The case is set in 2022. The protagonist is Corie Barry, CEO of Best Buy-a consumer electronics retailer. Corie Barry is the fifth leader since the company was founded in 1966. She is the first female leader of Best Buy and one of the youngest CEOs of an S&P 500 company. Barry had to navigate the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath, including furloughing employees, supply chain problems, and dealing with excess inventory. CEO Barry still confronts multiple challenges in ensuring a future for Best Buy, including demand collapsing with rising interest rates and inflation. To adapt and grow revenues, she is attempting to leverage Best Buy's customer service into digital healthcare. However, this corporate strategy initiative comes with unfamiliar competitors and may fail. At the same time, competitive pressures in the core business of electronics retailing are increasing.

The protagonist of the case is Bob Iger, who has been appointed CEO of Disney for a second term. During Bob Chapek's brief tenure as CEO (2020-22), Disney's streaming business lost $4 billion in 2022, and net income fell to $3 billion, down from $11 billion in 2019. Disney's stock has underperformed the S&P 500 index by 56 percentage points. Dubbed the streaming wars, Disney must contend with several competitors, some with deep pockets: Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, HBO Max, Netflix, Paramount+, Peacock, and YouTube TV. As employee morale reaches a low point, Iger must decide which organizational structure to put in place to allocate resources and distribute content, given the diversified nature of Disney as well as the ongoing industry transformation.

The case is set in 2023. The protagonist of the case is Tim Cook, Apple's CEO since 2011. CEO Cook worries about how long Apple can sustain its superior performance. Many of Apple's challenges are tied to the iPhone, one of the most iconic product innovations of the 21st century. CEO Cook must address supply chain challenges, exposure to the Chinese market, lack of innovation, pivot towards services, and increased regulatory scrutiny. With sales in 2022 of $400 billion and $100 billion in profits, Apple was the first tech company to reach a market valuation of $3 trillion (01/2022). By designing category-defining products and embedding them in a service ecosystem, the Cupertino-based company has enjoyed sustained success while many other tech companies have floundered.

The case is set in 2023. The protagonists are Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, co-CEOs of Netflix, a subscription streaming service and content production company. In Q4 2022, Netflix gained 7.7 million new subscribers (223 million worldwide) after losing 1.2 million in the year's first half. The scale of subscriber defection (in Q1 and Q2) across all geographic regions other than Asia concerned investors. By mid-2022, Netflix's share price plummeted by over 72%. The streaming company's market capitalization fell from $306 billion in November 2021 to a low of $74 billion, a loss of $232 billion. Dubbed the streaming wars, Netflix must contend with a host of competitors, some of them with deep pockets: Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock, and YouTube TV, among others.

In June 2019, Best Buy appointed Corie Barry as new CEO. Her predecessor, CEO Hubert Joly, had successfully tackled BBY's two main problems-declining comps and margins-and engineered a financial turnaround within his first five years on the job. Despite its surviving as a retailer, Best Buy and Corie Barry confront multiple challenges. Best Buy is still a predominantly bricks-and-mortar store with an online presence (just 20.9 percent of sales are generated online in 2018 compared to 17 percent in 2015). Additionally, the United States is no longer the world's largest consumer retail market, and Best Buy has retreated to North America after failing to expand to China and Europe. Further, consumer electronics are caught within trade disputes between China and the United States. Under Joly, Best Buy balanced providing differentiated service with trained staff at competitive prices involves. However, Corie Barry needs to consider whether that balance can be maintained going forward, or whether Best Buy needs to further adapt.

CEO Hubert Joly has successfully tackled BBY's two main problems - declining comps and margins - and engineered a financial turnaround within his first five years on the job. Now Joly must develop and implement a strategic plan to create a sustainable competitive advantage for Best Buy in the highly competitive, electronic retail industry. With less than 20 percent of revenues coming from online sales, Best Buy is still predominantly a bricks-and-mortar store with an online presence and has not yet transformed into a "bona fide, multi-channel retailer." The case provides an overview of Best Buy's main competitors: Circuit City (now defunct), Walmart, Target, Apple, and Amazon.com. It further highlights the threat emanating from the continuous shift to online retailing.

CEO Tim Cook confronts multiple issues that each relate to identifying a source of longer-term growth at Apple, as it becomes increasingly dependent on iPhone revenues. Since Steve Jobs' death, Cook has successfully led Apple and made it the first company to be worth more than $800 billion. However, under Cook's leadership, Apple has largely released derivatives of existing products (e.g., iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, etc.). This has increased Apple's reliance on the iPhone (~70 percent of revenues), and Apple appears to be following a path to sell complementary products to the iPhone (Beats, Apple Pay, Apple Watch, Air Pods) at the same time that it is pursuing product development (Apple TV, Apple Car, Siri Speaker). The Apple Watch was the first new product category introduced under Tim Cook, and it has not been successful. As industry convergence continues, the case also looks at Apple's main competitors: Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Microsoft, and Samsung, as well as emerging Chinese competitors. Apple's sales in China are also declining.

The case begins with Ed Bastian, Delta's CEO, reflecting on his one-year anniversary. Ed took over at Delta following its successful recovery from the 2008 "great recession" and then experienced multiple challenges, including: pilots demanding and receiving increased pay and multiple instances where thousands of flights were cancelled due to information technology issues. Delta Air Lines also faces a shift toward a more diverse population in the United States, and increased competition from rapidly expanding airlines from the Middle East such as Etihad Airways, Emirates, and Qatar Airways. More recently, European ultra-low cost carriers such as Norwegian Air Shuttle or Iceland's WOW have entered selected transatlantic routes, connecting the U.S. East Coast to Europe. Historically, Delta had focused more on activities associated with aircraft operations and maintenance, and customer service. However, Delta Air Lines' recent problems suggest a need to focus on Delta's technology infrastructure and human resource management. In considering everything going on internally at Delta and in its industry, CEO Bastian wonders-what other challenges have been overlooked?

The case details the changes Walmart CEO Doug McMillon implemented to address the competitive threat of e-commerce, including the closing of stores and the $3.3 billion acquisition of Jet.com. Walmart struggles with a maturing and over-saturated U.S. market, where it had to close almost 300 stores (in 2016), a first in Walmart's history. The e-commerce threat is continuing to gain in strength. Doug McMillon needs to develop future growth, and is contemplating a hybrid retail strategy between physical stores and an online presence. Finally, Walmart continues to struggle internationally, especially in China and Brazil, which are potentially huge markets.