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Moderna, Inc. (Moderna), a US biotech start-up, was a contender in the race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. On November 23, 2020, Moderna announced success in the third-stage clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine, soon after larger rival Pfizer Inc. (Pfizer), partnering with BioNTech SE, had reported the successful clinical trial results of its own vaccine. However, large-scale vaccine production was a challenge for Moderna, and its chief executive officer acknowledged that scaling production would not be easy. The two other leading vaccine developers, Pfizer and AstraZeneca plc (AstraZeneca), had fewer challenges with manufacturing capacity; however, Pfizer’s vaccine required extreme cold storage, and AstraZeneca’s vaccine faced issues with its third-stage clinical trial results. On the consumer front, many Americans were unwilling to be vaccinated for COVID-19, leading to anti-vaccination protests on social media and in public. In November 2020, Moderna was planning to apply to the US Food and Drug Administration for Emergency Use Authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccine manufacturers were racing to see whose vaccine was best. Could Moderna produce the most effective COVID-19 vaccine? Given the uncertainty in consumer demand for the vaccine, should Moderna plan its manufacturing capability based on end-consumer demand or focus instead on seeking government contracts?

Homemaking had been a centuries-old industry that supplied a variety of services to customers, from more commoditized tasks such as cleaning and laundry to specialized tasks such as elderly care, and prenatal and postpartum care. In China, this industry had traditionally been fragmented and associated with limited innovation. Homeking At Home Information Technology Co., Ltd. (HAH), a company founded in 2010, set the goal of transforming China’s home services industry in the digital age. Using an Internet-based operating model and a digital-first mindset, the company sought to reinvent homemaking, and grew from a startup into a leading player in the homemaking market in China. To sustain its success, the company needed to continually evolve.

In September 2019, the founder of a personal emergency response systems (PERS) company reached a pivotal point with her business. She had created the ORA device, a customized hardware and software product, intending to disrupt the growing PERS industry while helping to improve the lives of older adults and their caregivers. But while the product and the company received considerable positive feedback and publicity, sales had not met the founder's expectations. The founder brought plenty of experience, skills, and innovation to her business, and also identified an important new market segment for her product. Still, she was aware that technology start-ups were notoriously challenging to start, grow, and maintain.<br><br>The founder felt that she had reached the end of the line for her business and had to make a decision about its future. She had to identify opportunities and threats in the market and determine if the company had a sustainable competitive advantage. She also had to decide whether to focus entirely on the new segment she identified or make a new strategic move and raise another round of funding for growth. Alternatively, she wondered if she should instead sell the technology, or the entire company, and resume her executive position in the financial industry.

In 2019, the head of leadership development for Anglo American plc (Anglo American), a global mining conglomerate, was reviewing the two years she had been working with the human resources (HR) leadership team to establish the company’s international Leadership Academy. Her task was to determine leadership development solutions that supported Anglo American’s strategy and to recommend how to resource, identify, develop, and retain the diverse talent pool required to achieve the company’s business objectives. She had gone to great lengths to ensure the Leadership Academy’s offerings underpinned the organization’s strategic imperatives. She now pondered how to assess the impact of the Learning Academy. Was the human resources leadership team looking at and measuring the right things?

A team of analysts at Nedbank Group (Nedbank) had generated a solution to an important client-centered issue, but the solution was not welcomed by the operations team. A business executive at Nedbank created an opportunity for the creative design team and operations team to collaborate. A solution was successfully implemented in 2019 and the executive and analysts’ team leader were summoned to present their ideas at a business banking executive committee meeting to demonstrate how their initiatives supported the bank’s strategic direction. Would the executive committee agree to invest capital in new ways of work to move the bank forward on its digital strategy?

Luckin Coffee Inc. (Luckin), an emerging growth firm that aimed to become the market leader in the coffee industry in China, had quickly grabbed market share by using freebies and discounts to entice cost-conscious Chinese consumers to try its products. Luckin sold its coffee and snacks through a proprietary mobile app, and customers either picked up their orders from strategically located stores or had them delivered. By the end of 2019, Luckin had served 40 million customers from its 4,500 stores. While the path to Luckin’s goal was clear, investigations revealed that key executives and board members had allegedly defrauded investors by distorting revenue and expense figures and engaging in related-party transactions that channeled resources out of the company. The accounting scandal led to further investigations, penalties from Chinese regulators, and a drop in the company’s share price and valuation, which went from $12 billion to below $1 billion within 11 months of listing. By August 2020, the company had been delisted from the Nasdaq exchange, its board composition had been changed, and it had been placed under the supervision of “light touch” provisional liquidators in the Cayman Islands. Was there a chance that Luckin could survive the scandal and its investors could recoup their funds? What could the company do to restore investor confidence and regain its path to becoming the market leader in the Chinese coffee industry? What were the implications of the accounting scandal to current and future listings on US stock exchanges?

