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In early 2019, the general manager of Little Short Stop Stores, a chain of local, family-owned convenience stores in southwestern Ontario, Canada, was projecting a loss for that year. The loss was due in part to a provincial minimum wage increase to CA$14.00 that came into effect on January 1, 2018, increased from $11.60 in 2017 and $11.40 in 2016. Before this change, the store chain had been exceeding the average industry growth rate by 5 per cent for the previous five years. The general manager had to determine how to respond to mitigate the revenue loss and to ensure the company remained competitive in the future. The company was already operating efficiently and competitively, so the focus would be on increasing revenues. The company was further constrained by its revenue mix. Two-thirds of its revenue was generated by tobacco products and lottery tickets, which had prices set by regulatory bodies. The general manager was open to considering all options for future growth. However, he was constrained by the family firm’s preference to avoid long-term debt and expansion beyond its current geographic boundary.

In January 2020, the co-founder of Alpha Advantech LLP (Alpha Advantech), an agricultural and gardening products company based in Karnal, Haryana, India, had to decide whether to drive an organic growth strategy and utilize his resources to expand the company’s operations, or stick to consolidation and market penetration with the current range of products. Alpha Advantech had performed well since its inception in 2016, and the co-founder aimed to make it a ₹600 million company by 2022. However, the current team size and scale limitations of the company were potential impediments to achieving this target. The co-founder could not decide whether to let Alpha Advantech stay niche in the business or to expand it both geographically and in terms of its range of offerings. He realized that if he were to choose expansion over consolidation, he would need to devise a strategic plan for Alpha Advantech’s growth, assess the technical and digital capabilities that his company would require, and anticipate the scalability issues it was likely to face.

In June 2018, Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services, Ltd., one of the largest infrastructure and financial services companies in India, shocked the investment community by defaulting on several debt repayments. Its previously highly-rated debt instruments were downgraded, triggering fears of a market liquidity crisis. In an attempt to defuse the crisis, the Government of India appointed an interim board of directors comprised of industry professionals. The new board faced the difficult task of getting the company back on track, but it first needed to answer several questions: What governance and intermediation failures led to this crisis? What was the company’s current financial position? What options were available to remedy the situation?

Shubam Goldiee Masale Private Limited was a family business established by two childhood friends in 1980 in Kanpur, northern India. In 2004, second-generation family members began joining the business. With the arrival of the new generation, the company started renewing its business operations. The two founders divided specific management roles and responsibilities of key departments among second-generation family members, although control of the company’s overall operations remained with the founders. By January 2019, the company had grown steadily to employ over 4,000 people and become associated with more than 1,500 distributors, selling its products across various locations across India. The management team, which consisted of all family members, wanted to make the company a leading brand in the Indian spice market by taking advantage of new growth opportunities. However, the founders wondered if the company should consolidate its position in the existing products and markets, or venture into uncharted territories.

In 2017, the successful Canadian innovation center TEC Edmonton initiated a joint venture with TusStar, an important Chinese accelerator, and found itself in the middle of a debate about the challenges and opportunities of Chinese investment in Canada’s technology sector. Both organizations were unique collaborations among industry, academia, and government. This joint initiative had added significance because of the implications for these stakeholders. The role of government was also significant, especially regarding the role of the Chinese government in innovation. The partnership was also nationally significant because of the important roles TEC Edmonton and TusStar played in the innovation ecosystems in Canada and China. How could TEC Edmonton define its role underpinning its relationship with TusStar and the Chinese government and make a compelling case for this new cooperation to stakeholders in industry, academia, and government?

Pacari was the flagship brand of SKS Farms, a small agricultural products company in Ecuador that specialized in high quality chocolate. Carla Barbotó and Santiago Peralta were the co proprietors of this family owned and operated company, which was originally created in order to promote Ecuadorean fine aroma chocolate, while also promoting social development, and preserving biodiversity. In 2018, Carla Barbotó read through the report from her company’s recent successful bid to become a certified ‘B’ (benefits) company. While the company had easily surpassed the minimum score for certification, the report contained suggestions that were new, and in a few cases somewhat unexpected. Now Barbotó wondered how to use the thorough and very detailed feedback to prioritize initiatives in order to ensure Pacari brought even greater benefits to its many stakeholders.

In April 2016, the board of directors at an Indian housing finance company, PNB Housing Finance Limited (PNB), was considering the company’s recent organizational transformation and looking ahead to a planned initial public offering. The case examines how business process re-engineering helped PNB grow its small loan portfolio and shed its image as a minor player with little commitment to customer service to become a profitable, solid solution provider. A discussion of specific strategies and interventions that occurred at PNB explain the organizational transformation at the structural, technical, and behavioural levels. The question for the board now is whether the transformation has sufficiently matured the company and prepared it for the next step in its growth—the IPO.

