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Charles Brindamour is the CEO of Intact Financial Corporation, an insurance firm that makes profits purely from selling insurance—unlike most insurance firms, which rely on investing insurance premiums to make profits. In this Ivey Business Journal interview, he explains how for the last five years, Intact has been focused on three trends: changing customer expectations, software, and data explosion and democratization. Besides technology, the most important change in the industry has been customers’ expectations of their suppliers, which have been amplified by social media. Software has changed how people access information and share expertise and experience. Other changes affecting the industry are resulting from increased data generation and climate change. In Brindamour’s view, disruption and preparing for disruption constitute a continuum. The first step is dealing with the basics of disruption that can occur. The second step in the continuum is to invest in enabling technology and skills. The third step is to invest in innovation. The fourth stage is “research and venture.” Brindamour says that a gap in business school learning is the process of learning not just as an individual or leader, but as an organization. Disruptors, he claims, are not software geniuses; they are the ones who see the gap between what is and what is expected and provide strong design ideas.

If you want to capture the hearts and minds of globally dispersed virtual team members, you must consider two key factors: situated learning and identity construction. Situated learning encompasses questioning, proposing ideas, discussing issues, and seeking feedback, whereas identity construction is “a process of understanding who one is, what one can do, and to what extent one becomes more or less legitimized and valued by the other members.” As individuals engage in situated learning and identity construction, they move from being peripheral participants to central players. Although individual reasons for joining a virtual community (such as an open-source software community) vary, the authors question: “What motivates and propels people to continue to actively contribute?” Though many open-source software (OSS) projects have failed, others have yielded world-class software like Linux, WordPress, and Firefox. <br><br> The authors split a 715-member community OSS community into three groups of participants: highly active/sustained (9), partially active/unsustained (7), and inactive (699). They suggest four steps to increase virtual team member engagement. First, the success of the project relies on sustained contributions from a few core contributors with strong expertise and skills. Second, to identify and foster the development of core contributors, every contribution must be recorded, tracked, and publishable. Third, to retain core contributors, special privileges should be granted to them. Finally, for contributors to gain recognition and reputation within the community, both direct contributions (e.g., solving software coding problems) and indirect contributions (e.g., offering advice) are needed.

The necessity for organizations to embrace “speaking up” is broader than “speaking truth to power.” Speaking up is about improving group performance by engaging in open dialogue—across all levels of rank, position, and tenure—to ensure that organizations have all available knowledge when addressing challenges. Unfortunately, people often refrain from speaking up and voicing new ideas in order to avoid contradicting a superior or embarrassing a colleague. But while keeping quiet can work for self-protection, it does little for group problem solving and helping organizations avoid mistakes. Leveraging her experience across industry, government, and academia, the author debunks two myths: that speaking up is about having courage, and that only lower-level employees worry about speaking up. This article explains how members of an organization can embrace speaking up by developing dialogue skills and increasing psychological safety while implementing teaming routines (e.g., quarterly dinners and council meetings) that provide the opportunity to speak up. It highlights the author’s work with the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency to illustrate the benefits of speaking up in a real-life setting. Ultimately, when an organization’s members have dialogue skills, feel psychologically safe, and work in a group where teaming routines support speaking up, needless mistakes are avoided, time is saved, and knowledge is available to make informed decisions.

Xbed Technology Group (Xbed), a start-up that branded itself as an online hotel platform, was founded in 2015 with the aim of addressing the changing landscape of China’s hospitality industry while coping with issues related to a customer-to-customer sharing economy model. By employing a dual-sharing model and utilizing state-of-the-art digital technologies, the company emerged as a disruptor in the market and expanded to 44 cities in China in just two years of development. As Xbed grew, it faced many challenges, including intense competition from both sharing economy players and traditional hotels. In 2017, as the company looked toward the future, its founder wondered about the future of hospitality services in China and what the company’s strategic focus should be as it pursued its next phase of growth.

