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In 2023, CEO Randy Wu was considering the optimal growth strategy for Fantuan, a restaurant food delivery platform that had expanded from its 2014 founding in Vancouver, Canada to serve the Chinese demand for Asian cuisine in urban markets across Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Unlike mainstream platforms such as DoorDash and Uber Eats, Fantuan had been profitable for its first four years until deciding to invest heavily in international expansion in 2020. Wu and his team now were evaluating how best to scale Fantuan further in order to capture additional value: by extending its existing services to new geographies, deepening its offerings for existing customers, or broadening its customer base beyond the Chinese diaspora.

Pay transparency regulations are designed to close the wage gap. Research shows that despite broad assumptions to the contrary, women do negotiate on salary. It also shows that when pay information is paired with performance data, it leads to clearer comparisons and fairer negotiations and can motivate people to perform better. Robust appraisal systems can make pay transparency an opportunity to improve performance rather than a compliance burden.

"Working with Lawyers" explores effective management of external legal counsel in business. It highlights lawyers as precise "legal software engineers" and advises clients to balance expert advice with broader business goals. Building a trusted advisor relationship and realistic cost management are crucial. Early lawyer involvement, understanding the legal team, and recognizing cognitive biases are emphasized. Reading legal documents and avoiding last-minute changes are essential. Mistakes often result from communication breakdowns, necessitating efficient process management and communication channels for successful collaboration.

The concept of Jungle Bay Dominica (Jungle Bay) was created by Samuel Raphael on the island of Dominica in 1997 and first opened for business in 2005. Raphael's philosophy was that he could profitably operate a luxury hotel with minimal disturbance to the surrounding natural environment that functioned as a tool to further the economic growth and social welfare of the local population. To its clientele, Jungle Bay offered a variety of experiences in a tropical setting, such as breathtaking views, spa treatments, lush gardens and orchards, adventure tours, and fresh organic food. For the Jungle Bay team, Raphael provided opportunities for learning new skills and a steady income, and he gave motivated individuals an opportunity to grow. However, a series of natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic had resulted in Jungle Bay struggling to achieve occupancy rates above 35 per cent. Raphael had to determine the best way to expand Jungle Bay's marketing efforts, increase occupancy rates, and increase revenue.

EatSure was the direct-to-customer platform of Rebel Foods, an internet-based restaurant. EatSure was positioned as a digital food court compared to online food aggregators and other companies in the food-service industry. Sagar Kochhar, chief executive officer of EatSure, had a meeting with his executive team to discuss the company's goal of reaching fifty million EatSure app users. EatSure had recently reached more than seven million downloads. The team met to analyze EatSure's positioning with respect to other food-delivery competitors following recent market research and the creation of a perceptual map. Kochhar wanted to understand the company's existing market position and decide on a future course of action to meet this growth goal.

In October 2021, the head of digital communications and branding at the Australian biopharmaceutical conglomerate CSL Limited (CSL), was tasked with a strategic rebranding exercise. By August 2022, he and other stakeholders felt a sense of pride and satisfaction at how quickly the rebranding initiatives had been completed. CSL felt that it had achieved the desired brand associations and met its targeted brand net promoter score performance. Looking forward, the company's executives needed to outline an implementation plan to ensure CSL's brand positioning-its key differentiator-to ensure that CSL outpaced respected competitors and that the CSL brand connected with the company's product brands at each customer touchpoint-all while maintaining trust and attracting the best researchers possible.

In March 2023, Fixie Co-Founder and Chief Architect Matt Welsh and co-founders had the kind of meeting no founders want to have. The president of leading artificial intelligence (AI) research and deployment firm OpenAI, which had catapulted into fame with its ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) products, briefs them on a new product that represents an existential threat. OpenAI is launching ChatGPT plugins, which would transform ChatGPT from a base layer tool into a platform, where third-party application developers such as Expedia, InstaCart, or OpenTable could leverage OpenAI's underlying models to build useful applications. This move threatened to derail Fixie's nascent cloud-based platform that leveraged large language models (LLMs) to build and customize conversational AI systems for enterprise. Fixie aspired to be the middleware standard that connected underlying models with AI-facing applications. Now they had to decide if their product was still relevant, whether a pivot was possible, and how to play their next move in the fast-paced Gen AI chess game.

In 2023, Nieves Segovia, President of the SEK Education Group in Spain, contemplates the future of her family's for-profit education company, which includes K-12 schools and the newly established UCJC university. Renowned for its innovation in education, SEK faces crucial decisions in a rapidly evolving market. Nieves Segovia grapples with the direction to prioritize for UCJC's growth strategy, considering whether to expand programs and degrees, invest further in online education post-COVID-19 success, or delve into lifelong learning opportunities.

