This case explores retailer Best Buy's decision to enter health care. Best Buy Health aims to enable care at home across three prongs: consumer health, active aging, and virtual care. A key pillar of Best Buy Health's strategy is leveraging the Geek Squad-the company's technical support agents who install technology and media products in the home-to set up remote patient monitoring devices for people with a chronic disease or those enrolled in a hospital-at-home program. Set in April 2023, the case finds senior company leaders reviewing the results of a pilot with Pennsylvania-based Geisinger Health System evaluating whether Geek Squad agents can safely expand timely access to care.

The case opens in August 2022, as Ahmed Galal Ismail, CEO of Majid Al Futtaim Properties and Fatima Zada, digital and omnichannel director at Majid Al Futtaim Shopping Malls, go over the plans to roll out the omnichannel mall offering for the Mall of the Emirates they have been piloting for the past six months. The Mall's omnichannel transformation had been propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic and aimed at enabling customers to shop both online and offline, while redefining the mall's value proposition and its business model. The case takes the reader back to the founding story of the Majid Al Futtaim Group, its culture and vision. The case also provides an overview of the Group's successful digital transformation journey as well as its omnichannel transformation of its retail business. The case also provides a detailed overview of changing customer habits and shopping preferences, the different kinds of players competing for customers' share of wallet, and the evolution of the role of the physical shop from a point of sale to a point of experience. The case puts the reader in Ismail and Zada's shoes, who have been trying to physically, digitally, and commercially to better serve both the customers and the mall tenants. The pandemic had forced even the most digitally conservative tenants to reconsider the extent of their digital offering, thus creating the perfect backdrop for an omnichannel transformation. Ismail and Zada knew that they needed to transform the value proposition to update the business model for the malls to survive in the digital area. They needed the figure out a sustainable and profitable way to do it.

Mirakl provided the technology and seller network required for companies like Macy's, Best Buy, Walmart, Siemens, or Carrefour to simply design, launch, and administer a marketplace that included products from third-party sellers. What began as a basic business idea in 2012 had grown into a thriving venture ten years later. Mirakl expected to grow its $100 million revenue by fivefold during the next five years. But how was this to be accomplished? Mirakl had previously prioritized the development of solutions for marketplace operators, the "Macy's of the world". It was now working on a new solution, Mirakl Connect, with the goal of becoming the premier destination for third-party sellers. But, how should Mirakl monetize these services? Should they charge for them, and if so, to whom? Should Mirakl explore adjacent opportunities, such as financial services, fulfillment, or advertising? Finally, should Mirakl expand its services to marketplaces outside the Mirakl ecosystem?

The Dutch company Adyen was founded in 2006 to provide online merchants with smooth online payments, regardless of currency, country, or payment method. Its services had attracted large online merchants, which struggled to reconcile different payment methods across countries. Adyen's technology made online payments easier, and faster, and with increased online payment transaction success rates. In 2013, Adyen started providing point-of-sale payment devices to stores and became attractive to companies with store networks. Multinational enterprises with online and offline sales channels, such as the sportswear Nike and the fashion firm H&M, were those that appreciated Adyen's services the most. However, since 2018, Adyen had tried to attract the mid-market with little success. Adyen's management was analyzing different strategies to reach out to such a segment.

Born in 2008 as a small startup selling flip flops, by mid-2021 Zalando had turned into an online fashion company with an assortment of more than 4,500 international brands, 45 million active customers, and a presence in 23 European markets. An essential component in the company's ambition to become Europe's "starting point for fashion" was the ongoing transition from an online retailer to a platform business. The management team grappled with numerous strategic decisions. How could Zalando accelerate its transformation? Which new markets and novel customer propositions should the company invest into? And how should it balance the needs of consumers and partners?

