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In September 2022, Balmer Lawrie & Co Ltd., a highly diversified Indian public-sector enterprise, was reviewing the outcomes of its mentorship program, which had been launched as a pilot initiative about a year earlier. The company had hired an external consultant to help design and speedily launch the first offering of the mentorship program, enrolling 25 mentor-mentee pairs. Now, it needed to refine the program, strengthen the measurement of its benefits, and plan a scaled-up rollout across the organization. The company aimed to make the mentorship initiative a long-term, self-sustaining program.

On the morning of November 25, 2021, the general manager of the Renaissance Suzhou Hotel received a call from the administrative committee of a nearby business district informing him that some guests who had stayed at the hotel a few days earlier had been diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019. The administrator requested that the hotel cooperate with the government in carrying out an urgent epidemiological investigation and implementing a closed-loop operation for emergency treatment. It was Thanksgiving day and the hotel was almost fully occupied. How would the general manger and his team address this challenge?

Cofounders of the Berlin-based startup Bone Brox developed a traditional bone broth made from organic, pasture-fed cattle and free-range chickens. Although they had a polarizing product, the founders tapped into the health and awareness trend and managed to gain market attention and secure government funding. The startup defined itself with a flat hierarchy, open communication, and shared decision-making. However, the company faced challenges, such as the impact of a flat hierarchy on business success and efficient decision-making, a highly competitive market, and the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

Set in 2015, this case study is about how Singapore Airlines (SIA) and the Middle Eastern behemoths - Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Etihad Airways - adopt differentiation strategies to compete in the full-service passenger air travel industry. It highlights the multifaceted nature of an airline's differentiation strategies, noting that various levels of differentiation correspond to different pricing tiers. Each airline offers a range of products such as cabins or 'classes', enabling them to vary their degree of differentiation across their offerings. The case identifies factors that the airlines can leverage to enhance their competitiveness and those that are immutable. In addition, this case includes detailed pricing and product information that students can use to distil important insights for strategic analysis. Since the 2000s, Emirates and other Middle Eastern airlines have undergone substantial growth over the years, creating challenges for their competitors, especially along the Kangaroo Route (a popular air travel route that connects the continents of Europe and Australasia). Consequently, Australia-based Qantas opted for a strategic shift and "threw in the towel", replacing its traditional Sydney-Melbourne-Singapore-London flights with a new route through Sydney-Melbourne-Dubai-London. This change allowed Qantas to integrate with Emirates' network, streamlining connectivity. On the other hand, SIA competed head-to-head with Emirates. Due to its highly differentiated products and services, SIA commanded a price premium over Emirates. However, Emirates offered more flight connection choices than SIA, translating to a higher demand for air travel. To remain competitive, what strategy should SIA adopt? Should SIA match its airfare pricing with Emirates to attract more passengers?

Revlon India was founded as a joint venture in 1995, pairing the industrial conglomerate UMG with the global beauty brand Revlon, Inc. to bring international color cosmetics to India. After growing rapidly and pioneering the Beauty Advisor (BA) model in India, the company began to struggle in the 2010s as it faced challenges in its sales and supply chain operations and started to lose touch with the market, all while competition rose, with new companies leveraging e-commerce platforms and international brands entering the market. In November 2023, Meghna Modi was tapped to turnaround the struggling venture. In the 5 months since her appointment, Modi had made enormous strides. She reorganized the head office, broke down silos in the sales organization, and reengaged with Revlon India's BAs. She completely revamped the company's e-commerce team, and began to collect data to understand its supply chain deficiencies. Modi also aimed to foster more accountability and learning in the company. Towards this end, she developed a Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard (BSC) to articulate and evaluate Revlon India's business model. However, this unearthed a significant tradeoff between the company's online and offline operations. With pressure to breakeven by the end of 2024, Modi had to decide how to manage this tradeoff. Should the company emphasize either online or offline? Should it integrate them, or differentiate them? And how could the BSC be used to test potential solutions?

Rhonda Klosler, chief operating officer at RSM Canada (RSM) is chairing a meeting to discuss post-COVID-19 pandemic work design. RSM has recognized that remote work offers employees greater flexibility and work satisfaction, while giving RSM the opportunity to recruit from remote locations. RSM would like to continue remote work. Focusing specifically on Generation Z, Klosler is seeking recommendations on the ideal work design. Specifically, how should remote and in-person work be balanced? How can RSM continue to build and maintain its company culture with employees who work remotely? What will a new approach to work mean for the other employee generational cohorts?

Instacart is an online grocery delivery platform that is seeking to go public through an initial public offering (IPO). Instacart has hired an investment bank to be its lead bookrunner, and the bank is responsible for coming up with an IPO price range. Maya Martinez, an investment banking analyst at the firm, has been tasked with building financial models to come up with an appropriate share range for the firm's managing directors to present at the IPO roadshow.

Spreadsheet supplement for case W36955

In March 2023, Havells India Ltd., founded by Haveli Ram Gandhi and later acquired by Qimat Rai Gupta, reported a significant increase in turnover to $2.06 billion from a low of $1.14 billion during the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. Despite its success and growth investments, questions arose about Havells' strategic direction. While traditionally known for its electrical products as a B2B enterprise, Havells made inroads into the brown goods market, notably with the struggling Lloyd business post-acquisition in 2017. CEO Anil Rai Gupta faced challenges in adapting Havells' strategies to the competitive B2C market and evaluating the retention of the Lloyd brand's identity. Looking ahead, how will Havells navigate these strategic dilemmas to sustain its growth momentum and market relevance effectively?

