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The "LEGO IN THE AGE OF DIGITIZATION" case is in two parts. Part A provides an opportunity to follow the developments of the LEGO Group in the digital gaming arena. It focuses on the "failure" of LEGO Universe, the LEGO Group's first Massive Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG), versus the success of Minecraft, launched by the start-up Mojang. The LEGO Group followed the traditional waterfall process of sequential phases: design, development, testing and commercialization. The company experienced the issues of partnering with a development studio located in Colorado, far away from the Lego Group's HQ. That caused problems in aligning on the image, branding and safety of the game versus the LEGO Group's values and selling proposition. After years of development, LEGO Universe was finally launched in 2010, but failed to meet the Group's ambition for it to become a second core business. By the end of 2011, a decision had to be made on whether to continue LEGO Universe or to close it. In contrast, Minecraft followed a very different development pattern that could be described as agile, where early users did testing and provided ideas for further development. In addition, the start-up followed a more usual digital pricing scheme of initial low price and add-on purchases. The success of Minecraft is even more in contrast to LEGO Universe because both development projects started around the same time, building on a very similar gaming concept and user experience, but with very different means and development approaches. Part B is an epilogue to Part A. It describes the LEGO Group's decision to close the LEGO Universe game, its learnings on how to embark on digital together with partners, the need to internally develop a unit to manage these partnerships and the conclusion to adopt a "hybrid" approach between waterfall and agile development.

Supplement to case IMD976 The "LEGO IN THE AGE OF DIGITIZATION" case is in two parts. Part A provides an opportunity to follow the developments of the LEGO Group in the digital gaming arena. It focuses on the "failure" of LEGO Universe, the LEGO Group's first Massive Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG), versus the success of Minecraft, launched by the start-up Mojang. The LEGO Group followed the traditional waterfall process of sequential phases: design, development, testing and commercialization. The company experienced the issues of partnering with a development studio located in Colorado, far away from the Lego Group's HQ. That caused problems in aligning on the image, branding and safety of the game versus the LEGO Group's values and selling proposition. After years of development, LEGO Universe was finally launched in 2010, but failed to meet the Group's ambition for it to become a second core business. By the end of 2011, a decision had to be made on whether to continue LEGO Universe or to close it. In contrast, Minecraft followed a very different development pattern that could be described as agile, where early users did testing and provided ideas for further development. In addition, the start-up followed a more usual digital pricing scheme of initial low price and add-on purchases. The success of Minecraft is even more in contrast to LEGO Universe because both development projects started around the same time, building on a very similar gaming concept and user experience, but with very different means and development approaches. Part B is an epilogue to Part A. It describes the LEGO Group's decision to close the LEGO Universe game, its learnings on how to embark on digital together with partners, the need to internally develop a unit to manage these partnerships and the conclusion to adopt a "hybrid" approach between waterfall and agile development.

In summer of 2010, Murat Çavuşoğlu (HBS MBA 1994) led private equity firm Actera Group's investment in Mars Cinema Group (Mars), the leading movie exhibitor in Turkey. Immediately after acquiring Mars and merging it with the second larger player in the market, AFM, Çavuşoğlu focused on institutionalizing and implementing value creation work streams in Mars. While transforming an entrepreneurial company into an institutionalized firm, Çavuşoğlu established adjacent businesses such as movie advertising and ticket sales. The most recent step in transforming Mars was to establish a movie distribution arm, which would help the company to monitor and manage the seasonal cycles, enhance the appeal for investors in the exit, and improve the valuation. However, while Çavuşoğlu was laying out the plans for his next move with movie distribution in 2014, Turkey's Council of State, the highest administrative court in the country, had decided to cancel the approval for the merger of Mars and AFM, putting all of Actera's efforts on Mars at risk. Should Çavuşoğlu push the stop button for distribution? If Çavuşoğlu decided to move forward with distribution, should he do it now or wait until the process with Turkey's judiciary and regulatory authorities cleared out?