In 2021, Amazon announced its market entry into Portugal with a dedicated offer. The dominant local electronics retailer, Worten, had been expecting and preparing for this move for years. The company had driven a digital transformation program and extended its e-commerce offer, which culminated in the building of an online marketplace that sold Worten products and third-party products. Over time, the marketplace extended to new categories, allowing customers to purchase a broad range of products. E-commerce had not been very popular in Portugal compared to other countries, but that changed with the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, during which Worten knew how to serve customers in a safe and quick way, and which boosted e-commerce adoption. Worten also continued to lever its dense network of physical stores across the country to provide fast delivery and service options to customers. They hoped that this high level of service would be a great differentiator against Amazon and protect Worten's leading market position.

In March 2021, delivery app CEO Oscar Pierre and his team consider strategies to grow Glovo's quick commerce delivery service and to approach their expansion in Kenya.

In October 2018, fashion, wellness, and beauty retailer Sylvarella implemented a Buy Online, Pickup in Store (BOPS) program in an attempt to counteract a sales decline. While BOPS had the potential to meet customer expectations for a seamless order and fulfillment experience, it also posed operational and financial risks. After six months, CEO Sylvia Coparella decided to meet with her vice president (VP) of store operations and VP of e-commerce to evaluate the impact that the program had on their respective departments, as well as the impact to the store overall. Coparella must decide whether to continue the program, continue the program with significant changes, or discontinue the program and instead adopt a different omnichannel retail model.

In April 2019, Sylvarella CEO Sylvia Coparella must assess the impact of the company's Buy Online, Pickup in Store (BOPS) program on her company's overall sales. To do so, she must review analyses of both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar sales data and compare the results to the company's sales prior to the program implementation. At the same time, she must consider the program's impact on intangible factors within her company, including organizational culture, equitable compensation, and employee morale. Coparella must determine whether to continue the BOPS program, continue the program with significant changes, or discontinue the program and instead implement a different omnichannel retail program.

In April 2019, Sylvia VP of Store Operations Axley Vega must review an analysis of her department's sales data to determine the impact of the company's Buy Online, Pickup in Store (BOPS) program. BOPS implementation created significant problems for the store operations team, including an increased workload for store associates without additional compensation, difficulties managing the fulfillment demands of the program, and declining customer satisfaction. As she prepares for a meeting with CEO Sylvia Coparella and VP of E-commerce Charla Limont, Vega must determine whether BOPS has helped or harmed her department. She must also decide whether to recommend the program continue, continue with significant changes, or discontinue.

In April 2019, Sylvarella VP of E-Commerce Charla Limont must review an analysis of her department's sales data to determine the impact of the company's Buy Online, Pickup in Store (BOPS) program. The program implementation created significant problems for the e-commerce team, including difficulties with the inventory management system, a high volume of abandoned shopping carts, and disgruntled social media influencers. As she prepares for a meeting with CEO Sylvia Coparella and VP of Store Operations Axley Vega, Limont must determine whether BOPS has helped or harmed her department. She must also decide whether to recommend the program continue, continue with significant changes, or discontinue.

The case opens in February 2021 as Mohamad Ballout, co-founder and CEO of Kitopi, a Dubai-based managed cloud kitchen platform, is looking over the company's 2020 results. Propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, delivery orders had been on the rise globally and dine-in restaurants were more than ever focused on profitability. Against this backdrop, Kitopi had seen high traction in its business and the management needed to decide on which growth opportunities to focus. The case provides an overview of the pain points of the various players in the on-demand food ecosystem -the aggregators, the restaurants and the customers- and lays the ground for the nascent cloud kitchen business worldwide complete with the competitive outlook. The case also provides a detailed overview of how Kitopi structured its kitchens, how the company developed proprietary software to track space utilization and efficiency across its operations, and how it built it supply chain capabilities. While the B2B positioning of the company enables Kitopi to help restaurants expand much faster and in a less costly way, the company is mainly invisible to customers who don't know that their food order is coming from a central kitchen. Also, the company has been witnessing the consolidation of aggregators across its markets. The case puts the reader in Ballout's shoes, who wondered if the company could feasibly continue to own the supply side of the business and retain its position as a primarily B2B company without risking being squeezed out by the aggregators, who owned the customer relationship and data. Should the company focus on building on its currently small B2C arms, consider licensing it tech stack, or be squarely focused on its core business?