In 2016, China witnessed a significant rise in the knowledge economy. Many users, who had been used to consuming information on the Internet for free, had become increasingly willing to pay for user-generated-content (UGC). Recognizing this emerging opportunity, Qiushibaike (QB), a well-established UGC platform with a focus on entertaining content, rolled out a new pay-for-knowledge product, namely Youliaodao (YLD), which focused on informational content. Instead of following the popular pay-for-knowledge product endorsed by eye-catching celebrities for hedonic needs, YLD differentiated itself by charging for high-quality UGC for practical problem-solving. QB needed to make a critical decision: Should the company support YLD with additional investments and promotion of its informational content, or should QB terminate YLD and return to the company’s core competence area of promoting more entertaining content? How could YLD cope with the increased competition and overcome these obstacles?

In early January 2018, the chief executive officer and co-founder of Tamul Plates Marketing Private Limited had just confirmed the next round of much-needed funding. Having accomplished this goal, he was reassured that funding was taken care of until 2020. The funds would drive a long-awaited expansion and take the company to its next phase of growth. Although he had worked hard to refine the company’s business model over the previous six to seven years, the co-founder was still working on fine tuning the company’s distribution strategy. One challenge was how to expand distribution channels across India. Historically, more than 70 per cent of sales came from wholesalers. However, with increasing attention on building the brand, the co-founder worried that this approach might not work in the future.

In-N-Out was an iconic burger chain that had changed little since it was founded in 1948. The company remained family-owned and had continually resisted going public. The company was only located in seven US states and grew slowly and deliberately in order to ensure that it could continue to offer a high quality product and experience to its customers at low prices. Current CEO Lynsi Snyder was interested in continued growth for In-N-Out, but not at the cost of sacrificing the quality of its products or the unique way in which the company operated. How could she grow the company without altering its identity?

When a company is looking to expand, it is natural for the managers involved—including the CEO—to have location preferences. Ivey Professors Andreas Schotter and Paul Beamish investigated how location hassles influence foreign investment decisions and sales. They found that these hassles significantly affected individuals or small groups of employees tasked with assessing potential opportunities. Firms must overcome managerial biases and identify champions willing to tackle location hassles in difficult markets that have the potential to generate a high return on investment—especially if the hassle factors of those markets are keeping the competition away. Many characteristics that are perceived hassles for managers of firms from traditional industrialized locations like Europe, the United States, Canada, and Japan are not seen as such by managers from rapidly internationalizing emerging-market firms. The authors recommend three actions to take to utilize and build on the hassle factor: 1) raise awareness of managerial biases and on-the-ground location factors, 2) raise global strategic capacity, and 3) leverage a more diverse talent pool. Firms should hire for a global mindset and not just for technical job competencies or single-location knowledge. They should also recognize that some otherwise high-performing managers may be ill-suited for roles involving high-hassle locations.

In June 2018, Lena Koke, the co-founder of Axess Law Professional Corporation, a legal services enterprise in Toronto, Ontario, was examining how to take the firm to the next level of growth. Koke had to determine what legal products and services the firm could expand and diversify into, how the firm should leverage information technology to reinforce its low-cost positioning, and how the firm should finance growth. The co-founder must evaluate the road map that she chose, and develop a long-term strategic plan for the firm.

On October 15, 2019, the Doc32 office was celebrating its achievement of month-end revenue goals. Doc32 was an online management and marketing platform for dental health care based in Pune, Maharashtra, India. The company was dedicated to helping its partner dentists find clients and reduce operational costs. The Doc32 platform provided optimized solutions, innovative marketing techniques, and dentistry supplies at a discounted rate. The Doc32 founders were pleased with the online platform’s success to date and saw it as validation of their chosen business model. However, they were wondering how to replicate that success across the entire country. What growth strategies could the new venture adopt to achieve its goals for growth, diversification, product development, market penetration, and market development?

On June 30, 2018, the founders of Mkhiwa Trust, Johannesburg, South Africa, considered their dilemma of deepening their impact in South Africa, using education as a key vehicle to bring about systemic change. The case highlights the evolution of their mutual support throughout their careers. The tragic death of their young son had far-reaching implications for the couple and their business interests, their career aspirations and the focus of many of their future business and philanthropic initiatives. It also defined a number of choices taken by the couple since then. The story of these individual leaders, who support each other in their businesses, illustrates the power of a couple as servant leaders.

