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This case updates the events in "Generating Higher Value at IBM (A)," HBS case 215-058.

On 18 Feb 2011, paper made from stone rolled off from a factory in the city of Huaibei, makingTethia Lungmeng Environmental Friendly Products Co. Ltd. (TLM天象龙盟) the first company to produce commercial stone paper in China. TLM's founder and chairman, Kong Ling Fa, (孔令发) gave his visitors his stone paper business card and put one business card into a glass of water. Half an hour into the conversation, he pulled out the card, shook off the water and passed it around. The stone paper business card felt the same as ordinary paper and yet was completely waterproof. Stone paper is paper made from limestone, which is an abundant raw material. Kong felt that he was breaking new ground with this new material, and that it had commercial potential. He believed that stone paper's potential goes beyond replacing traditional paper. How readily would consumers accept it? How should TLM promote the value and potential of stone paper? Which markets should he target? Should TLM focus on China or reach out to more developed countries in the West? What would be the appropriate business model? TLM licensed the technology from Taiwan and had exclusive rights only in Anhui province. Although TLM was the first to produce stone paper commercially, three other companies were in the process of starting up production. How should TLM exploit its first-mover advantage? How should TLM develop the resources and strategic capabilities to ensure success? How could it leverage on the reputation and experience that Kong and TLM had accumulated over the years? Was it sustainable?

This document is one of three available case-based simulations used as the basis for a multisession course on design thinking. The course emphasizes deep user understanding, iteration, and a focus on the possibilities as a way to enhance value creation for stakeholders. Please refer to the course teaching guide to view the additional essential pedagogical tools available to the course instructor-including several hours of video content and a set of posters that summarize ethnographic interview findings for each simulation scenario. Arena Industries is a global company seeking to improve the wellness of its employees. Students are asked to read a short introduction to Arena's business and operating philosophies, as well as details concerning the challenges present in the larger health care environment in the United States. Students play the role of a consultant who has been charged with recommending to Arena's leaders how best to address the opportunity to improve employee wellness.

This document is one of three available case-based simulations used as the basis for a multisession course on design thinking. The course emphasizes deep user understanding, iteration, and a focus on the possibilities as a way to enhance value creation for stakeholders. Please refer to the course teaching guide to view the additional essential pedagogical tools available to the course instructor-including several hours of video content and a set of posters that summarize ethnographic interview findings for each simulation scenario. The vice provost for academic affairs at Trenton State College (TSC) is tasked with designing a new retirement experience for faculty at the college. TSC, a public institution serving the state of Missouri, employs more than 1,500 full-time faculty and is facing a wave of upcoming retirements and an existing process that few feel is working well. Students play the role of a member of the provost's office who has been charged with reviewing the experience of retirees and recommending to TSC's leaders ideas to improve the retirement experience for faculty.

This case focuses on Acıbadem Healthcare Group's, Turkey's only premium nationwide hospital network, potential expansion strategies after it was acquired by International Healthcare Holdings Berhad (IHH) in 2011, the world's second-largest publicly listed health care group and a private hospital leader in Singapore and Malaysia. By providing perspectives on both Acıbadem and IHH-Parkway-Pantai's operational models, growth aspirations, collaboration and synergies, as well as cultural and operational differences, the case allows students to discuss which expansion strategies would be best suited for Acıbadem's operations--which geographic regions should initially be targeted, what business model is best suited for Acıbadem's growth (specialized chain, public-partnership etc.) Also, students are encouraged to discuss how Acıbadem should leverage its relationship with IHH and collaborate with Parkway-Pantai.

Stack Brewing, a start-up craft brewery, has a capacity of approximately 5,600 litres per month based on twelve 117-litre batches per week. A government grant based on growth and job creation potential will help boost production capacity by five times, necessitating the development of additional distribution and marketing communication strategies. The owner cannot afford a listing in the Beer Store, the distribution monopoly owned by Labatt Breweries of Canada and Molson-Coors Canada Inc., and his budget for communications is small. While this case provides an opportunity for students to perform quantitative analysis based on revenues and market size, the focus of the case, however, is on an improved distribution and communication plan.

In June 2014, leading healthcare and consumer technology company, Royal Philips ("Philips"), announced its HealthSuite Digital Platform to house healthcare data and enable applications used by physicians and patients. Philips had strong equity in the healthcare technology space, due to its extensive portfolio of medical devices and related software sold primarily to hospitals. Philips designed the first two apps for the platform (eCareCoordinator and eCareCompanion) in-house, but it planned to open it up to third-party developers who would create an array of health-focused apps. Healthcare had long lagged behind other industries in adoption of technology as well as patient-relationship management. However, many health players had recently increased investment in new infrastructure and data analytics. Would the new Philips HealthSuite Digital Platform find success in the rapidly evolving industry?

