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This case describes the development and international expansion of Natura, a Brazilian cosmetics company. The company was founded in 1969, and developed products using environmentally sustainable practices, and that were distributed using a direct sales model. The company was highly successful in the Brazil, despite the challenging Brazilian economy. Natura had successfully entered the Mexican and French markets. In 2008, it considered entering the U.S. market. The case describes the company's growth, its principles of environmental and social responsibility, its culture and organization, and its international expansion to 2008. It describes the U.S. market, and the challenges and opportunities that Natura would face if it tried to expand into the U.S.

Mozilla launched its Firefox web browser in November 2004, when Microsoft's Internet Explorer had a market share of over 90 percent, and was giving its browser away. Five years later, Firefox had a 25 percent share, and more than 300 million people were using the browser. Firefox, and other Mozilla products, were open source programs. A small Mozilla staff worked with tens of thousands of volunteers to develop, test, debug, and promote its software. This case study discusses ways that Mozilla developed and cultivated its community of volunteers, motivated them, and channeled their passion.

By 2009, just 30 years after they had been commercially introduced cellular phones were used by billions of people worldwide. This note reviews the development of the cellular telecommunications industry, with particular emphasis on the role of intellectual property and technical standards. Throughout the industry's history, companies owning intellectual property (IP) actively advocated for standards to be adopted that incorporated their IP. Once standards were adopted, companies with strong IP positions were positioned to reap substantial financial rewards. This has led to intense competition over the standards process. This note covers developments to 2009, including work on standards for fourth generation (4G) cellular systems. However, its primary focus is on the earlier struggles between TDMA and CDMA technologies, and the role of Qualcomm in influencing the standards-setting process.

In September 2008, Google and its Open Handset Alliance (OHA) partner, T-Mobile, launched the first Android-enabled smartphone in the U.S. market. Android was a new, open source, operating system for the wireless industry, developed by the OHA, a group which Google brought together in November of the previous year. The introduction of an open source operating system specifically designed for mobile telecommunications had the potential to make a substantial impact on the marketplace. The case describes the mobile telecommunications industry landscape Google faced, and the incentives that the dominant search engine provider would have for initiating the Android project. The case also describes the challenges facing Google, and the Android operating system. By studying the dynamics of the wireless industry available in the case, one may consider whether Google had the potential to become a Cross Boundary Disruptor (XBD) in the wireless industry.

The sport of cricket is an obsession in India, the country that is the most important economic force in the cricket world. In 2007, top-level cricket was played primarily by national teams. Domestic leagues were controlled by national governing bodies, using domestic players, the best of whom also played on the national team. In September 2007, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced that it was forming the Indian Premier League (IPL). It would consist of city-based franchises, and play its first season beginning in mid-April 2008. The six-week season would have 59 games, including a playoff to determine the overall champion. Teams would include the best international players. Much was required to make this happen. Eight team franchises were auctioned in January 2008, for a total of $718 million. Television rights for ten years were sold for $1 billion. The top 75 international players were selected by the team in an auction that paid them over $45 million. This turned the global cricket salary structure upside, with players getting more in six weeks than they could expect for a year or more from their national governing bodies. The league drew from India's other passion, Bollywood to increase the entertainment value of games. The league and teams faced many challenges, which are discussed in the case. The league's first season captivated India, as well as much of the rest of the cricket world, and was a tremendous success. Following its first year, the IPL faced the challenge of maintaining its momentum into the future, and building on the success of its inaugural season. Both international and national cricket covering bodies pondered how to adapt to the changes caused by the IPL's success. Finally, the economic recession and major terrorist attacks in India (November 20008) and Pakistan (March 2009) threatened the ability of the league to proceed with its second season, which was scheduled to start in mid-April 2009.