In summer of 2010, Murat Çavuşoğlu (HBS MBA 1994) led private equity firm Actera Group's investment in Mars Cinema Group (Mars), the leading movie exhibitor in Turkey. Immediately after acquiring Mars and merging it with the second larger player in the market, AFM, Çavuşoğlu focused on institutionalizing and implementing value creation work streams in Mars. While transforming an entrepreneurial company into an institutionalized firm, Çavuşoğlu established adjacent businesses such as movie advertising and ticket sales. The most recent step in transforming Mars was to establish a movie distribution arm, which would help the company to monitor and manage the seasonal cycles, enhance the appeal for investors in the exit, and improve the valuation. However, while Çavuşoğlu was laying out the plans for his next move with movie distribution in 2014, Turkey's Council of State, the highest administrative court in the country, had decided to cancel the approval for the merger of Mars and AFM, putting all of Actera's efforts on Mars at risk. Should Çavuşoğlu push the stop button for distribution? If Çavuşoğlu decided to move forward with distribution, should he do it now or wait until the process with Turkey's judiciary and regulatory authorities cleared out?

This note describes four broad categories of process architectures and then examines the nature of task assignment that typically would be found in a factory organized along the lines of each process type. It then delves more deeply into work flow policies, materials handling, and line pacing for the assembly line, since this process architecture is so widely used for the mass production of everything from smartphones to automobiles.

This case describes the process BorgWarner Transmission Systems undertook when an increase in demand required that it create new production lines in another country. To minimize inventory costs, the company engaged with a graduate student team from the University of Michigan's Tauber Institute for Global Operations for assistance with creating optimal operating procedures. The student team was tasked with developing a prediction tool to ensure a high probability that BorgWarner friction plate samples would pass pre-production verification testing. The case provides students with an overview of the production and quality assurance processes for friction plate manufacture, as well as data classification models for machine learning. Students then develop a reliable forecasting methodology to systematically evaluate process parameters and maximize test pass rates for friction plates.

Student spreadsheet for case W05C00.

Chai Point is India's largest organized chai retailer. It has missed its target for retail store openings by approximately 25%, goals that are very important to its investors who are also their board members. However, it has developed an exciting new Internet based tea dispenser, that has the potential to dramatically increase Chai Point's market opportunity and growth rate but can be seen as a change in their growth strategy. The founder needs to decide his strategy for his next board meeting. Should he focus on their past performance? Or should he spend time outlining boxC.in's technology and potential, since this will be the first time that the institutional investors will be seeing this new capability?

This is a three-part case. Case A introduces Rahzi Putera, a product manager at Samudera Pharma Corporation (SPC), one of Indonesia's largest manufacturer and distributor of generic pharmaceuticals. SPC had earlier that year entered into an agreement with Braxton Biotech Corporation (Braxton) in India, to distribute Epogex, a drug used for the treatment of anaemia. The regulators at the Ministry of Health gave a conditional registration that Epogex could be sold in the country, but only to the private sector, until SPC conducted a clinical study to monitor the safety and adequacy of the drug. Rahzi was tasked to manage the clinical study. When the Epogex shipment arrived, temperature readings showed that it had been frozen. Epogex's product leaflet very clearly stated that the product should be discarded if frozen. However, when Rahzi recommended throwing away the supply, he faced great resistance from both his colleagues and superiors at SPC, and Braxton. Braxton provided data from a quality assurance study it had conducted in 2012, which concluded that the product remained stable despite the temperature excursions. Rahzi now had to make a decision whether to commercially sell the once-frozen shipment of Epogex, which would not be used in the clinical study. Case B sees Rahzi sending an email to all the key decision makers at SPC, stating his concerns about selling the frozen shipment stock to the public, and strongly recommending that it be destroyed. However, he is once again pressured to approve the frozen batch of Epogex for commercial sale. In Case C, Rahzi speaks to his boss, Alia Iman, again to support him in destroying the stock. Alia agrees and convinces her boss, Bobby Suharto, to do so. Unhappy about how the incident was managed, Rahzi quits SPC shortly thereafter.