The case outlines GE's origin leading to it becoming the world's largest corporation under Jack Welch. Welch's chosen successor Jeff Immelt has confronted multiple negative external events, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2008 financial crisis. GE's stock price has continued to lag the overall market recovery. As a result, Immelt is restructuring GE to focus more on industrial engineering. The case surrounds Immelt's decision to divest GE Capital and the associated positive market reaction. This enables evaluation of the impact of the external environment on firms, Immelt's leadership, as well as GE's corporate strategy. Corporate strategy can be examined from material in the case statically or how it has evolved under Welch and Immelt to include where Immelt should invest the cash generated from the sale of GE capital.

Disappointed by how poorly his two favorite football teams were playing against each other on a Thursday night in November 2009, Warren Packard considered the other games he could watch. It was late fall and there were college basketball, college football, and hockey games being played. With all of those different options, Packard thought, "Wouldn't it be nice if somebody could just tap me on the shoulder and say, 'you should be watching this game.'" That thought is what sparked the creation of Thuuz Sports. This case covers the evolution of Packard's idea from side project to Thuuz Sports, a start up with the mission of providing fans with personalized sports entertainment. Thuuz, which assigned every game an excitement rating and alerted users about games they would not want to miss, began as a B2C app. When Packard and his team realized that the biggest pain point was with the companies that saw sports as a way to drive interest, Thuuz pivoted and began prioritizing a B2B2C approach. The case explores how Thuuz approached a number of challenges, including running low on cash, developing a pricing model, and positioning its Automated Highlight Reels. As the only businessperson at the company, Packard was very resource constrained, making prioritization of issues and initiatives even more imperative. Students are asked to evaluate the B2C and B2B2C approaches, identify growth opportunities, and recommend how to pursue those opportunities.

It was 30 December 2012, and Lee Kian Soon, the founder of Ezra Holdings Limited (Ezra), a Singapore-headquartered offshore oil and gas services company, was stepping down after 20 years as Executive Chairman of the company. Having been at the helm of the company for two decades, Lee had been instrumental in leading the business development, strategic planning and overall vision of the company. In 1992, Ezra had started off as a subcontractor in shipyards, and by 2012, had grown to become a US$984.2 million group in revenue, with activities encompassing marine and offshore support services and subsea construction. Although Ezra was a family-owned business, Lee was convinced that to enter the global stage and achieve its goals of internationalisation beyond the Asia-Pacific, the company would need someone with an experienced background who could provide the required leadership. On 31 December 2012, Ezra appointed an external candidate, Koh Poh Tiong, as the Chairman of its Board. Lee's son, Lionel, who had been with the company for ten years, remained as Ezra's Managing Director. Lee wondered if he was making the right move in appointing an external successor to the role of Chairman, and what were the implications of choosing an external successor for the company.

In October 2013, Colgate-Palmolive Company, the world's leading oral care company, was about to launch its new Colgate® Maximum Cavity Protection™ plus Sugar Acid Neutralizer™ toothpaste in Brazil. Oral care category accounted for 46 percent of Colgate's $17.4 billion sales worldwide in 2013. The new toothpaste was clinically proven to reduce and prevent cavities more effectively than toothpaste with the same level of fluoride alone. All major industry players, including Procter & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline and Colgate itself, had long ago launched products with the maximum amount of fluoride allowed by Health authorities. Yet cavities remained a significant threat to public health in many countries, both developing and developed. As Suzan Harrison, Colgate's president of Oral Care, prepared to launch CMCP+SAN in Brazil, the world's third largest oral care market, her executive team was divided over the product's positioning and pricing. Should it be positioned as a basic product to maximize reach for its health benefits or as a premium product for consumers who sought superior cavity protection?

Our increasing capacity to collect, store, and analyze large volumes of data has changed the way in which organizational decision makers approach their work. The ability to accurately quantify variables that previously had been assigned to the gut instinct of grizzled veterans or subject to the wisdom of sages for interpretation can now be more objectively understood. The implications for organizational performance are clear: better data and better decisions yield better performance. In many functions, like marketing, this capability has resulted in a true revolution in how companies come to understand and most profitably serve customers. Other areas, such as talent management, have lagged behind in this regard. This is largely due to the fact that many of the relevant variables (e.g., personality) are difficult to measure. It is also because the relationship between these variables and organizational performance is not entirely understood. Recent developments regarding how we understand and then link individual characteristics and performance are enabling a data revolution in the area of talent management. Herein, we offer three examples that illustrate how data can now be used to improve talent management decisions and, ultimately, organizational performance.