Autonomous business monitoring platform Anodot leveraged machine learning to providing real-time alerts regarding business anomalies. Anodot's solution was used in various industries in order to primarily monitor business health, such as revenue and payments, product usage and customer experience. Every day, Anodot used 30 types of learning algorithms to analyze 6.2 billion data points and 428 million unique metrics. By 2019, Anodot's platform tracked more than 400 million metrics daily, driving four billion autonomous decisions that were translated to less than 1,000 alerts for all its customers. This highly accurate monitoring led to a low incidence of false positives, or false alerts, and customer satisfaction was high. Since Anodot's tool had the ability to identify granular business anomalies in real time, such as an unexpected drop in e-commerce sales for particular products or markets due to a technical glitch, fast detection and resolution of the problem meant that the potential financial damage could not be easily measured. The management team contemplated several strategic issues: How could they help their customers realize the value of Anodot? They had been working on several tools to show the value in different stages of the sales cycle and post-sale, but it was still hard to measure the actual financial value. In 2019, Anodot had adjusted its strategy to focus on client verticals and use-cases that would benefit most from Anodot. Would this make the sales process any easier? An improved product-market fit, combined with an ability to measure Anodot's value, could increase conversion and retention. Should they narrow down the use cases even more? As the team was thinking about their next funding round, it was important to prioritize their efforts.

The case opens in August 2020 as Ozgur Tort and Mustafa Bartin, CEO and chief large-format and online retail officer of Migros Ticaret A.S. (Migros), Turkey's oldest and one of its largest supermarket chains, are navigating Migros through COVID-19 and the unprecedented surge in demand in online groceries. Between the first official case in Turkey in March and August, customers have flocked to online shopping and Migros' teams have been busy trying to solve the picking, fulfillment, and logistics bottlenecks. In the six months, the company recruited and trained new pickers, expanded its delivery fleet, and converted less busy stores into dark stores. Quick to react, Migros was able to add new customers to its base and was proud of its accomplishments. Now, unable to forecast how much of the surge in demand for online was here to stay, how should Migros plan for the future of Sanal Market and Hemen? Was there anything the company could do to sustain the number of hybrid shoppers it acquired during the past few months?

The case opens in November 2019 as Ozgur Tort and Mustafa Bartin, CEO and chief large-format and online retail officer of Migros Ticaret A.S. (Migros), Turkey's oldest and one of its largest supermarket chains, are contemplating what the best fulfillment format and delivery model for the company's growing online arm, Sanal Market, and its under-30-minutes gorcery service arm, Hemen, are. Migros's online operations had grown over 50% year-on-year in the previous three years, and the target for 2020 was to grow 100%. With all of these considerations in mind, Bartin and Tort needed to decide which levers to pull for the last mile and fulfillment to best serve the future of Migros. The case chronicles the founding and growth of Migros as well as Sanal Market and lays the ground for food and grocery retail in Turkey complete with the competitive outlook. The case then provides a detailed overview of how Migros built online channels, Sanal Market and its recently introduced Hemen, and how Tort and Bartin have thought about fulfillment and delivery as well as omnichannel mentality. The case goes into detail about the three different fulfillment models, store pick micro-fulfillment center, and dark store, that Migros is piloting in 2019 as well as providing an understanding of what the company is thinking about logistics and last mile delivery as its online sales grow. While globally, online shopping and consumer preferences were changing fast, particularly in terms of how and with what frequency customers shopped online and how fast they wanted their groceries delivered, Migros was trying to find the optimum model for fulfillment and last mile delivery.