Supplement to case SMU312. This is a three-part case. Case A introduces Rahzi Putera, a product manager at Samudera Pharma Corporation (SPC), one of Indonesia's largest manufacturer and distributor of generic pharmaceuticals. SPC had earlier that year entered into an agreement with Braxton Biotech Corporation (Braxton) in India, to distribute Epogex, a drug used for the treatment of anaemia. The regulators at the Ministry of Health gave a conditional registration that Epogex could be sold in the country, but only to the private sector, until SPC conducted a clinical study to monitor the safety and adequacy of the drug. Rahzi was tasked to manage the clinical study. When the Epogex shipment arrived, temperature readings showed that it had been frozen. Epogex's product leaflet very clearly stated that the product should be discarded if frozen. However, when Rahzi recommended throwing away the supply, he faced great resistance from both his colleagues and superiors at SPC, and Braxton. Braxton provided data from a quality assurance study it had conducted in 2012, which concluded that the product remained stable despite the temperature excursions. Rahzi now had to make a decision whether to commercially sell the once-frozen shipment of Epogex, which would not be used in the clinical study. Case B sees Rahzi sending an email to all the key decision makers at SPC, stating his concerns about selling the frozen shipment stock to the public, and strongly recommending that it be destroyed. However, he is once again pressured to approve the frozen batch of Epogex for commercial sale. In Case C, Rahzi speaks to his boss, Alia Iman, again to support him in destroying the stock. Alia agrees and convinces her boss, Bobby Suharto, to do so. Unhappy about how the incident was managed, Rahzi quits SPC shortly thereafter.

Supplement to case SMU312. This is a three-part case. Case A introduces Rahzi Putera, a product manager at Samudera Pharma Corporation (SPC), one of Indonesia's largest manufacturer and distributor of generic pharmaceuticals. SPC had earlier that year entered into an agreement with Braxton Biotech Corporation (Braxton) in India, to distribute Epogex, a drug used for the treatment of anaemia. The regulators at the Ministry of Health gave a conditional registration that Epogex could be sold in the country, but only to the private sector, until SPC conducted a clinical study to monitor the safety and adequacy of the drug. Rahzi was tasked to manage the clinical study. When the Epogex shipment arrived, temperature readings showed that it had been frozen. Epogex's product leaflet very clearly stated that the product should be discarded if frozen. However, when Rahzi recommended throwing away the supply, he faced great resistance from both his colleagues and superiors at SPC, and Braxton. Braxton provided data from a quality assurance study it had conducted in 2012, which concluded that the product remained stable despite the temperature excursions. Rahzi now had to make a decision whether to commercially sell the once-frozen shipment of Epogex, which would not be used in the clinical study. Case B sees Rahzi sending an email to all the key decision makers at SPC, stating his concerns about selling the frozen shipment stock to the public, and strongly recommending that it be destroyed. However, he is once again pressured to approve the frozen batch of Epogex for commercial sale. In Case C, Rahzi speaks to his boss, Alia Iman, again to support him in destroying the stock. Alia agrees and convinces her boss, Bobby Suharto, to do so. Unhappy about how the incident was managed, Rahzi quits SPC shortly thereafter.

An angry customer with a laundry list of complaints has just stormed into a local home staging company. The owner is unavailable, so her assistant must try to salvage the customer's service experience. Using the gaps model of service quality, the assistant (and students) must recognize service quality issues, explore the imbalance between what was promised and delivered, and attempt to manage a disgruntled customer. Complicating matters, the assistant has been given limited authority and must appease the customer without making her boss look unprofessional.

