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<p align="justify">When vaccines became widely available in 2021, Dr. Bonnie Henry—the provincial health officer of British Columbia (BC)—was tasked with the monumental mission of immunizing all BC residents against the COVID-19 pandemic. By November 19, 2021, almost 91 per cent of eligible residents had received their first dose of the vaccine, and 87 per cent had received their second dose. At the same time, the pediatric vaccine for children aged five to eleven was approved by Health Canada; however, polling suggested that BC parents were hesitant to vaccinate their young children. Henry faced the new challenge of creating a plan to convince parents and caregivers that vaccinating their children was both necessary and safe.<p>

Student spreadsheet for W27310.

In September 2019, the project manager of Washington, DC, technology company Zinthro found a serious calculation error in her company’s bid for a major government project. When she discovered the mistake, the bid had already been accepted and the project was well under way. The issue threatened her working relationship with several key individuals related to the project, including the executive overseeing the project, the client representative, the team that put together the original bid for the project, fellow project managers, and team leaders. Although she was not the one who made the mistake, she was the one who had discovered it and had to decide what to do next. Who should she talk to about the error? Who should be told first? How should she deliver the bad news?

Urban Company (UC) was a digital labour platform that connected consumers with service providers (referred to as “partners” by UC) for home services such as plumbing, painting, and beauty and salon services. UC was ranked as the top digital platform company in India in the Fairwork India Ratings in 2020, but on October 10, 2021, the company met with a protest by its women partners from the beauty and salon segment. Two months later, on December 20, it faced another protest from its partners for unfair work practices. UC had shown a stellar performance in 2020, registering a 146 per cent increase in its revenue. However, the company was unprofitable, and its losses inflated further in 2021. Accommodating the partners’ demands might deteriorate the company’s bottom line further and might adversely impact the success of its initial public offering, planned for 2023. Additionally, continued unrest by the women partners might tarnish the company’s image, adversely affecting its rating in Fairwork’s annual survey. There was also a possibility that the government might impose stricter norms for the functioning of digital platforms. What should the company do to appease the protesters while also protecting its bottom line?

In December 2021, Forest Essentials opened its one hundredth store in India and a store in the United Kingdom; the Indian home-grown luxury Ayurveda brand had rapid expansion plans despite the obstacles it faced. Twenty-one years earlier, the company’s founder, liberal arts graduate Mira Kulkarni, converted the six-thousand-year-old science of Ayurveda into bottles and jars of luxurious skin-care and hair-care products, making Forest Essentials an aspirational luxury brand. Forest Essentials had grown to establish a robust presence in five categories—skin care, hair care, wellness, health, and makeup—while acquiring a large and loyal customer base in India. The company was meticulous about the quality of its ingredients and put great effort into sourcing high-quality ingredients from all over India; however, easy access to cheaper Ayurveda-based brands and the entry and availability of international wellness brands into the Indian market threatened Forest Essentials’ customer retention.<br><br>Kulkarni and her son, Samrath Bedi, needed to sustain the growth of Forest Essentials across digital and physical channels in India’s cluttered beauty and wellness market, with a price-sensitive customer base, while also growing the brand’s presence in cross-cultural markets overseas. Could they pursue growth in both marketspaces consistently? Should Kulkarni and Bedi focus on engaging with their existing and potential customers in India, or should they aim to establish their luxury brand in international markets?

In January 2022, the leaders of the Canadian charity organization International Needs Canada recognized that individual child sponsorship had serious flaws and was not as impactful as it once had been. They sought to move donors from individual child sponsorship to the more beneficial group sponsorship model. The director of communications and marketing had to determine which donor group to target as he launched the program. As the new model could disrupt the industry. The organization also had to consider the reaction of much larger competitors. Furthermore, International Needs Canada was not replacing its own individual child sponsorship model with group sponsorship; instead, both programs would run simultaneously.

Mahindra Rural Housing Finance Limited (Mahindra Home Finance), a rapidly growing non-banking financial corporation (NBFC) in India, was on the cusp of a historic decision: Should the organization be among India’s first NBFCs to launch a machine-learning-led predictive platform that aimed to revolutionize the way loans were disbursed in rural India? Mahindra Home Finance had a strong focus on social impact, and the firm had to decide whether to take this giant leap. If successful, the project might become a beacon for many such businesses trying to create positive change across communities, as it would reduce the “risk” involved in lending to a segment that was traditionally shunned by the formal banking system. The decision was important—both to the company and to the industry as a whole. Was it time for the field of sustainability to embrace machine learning?