The case opens in February 2020 as Ozgur Tort and Mustafa Bartin, CEO and chief large-format and online retail officer of Migros Ticaret A.S. (Migros), Turkey's oldest and one of its largest supermarket chains, are looking over the results of the fulfillment pilot the company had been running since June 2019. Comparing the data from dark store, micro fulfillment center, and store pick models, the duo see that contrary to the expectations outlined in their business plan in May 2019, the mini dark-store performance metrics were superior to those of the dark store format. As the online grocery market is evolving, the duo decide to refrain from going forward with one fulfillment model only and decide to mix and match the fulfillment models as needed and buttress the efforts with automation for picking to increase efficiency. On the last mile, the teams decide to focus on pooling and developing an algorithm to automate deployment while trying to combine delivery efforts for both Sanal Market and Hemen. Decisions with regards to Hemen's offering are yet to be made as its competitors manage to raise money from Silicon Valley.

The first two cases in this series are set in the financial services industry, and explore whether it is better for back-office workers to be generalists who provide the flexibility of being able to handle the complete range of transactions that the company faces or specialists who focus on a subset of the overall transaction mix. The objective is to introduce the advantages of demand pooling in reducing the variability associated with the forecasting of highly variable workloads, while also demonstrating the benefits to worker learning and efficiency improvements that can come from specialization. The case is set at the Retail Investor Group Operations of the Vanguard Group, the mutual funds and ETF giant. Karin Risi, the managing director, is faced with a back-office operation that hasn't kept up with massive transaction growth, one that is struggling under the weight of mounting client phone call and transaction volumes, client complaints, and buckling employee morale. And worse, the press was taking notice. The (A) case details the complexity in the growing backlog and frames the question of whether they should pursue a specialist model. The (B) case, for distribution in class, details the impact of an initial segmentation of workload into eight categories and poses additional questions for class discussion and analysis.

The first two cases in this series are set in the financial services industry, and explore whether it is better for back-office workers to be generalists who provide the flexibility of being able to handle the complete range of transactions that the company faces or specialists who focus on a subset of the overall transaction mix. The objective is to introduce the advantages of demand pooling in reducing the variability associated with the forecasting of highly variable workloads, while also demonstrating the benefits to worker learning and efficiency improvements that can come from specialization. The case is set at the Retail Investor Group Operations of the Vanguard Group, the mutual funds and ETF giant. Karin Risi, the managing director, is faced with a back-office operation that hasn't kept up with massive transaction growth, one that is struggling under the weight of mounting client phone call and transaction volumes, client complaints, and buckling employee morale. And worse, the press was taking notice. The (A) case details the complexity in the growing backlog and frames the question of whether they should pursue a specialist model. The (B) case, for distribution in class, details the impact of an initial segmentation of workload into eight categories and poses additional questions for class discussion and analysis.

In 2010, amidst the growth of ecommerce and the emergence of new, purely online, fashion players, Zara launched its first online store, Zara.com. Since then, Zara's online business had grown at a fast pace. By 2018, 12% of Inditex Group's total sales came from the online channel. Since the inception of the first online store, Inditex leadership wanted its online and offline businesses to be integrated. However, the increase of online orders challenged some of its operations. Inditex was committed to the vision of becoming fully-integrated, fully-digital, and fully-sustainable by 2020. How could stores continue to be relevant in a world with increasing presence of online touchpoints? What should the store portfolio look like in the medium term? How should Zara use and advance the integrated model going forward? What other challenges and opportunities would arise with the increase of online sales?

In 2010, amidst the growth of ecommerce and the emergence of new, purely online, fashion players, Zara launched its first online store, Zara.com. Since then, Zara's online business had grown at a fast pace. By 2018, 12% of Inditex Group's total sales came from the online channel. Since the inception of the first online store, Inditex leadership wanted its online and offline businesses to be integrated. However, the increase of online orders challenged some of its operations. Inditex was committed to the vision of becoming fully-integrated, fully-digital, and fully-sustainable by 2020. How could stores continue to be relevant in a world with increasing presence of online touchpoints? What should the store portfolio look like in the medium term? How should Zara use and advance the integrated model going forward? What other challenges and opportunities would arise with the increase of online sales?