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This short technical note offers a multi-step process for how to analyze a strategy case. The technical note makes reference to frameworks and tools found in the following strategy textbook: Mary M. Crossan, Cara C. Maurer, W. Glenn Rowe, and Michael J. Rouse, Strategic Analysis and Action, 10th ed. (Toronto, ON: Pearson Publishing, 2021) [forthcoming]. This note explains that cases have no single correct answer and that if the analysis has no tensions, chances are that something is missing! Linkages between different elements may need to be reassessed; also, teams are a great asset for generating different perspectives and opinions. Finally, analysts must ask themselves if they are able to actually deliver the value they are promising to their customers and if their strategic goals are realistic given external conditions.

In May 2020, amid the lockdown in India brought about by COVID-19, P. C. Musthafa, chief executive officer of iD Fresh Food (iD), a food company located in Bengaluru, India, was preparing for a virtual meeting with his co-founders. The company offered customers the value proposition of “freshness” and operated in the ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat segments. iD’s flagship product was batter for preparing idlis and dosas, which were popular Indian breakfast dishes. The co-founders had to decide how to address the challenges arising on both the demand and the supply side of the business brought about by the pandemic, including production and logistics challenges on the supply side, a dip in demand, and the growth of competitors in the segments. How should iD plan its production amid the disruption to the supply chains and logistics sector brought on by the pandemic and ensure that its products maintain the promised value proposition of freshness? How could it ensure that customers continued to trust iD? Could iD script a fresh story and reach its vision of becoming a ₹10-billion company by 2023, despite an economy ravaged by the pandemic?

Atrae Inc. was a Japanese software firm providing platform matching services for job recruitment in the software engineering industry. As compared to traditional Japanese firms, Atrae adopted a unique approach to managing its employees. Instead of the rigid hierarchy and top-down management approach that typified a Japanese firm, Atrae had a flat organizational structure and heavily relied on decentralized decision-making and individual motivation. The company’s unique culture was viewed as a key driver of its business success—success that the company’s founder and chief executive officer wanted to advance with a public listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. However, while the public listing would allow Atrae to grow substantially, it would also necessitate formal organizational checks and balances that could harm the company’s organizational culture. Would a public listing propel Atrae to greater heights or would it result in the company’s demise?

In mid-2020, the co-founder of online and brick-and-mortar womenswear boutique Shop Thursdays in Toronto, was considering how to best position her business for growth when the COVID-19 global pandemic was resolved. The boutique, which had two brick-and-mortar locations in addition to its online presence, provided its customers with the latest and trendiest styles. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced all non-essential business to close their doors, the co-founder pivoted to sell all merchandise through the shop’s online platform. The success realized during this time led her to wonder how to continue to boost this segment of the business. The co-founder had tried influencer marketing in the past and was aware of its potential to grow online sales; however, to devote her time and resources to influencer marketing, she would need to close the store’s second location. Given the uncertainty surrounding consumer shopping behaviour after COVID-19 was resolved, which strategy would be beneficial moving forward?

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (VCHA), with guidance from the British Colombia (BC) Provincial Health Services Authority, had been responsible for organizing and executing an effective COVID-19 response. Its approach for testing capacity and supply chain management had been influenced by several factors: lack of supply, lack of labour, lack of testing expertise, and provincial government mandates. Although these factors had constrained the VCHA’s ability to control the virus, BC’s projected case increases posed serious concerns within the current management. The head of the VCHA wondered how she could better position the VCHA to combat COVID-19 in the long term while securing enough supplies. As she was concerned that COVID-19 cases would continue to surge, she knew this strategy had to be effective and time-sensitive.

Ecobank Ghana had branches in every region of Ghana and wanted to expand its client base to include more small and medium enterprises. At the end of 2011, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, Ecobank Ghana’s parent company, acquired the Trust Bank Ghana Limited, a bank that primarily serviced small businesses, which it planned to merge with Ecobank Ghana through a share swap. Integrating the two banks would involve merging different organizational cultures and operational technologies. The employee appointed as the manager responsible for ensuring a seamless integration of the two banks needed a plan to integrate the staff, standardize the operational systems, and establish a converged culture. How should he prioritize the changes, and what challenges should he anticipate from the merger?

Presentation to accompany product 8B21D006.

Nima Gohil, head of the new digital and creative consumer research department at L’Oréal USA (L’Oréal), was preparing for the upcoming January 2016 board meeting at L’Oréal’s research and innovation headquarters in Clark, New Jersey. L’Oréal’s competitors were using new digital media to highlight beauty products to current and new users, and L’Oréal was under pressure to develop a better way to connect with consumers to maintain—if not grow—market share. Top management had also urged Gohil’s department to reduce time and costs when collecting insights from consumers. Gohil focused on the hair care consumer segments, where she thought it was critical for L’Oréal to address and fully commit to the digital transformation that was being adopted by many other industries. She had only a few weeks to complete her assessments of L’Oréal’s digital strategy and assets and to prepare a functional recommendation to upper management.

The chief executive officer and co-founder of DoorDash was facing various challenges. Based in San Francisco, California, DoorDash was the market leader in the US food delivery services industry. In December 2020, despite ongoing losses, the start-up launched the largest initial public offering of the year in the United States. Market observers believed that intense competition in the US food delivery services industry and DoorDash’s questionable business model fundamentals would make profitability difficult to achieve. Restaurants were raising objections to food delivery platforms, seeing profits shrink due to commissions paid to the platforms. Consumers were paying at least 40 per cent more on orders made through an online delivery platform compared to self-pickup. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer demand for food delivery services increased and DoorDash reported a profit for the second quarter of 2020. DoorDash was expanding rapidly, after several rounds of funding. Could the co-founder prove critics wrong about the business fundamentals of his food delivery platform? How could he create a sustainable profit for DoorDash?

