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Spreadsheet for product 8B20N016.

Spreadsheet for product 9B20N016.

In 2011, the vice-president of Craig Manufacturing (CM)was preparing a presentation for the company’s advisory board and senior management. Craig Manufacturing, based in New Brunswick, Canada, was a privately held, third-generation family business that manufactured attachments for heavy equipment used in large construction projects in Canada and the United States. The company had achieved a strong reputation by pursuing a differentiation strategy based on product quality, leading technology, and exceptional customer service. However, the company needed new revenue streams, as it was experiencing less demand for its customized heavy equipment attachments. The vice-president was about to suggest launching a new product line by producing attachments for mini, or compact, construction equipment and growing the company with a cost leadership strategy. However, entering this market would mean focusing on standardized products, in contrast to the company’s traditional focus on customized attachments. Would the new product line and its cost leadership strategy help propel the company to be the leading manufacturer of industrial attachments in Canada and the United States?

Since 2009, Bilibili Inc.'s Bilibili.com (the B-site) had been an online video site providing services to fans of anime, comics, and games culture. After several years of effort, it had become a popular Chinese site for danmaku content and commenting technology. The B-site had a good reputation because of its excellent user experience: users did not need to watch endless pre-roll ads before enjoying video content because, in 2014, the B-site had promised that it would never use pre-roll ads as part of its profit model. However, in spring 2016, an important content provider, TV Tokyo Corporation, renewed its copyright contract and added terms requiring the B-site to add pre-video ads on anime series from TV Tokyo, which contradicted the B-site's promise to its users. How should the B-site address this public relations crisis and retain the trust of its users?

In early 2015, the chief executive officer of Bumbox Logistics Private Limited (Bumbox) faced a challenge. The company, launched in Singapore, provided smart lockers for use by delivery companies and consumers to ensure the safe and timely receipt of online purchases. The lockers offered an attractive opportunity, given their ability to resolve last-mile delivery problems that plagued both logistics companies and online consumers. Despite the promising business concept, 18 months after launching, the business had not gained much traction—or revenue. The chief executive officer was fully aware of the company’s multiple challenges: because parcel lockers were a new concept in Singapore, consumers needed to be educated on their use; the company faced competition from other companies, including the nation’s post office; and while increasing the number of smart lockers would help the company succeed, expanding the network could only be justified once the lockers were being widely used. The company had tried to target three segments—online shoppers/consumers, logistics companies, and e-tailers—but because of limited resources, it needed to focus on one segment only. What strategy should the chief executive officer follow to take Bumbox to the next level?

In May 2018, Philippe Boisclair, business owner and president of McGill St Laurent (MSL), sought to grow the firm and increase annual profitability by CA$35 million by 2020. MSL was a medium-sized commodities trading firm with interests in wood, grain, and energy. Founded in 2009 by two business school graduates and veterans of the lumber industry, MSL had enjoyed significant growth. The company had not only expanded into grain and energy trading but had also diversified its wood business to encompass architectural design and manufacturing as well as industrial lumber products. Boisclair, a serial entrepreneur, had to decide on a corporate growth strategy, which he had to present at the upcoming advisory board meeting.

SenseTime Group Limited was founded in Hong Kong in 2014 to commercialize artificial intelligence for digital recognition of images, particularly human faces. After only three years in business, the company was profitable, with annual sales revenue of about US$100 million. In 2018, it employed over 2,000 workers and was referred to as the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence start-up, with a valuation of US$7.6 billion. China had become the largest market in the world for facial recognition technologies, with its share of global sales expected to grow from 29 per cent in 2017 to 45 per cent in 2023. And the global facial recognition market was forecast to be worth US$6.5 billion by 2021. SenseTime Group Limited aimed to empower more industries throughout the world with its artificial intelligence platform. A key question in early 2019 for the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer was how to adapt its strategy to achieve that mission in an increasingly fraught global environment.

In June 2019, the founder and chairman of Shandong Moris Chemical Co. Ltd. (Moris), a leading chemical production group, had to decide whether Moris should diversify into an unrelated industry. Moris’s main business had been the production and processing of brine chemicals. With several of its chemical products dominating worldwide markets, Moris had become a hidden champion in these industry segments. Through the company’s most recent diversification move into water treatment and land improvement, the founder had stretched Moris’s corporate umbrella beyond purely chemical businesses, hoping to transform the negative corporate image associated with chemical industries. Now, he had to determine whether the cultural and creative industries would fit with this strategic aspiration, especially since a move into this area would be the first unrelated diversification for the company.

In October 2001, the co-founder and vice-president of Veritas Investment Research Corporation (Veritas), was considering his next steps as he prepared to issue a highly critical report on Bombardier Inc. (Bombardier). The vice-president believed that Bombardier had relied upon accounting innovations rather than operating innovations in order to report accounting profits. While numerous issues concerned the vice-president, one of the most critical was the way the company had managed the relationships between its various operating segments. These issues had developed over recent years and threatened to increase following the business decisions in the wake of September 11, 2001, which had dramatically affected the sale of aircraft. The vice-president’s investment report would have significant consequences for numerous stakeholders and would affect both his own and Veritas’s reputations. How should Veritas interpret the various issues related to Bombardier’s accounting and reporting choices?