In early 2023, Claire Chiang, co-founder of Banyan Tree Group (Banyan Tree), a Singapore-based multinational hospitality brand with several hotels and resorts across the globe, was contemplating growth plans for the company. Banyan tree was aiming to double its existing portfolio to 100 hotels and resorts by 2025, while remaining competitive in a market dominated by large international players, and staying true to its brand philosophy of creating shared value (CSV). Banyan Tree had entered the market with unique proposition of providing culturally rich and unique destination experiences with an innovative 'pool villa' concept to luxury travellers while focussing on sustainability. The company had also concentrated on a 'Responsible Leadership' approach to drive growth and business diversification. Could Banyan Tree expand rapidly while staying true to its core values of CSV and sustainable development? Could it continue to maintain its competitive advantage when other players were also increasingly adopting sustainable development goals? The case can be used in Strategy and Finance courses that teach Competitive Strategy, Creating Shared Value (CSV), and Sustainable Business as a business strategy in graduate and executive education classes.

Aiming to blaze the trail that would lead the air travel industry out of the pandemic, SITA decided to reshuffle and renew its credit facilities. In the process, it established that sustainability - particularly ESG factors - would play an increasingly critical role in the financing of the struggling aviation sector. Negotiating a sustainability-linked revolving credit facility (RCF) that connected specific ESG targets to potential pricing benefits proved to be an opportunity for SITA's executives to (1) draw on and gauge the impact of SITA's established credentials and experience in areas that included carbon-neutral certification and accessing alternative sources of funding such as Schuldschein; (2) alleviate financial risk for airlines (as SITA members); and (3) kickstart a broader, organization-wide change process led by Finance and Treasury, of ESG learning, data collection (encompassing scope 2 and 3) and building a culture of sustainability. Although the purely economic gains of ESG compliance for SITA might be modest overall, several positive links emerged. They include those between meeting ESG targets and obtaining priority access to funding, better compliance with regulatory requirements, increased customer loyalty and employee productivity, and improved firm value and financial performance.

In late 2021, Netflix leadership had to deal with some fierce employee and public blowback after airing The Closer, a comedy special by comedian Dave Chappelle. In the special-the last of six that Chappelle was contracted to make for Netflix-his targets included the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, plus others (LGBTQ+) community, particularly the transgender and nonbinary segments of that population. Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Reed Hastings were caught by surprise by the reaction, particularly from Netflix employees, to the special. While supportive of Chappelle despite his often-incendiary remarks over the years, Sarandos and Hastings knew they had to do major damage control. Had they made the wrong decision in allowing this particularly strident special to air? Should they take it off the platform? What was the future of Netflix's relationship with Chappelle? And-very importantly for a company that prized its workforce and had tried to create a culture of inclusion and diversity-how would they deal with Netflix's many disaffected employees?

In late 2021, Netflix leadership had to deal with some fierce employee and public blowback after airing The Closer, a comedy special by comedian Dave Chappelle. In the special-the last of six that Chappelle was contracted to make for Netflix-his targets included the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, plus others (LGBTQ+) community, particularly the transgender and nonbinary segments of that population. Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Reed Hastings were caught by surprise by the reaction, particularly from Netflix employees, to the special. While supportive of Chappelle despite his often-incendiary remarks over the years, Sarandos and Hastings knew they had to do major damage control. Had they made the wrong decision in allowing this particularly strident special to air? Should they take it off the platform? What was the future of Netflix's relationship with Chappelle? And-very importantly for a company that prized its workforce and had tried to create a culture of inclusion and diversity-how would they deal with Netflix's many disaffected employees?

In late 2021, Netflix leadership had to deal with some fierce employee and public blowback after airing The Closer, a comedy special by comedian Dave Chappelle. In the special-the last of six that Chappelle was contracted to make for Netflix-his targets included the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, plus others (LGBTQ+) community, particularly the transgender and nonbinary segments of that population. Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Reed Hastings were caught by surprise by the reaction, particularly from Netflix employees, to the special. While supportive of Chappelle despite his often-incendiary remarks over the years, Sarandos and Hastings knew they had to do major damage control. Had they made the wrong decision in allowing this particularly strident special to air? Should they take it off the platform? What was the future of Netflix's relationship with Chappelle? And-very importantly for a company that prized its workforce and had tried to create a culture of inclusion and diversity-how would they deal with Netflix's many disaffected employees?

In a groundbreaking move on September 20, 2022, Lasell University's President, Michael B. Alexander, announced an extraordinary 33% reduction in tuition, room, board, and fees, signaling a pivotal shift in higher education. Situated in an affluent Boston suburb, Lasell, a venerable 170-year institution, is taking a bold step to enhance transparency and affordability in response to the perennial escalation of college costs. This historic decision aims to recalibrate the value proposition of a college degree, attracting a more diverse student body, and challenging the prevailing narrative of spiraling tuition rates nationwide. The impact of this unprecedented policy shift is not confined to Lasell alone but reverberates through the broader landscape of American higher education, prompting a critical reassessment of the cost and value dynamics of pursuing a college education.