In late May 2020, the two founding and managing partners at Redhill Capital, in the Pearl River New City district of Guangzhou, China, were considering various reasons why the year was developing far differently than they had expected. The two-year-old venture capital firm’s limited partners and investees were all shocked by the dire developments, as was the entire country and the whole world. Earlier that year, rapidly spreading outbreaks of COVID-19, which had started in Wuhan, in China’s Hubei province, had led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, and many countries were closing down their borders. With the world seemingly plunging into a deep depression, the two founders of Redhill Capital were wondering about the future of their venture capital firm, which normally invested in medical technology and biotechnology. How should the company’s strategy be adjusted to survive the crisis and take advantage of new opportunities in the rapidly changing world?

Presentation for product W25006.

In 2016, Peter Keith and his cofounders started Meuwly’s Ltd. (Meuwly's) as a subscription food-box service, and in 2018, they established a physical presence in one of the liveliest locations in downtown Edmonton, Alberta. The expansion diversified the company’s revenue streams, including retail, wholesale, special events, and subscription sales. The company strove to be sustainable, but faced a number of challenges. First, customers valued the sustainable, “eat-local” ethos of Meuwly’s locally sourced products but not its single-use product packaging, which failed to reflect the company's sustainability goals; Meuwly’s experimented with alternatives, but these compromised the product quality customers expected. Second, the company’s commitment to paying employees above minimum wage affected its profit margins and financial resources and constrained its availability to pursue sustainability initiatives. Third, misleading industry marketing pervaded the delicatessen market, compromising growth and pricing strategies. Finally, the local delicatessen market was saturated and very competitive. In November 2019, Keith faced important questions regarding the future direction of the company’s sustainability strategy: how could he design an appropriate stage-two sustainability strategy for Meuwly’s while retaining the company’s loyal customer base?

In April of 2020, an Ivey Business School HBA graduate, and chief executive officer of automobile parts manufacturer MJD Manufacturing (MJD), recognized the potential opportunity to invest in new machinery and retool some of MJD’s operations to produce COVID-19-related supplies. Specifically, she was considering whether or not MJD should produce personal protective equipment. Aside from analyzing the financial viability of the potential investments, she had to consider three factors: First, how long the COVID-19 pandemic might last, as the timeline of the pandemic underpinned the potential investment decision; second, how an investment would be financed; and third, the qualitative aspect of the decision. Specifically, she had to consider how she could help her community at a time when many businesses were shrinking and furloughing employees.

The general director of Northern Canada Evangelical Mission (NCEM) wanted to make some changes to the organization’s accounting system to coincide with the calendar year-end. The changes involved consolidating the financial records for 20 separate ministries operating across the country to reduce the number of redundant, time-wasting, manual entries needed and to align the general ledger accounts with the charitable activities report required by the government. As well, the process for tracking and reporting taxes needed to be improved. Finally, NCEM’s board of directors wanted an increased level of professionalism and timeliness in the organization’s financial statements. The chief financial officer and accounting staff would need a carefully planned schedule to carry out the changes, which would involve bookkeepers, ministry leaders, and the executive team, all while minimizing the interruption to NCEM’s operations. How could the general director make the changes without causing additional problems along the way?

Mathilde Johnsen was a highly motivated environmental systems engineer in the real property branch of Public Services and Procurement Canada. Johnsen advanced a job grade about every 18 months, and in 2016, she successfully applied to the management stream. In 2019, after completing an MBA, Johnsen pursued an opportunity in the executive stream of the civil service. Her past behaviour raised concerns for the selection committee, who decided that, rather than promote Johnsen, they would give her a one-year secondment in the executive position so they could assess her growth. Unfortunately, her inability to deal effectively with subordinates, peers, and superiors resulted in Johnsen’s effective demotion and transfer out of the department. Could this unfortunate career derailment have been avoided?

Supplement for product 9B21C005.

Supplement for product 9B21C005.

In September 2019, the newly appointed manager of the procurement department at Jiangxi Hengda High-Tech Company Ltd., located in China, was wondering how to make his department more efficient. He took some time to understand the working relationships of his department with other internal departments and with external suppliers. During his research, he uncovered sources of conflict between the procurement department and other functional departments, including the marketing, manufacturing, warehousing, and finance departments, as well as the company’s suppliers. The manager took his findings to the company’s chairman and reported that the low efficiency of the procurement department was caused by the company’s lack of synergy across departments. The chairman acknowledged the issue and agreed that some reform of the company’s departments was necessary. However, he also pointed out that this would be a complex, costly, and difficult task. The manager of the procurement department was adamant that the company would have to resolve this systemic issue at some point and decided to prepare a proposal for his next meeting with the chairman.

In early 2019, just a year after opening a gallery in Sydney, Australia, the elders of the APY Art Centre Collective proposed opening a second gallery in Adelaide, a much smaller city. The first year in Sydney had been profitable, in part due to an aggressive digital presence. The Collective had some seed money, an offer of a small gallery space, and the draw of serving a large number of the APY community who were residents in Adelaide. But the Adelaide art market was tiny compared to Sydney’s, staff was stretched thin, and budgets were tight. The board’s vision was certainly compelling, but was it practical? Could a digital strategy help Adelaide’s success without cannibalizing the Collective’s success in Sydney? What would such a strategy look like?

In 2019, the development officer at Rowing South Africa was contemplating how to continue the growth of the sport of rowing in a challenging environment. More funding was needed to attain her mandate of extending the sport to previously unexposed communities. Rowing South Africa operated in a complex setting, but the sport had much to contribute to participants. The benefits of rowing were physical and psychological, personal and professional, and often leading to success in many aspects of life. How could she articulate these benefits to increase participation in the sport and attract more funding to support?