Zappos was founded in 1999, during the Internet boom, to sell shoes online. The company's founding premise was to provide the ultimate in selection to its customers-all brands, styles, sizes, and colors. Zappos organized all aspects of its business (including recruiting, culture, call center, inventory, website, and supply chain) to provide the best possible service-it wanted to "wow" everyone who interacted with the company, from customers to employees to corporate partners. Zappos grew rapidly, and by 2008 was profitable with net sales (after returns) of about $650 million. The company faced a number of issues as it looked forward. While it had penetrated only about 3 percent of the U.S. market for shoes, Zappos had expanded its product lines to items such as camping gear and video games. It needed to determine those elements of its strategy had contributed to its success in shoes, and whether it would be able to duplicate that success in other product lines. It also needed to determine how it could scale its business-much of the effort it had made to "wow" its customers was labor intensive and expensive-could this be scaled to a company with revenues of tens of billions? Finally, the economic landscape changed dramatically in late 2008, with the financial market collapse and recession. The service-intensive Zappos.com business was based on sales at little to no discount, unlike many websites that relied on selling at the lowest possible price. Would the company need to make changes to respond to the changed economic environment, and if so, what were those changes? The case provides an opportunity to evaluate the core competences of an Internet retailer that has experienced rapid, initial success. The case enables students to consider supply chain issues, which are critical to the company's success, in the broader context of the business: the bases of Zappos' success, its core competencies, culture, and competitive environment.

This case describes a number of situations in which important customers of a major electronics manufacturing firm (contract manufacturer) behaved in a manner that could be considered "ethically challenged." The case is told from the perspective of the EMS firm's ECO, who was personally involved in addressing these issues. Issues with three customers are described. All were a significant portion of the EMS firm's overall business. In one, a customer misled the EMS firm about its order receipts, leading to the EMS firm acquiring a substantial excess inventory that the customer was contractually required to pay for. The customer threatened to withdraw its future business if forced to make the payment. A second customer, facing a profit shortfall, demanded a payment for a "warranty problem." The EMS firm faced difficulties with a third customer related to a small R&D firm that it purchased at the customer's request, in order to serve the customer's engineering needs.

In August and September 2007, Mattel made a series of product recalls, totaling more than 20 million toys. The recalls were for excessive lead and for magnets that could become loose. All of the recalled toys had been made in China. The Mattel recalls followed on the heels of a number of high profile safety problems with Chinese imports, including contaminated pet food and toothpaste, defective tires, and lead-painted toys. The recalls sparked intense criticism of Mattel and its Chinese supply chain, despite the fact that more than 85 percent of the recalled toys were due to design problems (magnets), not the result of improper manufacturing (use of lead paint). The case provides a basis for discussion of outsourcing and supply chain management. The basic toy manufacturing process is fairly simple, providing a forum for discussing these issues without the complication of advanced manufacturing technology or an involved supply chain. In this case, supply chain defects, such as the use of lead paint by vendors, can have severe consequences. The supply chain must be designed to prevent these defects. The case enables discussion of why companies outsource, managing a supply chain, and the appropriate use of inspection and testing. It also provides the opportunity to examine response to a crisis situation, and the relationship between a company and government.

In November 2006, two members of the FLIR Commercial Vision Systems (CVS) executive team attended a week-long program at Stanford University entitled "Customer Focused Innovation." Upon returning home, they created an "Innovation Center" based on what they had learned. Over the next 18 months, the Innovation Center was used to develop product ideas, improve manufacturing processes, and other tasks requiring creative thinking. FLIR CVS was a division of FLIR Systems, a manufacturer of thermal imaging cameras that used infrared radiation to "see" even in the total absence of light, or in adverse visibility conditions such as smoke or fog. The CVS division was developed and marketed products for commercial applications such as security monitoring, night vision cameras for automobiles, systems that allowed boat captains to see in foggy conditions, or imaging equipment for fire-fighting. The case provides a detailed description of one day-long session at the Innovation Center. The case explores the cultural bases of the Center's success during its first 18 months, and the impact of the Center on the company culture. It also poses problems facing the FLIR executives, such as how to make use of the large number of ideas generated at the Center, how to improve the Center's innovation sessions, how to expand the concept to other company divisions, and how to scale the program as the company expanded.

Intuit's "Spotlight" employee recognition system had rapidly become an integral part of the company's culture after it was introduced in late 2004. The program enabled any employee to recognize outstanding performance by any other employee by sending an online "thank you" to the employee, with a copy to the recipient's manager. The program also allowed managers and senior individual contributors to give monetary awards, which could be redeemed for gift certificates, to employees for exceptional performance. Recognition was seen as an important way to increase employee engagement, and the success of Spotlight was seen by Intuit's management as an important aspect of the company's performance management. The case describes the evolution of employee recognition at Intuit, from informal methods, to a merchandise-based program, then to the gift-certificate-based Spotlight program. It describes the culture and values at Intuit, employee input into program design, and the elements of program success. The case also provides a brief discussion of the general subject of employee recognition.