Should your company become a benefit corporation? In a comprehensive set of law review opinions, this installation of Business Law & Ethics Corner uncovers several fundamental issues to consider. First, the main premise for the benefit corporation--the legal preeminence of the shareholder primacy norm--may be unfounded. Second, benefit corporations may increase director liability and company costs. Third, contrary to the stated goal of such laws, benefit corporations do not empower stakeholders, and therefore are not substantially different from traditional corporations. Many legal analysts argue that, paradoxically, benefit corporations actually inhibit corporate social responsibility efforts by perpetuating the myth that business corporations do not have the flexibility to pursue social missions, and by claiming to, but failing to, empower stakeholders. They argue that the benefit corporation form is likely to increase corporate greenwashing, and that it enhances public cynicism about all corporations by creating competing sets of 'beneficial' and 'other' corporations. In the face of widespread acclaim for the benefit corporation, both corporate directors and researchers should take these significant concerns into account.

Increasingly, companies have begun to understand the importance of succession planning. Best practice companies invest considerable time and money in the identification of up-and-coming leaders; more boards of directors have also come to embrace their role in overseeing succession to the CEO position, as well as to a few senior roles such as COO and CFO. Unfortunately, unless executives are being considered as candidates for higher level roles, these development efforts rarely extend to other members of a company's senior team: the heads of major operating groups and corporate functions such as finance and IT. In this article, we identify three patterns that increase the risk of performance failure for long-tenured senior executives who are not being considered candidates for higher level roles. We then present three questions that can trigger a number of important development actions, which can in turn create more effective senior executive teams, curb unplanned attrition, and lead to more predictable succession plans.

Developing strong leadership within the organization is one of the most valuable pursuits any firm can undertake. Considering the many demands on the resources of leaders, developmental opportunities must be efficient and effective to truly impact leadership ability. Comic books and their role in storytelling can offer unique insights regarding core leadership characteristics underlying great sales leadership and act as a tool for growth in leadership capabilities. With the recent explosion in superhero awareness through blockbuster movie releases and increased comic book readership, this article presents a series of leadership characteristics and their embodiment within superheroes. A list of top sales leader qualities from a panel of practicing sales professionals is first provided. Specific examples of these leadership qualities as evidenced by a particular superhero are then offered. These examples are solicited from a panel of superhero subject matter experts and yield insight into how managers can use superhero narratives as a learning tool. We summarize the findings from our research and propose specific managerial challenges and actionable recommendations offered by the exemplars we review.

Despite the growing importance of information technology (IT) in organizations, chief executive officers (CEOs) and top management teams exhibit an alarming degree of distrust toward IT and chief information officers (CIOs). This CIO-CEO gap can be explained by several factors including failure of IT to deliver value, poor understanding of IT by business executives, lack of a clear vision with respect to IT, different worldviews of business executives and technology specialists, lack of a shared vision in relation to IT, poor relationship skills of CIOs, and criticism of IT by so-called experts in the popular and academic press. These factors stand in the way of a good CIO-CEO relationship, IT alignment with organizational goals, and improvement in organizational performance with the help of IT. Bridging the gap requires a set of joint and independent actions by the CIO, the CEO, and the entire top management team. Recommendations for both CIOs and CEOs include communication, knowledge sharing, and developing a shared vision in relation to IT. CIOs are advised to focus on business value and develop managerial, leadership, and political skills. CEOs should establish an appropriate reporting structure for the CIO, educate top managers regarding IT, and increase personal involvement in and support of the IT function and the CIO.

Business models are a current hot topic, and their design has become a key to performance. In fact, business model design is often associated with innovation. Many firms, though, fail to realize the full potential of their current business model simply because they are not aware of it. Nevertheless, Google succeeded in realizing its business model's full potential by offering its main service, Internet search, completely for free while capturing value from secondary opportunities such as Google AdWords. Especially for new ventures and SMEs, capturing value from secondary opportunities or business model sophistication is of critical importance toward increasing the pool of resources at hand and giving momentum to the firm's development. But what are these opportunities, and where can they be found? Based on various examples including Google, Ryanair, the Super Girl Contest on Hunan TV, and Spreadshirt, this article develops a framework that introduces five business model sophistication strategies: (1) uncover additional functions of your product, (2) identify strategic benefits for third parties, (3) take advantage of economies of scope, (4) utilize cross-selling opportunities, and (5) involve users and the crowd. All five strategies place a strong emphasis on stakeholder commitment.