailer. To achieve its stellar growth, the company had followed a no-frills, limited assortment model and had restricted itself to limited geographies within the country. The company was listed in the capital market and attracted very favourable views from investors. As a listed company, DMart might be expected by shareholders to expand to new locations and develop an online presence. Would DMart be able to meet the challenges of exploring new geographies and new formats? What strategies would it need to adopt to remain competitive?

As part of a biennial supplier review, Jennifer Schramm, a purchasing manager in the cocoa and chocolate division at Cardinal Foods, had been considering several different cocoa cooperatives. She wanted to (1) source high-quality cocoa in the proper particle sizes, (2) source cocoa from environmentally and socially conscious producers, (3) keep the cost of cocoa sourcing as low as possible, and (4) not increase any reputational risks to the company. Information and data from three cooperatives is given to assist in making a recommendation. From an operations perspective, the purpose of the case is to teach the dual concepts of capability and natural variability. The case can be used as a lead-in to the concept of statistical process control. From an ethical sourcing perspective, the case addresses the complexities involved in making a principled decision in a global supply chain.

Student spreadsheet for case UV8036.

By the 1930s, AT&T dominated the American phone industry, serving 10 million telephones and employing over 100,000 switchboard operators. But beginning in the mid-1910s, the company began changing from manually-operated switchboards to mechanical switching systems that were faster and more cost-effective and did not require human operators. By the 1930s, the changeover has been completed or is underway in most American cities with over 50,000 people. The rollout of the new technology is garnering a good deal of public attention, not just for the unfamiliar new "dialing" process that customers are required to learn, but also because of the mass layoffs of the women who served as operators. The job cuts have even resulted in reports from the Department of Labor and Congressional hearings. As the rollouts continue across the country, AT&T questions how to handle the layoffs and the reaction to the new system.

Partners in Health, a global NGO focused on delivering health care to residents of rural underserved communities, conducts a project on the cost of primary care at five sites in the Central Highlands of Haiti. It devises a simple approach for tracking the resources used by patients being treated for diverse medical conditions, as an input to a time-driven activity-based costing model. The results show considerable cost diversity across the five sites, but organizational leaders differ on the interpretation and action implications of the findings.

Exploring Blue Harbour Group's investment in Babcock & Wilcox and its transformation into BWX Technologies.

Follow-up case detailing the changes at BWX Technologies after hedge fund Blue Harbour Group's investment.

London-based activist hedge fund PrimeStone Capital identifies a potential investment in Swiss security company Kaba. PrimeStone believes that the company is undervalued because it has been pushing back various financial targets, and thinks it can help by proposing a new, incentivized executive compensation plan. The company's performance improves, and PrimeStone needs to decide whether its presence can continue to add value or if it should exit the investment.

Great strategists rely heavily on numbers as they go about their work. This note offers an overview of the highbrow and lowbrow quantitative tools that individuals commonly encounter during strategy courses and in actual strategy work. The note focuses especially on simple calculations that often produce important insights.

In April 2017, Victoria Sopik and Jennifer Nashmi, CEO and CFO (respectively) of Kids & Company, a Canadian childcare provider that they had co-founded in the early 2000s and developed into a nearly 100-unit enterprise, are discussing how the company should proceed with its planned U.S. expansion. Kids & Company already has five U.S. childcare centers in and around Chicago, Illinois, and one under construction in Boston, Massachusetts, but before going any further, the two leaders plan to discuss what they have learned so far from their U.S. experience, and how that should inform their strategic growth decisions moving forward. Unlike Canada, the U.S. already has other large, for-profit childcare providers, so Kids & Co. will have to grow in a more mature market, albeit one where Kids & Company's leaders still see substantial opportunity. Company leaders also believe that the company's "boutique" childcare centers, which maintain a strict focus on customer service and flexible childcare options, would be well-received by U.S. consumers, and help it stand out from the existing, more-standardized options. The question now is how, and how fast, to grow. Should it just replicate the exact model it has developed in Canada-which has proven somewhat challenging thus far in the few years it has operated in the U.S.-or adjust elements of its model? Should it look to acquire established providers, or possibly even franchise the brand?

It was September 2009 when 21-year-old entrepreneur Lu Chengdui first considered entering the partnership that led to his becoming the chairman and general manager of Wenzhou Cijueshi Science and Technology Co. Ltd. (Cijueshi) in Zhejiang Province, China. Lu started his entrepreneurial efforts when he was in college; he became a serial entrepreneur and achieved great performance. His story drew the attention of both the media and the public. Lu was known for his perseverance and his courage in overcoming difficulties and pursuing his dreams for success. He was a role model for college students who wanted to be entrepreneurs. As he considered a possible involvement in Cijueshi, a company that specialized in developing, selling, and repairing pottery and porcelain, Lu wondered about entering a business in a field where he had no practical experience. What had made him so confident in his previous entrepreneurial success? How had he motivated himself to realize his entrepreneurial targets? He looked back at his entrepreneurial experiences to date to find answers to these questions and motivation for this new endeavour.