In 1994, John Moores purchased the San Diego Padres baseball team. The team shared Qualcomm Stadium with the San Diego Chargers football team, which was the senior tenant and received a far higher share of stadium revenue than the Padres. As a result, the Padres' ability to support the payroll needed to field a competitive team was severely limited. The solution was to build a new ballpark for the Padres in a blighted area of downtown San Diego. Redevelopment of the blighted area was integrated into the ballpark construction project, with the Padres owner having the responsibility of being the master developer, and for guaranteeing increased tax revenues from the redevelopment. Typically, sports team owners had sought public funding of their new stadiums, promoting this with the expectation that the new stadium would catalyze other development-an expectation that was often not met. The San Diego Padres ballpark, PETCO Park, was the first integrated sports facility/redevelopment project ever attempted. In the end, the City of San Diego paid $301 million of the $474 million cost for the ballpark. By 2007 (three years after the ballpark opened), redevelopment projects worth approximately $4.25 billion had been completed, were underway, or were planned. Of these, $4 billion was privately funded. The previously blighted area was well on its way to a dramatic redevelopment. While the project turned out to be a huge success for the Padres, the City of San Diego, and the taxpayers of the City, there were, however, many obstacles that had to be overcome, including a 16 month halt in construction. The case describes the project, the role of the Padres, the City of San Diego, and other players.

In December 2004, Donald Berwick, MD, president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), challenged U.S. hospitals to reduce unnecessary deaths by 100,000 within the following 18 months. By the end of this 18 month period, over 3,100 hospitals enrolled in the "100,000 Lives Campaign," representing more than 70 percent of U.S. hospital beds. Calculations estimated that approximately 123,000 preventable deaths were avoided in participating hospitals. The case describes the state of quality in the healthcare industry, the history of the IHI, and the IHI's efforts to bring modern quality practices to health care. After seeing pockets of improvement, the IHI launched the 100,000 Lives Campaign in an effort to stimulate large scale change. The campaign approach incorporated lessons from political campaigns and social activism. The operation of the campaign is described. The impact of the campaign on hospitals is also discussed, with particular emphasis on one hospital that used the campaign as the basis for fundamental transformation.

In mid-2007, Infosys was an extremely successful business. Headquartered in India, it had played an important role in transforming global business. Revenues were growing rapidly, and the company was highly profitable. The company's revenue growth was closely linked to its ability to recruit, train, and retain talented employees. The demand for talent among IT companies in India was straining the country's education system. At the end of March 2007, Infosys had 72,000 employees, an increase of nearly 20,000 from the previous year. Increasing growth would require even higher numbers of new employees. Attrition was also an issue, running at about 13% annually and adding to the number of new employees required to meet revenue objectives. In mid-2006, Mohan Pai moved from his position as CFO to take over human resources, education, and research. Describes the Infosys culture and human resources environment in 2007, and focuses on the issues faced by Pai in hiring, training, motivating, and retaining employees in a business that was dependent on a highly talented employee base. Specifically, asks students to consider ways of addressing the issues of hiring, attrition, and allocation of employees.

In 2006, Rio Tinto Iron Ore (RTIO) faced a number of challenges. The iron ore business had traditionally been dominated by a few large suppliers, who sold to a relatively few large steel producers. The business environment was changing, however, with the rapid development of China. Demand was growing faster than supply, causing increased prices, particularly on the spot market. Most of RTIO's production was committed to fulfilling long-term contracts, so it could not fully benefit from the high spot market prices. New entrants, however, were not committed to long-term contracts and were attracted by these high prices. In addition, many new Chinese iron and steel mills were small operations, geographically disbursed, and did not secure their iron ore supplies before building their plants. An important part of the iron ore supply chain was transportation. Traditionally, customers were responsible for shipping, but this did not meet the needs of small, remotely located Chinese mills. In addition to these changes in the marketplace, RTIO had developed new steelmaking technology that enabled the use of lower quality iron ore and also generated substantially fewer greenhouse gas emissions than conventional technology. There were a number of possible approaches to commercializing this technology, ranging from vertical integration to licensing.

