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Zakir Khan, a celebrated Indian comedian, commanded an impressive and vast fan base. Khan’s unreserved exhibition of his authentic nature had earned him acclaim not only from his fans but also from fellow artists and the media. It had also allowed him to build a personal brand, leading to widespread appeal that had, in turn, unlocked diverse creative avenues for him that typically remained beyond the reach of conventional comedians. What else had contributed to Khan’s personal brand, and what would enhance and sustain that brand identity?

The case looks at an organisation called CSG Group (CSG), which successfully diversified over the span of several years to become an integrated facilities management and talent services provider. Along their journey of diversification, they acquired a business which had misrepresented its finances – however this was only discovered after the sale had gone through. The financially distressed acquisition threatened the future viability of the company and required a swift turnaround in order for the organisation to remain afloat. Many varying turnaround strategies were implemented, and the division ended up successful. During the turnaround, the protagonist took the opportunity to restructure the divisions and merge multiple businesses inside

While Microsoft and its allies received immense praise from industry insiders for creating GitHub Copilot, a tool that greatly improved programming accessibility, it faced scrutiny from regulators and ethicists shortly after its launch. A class action suit was filed against them for using the publicly available codes to develop Copilot without informed consent. Ethicists raised concerns about their commitment to ethical and responsible innovation. While Microsoft and allies were being questioned they and several other big technology firms terminated a large numbers of AI ethics personnel. This raised several concerns about ethical and legal oversights in design, development, and deployment of AI-powered innovations like GitHub Copilot.

Established in August 2011 in India, Frontier Markets (FM) was one of the largest social commerce platforms working with women influencers and with a strong following of rural customers. Starting out as a clean-energy product company, FM adopted a gender-smart strategy to bring rural-based women entrepreneurs on board as the company’s representatives in rural villages. The company leveraged an extensive network of women entrepreneurs, known as Sahelis, through the Meri Saheli e-commerce app. Using the app, the company delivered products and services in finance, agriculture, health care, climate, digital, and essential services. In 2022, FM had over 20,000 Sahelis working with 432,000 rural families, implementing over 25 million solutions through direct sales and doorstep delivery. The firm’s founders considered expanding geographically to become India’s largest women-led commerce platform. They wondered how they could add 10 million new customers and generate over US$54.16 million in revenue in the next two years. What was the best option for achieving this ambitious growth: expanding in new markets; adding new product categories; or adding new strategic partners?

Outland provided a global communication and exhibition platform for artists and collectors. Outland conducted art transactions in the form of cryptocurrencies, addressing challenges prevalent in the traditional creator economy. Renowned artist James Jean collaborated with Outland in 2022 to release a new hand-drawn digital art series called Fragments. The series received widespread acclaim. The fans had high expectations for Fragments’ narrative derivative work, "Adrift," set to launch in 2023. The platform aimed to establish a fan community centred around Jean and his work. However, fans wanted to interact with the artist and participate in the secondary creation of his work, while also receiving better financial returns. How would Outland establish an intellectual property licensing mechanism to increase non-fungible token (NFT) creators and holders an enhanced financial return?

Global health and wellness industries worldwide have been changing rapidly. In China, traditional Chinese supplements brand Guanzhan was founded in 2014 with the aim to provide younger consumers with new types of supplements that would satisfy their changing needs. The company employed a “New Retail” model to best serve the targeted consumer groups, who, compared to their older counterparts, knew little about traditional medicine and had higher taste and convenience requirements for supplement products. As of when the case was written, Guanzhan's ready-to-eat fish maw products had become one of the leading supplement product categories in the Chinese market. Looking into the future, the company sought to expand their footprint offline and develop new products that would satisfy the offline markets.

In February 2023, SZ Dà-Jiāng Innovations Science and Technology Co. Ltd. (DJI) was included in the list of the “Top 100 Global Innovators.” At the same time, the 200-metre DJI Sky Pixel—the world’s first asymmetrical suspension steel structure ultra-high-rise building—was achieving remarkable success in the 2023 China Architectural Awards. The building seemed to symbolize DJI’s meteoric rise. In 2023, DJI was a leading company in the global drone industry. From DJI’s inception in 2006 to the first University Student Robot Training Camp in 2013, and up to its current status in 2023, DJI had dedicated 17 years to the development and perfection of drones and more than a decade to the field of education. In its early days, DJI had to overcome serious technical challenges to achieve astonishing success and navigate the strong competition in the market. In 2023, the biggest hurdle DJI was facing was global trade tensions. What other issues were awaiting DJI on its path forward?

Soulpepper Theatre Company (Soulpepper) underwent a significant transformation under the leadership of its new co-leaders. The co-leaders not only navigated the aftermath of a crisis in 2018 that saw the immediate resignation of a well-known artistic director accused of sexual harassment but also steered the company towards a bright future aligned with an ambitious five-year strategic plan. The plan, endorsed by the board of directors, was a crucial step towards recovering from the tarnished reputation and elevating Soulpepper to global recognition, rooted in the excellence of its productions and celebration of Canadian creativity. However, as the theatre was laying down the building blocks for renewal, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, causing significant disruptions in the Canadian theatre scene and necessitating a re-evaluation of the co-leaders’ strategic approach.