Guelph-based Intrigue Media (Intrigue), a marketing agency, has built a wholly-owned and operated network of 200 television screens in high-traffic consumer environments in Southwestern Ontario. The network reaches 1.5 million potential customers per month, and targets local small businesses wanting to expand their customer base. The business development manager at Intrigue has been tasked with developing a business plan to grow this video advertising network. She is reviewing several options, one of which includes the opportunity to seek outside investment.

In June 2019, a newly promoted branch manager of a bank in Davao City, Philippines, must recommend to the bank’s head office who among six loan applicants will obtain loans from the branch. She has received applications for ₱24 million in loans but can only grant ₱18 million. The branch manager needs to (a) decide how much to loan and to which customers, (b) find ways to retain valuable customers and acquire new ones, and (c) consider new avenues to accommodate the increasing number of applicants at her branch. The case encourages students to apply customer relationship management concepts in deciding which borrowers to recommend and it offers an opportunity to discuss the role of marketers as trusted advisers to their clients.

In late 2018, a social entrepreneur in Iceland realized he needed to make changes to his enterprise working with socially-isolated children and youth. His operating model was to host bicycle rides with children and youth, and to encourage them to engage fully as young people. Most of these children had not previously engaged in physical activity, and many experienced not only social difficulties, but also physical challenges as a result of being overweight or obese. The social entrepreneur was spending much of his time negotiating sponsorship and service agreements and as a result, he spent less time engaging with the focus of his initiative—at-risk children and youth. He was also funding some of the initiative himself, putting his personal financial circumstances at risk. How could this social entrepreneur develop a robust, sustainable business model that would enable him to develop financial independence, support the youths' involvement in an annual cycling ride that circumnavigated Iceland, and enable the business to expand so that it no longer relied totally on one person?

As consumers watch the global coronavirus pandemic play out in print, across digital media, and on TV, it is clear that not all brand managers are performing equally well—at least not after collectively flooding e-mail inboxes with “We are here for you” messages. The moves made by brand managers in corporate communications have been all over the map. The good moves have been made by those who understand why actions speak louder than words. However, while being creative can pay brand dividends, it also creates risk. The last thing you want is to look like you’re exploiting a crisis. There have been many brand announcements about redirecting media dollars to public services, but timing matters. As with any brand initiative, consumers tend to reward the first mover and ignore the copycats—unless they’re brilliant. A brand, of course, isn’t just influenced by how it supports the community. How a company treats employees also has a significant impact. When disaster strikes, if there is something helpful you can do, then just do it and do it quickly. If there is something helpful you can say, then say it, and feel free to say it creatively if you can do so with compassion. And if you don’t have anything to offer or your message doesn’t come naturally, then don’t waste everybody’s time trying to attract attention.

The COVID-19 pandemic will eventually subside, and many businesses will recover, but in order to rebound, they must survive—which is why adjusting sales tactics to get through the outbreak is critical. This article provides six tips to those in sales on how to grow revenue. 1) Be Helpful: Businesses and service providers that lead with their hearts in this time of extreme need stand a better chance of surviving and thriving. Free consulting is typically touted as a bad thing, but offering discounted products or free resources that can help others maintain operations might be the best “selling” one can do right now. 2) Re-Evaluate Your Context: Think through who needs your help right now, and align your value proposition directly with our new shared reality. 3) Modify Products and Target New Markets: Develop new products or services that clients didn’t need yesterday—but desperately need today. 4) Add Value in New Ways: Consider helping your customers free up cash by offering more generous payment terms or more flexible purchase options. 5) Tweak Your Pitch: Consider adjusting a revenue-focused pitch to a cost-savings pitch. 6) Caring Over Content: Tell clients, “I know that the current environment makes it difficult to consider new purchases today, and I’m not expecting you to, but I wanted to reach out to see if you’d be open to having a discussion about a future solution when this calms down?”

In June 2018, the co-founder and chief brand officer of HEXO Corp. (HEXO), a medical cannabis company in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, needed to prepare his company for the legalization of Canada’s recreational marijuana market. HEXO already provided a range of innovative, smoke-free, and traditional marijuana products to customers across Canada. The chief brand officer planned to analyze the inflows and outflows associated with two options for entering the recreational cannabis market: constructing a new greenhouse and acquiring one of the company's competitors in eastern Canada. Because HEXO could pursue only one option, he would need to assess each option carefully, both qualitatively and quantitatively; develop short-term and long-term action plans; and project an income statement and balance sheet for the next fiscal year. The chief brand officer wanted to ensure that HEXO was in the best position to achieve economies of scale by increasing production capabilities, establishing a widespread distribution network, and developing a strong brand through high-quality customer experiences.