The National Football League (NFL) was both the most popular spectator sport in the U.S. and a major economic entity, taking in roughly $10 billion a year in revenue. However through the early twenty-first century, an increased understanding of the long-term effects of head injuries on NFL players indicated a serious threat to the long-term viability of the game. Particularly concerning was the indication that some deceased professional football players had developed chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)-a neurodegenerative disease which had a strong influence on a person's mental and physical health-most likely as a result of repetitive hits sustained during their football careers and which may have contributed to their deaths. Over 4,000 retired players had jointly sued the NFL over the head injuries they had sustained during their time in the NFL and the resulting health problems they attributed to these injuries. In part, the lawsuit alleged that the NFL had not been forthcoming with players about the health risks of head injuries. The two sides had reached a tentative $765 million settlement in 2013, the bulk of which would go to compensating retired players suffering from such diseases as Alzheimer's or dementia. While this settlement compensated retired players, it was not applicable to current or future players. Could the NFL preserve the sport by making it safer through new rules or equipment changes, or was football an inherently physical game that no amount of new rules or equipment could make completely safe? Were current and future players, now knowing full well the potential long-term health implications of football, tacitly accepting the risks involved? As a team owner, is now the time to sell while franchise value and fan support are at their peaks, or will the business of the NFL be viable for years to come?

This case, set in 1990, describes the history of Walmart and asks what competitive strategies Kmart might adopt in response to Walmart's success. It discusses the strategy and organization of both companies in terms of HR practices, store location, distribution, information technology, procurement, pricing, and company culture. This (A) case is the first in a multi-part series that goes on to describe the results of Kmart's competition with Walmart, as well as Walmart's later grappling with ecommerce and Amazon.

John Rogers Jr., the founder and CEO of Ariel Investments, an enormously successful finance firm with $12 billion of invested capital, is one of the few African Americans in the asset management industry. As one of the high profile leaders in the black business community, John has decided to encourage Fortune 500 companies and major foundations to increase the volume of business that they do with black and other minority-owned companies. His encouragement comes in the form of public criticism of these organizations. He challenges them to stop paying "lip service" to inclusion, diversity, and fair business opportunity and sincerely commit to these ideals through action and results. A member of John's Board of Directors has advised him to cease his leadership of this effort because it could be detrimental to Ariel Investments. Is the board member right? Is John being reckless? Is there a model that can be created to determine if and when John and other leaders should publicly express their opinions?

As administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2013-2017), Gina McCarthy faced a daunting challenge: to write a technically airtight and legally defensible regulation, the Clean Power Plan, to reduce carbon pollution from existing power plants. The task required deep understanding of current trends in the electric power sector and how regional markets operate to ensure that EPA actions to curb carbon pollution would not threaten energy reliability or affordability. The initiative, officially launched in 2013, was key to U.S. action and leadership on climate change during the Obama administration's second term. McCarthy could count on industry and other players to resist proposed changes. Extensive and thoughtful stakeholder outreach and communication were hallmarks of EPA's approach under McCarthy. The strategies used provide a prominent example for leaders mandated to craft complex regulations in a contentious environment.

A deep sense of foreboding filled Dr. Jim O'Connell and his team at Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP) in October 2014. The Boston mayor's office had just announced the closure of the 64-year-old bridge that provided the only passage to the island in Boston Harbor housing the city's largest homeless shelter. It did not have a long-term contingency shelter plan in place and the city's other shelters were full. With winter fast approaching, O'Connell, who at the time had been providing health care to Boston's homeless population for over a quarter century, feared some of the city's dispossessed would die on the streets from cold. BHCHP would be hard pressed to provide them the medical care they needed. To implement his solution-reopening the Boston Night Center-O'Connell had to overcome the disinterest of BHCHP's traditional allies in the homeless service provider community, who for a number of years had been channeling their energies away from sheltering toward permanent housing solutions. The Boston Night Center's reopening helped achieve an unprecedented feat for the City of Boston: Not a single homeless person died from the elements that winter, the harshest in the city's recorded history. How did O'Connell work with stakeholders to accomplish his goal? What could he do to maintain support for the Boston Night Center and the reestablishment of homeless services on the island?

Dr. Jonathan Woodson faced more formidable challenges than most in his storied medical, public health, and military career, starting with multiple rotations in combat zones around the world. He subsequently took on ever more complicated assignments, including reforming the country's bloated Military Health System (MHS) in his role as assistant secretary of defense for health affairs at the U.S. Department of Defense from 2010 to 2016. As the director of Boston University's Institute for Health System Innovation and Policy starting in 2016, he devised a National Digital Health Strategy (NDHS) to harness the myriad disparate health care innovations taking place around the country, with the goal of making the U.S. health care system more efficient, patient-centered, safe, and equitable for all Americans. How did Woodson-who was also a major general in the U.S. Army Reserves and a skilled vascular surgeon-approach such complicated problems? In-depth research and analysis, careful stakeholder review, strategic coalition building, and clear, insightful communication were some of the critical leadership skills Woodson employed to achieve his missions.

Michael Cox, a third generation producer of eggs based in the small town of Summers, Arkansas, converted production in 2007 from conventional caged white eggs to specialty eggs bearing the marketing attributes of organic, cage-free, free-range, and pasture-raised. Although he did this to secure contracts with better margins, in 2016 there was a glut of conventional white eggs on the market and that was depressing prices. Because of this, consumers were switching from expensive specialty eggs to the cheap white eggs. Now a key contract that Cox had with CCF Brands for the output of 150,000 hens laying certified USDA organic cage-free eggs was expiring. Faced with selling the eggs at a loss on the open market, Cox must decide what to do. In this case students can study a number of basic and advanced managerial accounting concepts, including relevant and irrelevant costs for short-term decision making, break-even analyses, sell or process further, and when to drop a product. Students will build a table for marginal revenue and marginal cost for egg production. This analysis is more advanced because the hens do not generate revenue evenly of the production cycle while the variable costs are relatively even. This case is well suited for an undergraduate or graduate course in managerial accounting covering short-term decision-making. Although receiving light treatment in the instructor's manual, the case could also be used to study longer term business strategy.