Bizongo, an Indian e-B2B platform was co-founded by three college graduates in 2015 with the goal of creating the "Alibaba of India" when the B2B e-commerce landscape was practically non-existent. The founders saw a significant opportunity in connecting mid-sized enterprise buyers and small-scale suppliers in India's highly fragmented manufacturing sector. The journey had been difficult, but by 2023, Bizongo had carved a niche for itself with its platform offering digital order placement and processing and its financing facility for SMEs. It focused on the unbranded customized goods segment like packaging products and apparel. But with more players vying for market share and India's digital public infrastructure potentially set to disrupt the industry, the co-founders were under pressure to consolidate their position. They needed to take several decisions. Should Bizongo attempt to onboard more buyers and vendors, or increase wallet share among existing customers? Should it convert its platform to a truly open marketplace model that would allow vendor and enterprise discovery? Should it go deeper in existing product categories or build product breadth by adding more categories? How should the team think about consolidating upstream operations? Should it expand into Southeast Asia? At the core of the dilemma was finding the strategy that would best enable Bizongo to monetize its offerings.

San Francisco based Vida Health, founded by Stephanie Tilenius, former vice president of Commerce and Payments at Google, was a B2B digital health startup focused on the treatment of cardiometabolic conditions, such as diabetes and obesity. Its innovative digital platform integrated technology with human care, and its treatment approach focused on physical health as and mental health, creating a unique, holistic solution. As a Series D venture backed company with $188 million in funding, Vida was eager to scale the business faster. In 2023 Tilenius was grappling with whether to start prescribing weight loss drugs as part of Vida's obesity management program. Consumer demand for newly FDA-approved semaglutide drugs (GLP-1s), like Ozempic, was surging. However, GLP-1s were already facing scrutiny for risks; they had known negative side effects; and there was no clear scientific proof that people could be taken off them and maintain weight loss. It was also not clear how the market would respond if Vida-which had differentiated itself through its behavioral management approach to chronic disease-entered the weight loss prescription drug business. Would Vida be characterized as a "pill-mill"? If Vida did decide to offer prescription weight loss drugs as part of its platform, it would also have to decide if it should roll out a B2C platform to reach consumers who were not covered through an employer plan or whose plan did not cover weight loss medications. Tilenius had significant experience with B2C brands and saw the potential. However, building a B2C brand would likely be a costly endeavor.

Catalent's newly appointed CEO, Alessandro Maselli, experienced the highs of the pharmaceutical contract development manufacturing (CDMO) space during COVID-19 while helping Moderna and others bring vaccines to market quickly and safely. After rushing to add capacity to help deal with the pandemic, demand for CDMO services dried up post-pandemic, leaving Maselli and Catalent to pick up the pieces. Once considered as an acquisition target by other industry giants, Catalent dealt with several struggles, including a departing CFO, several issues with plants, and declining demand. How can Maselli turn the ship around and drive Catalent to even higher heights moving forward?

Ken Xie, cofounder of cybersecurity giant Fortinet, faced a critical decision that would validate his leadership. Fortinet became the industry's second-largest pureplay cybersecurity firm by developing differentiated hardware and investing in R&D. However, after a stock downgrade despite strong financials, Xie weighed adapting messaging versus remaining steadfast. With competitors like Palo Alto Networks gaining accolades for cloud focus and acquisitions, some advisors pushed Xie to highlight Fortinet's comparable cloud capabilities more. But doing so would diverge from Xie's conviction in hardware advantages in a complex, rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape. As threats became more sophisticated, agility in communication was essential. The impending earnings call forced Xie to consider his conviction with openness to new narratives. Xie grappled with how to amplify cloud messaging without having it overshadow and dilute Fortinet's core identity rooted in hardware expertise and advantage. The case analyzes how cybersecurity leaders make high-stakes decisions weighing competing demands between long-held beliefs and market adaptations in shaping their communication, where a wrong choice could expose customers to evolving threats.

The release of ChatGPT and other generative AI models marked the beginning of a revolution in various industries by automating work processes. These AI technologies, accessible through chatbot interfaces, could generate text, audio, code, images, and videos, saving time and resources. In 2023, generative AI was starting to transform the way professionals worked in the accounting industry, enabling them to streamline auditing and accounting processes, utilizing natural language processing (NLP), and improving information search. The big-four accounting firms invested heavily in developing their own AI solutions to enhance efficiency and offer innovative client solutions. However, in early 2023, some big-four offices restricted the use of generative AI models, while other firms embraced the technology, providing guidance and training to their staff. The rapid growth of generative AI posed challenges for businesses unprepared for automation, leading them to assess the risks and benefits before adopting AI. Joesy Loh, an audit partner at a Singaporean CPA firm serving SMEs, recognized the potential of generative AI to improve audit efficiency and financial statement preparation. How can Joesy persuade her partners to embrace generative AI technology, considering their concerns about the accuracy of the generated output and data security for their firm and clients?

Executives engaged in strategic planning tend to work with an implicit view of the future that is deeply embedded in their organization’s strategy as a set of unquestioned assumptions about the future business context. Leaders need to surface what the authors call ghost scenarios or risk implementing strategies that are ripe for disruption due to changes that planners haven’t recognized. The authors offer two case studies and suggest ways leaders can bring these unexamined assumptions into view.