In August 2018, a recent Canadian business school graduate was excited about starting her dream job at a global financial consulting firm headquartered in the United Kingdom. However, on her first day, she learned from discussions with co-workers that newly hired women (including herself) were offered lower salaries than men who were newly hired for the same positions. She later learned, in an onboarding session, that the company had a strict policy prohibiting pay discussions among employees. The new employee faced a difficult decision in considering what to do next: What were her responsibilities and options? How could she expect the human resources department to respond? Could her choices possibly put her or her colleagues at risk?

In December 2019, a member of a fantasy hockey league had to decide whether to trade away his top talent in exchange for draft picks in the following year’s fantasy draft or to continue to compete for a position in the playoffs. If he traded his top players, he would forfeit his chances at competing for a championship; however, this move might put his team in a better position for the following year’s fantasy hockey season. He had access to the league’s historical data to help determine the likelihood of his team making the playoffs. He wanted to conduct an analysis to make an informed decision grounded by numbers.

Tea Connect, a chain of five tea cafés in India, had ended 2019 with sales revenues of ₹48.1 million. The co-founder of Tea Connect had the ambitious target of opening 20 cafés and achieving sales revenues of ₹200 million by 2020. The co-founder planned the renovation of the cafés to improve the speed of service, but he also wanted to launch Tea Connect–branded consumer packaged products. Three franchising offers for stores in Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Mount Abu were also under consideration. He was wondering whether renovation would help to enhance the customer experience and whether this was the right time to launch consumer packaged goods. Also, was it the right time to explore the franchise route of expansion?

India’s Economic Survey 2016–17 proposed a gradual implementation of the concept of universal basic income (UBI) as the fastest way of providing a long-term solution to poverty. Large-scale inequality and poverty, along with huge misallocation and wastages in the existing welfare schemes, made India a perfect ground for experimenting with UBI. Though the rapid expansion of Jan Dhan–Aadhaar–Mobile infrastructure was expected to smoothen the execution of UBI in India, there were looming concerns about implementation of the program, fiscal feasibility, and the questionable effectiveness of UBI’s impact on poverty alleviation.

Instructor Spreadsheet to accompany product 8B20E013.

Spreadsheet to accompany product 9B20E013.

Spreadsheet for product 9B20C026.

Craig Menear, chief executive officer of The Home Depot Inc. (Home Depot), recognized the need to be responsive to the changing retail landscape and changes in customer preferences. Customers were increasingly expecting to shop online and in-store interchangeably; thus, a seamless experience was critical. To remain a market leader in the do-it-yourself (DIY) industry, Home Depot focused on becoming a best-in-class interconnected retailer by connecting its associates to its customers to improve the customer experience, and by connecting its stores more closely to the online experience. In 2017, Menear and his senior team were considering how to best leverage the company’s key resources in this interconnected retail environment, while also acknowledging the challenges that this environment posed.

In the mid-1990s, Thyrocare disrupted the Indian medical diagnostic industry and steadily gained market share over the next two decades to become one of the top five competitors in India. Thyrocare built and sustained a competitive advantage and entered closely-related businesses. By 2017, the diagnostic industry had become extremely dynamic and competitors were attempting to replicate the unique operating model of Thyrocare. Stand-alone companies were scaling, online and digital aggregators were growing, substitutes such as self-test kits were emerging, and regulations were being tightened, resulting in severe margin pressures. How could Thyrocare preserve its unique model and competitive advantage in such a dynamic industry setting?

In 2015, the Department of Health for the province of Gauteng, South Africa, deinstitutionalized patients in need of long term health care in an effort to reduce costs. The residents were moved from an established health care facility experienced with providing the care these patients needed to non-governmental facilities. Many of these facilities were unlicensed and lacking the skills and resources needed to provide the necessary care. The project was poorly planned with inadequate notice and patients were transferred without identification, medication, or medical records. From March to June 2016, 1,712 patients were transferred; many of them were lost in the system and 144 died—most from malnutrition, abuse, or neglect. The health ombudsman investigated and released a report in February 2017, placing the blame for the tragedy on three senior leaders in the health care system. A new member of the executive council was appointed upon the release of the report. In 2018, her challenge was to determine what happened and plan changes to ensure such a tragedy would never be repeated.

The co-founder and chief product officer of Miutcánk, a promising sharing-economy platform dedicated to neighbourhood networking and services, was analyzing the growth of the platform since its creation in 2014. Miutcánk had more than 43,000 registered users in December 2018, and it was time to think about the best way to monetize the platform. What kind of paid services should be included in the platform? Which revenue model was the most suitable for the platform’s growth? The co-founder and chief product officer wanted to ensure that the company was making the most efficient move toward becoming profitable, without discouraging users from participating on the platform.