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In 2016, MGM Resorts International announced it would break with the long-standing tradition of providing free parking on the Las Vegas Strip. Other Las Vegas resort companies, including Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Resorts, soon followed suit. Las Vegas Sands Corp. owned the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino, the Palazzo, and the Sands Expo and Convention Center, and had no plans to charge for parking. By 2017, as more hotels and casinos chose to implement paid parking on the Las Vegas Strip, the president and chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands Corp. properties faced a decision: should the Las Vegas Sands Corp. properties continue to offer free self-parking and use it as a differentiating marketing tactic, or should it follow the trend of its competitors and generate additional income by introducing parking fee?

Santé Au Naturel was a natural health boutique in Montreal’s downtown core. The company was off to a strong start in a growing market, but as its best-selling products became more mainstream, large retailers were entering the market, stealing customers, and driving down margins. In early 2017, Santé Au Naturel's owner reflected on further differentiation of her offering and targeted marketing; she wanted to improve her marketing mix to grow sales and protect margins.

In late 2014, the deputy minister of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence joined the public service, six months after Ukraine’s revolution and change of government. He joined the ministry as part of the new government’s attempt to reform a bureaucracy crippled by corruption, inefficiencies, and dysfunction. In six months, he had already made notable changes. However, by March 2015, the changes were not resulting in better outcomes where they were urgently needed—in the eastern regions, supporting a tactically and logistically crippled military that was resisting Russian attempts at incursion. What more could the deputy minister do to initiate and lead change?

In March 2017, Ajay Maharaj Bachulal was starting his new position as plant manager at SABMiller plc’s (SABMiller's) plant in Polokwane, South Africa. Bachulal had successfully led change at the company's brewery in another province, and he hoped to be as successful at the new plant. His dilemma was how to approach the workforce in Polokwane, and how to adapt to and make changes within the culture specific to that plant. While both plants adhered to SABMiller’s system, policies, and procedures, Bachulal sensed that the approach of each plant to work and life was different. How would Bachulal's own leadership development process and his efforts to change culture by empowering lower level employees in Polokwane help him in a different province with distinct ethnic compositions, languages, and cultures?

Presentation to accompany product 8B17C046.

Sumith Dutta was the founder of Emerald Trail (ET), a resort near a well-known tourist destination in the Himalayas, which treated resort guests’ pets as no less important than their owners. Dutta’s passion for pets inspired him to offer this experience, which was different from what was offered at other resorts. The case details the decisions Dutta made in executing his strategy and invites students to consider how Dutta could have scaled up his business in 2017: Should he have invested in upgrades at the existing location or should he have opened a new resort in another location in India? If he opened in a new location, could he replicate his existing model? In either case, is he financially prepared for the growth?

In December 2016, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Château Ksara, the largest and most renowned wine producer in Lebanon, was analyzing the company’s sales volume and product availability around Lebanon. To the CEO’s surprise, a popular fine dining establishment in the city did not include any of Château Ksara’s wines. Frustrated, he started wondering what could have been the reasons for the omission. Was the quality of wine giving competitors an edge in selling their brands? What position did Château Ksara currently hold within the wine brand landscape in its own country? How could Château Ksara add value to, and maintain profitable relationships with, its distribution channel partners?

The founder and chief executive officer of Twenty One Toys Inc., a Canadian designer and manufacturer of educational toy sets, was considering her firm’s future in 2017. The company had doubled its revenues each year for the past two years with its first toy—and, thus far, its only product—the Empathy Toy. The entrepreneurial founder had defied the odds, gaining recognition for her product and securing funds from socially focused awards and firms. She had built up a supply chain, starting with ethically manufactured toys, and had sold her products both directly to schools and through distributors to the wider retail market. The biggest current challenge for the firm was determining its growth strategy for the Empathy Toy and for its second product, the Failure Toy.

In September 2015, Groupe Fnac (Fnac), a large French retail chain, announced it had acquired long-time competitor Darty Limited (Darty) in an effort to counter competition from online retailers, particularly American e-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. Fnac’s first offer had been declined, but Fnac and Darty negotiated and agreed on a new offer in November 2015. Unexpectedly, in March 2016, a South African-based retail holding company, Steinhoff International Holdings N.V., made a bigger offer. After an intense bidding war, Fnac successfully acquired Darty in April 2016 for 60 per cent over its first offer. The new company, Groupe Fnac Darty, faced several challenges. It needed to convince its stakeholders that the two emblematic competitors could create better value for them, despite their different identities and corporate cultures. How should the combined entity achieve the announced €130 million in annual synergies by 2019? And would the new entity survive the aggressive competition of e-commerce?