The case focuses on the growth of electric vehicle (EV) market in China and the emergence of BYD as a major player aspiring to gain a significant foothold in global EV markets. The case traces the growth of the industry in China, identifying factors that have contributed to the rise of Chinese companies in this industry. In doing so, it offers a rich portrait of the industry landscape encompassing contextual factors, including the role of government and governmental subsidies to the industry, the intensity of competitive rivalry shaping the race for Chinese market share, and the nature of buyers and how their demands have forced Chinese companies to hone their skills in design and value engineering, which can be used to mount an assault in global markets. After providing a broad discussion of the industry, the case delves deeper into the strategic choices made by BYD as it rose to the top ranks of global players in units produced. The case closes with broad questions about the directions that BYD could pursue as it seeks to conquer advanced country markets from its China homebase. In doing so, the case sets the stage for debate on issues relating to transferability of home-grown advantages, the entry barriers that they will confront in markets such as the United States, and ways in which the barriers can be overcome.

Nordipack A/S, a Danish packaging manufacturer, has been facing financial difficulties with declining profits and modest revenue growth and the family-owned business was recently forced to let the private equity firm Tora PE Partners invest in the firm to raise new capital and to help turn the negative financial performance around. After Tora PE Partners acquired a stake in Nordipack, the PE fund initiated a major restructuring, including appointing a new CEO and CFO. The new CFO, Alex Pontoppidan, is tasked with creating financial transparency across product markets, regions, and customers to inform the future strategic direction of Nordipack.

Data Spreadsheet Supplement for case CBS045

Algorithmic auditing aims to identify and monitor potential harms caused by algorithmic systems. In these scenarios, diverse stakeholders consider specific use cases and collaborate to address critical questions about who could be harmed by such technologies, and how. The authors present two tools " the Ethical Matrix and the Explainable Fairness framework " that can help organizations identify these potential harms.

It is well known that a significant reason machine learning projects fail to deliver business value is data scientist's failure to adequately understand the business context. Development teams can avoid mistakes when they put aside any reticence to ask basic questions and engage with colleagues on the business side. The authors advise gaining input from all involved stakeholders and suggest some specific types of queries that might help ML developers get to the heart of the problem at hand.

Advanced analytics, such as predictive and prescriptive models to support business decisions, remain the primary drivers of data science value in the enterprise. How might the flashy, fluent, but not entirely reliable generative AI large language models contribute to traditional analytics practice? The author describes some experimental prompts that show potential for labeling data and explaining model predictions, and shares guidance on monitoring and verifying that output.

Many companies have large stores of customer data that can be tapped for valuable insights via analytics. At the same time, cybersecurity tactics used to protect personal information within that data can render it less useful for analysis. Data science practices will increasingly require that teams collaborate with IT on each use case to identify which techniques will maximize data privacy while still exposing useful information in the data set for analysis.

Ashish and Ranu Surana, a husband and wife team and co-owners of Go Pure Ice Cream ("Go Pure"), had managed to turn their passion for developing and selling fruit-based ice cream into a successful business. Having crossed the milestone figure of INR 10 million in sales with their network of 20 franchisees, mostly in Tier 2 and 3 cities, they dreamed of taking the Go Pure brand to the national level, which would require them to launch in metro and Tier 1 cities. However, they knew that this was not going to be easy. Managing existing franchisees in terms of their adherence to standard operating procedures was proving a challenge, as some franchisees were neglecting to wear headgear or gloves or not using branded cups. The founders were worried that these small but significant lapses were diluting the brand. Their current franchise model involved charging franchisees a once-off franchisee fee and billing them on an ongoing basis for the products they delivered. The Suranas wanted to identify the correct strategy to make Go Pure a national brand, but were having trouble selecting the right approach. The first option they considered was trying to get the right franchisees on board. If they could achieve this, those franchisees could act as influencers for them in prime locations in metro and Tier 1 cities, making their brand look fantastic at the national level. The second option they considered was to continue to expand in Tier 2 and 3 cities and to try to become an aspirational brand for the majority of urban and rural Indians. The other option they were looking at was getting an infusion of venture equity and opening professionally managed, company-owned, company-operated outlets in metro and Tier 1 cities. They engaged the services of a brand consultant to help them understand how their brand was perceived and valued in the minds of their target audience and to advise them on how to leverage this information to fulfill their dreams.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 124005.

The two-part case study discusses the challenges faced by the two talented professionals in their respective careers and the influence of mindfulness on their growth and development. Case A focuses on mindfulness concepts applied to help unlock talent while Case B builds on the former case of mindful career development but introduces the additional role of mindful supervision in talent management. This case also focuses on how mindfulness can support the organisation in building a talent pipeline and succeed in the 'war for talent'. In Case A, Astrid was newly promoted to the Head of Marketing in her company's head office in Spain. Moving over from Denmark, she continued to perform well in the new strategic role and was selected to the talent pool for future senior leaders. However, her straight-talking style ruffled the feathers of local co-workers. Case A explores basic questions that are relevant to career managers like: how can one use mindfulness to better unlock their talents and progress in their careers? In Case B, Munn was a young commercial analyst in Singapore who aspired to become a business leader. His track record of good work performance landed him in the talent pool for young future leaders and he was offered the option of choosing between a safe or a risky career track. Fortunately for Munn, his talent pool mentor was an experienced leader who was open to discussing his concerns and providing mindful support. Case B explores not only how mindfulness can unlock the talent of a person, but also provides insights into questions relevant to experienced leaders like: "How can leaders' mindfulness unlock the talent of their subordinates?" and "How can mindfulness help leaders build a strong talent pipeline for the organisation?"