Michael Katchen, chief executive officer and co-founder of Wealthsimple Technologies Inc. (Wealthsimple), made history when his company launched Canada’s first regulated cryptocurrency exchange in 2020. By designing a platform complying with regulations, Wealthsimple provided Canadians with a safer and more secure platform to invest in cryptocurrency, thereby creating a point of differentiation and source of competitive advantage for the company. However, the perceived risks of cryptocurrency-based products meant that Wealthsimple’s pivot into cryptocurrency had not been met with unanimous support, with some industry commentators claiming that Wealthsimple’s strategy to enter cryptocurrency and the higher transaction fees that followed stood in stark contrast to the low-risk investment strategy and principle of wealth democratization upon which Katchen had founded the company. In 2022, with an aim to grow its user base, Wealthsimple had to consider whether to continue to expand in the Canadian cryptocurrency industry. Could it achieve its growth objectives by expanding its crypto offerings, or should it explore alternatives outside the sector?

Daily Crunch was a sprouted-nut brand that launched in March 2020 during the beginning of a global pandemic. The co-founder and chief executive officer of Daily Crunch was responsible for determining the company’s marketing and business strategy in 2021. In this pivotal time for a new company, a multitude of avenues needed to be explored, such as deciding whether to focus on a digital or an in-person marketing strategy; examining new marketing opportunities in a new shopping environment; launching new products, flavours, or sizes; and deciding whether to focus primarily on direct-to-consumer sales through e-commerce. Daily Crunch had several key objectives—namely, increasing brand awareness and sales, and expanding distribution. However, its key objective was to survive as a start-up during a global pandemic.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W28617.

In January 2018, an account manager at a Canadian advertising agency was tasked with making a recommendation regarding a potential workplace safety marketing campaign in Manitoba, Canada, that aimed to lower the number of work-related injuries and deaths. The account manager had previously been involved with a 2016 advertising campaign that had used an innovative approach to expose the attitudes and opinions that young people had about workplace safety. Cleverly utilized hidden-camera footage of inexperienced young people eagerly agreeing to dangerous working practices caught the attention of the public and media, and ultimately helped raise awareness and reduce workplace injuries in Manitoba. The account manager felt strongly that more needed to be done to improve workplace safety, but he needed to analyze the 2016 results to determine whether a new marketing campaign was the best solution. He would be working with and ultimately pitching his recommendation to a multi-faceted team made up of members who each had a stake in improving workplace safety in Manitoba. With the team already formed and time of the essence, he knew he must analyze and address the potential opportunities of a behavioural marketing campaign in order to make a recommendation on a course of action that could potentially save young Manitobans’ lives.

CPlex input file to accompany W27140.

CPlex solution file to accompany product W27141.

In fall 2021, André Bolduc was contemplating retirement and passing down his maple syrup farm, or “sugar bush,” to his children. David Bolduc, the youngest in the family of three siblings, was the only family member who wanted to continue the generational tradition of the family’s maple sugar farm, which was located in Saint-Jacques-de-Leeds, a municipality close to Montreal and Quebec City. David and his wife had three children under the age of ten. David was evaluating the option of expanding the family’s maple syrup business in order to reach greater profits from production so that he could continue his family’s traditional legacy and also be able to support his family. While the 2021 maple syrup season was over, David would have to make a decision well before spring 2022.

On June 25, 2021, Professor Pratik Modi, chairperson of the postgraduate program at the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), attended a meeting with the director and chairpersons of different academic areas and programs, where it was decided that the upper limit on the number of elective courses offered by each area should be done away with, considering the requirements of students and faculty members. Although the decision to remove the upper limit seemed to be beneficial to all parties, it would pose a challenge in terms of scheduling classes, given the number of constraints involved. Modi was determined that a solution could be found using the tools and techniques of operations research, which was taught as one of the core subjects at IRMA.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W27140.

Instructor Spreadsheet to accompany product W27141.

In July 2022, a portfolio manager for an investment company was considering adding the Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola) stock to its flagship global blend fund, which invested in firms with neither predominant value nor growth characteristics. Her initial task was to develop an investment thesis by first gathering qualitative and quantitative information related to Coca-Cola and its peers. Her thesis would consider what long-term trends might play out in the industry, as well as any short- and medium-term considerations related to the economy, the industry, and Coca-Cola itself. She wondered whether an analysis of recent financial performance coupled with expectations of future performance could provide any clues as to the suitability of current investments. Recognizing that further analysis would follow (such as an in-depth discounted cash flow analysis), the portfolio manager needed to know whether the fund should consider investing in Coca-Cola’s stock based on her preliminary analysis.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W31037.

Jennie O’Keefe and Chris Johnson, owners of Rough Waters Brewing Company, were deliberating how to make further inroads into an increasingly competitive provincial craft beer market. The new entrepreneurs were at a crossroads as they considered several possibilities for business growth in the face of a highly uncertain environment that included an unfavourable economic outlook and a global pandemic. They knew there were many things to consider in weighing their options, and that they did not have all the information they wanted or needed to confidently decide. O’Keefe and Johnson needed a framework to guide their decision-making in charting the best course for the brewery in the midst of so many unknowns.