John Christ is an entrepreneur in his early 20's and the owner of Wil's Grill, a small street food business in Flagstaff, AZ, serving customers throughout Northern Arizona. The critical decision he must make is whether to expand in the street food business, add catering to his existing business, or do something else entirely different to make a livelihood. Wil's Grill was founded in January 2014. $129,000 in revenue had been recognized from January 2014 through December 2016. Wil's Grill was highly portable, and targeted two main markets: 1) college students who were tired of chain-based fast food and wanted good, reasonably priced, late night food, and 2) community events, where organizers and customers wanted reasonably priced, "clean", high quality street food. "Clean" food was characterized by locally produced, organic foods and sustainable practices. In January 2017, John had to decide how he was going to grow revenue if Wil's Grill was to provide him with a livelihood. He was determined to make a strategic decision to either expand his focus on the street food business upon which Wil's Grill was founded, add a catering business, or do something else. The Instructor's Manual offers suggestions for leading a class discussion of these alternatives using both a VRIO (Valuable, Rare, Costly to Imitate and Organized to Capture Value) framework and a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis framework to evaluate the current resources, capabilities, core competencies, and distinct competitive advantages for this small business. A Venn diagram is used to illustrate the differences between and transferability of resources and capabilities between the street food and catering segments. The Instructor's Manual provides Net Present Value and Breakeven analyses to quantify future revenue growth opportunities. This case provides an opportunity for identifying and defending the "best" strategic decision for this small business.

It was Saturday, March 29, 2014, and Mary Barra, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of General Motors (GM), was reading a letter of invitation from the families of Chevy Cobalt crash victims to meet with her the following week. The timing could not have been worse. Barra was scheduled to testify before the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, April 1st regarding the recalls of 2005-2007 model year Chevrolet Cobalts. Just the day before, on Friday, March 28th, GM had announced a third Chevy Cobalt recall. In total, 4.8 million vehicles worldwide had been recalled in connection with an ignition switch defect. There had been fatalities. It was Barra's 10th week on the job as GM's CEO. On February 7, 2014, just days before Barra had become CEO, GM had informed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that a problem existed with the 2005-2007 model year Chevy Cobalt. GM stated in its report to the NHTSA that the problem appeared to be centered on the vehicles' ignition switch. The ignition switch's "torque performance" on these vehicles had not met GM's engineering specifications. The switches were easily jostled, and when jostled, the switches would sometimes move out of the "Run" position, causing the vehicle to stall. GM further explained that, depending on the timing of the switch moving out of the "Run" position, the airbags would not deploy. A vehicle stall, combined with the vehicle's airbags not deploying, had been a lethal combination. Following the first Cobalt recall in January 2014 and the NHTSA report in February, events had escalated rapidly. Lawyers across the U.S. had organized a class action lawsuit against GM. The U.S. Justice Department and the NHTSA had launched investigations. The media response had been hostile.

Captain William Waverly was a member of the US Army's forces in Afghanistan, and was stationed in a post in western Kabul, beginning in late 2011. He was the commander of this post, one of the several bases in that city. US soldiers guarded the power plant located at this post. Waverly and his team also launched the security and stability operations from this location. For this latter function, the US Army always conducted security and stability operations jointly with the Afghan municipal police forces. To conduct these operations, the US government had supplied fuel to the Afghan forces to operate their armored vehicles for city patrols. However, to begin to ensure that the Afghan government was now developing and perfecting its own fuel acquisition, storage, protection, and distribution processes, the two-star US Army general in this region in Afghanistan ordered, in early 2012, all US units to stop providing fuel to the Afghan forces. The objective of this order was to make the Afghan government self-reliant on its own fuel procurement and protection processes. A few days after the order to stop providing fuel to Afghan forces, Afghan police armored trucks pulled into the post for a patrol and expected gas. A tense situation quickly developed. The head of the Afghan forces, Ghotai Sharma, upon learning from one of Waverly's sergeants that he was not getting gasoline that day, became upset. Sharma drew his pistol, started gesticulating and raised his voice. Sharma's troops swung their gun turrets from their armored vehicles toward the US soldiers and Waverly heard the familiar metallic click associated with Sharma's troops chambering an ammunition round in an AK-47 weapon. At the same time, he heard in his earpiece the chattering from his own US troops as they coordinated who was covering what target among the Afghan police should a firefight break out.