Supplement for product W35261.

This experiential exercise is designed to teach students how joint ventures can entail inherent tensions that resemble a real-world prisoner’s dilemma. In the context of a (hypothetical) international collaboration in the global bicycle industry, students are put in the position of the parent firms’ decision-makers and must decide between accessing the other’s knowledge versus wanting to acquire (i.e., own) it. Students are thereby incentivized to act in self-interest, which ultimately leads to worse outcomes than if they had acted in the interest of the group. The exercise provides a lively, visceral learning experience and is complemented with an in-depth discussion of assumptions and implications as described in this teaching note.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W33861.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W33862.

In August 2022, Neetu Yadav and Kirti Jangra, co-founders of Animall, reflected upon their experience of starting a business in a highly competitive and fragmented Indian livestock management market. The industry suffered from a shortage of skilled workforce, inadequate infrastructure, and needed better access to modern technology. Yadav and Jangra were tasked to consider the competition in the digital space, assess the difficulty in penetrating a geographically and digitally remote market, and to build farmers' trust to grow the business. Yadav identified four opportunities for growing the business: expansion in veterinary services, providing nutrition advice, focus on particular animal breeds, and entry into other Indian states.

In February 2023, a prominent retail investor was contemplating selling his investment in Narayana Hrudayalya Limited, one of India’s leading health care companies, when the stock price reached an all-time high of ₹800. The investor had initially bought the shares in 2017, when the price was ₹350 per share. On February 6, 2023, he came across an article about the company that discussed its future prospects, which prompted him to investigate the company’s financials and other key aspects more closely. As he delved deeper into the company’s financial details, the investor discovered various diverse opinions in various reports. To gain some clarity on the company’s financial situation, he asked for the professional advice of his nephew, who was an investment analyst at a prominent stockbroker firm. The analyst knew the importance of conducting a thorough analysis of a company before offering an informed conclusion and investment recommendation to his uncle. He also saw his analysis as an opportunity to provide valuable insight to his own current and prospective clients.

Natalie Wilson, a human resources administrator at League Plastics, a manufacturer of parts for the recreational vehicle industry, was worried that she would be blamed by her supervisor for an increasing number of workers’ compensation claims. After gathering data on the ever-worsening safety record in the facility and taking notes about where injuries were occurring, Wilson knew she would need to act before the company’s workers’ compensation policy came due for renewal. She needed to put together a plan that would start reducing injuries for the rest of the year, and she needed to persuade her supervisor to implement it.

One afternoon on January 10, 2020, Zhengting Chen, the chief executive officer of Sichuan Zhiyuan Digital Finance Information Technology Co., Ltd. (Zhiyuan), was reading an internal report on the company’s performance. Founded in 2013 in Chengdu, Zhiyuan was one of the first platform companies to provide traditional supply chain financial services in southwest China. Zhiyuan had experienced a decrease in both annual revenue in 2019 and year-over-year growth rate of membership. So, Chen wondered how the Zhiyuan’s digital transformation could help attract customers and sustain the company's long-term growth by ensuring the authenticity and transparency of transactions.

The case describes the nature of the challenges facing Osman Arbee, CEO of Motus Holdings Limited (Motus) and his executive committee (exco) as they led the business through the challenges inherent in the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the South African government’s initially stringent response to it. Arbee and other exco members explain the competing interests of different stakeholders and highlight the urgency with which they needed to act to ensure the long-term viability of the business. Motus is an integrated automotive holding company based in Ekurhuleni, near Johannesburg, South Africa. Its four divisions include Import and Distribution, Retail and Rental, Motor-Related Financial Services, and Aftermarket Parts.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Niagara (BBBSN) was a not-for-profit (NFP) organization that offered mentoring and other programs for children and youth. The organization recruited and deployed volunteers in a variety of positions, including those available through its mentoring program, thrift store, bingo halls, and periodic fundraising events. However, while demand for BBBSN’s services was increasing, the number of people willing to volunteer their time was declining. Since BBBSN was a newly amalgamated organization that had combined three Niagara-region Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) agencies over the past two years, the fundraising and events coordinator of BBBSN also had to develop an integrated volunteer recruitment and fundraising program that would create a stronger voice for BBBS in the whole Niagara region.

The role of marketing in any organization is to improve performance by establishing and nurturing worthwhile relationships (for companies, “worthwhile” usually means profitable) with customers, clients, sponsors, or other stakeholders. The professional practice of marketing, however, is more complicated than the unfortunate media-created stereotypes of fast-talking salespeople and manipulative advertisers. Indeed, marketers have many ways to win. This note explains the major choices that all marketers face and the ways in which marketing decisions can be made to obtain winning relationships with stakeholders.

In August 2022, Anthony Tan, co-founder and CEO of Flirtual, a virtual reality-based dating platform was deciding whether to hire a new employee or work with a consultancy to complete a major rewrite of the platform’s code. Flirtual had experienced high user growth, resulting in performance issues among some of its users. Tan wanted to decide how to continue growing its users while addressing these challenges.