In April 2015, the Dharampal Satyapal Group introduced a new hard-boiled candy in three states in India. The candy, named Pulse, had a distinctive raw-mango flavour and a spicy, tangy taste. It quickly became popular. Within two years, Pulse candy surpassed ₹3 billion in sales and became the leader in the hard-boiled candy segment, beating leading national and international brands. The company achieved all of this with a small advertising budget and very little promotion; rather, the candy’s success was largely a result of word-of-mouth and interest on social media. Demand exceeded supply, and competitors were beginning to launch similar and poorly imitated products. How could the group sustain the sales momentum of Pulse? Should it extend the Pulse brand to other formats and flavours and into other product categories? Should it take the candy to overseas markets, and if so, which ones?

In 2016 the chief executive officer (CEO) of Harley-Davidson Inc., the iconic U.S. manufacturer of motorcycles, was facing a constant decline in sales and stock price due to the company's dependence on a mature U.S. market and the natural attrition of its most loyal riders, who were ageing. In May 2017, the CEO needed to determine how to return his global company to growth amid a protectionist agenda and direct business interference from the White House. Should the company expand internationally or not?

The Kanaka Bar Indian Band, a First Nations community in British Columbia, Canada, had realized impressive economic development in the decades since the 1970s. This progress included development of a profitable hydroelectric system backed by strong community governance and the introduction of a five-year community economic development plan. In 2017, the community was executing the plan with some successes and some challenges. As the band council and community members looked to the coming years of the plan and beyond, they wished to continue making progress towards their community vision of self-sufficiency, vibrancy, and sustainability. As they reflected on their successes, took stock of the community’s resources, and assessed its challenges, they asked themselves whether the plan needed to evolve. Which of the community’s resources could it use to achieve its vision in a way that addressed the challenges at the time and remained consistent with the traditional community values?

In August 2015, a law student in Singapore came up with the idea for his first scooter when he needed a simple and economical mode of transport to get from his apartment to university. The student, who was Norwegian, and his Singaporean partner registered and incorporated Skutis Corporation Pte Ltd (Skutis) within only five days. The Skutis e-scooter emitted no fumes or noise and featured a quick folding design for easy storage. As new entrants in the industry, they felt confident that their combined study skills (law and business) would help them design and produce a more durable and dynamic scooter than those currently available. However, by April 2017, Skutis had already encountered major difficulties dealing with a Chinese manufacturer of its products. After 20 months of experience in the market, the two entrepreneurs were planning their company’s strategy for the future. Having experienced the lows and highs of the Chinese production market, they were searching for ways to make their business more profitable and develop a long-term trustworthy relationship with a reliable manufacturer who would produce their designs.

In 2013, two entrepreneurs launched the Virtual Market in Mexico City with a mission to transform small traditional retailers (the so-called “mom-and-pop” shops) into competitive market players. The family-owned shops were strongly embedded in the society, culture, and economy of Mexico and Latin America, producing 50 per cent of the region’s retail sales and 15 per cent of Mexico’s true gross domestic product. However, economic growth had increased consumers’ earnings, leading to previously low-income consumers gaining financial status. The traditional shops were unable to compete with the new demands for cashless payment methods, wider ranges of products and services, and lower prices. To remedy the situation, the Virtual Market gained the trust of the shop owners and worked to improve their financial, technological, and business literacy. By 2017, the Virtual Market had successfully worked with 10,000 shops but had still not attained break-even. Was its business model sustainable in the long term? Could it be replicated in other countries and with other cultures? How could it scale up and secure profits?

In late 2012, an executive vice-president faced a dilemma at Industrias Metalúrgicas Pescarmona S.A. (IMPSA), an Argentine multinational company that designed and produced cranes, dams, and components for power plants, and had recently begun building hydroelectric and wind power projects. The company’s chief executive officer had tasked the executive vice-president with recommending how IMPSA could be radically restructured to adapt to changes in the world marketplace for renewable energy. However, IMPSA was at the top of its game, and the company had a backlog of orders valued at US$3.3 billion. The executive vice-president knew that the chief executive officer would not accept a minor reorganization but would demand a major restructuring based on the firm’s existing resources, which was a strategy that, in the past, had proven to be successful for the company, particularly in emerging markets. The executive vice-president wondered how IMPSA could build on its existing wind power and hydroelectric dam business without abandoning the resources the firm had developed over the years.