In January 2016, the executive director of Canada's Stratford Festival, one of North America's largest repertory theatre companies, was considering the festival's long-term outlook and the role the organization played in the community. The 2015 season had been successful, and she would be able to report a small surplus to the board at the upcoming annual general meeting. But the long-term outlook wasn't as secure. Annual attendance had dropped below previous levels of more than 500,000, which was the attendance needed to ensure long-term operational sustainability. The festival had returned to its creative roots during a period when the Canadian dollar had been in decline, but it had not been enough to ensure that the organization would survive its next economic tempest. The festival needed a long-term, innovative strategy to generate sustainable growth and strengthen it sufficiently to weather future economic downturns and exchange rate fluctuations.

In 2016, the managing director of Wingreens Farms, a social enterprise based in India, was considering the company’s future. Wingreens Farms partnered with rural Indian farmers living in poverty to produce and sell homemade processed foods, including salsas, dipping sauces, hummus, garlic butter, breads, teas, organic fresh pickled sprouts, microgreens, and wheatgrass. This small company had a unique, sustainable, and profitable business model with a managed sales turnover worth R160 million (US$2.4 million) in 2016. However, the managing director wondered whether Wingreens Farms could eventually transition from a small, personalized, family-owned company to a large systems- and process-driven organization. Could the company retain its commitment to ethical values and its handmade, labour-intensive production methods if it began competing against factory-produced, cheaper products from large, organized companies?

In September 2011, the chief risk officer of Credit Guarantee Corporation Malaysia Berhad (CGC) was mulling over a pressing problem. CGC was looking to expand its business in Malaysia from just giving guarantees to small and medium enterprises to also providing direct loans (direct-lending products). The change required a major overhaul in business strategy and an increase in eligibility criteria. Previously, most criteria were checked manually by CGC for each of its clients—a slow and unreliable process. Given the recent developments, how could CGC revise its business rules in order to accommodate its expansion strategy?

This technical note covers statistical models such as scorecards, decision trees, random forest models, and neural networks for decision making. The Basel II framework and Rete algorithm are also expressed. This technical note is best used with product 9B17M177.

In 2003, a garment factory in Pakistan burned down, leaving the owner with over US$1 million in debt and no way to fulfill his orders. In the wake of the fire, the owner needed to determine how to use the resources he still had to meet his delivery obligations and pay the raw materials suppliers—as well as what to do next with his company.

In September 2016, German-based Bayer AG (Bayer) and U.S.-based Monsanto Company (Monsanto) agreed to merge entities to create a global leader in agriculture. The combined entity would benefit from Monsanto’s expertise in seeds and traits, and from Bayer’s wide range of crop protection products. Bayer would acquire Monsanto for $128 per share, a high 44 per cent premium in an all-cash transaction. There were issues with the deal, which included antitrust concerns, which could require subsequent divestments, and Monsanto’s brand image, owing to its involvement in controversial business operations. Given these issues, would Bayer’s diversification into agrochemicals by merging with Monsanto be able to create sufficient synergies and deliver economic benefits to shareholders, while meeting expectations from other stakeholders at different levels?

In early 2017, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Raintree Resorts International, Inc. was contemplating the next moves for the timeshare company he had founded in 1997. He and his team had focused their attention on creating and developing properties in the world’s top destinations. The CEO felt privileged to have built the best vacation destinations for people, but the company was at a turning point. He was intrigued by disrupters in the broader industry of hospitality, such as Airbnb (the largest provider of rooms without hotel ownership) and Uber (the US$66 billion company that provided rides but did not own a single taxi). Should the CEO grow his company’s existing properties, develop new ones, or do something else entirely?

Spanx Inc., founded in 2000, was a U.S. intimate apparel company that sold body shaping undergarments known as shapewear. Through word-of-mouth marketing by celebrities and consumers, Spanx achieved 2016 sales of US$400 million globally. However, Spanx’s leadership position was being threatened by a shift in consumer preferences, medical concerns over the dangers of compression wear, and competitors launching more comfortable products in the active wear category. Would Spanx be able to sustain its growth or was it beginning its decline?

Spreadsheet to accompany product 5B17A064.

Intuit, was the market leader in tax-filing software. Its software program, TurboTax, assisted 29 million users versus just seven million each for the tax software programs of rival firms H&R Block and TaxAct. But Intuit’s total revenues had fallen in 2015, and in order to help the tech company boost its 2016 sales, it would need to decide on an effective advertising-testing technique. Should it look the relatively new phenomenon of applying neuroscience to marketing research—neuromarketing?

On January 16, 2015, the director of the public affairs division of Uni-President Enterprises Corp. (Uni-President) reflected on growing safety concerns in the food industry. At the time, organizations operated in an uncertain environment, marked by varied suppliers of raw materials, changing government policies and regulations, and shifting consumption choices. As business environments grew ever more uncertain, the likelihood of a product crisis increased. The food industry was especially vulnerable, and large food manufacturers confronted difficult situations in which their hard-won reputations could be destroyed by a single crisis. Even with its strong track record and reputation, Uni-President could not have avoided the consequences of a 2014 food scandal. Although Uni-President had survived the recent spate of food safety crises, more would be likely to come. Was Uni-President’s crisis management approach sufficient, appropriate, and effective? What should Uni-President do going forward?