In the fall of 2015, Turing Pharmaceuticals increased the price of its recently acquired drug, Daraprim, by several thousand percent. While the short-term effect on profits would be substantial, the long-term effects were less clear. The CEO, Martin Shkreli, was constantly in the media flaunting his pricing strategy as a way to maximize Turing's profits. The subsequent attention from media and government officials was forcing the CEO to defend his positions. After announcing to the media on September 23, 2015, that the price of Daraprim would be lowered, Martin Shkreli needed to decide if he would follow through on lowering the price of Daraprim.

In January 2010, the head of the Colombian Red Cross approached Oilcorp, owner of the largest regional chain of service stations in the country, requesting its participation in its 100th anniversary celebration with a brand awareness campaign for its social programs. Given that the annual budget had already been approved without this campaign in mind, Oilcorp's CEO assigned the task of raising money to the marketing department. Nevertheless, the campaign backfired when Oilcorp tried to link the social message with selling more gasoline and asking customers to provide their details through its corporate website, to be added to Oilcorp's database. Carlos Cardona-a member of the marketing team at Oilcorp-was worried about the mixed reactions he was receiving. The team merely wanted to be practical, and this seemed the easiest way. However, people close to Carlos thought otherwise. For many, it seemed that the company was taking advantage of a social cause for marketing purposes. They disliked the way in which it was hiding selfish intentions behind helping those most in need. Nor did they understand why Oilcorp asked for personal information on a website in exchange for a donation that the company should give on its own initiative. In addition, Oilcorp's CEO told media the company expected to raise US$50,000 from the campaign, but Carlos was worried about achieving the target when he noticed that just 1,200 users had provided their data via the campaign's website. Because of the regular pattern of gas consumption, it was improbable that customers would buy more gasoline from Oilcorp's service stations through the influence of a social initiative. Consequently, the results of the campaign could be as much as 30% below the Colombian Red Cross's expectations and the promises made by Oilcorp's CEO in the media. Carlos and the marketing team needed to decide what actions to take given that the campaign was not on track to meet expectations.

The Uakari Lodge is an internationally recognized pioneering example of community-based ecotourism. It was developed in the late 1990's to provide visitors to Brazil's Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve with an ecotourism experience demonstrating the value of the local population's involvement in rainforest conservation. The Institute for Sustainable Development Mamirauá (ISDM), supported by Brazil's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, owns the Uakari Lodge. The Institute, in collaboration with eleven local communities, jointly operated the lodge. In the face of serious external challenges, while delivering social and environmental benefits in the region, the management of the Lodge has struggled to achieve profitability. After 15 years of operation, the management of the ISDM is planning the transferal of ownership and responsibility for operation of the Uakari Lodge to the local communities involved in the program. The management of the Institute sought to increase the role of the communities in the co-management efforts, both in terms of benefits received and responsibilities. In order to set the stage for smoothly turning over complete ownership and operations of the Lodge, management is seeking to achieve steady, predictable profitability for the Lodge. Achieving that goal will require increasing visitation to the lodge or increasing the profit margin generated per visitor or some combination of both.

In September 2015, with the peak of the holiday season only three months away, Karin Nebot, CEO and part owner of the House of Kaviari, is questioning how to sustain the growth of the company. Kaviari, with €26m in annual sales, is a French family business trading and retailing farmed caviars, which means that they import and brand the product, and sell it to fine food stores, chefs, and wholesalers. The caviar market in France is changing in a new way due to the introduction of inexpensive brands and new retail channels for the precious grains. In recent past, major hypermarkets and supermarkets have introduced caviar with a 'downmarket' product. With the high sales season fast approaching, Nebot needs to decide whether Kaviari should maintain its current position, go mainstream and broaden its consumer base, or increase the brand visibility in its traditional luxury segment.

Student spreadsheet for case NA0507.