Since 2000, Infineum International Limited had been expanding rapidly throughout the Asia Pacific region. The company launched its inclusion and diversity program in 2009, which saw strong progress after 2013, when the company established its inclusion-first vision. From 2016 on, numerous inclusion and diversity activities were held to generate involvement and feedback from the locally engaged inclusion and diversity champions. In February 2020, the company’s global talent and learning manager shared his concerns about the company’s future inclusion and diversity journey. He had devoted time and energy in the past few years to organize activities through town hall meetings, leadership training workshops, and the company’s intranet, but hoped to make the inclusive approach even more meaningful in the future. What kind of measures should they apply to assess what they have done so far? To what extent should human resources actions be aligned with the inclusive culture? More importantly, would the current model of inclusion and diversity be sustained in the future?

Zoom, a popular video conferencing service based out of San Jose, California was built from scratch to be a business-segment focused, easy-to-use video conferencing service. The program was created by Zoom Video Communications Inc., which was founded by Eric Yuan in 2012. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the video conference market grew rapidly. Despite competing against much larger competitors, such as Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Webex, Zoom took an early lead, surmounted significant obstacles, and continued to grow. At the end of 2020, however, Zoom had to consider how to maintain its lead—not only during, but also after the pandemic.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google LLC (Google) purchased Fitbit Inc. (Fitbit) in November 2019 for US$2.1 billion, marking its foray into health care, and by January 2021, the US Department of Justice was conducting a probe into the Google–Fitbit merger amid Fitbit users’ skepticism and distrust of the deal with regard to data privacy. Although Google’s senior vice-president of devices and services assured users that the intent of the deal was to “spur innovation in wearables” and not to sell personal information or use Fitbit’s health and wellness data for Google Ads, Fitbit users remained concerned regarding Google’s access to incredible amounts of personal data. While the acquisition would help Google address its hardware failures of the past, gain an edge in software through an instant foothold in the growing smartwatch market, and integrate Fitbit’s smartwatches more deeply with Android, the larger goal was more likely maximizing Fitbit’s business-to-business (B2B) partnerships with “health insurance companies and direct corporate wellness programming.” What strategies should Google use to leverage Fitbit’s hardware strengths, B2B partnerships, and technical expertise? What steps should Google take to assuage data privacy concerns to become a serious contender in the smartwatch and health care markets and to realize its goal of revolutionizing digital health care? Did Fitbit stand to benefit from the deal?

In January 2020, Bombay Shaving Company had established an in-house digital team that was able to achieve the best digital marketing key performance indicators in its industry. BSC’s marketing strategy focused on conversion rates, influencer marketing, heatmaps, A/B testing, keyword cloud analysis, and emailer marketing. In using these tools, BSC was carving out a differentiated strategy for each step of the customer journey, including customer acquisition and customer retention. However, analysis of online purchase data had indicated that out of every thousand customers who visited the company’s website, only 13 ended up making a purchase. BSC had to address its poor conversion rate and determine how to ensure that its conversion rate would meet the industry standard.

After pursuing a career in finance, the case protagonist moved back to his hometown of Toronto in 2016 to pursue his dream of being an entrepreneur. An incident involving his diabetic father during a family vacation was the primary motivation for his decision to help diabetics by offering treats they could enjoy without worrying about the health consequences. Being inexperienced in the baking industry, he invited a food connoisseur to join him in this adventure. She advised him to revise his product strategy from being solely low sugar to being low sugar, vegan, and gluten free in order to stay on top of market trends and target more customers. The entrepreneur’s new business, Bald Baker, began in January 2017, and in April of that year it officially launched three of Bald Baker’s products at the Niagara Food & Wine Expo. Bald Baker’s treats at this and other consumer food shows were receiving very positive reviews.<br><br>The entrepreneur now had to make some decisions about the future of Bald Baker. To ensure the long-term growth and sustainability of the brand, should Bald Baker’s product positioning be low sugar, or vegan/gluten-free/ketogenic-diet friendly? How should he allocate a $50,000 grant toward Bald Baker’s marketing?

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