The chief executive officer of Daimler Trucks and Buses China Ltd. was on an expatriate assignment in China. In November 2016, he faced a discomforting situation that could bring an abrupt halt to his career; an unfortunate incident in which he lost his temper led to fierce outrage in local Chinese and worldwide media. The media reaction threatened China’s prominence as a major source of revenue for Daimler, and sent Daimler’s share price on a downhill spiral. How should Daimler react, and what could it do to restore the company brand image?

In August 2016, the global procurement manager at Hu-Friedy Mfg. Co., LLC, a large U.S. dental equipment manufacturer, realized that materials were being transported between suppliers and production facilities without a consistent strategy—potentially costing the company thousands of dollars each year. To evaluate the company's transportation needs, the manager considered a range of alternatives, including buying or leasing a truck or hiring a third-party logistics (3PL) provider to manage the transportation. To complete his analysis, the manager needed to develop a new set of routes for pickups and deliveries, evaluate the costs associated with owning or leasing a truck, determine the costs of a 3PL provider, and ultimately determine the course of action that would have the most impact on transportation costs with the least impact on daily operations.

In April 2016, the chairman of the partnership charged with building the $1 billion Highway 407 East Extension Phase 2 in Ontario was reviewing an e-mail from the procurement team that recommended allocation of more than $45 million in contracts for the purchase of granular base material for the highway construction. He knew that the procurement team had worked for several weeks to negotiate and analyze the supplier’s quotes, but after reviewing the recommendation, the chairman wondered whether the team’s recommendation captured the optimal supplier mix and the most cost-effective selection of suppliers. It was certainly a good solution, but was it the optimal solution? Even with an experienced team, this was a difficult optimization problem to solve.

Instructor spreadsheet for product 8B16E038.

Presentation to accompany product 8B18C012.

Student spreadsheet for product 9B16E038.

To survive—and even thrive—amid big bang disruption, companies must learn the new shape of new product diffusion and the four stages of this curve, one that loosely tracks the metaphor of the big bang theory of the universe. They must also embrace the new rules of strategy and competition that follow.

Spreadsheet to accompany product 9B17C049.

It was September 2009 when 21-year-old entrepreneur Lu Chengdui first considered entering the partnership that led to his becoming the chairman and general manager of Wenzhou Cijueshi Science and Technology Co. Ltd. (Cijueshi) in Zhejiang Province, China. Lu started his entrepreneurial efforts when he was in college; he became a serial entrepreneur and achieved great performance. His story drew the attention of both the media and the public. Lu was known for his perseverance and his courage in overcoming difficulties and pursuing his dreams for success. He was a role model for college students who wanted to be entrepreneurs. As he considered a possible involvement in Cijueshi, a company that specialized in developing, selling, and repairing pottery and porcelain, Lu wondered about entering a business in a field where he had no practical experience. What had made him so confident in his previous entrepreneurial success? How had he motivated himself to realize his entrepreneurial targets? He looked back at his entrepreneurial experiences to date to find answers to these questions and motivation for this new endeavour.

Between 1999 and 2017, the Roaring Dragon Hotel (RDH) evolved from a state-owned enterprise (SOE) into a modern, market-driven 5-star accommodation provider, experiencing a combination of market economy and privatization forces. Its initial operations under the new status progressed from the poor performance and management practices of China’s planned economy to a portfolio of operational and strategic reforms that saw it become semi-privatized in 2005, and a fully privatized 5-star accommodation provider by 2017. On the surface, this model of evolution would make any Chinese national proud. However, what was perceived from the outside did not necessarily reflect what was occurring within. Market evolution had produced complex challenges related to employee loyalty, competition, internal resistance to change, promotion prospects, management, and the continuation of questionable practices. What changes should management make in the second half of 2017 to continue the hotel’s transition to a modern global hotel, turn around its declining revenue, and improve its competitive outcomes?