This case discusses the astounding growth of Crocs, Inc., a manufacturer of plastic shoes, from 2003 through early 2007. Much of the company's growth was made possible by a highly flexible supply chain that enabled Crocs to build additional product within the selling season. The normal model used within the fashion industry was to take orders well in advance of each selling season, and produce to those orders, with relatively little additional production. If demand was far in excess of this production, there would be stockouts and the company would lose the ability to capture revenue for that season. The product might or might not be in fashion the following year, when production would again be based on preseason orders. Crocs' ability to build additional shoes within the season enabled it to take advantage of strong customer demand, resulting in the company filling in-season orders totaling many times that of the initial prebooked orders. The case describes the Crocs supply chain. It asks students to assess the company's core competencies and how those can be exploited in the future. The case was revised in March 2011 to present information on the company's results in 2007 and prepare students for discussions of problems that would be faced in 2008 (covered in the B and C cases).

In 2004, energy drink company Red Bull considered purchasing the Jaguar Formula One (F1) racing team from Ford Motor Company. F1 was the pinnacle of international auto racing, and Red Bull had previously sponsored F1 teams and drivers. At the time, Red Bull was expanding globally and F1 was one of the top global sports. However, F1 was not popular in the United States. To raise the sport's visibility in the U.S., Red Bull had also developed a program to find and groom outstanding young American drivers, who hopefully would eventually drive Red Bull cars. Describes Red Bull's growth and high profitability as of 2004 as well as the extensive use of sports to promote its brand, the state of F1 racing, the company's involvement in the sport prior to 2004, and considerations in choosing sponsorship or team ownership to promote Red Bull.

Acumen Fund was founded in 2001 to provide modest amounts of capital, together with business expertise, to help build thriving enterprises that would serve large numbers of poor people. In 2004, Acumen Fund invested in the Series B round of WaterHealth International (WHI), a company that was developing approaches for providing clean water to the poor worldwide. In 2006, WHI planned to launch a major initiative in India. It also planned a new round of fundraising to support the company's continued growth. Provides background information on venture philanthropy, and on Acumen Fund. Also describes the problems associated with safe drinking water in developing countries, and WHI's approach to addressing those problems.

In October 2004, SpaceShipOne rocketed into space, winning the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE. This competition for the first privately funded, manned spaceflight was organized by the X PRIZE Foundation, and attracted 26 competitors, who had spent more than $100 million in pursuit of the prize. The success of SpaceShipOne generated intense media and public interest. Many of the competitors for the Ansari X PRIZE also planned to continue their efforts to develop commercial spaceflight businesses. After this success, Peter Diamandis, founder and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation considered the future of the foundation. He saw three options: shutting down, continuing with a focus on space, or creating a "world-class prize institute that uses the prize-incentive model to solve today's grand challenges." He chose the third alternative, with the vision of developing 10-15 prize competitions. The foundation chose to work on fields including space, medicine and genomics, energy and transportation, education, and other social challenges. Describes lessons learned about prize competitions through the Ansari X PRIZE program. Discusses issues in creating and operating a successful competition, as well as the advantages of using incentive prizes, including bringing new thinking to bear on difficult problems and paying out only when an important goal is accomplished (paying for results, not effort). Poses several problems facing the Foundation as it begins to focus on fields outside of space: could prize competitions work in fields that were not technology-centric (such as poverty); could the organization scale up to support as many as 10-15 competitions; and what areas should the foundation focus on. Finally, could the prize model revolutionize philanthropy by using financial incentives to stimulate investment in important fields and leverage philanthropic dollars by paying only for results?

Rite-Solutions, a software company headquartered in Rhode Island, was founded by two successful executives that had seen innovation stifled in traditional companies. They observed that people with ideas generally had to present them to management for approval, a process that was intimidating and tended to favor ideas that were well presented, rather than those that were good. In addition, software people were often uncomfortable speaking in public, preferring communication by computer. The Rite-Solutions culture was based on trust and collaboration, with a desire to tap into the creativity of the entire organization. The founders tried a number of methods to involve employees in innovation, which became more difficult as the company grew and added remote offices. They eventually invented a stock market, called "Mutual Fun", where any employee could develop an idea and get other employees to provide their opinions, comments, or time to move the idea forward in their spare time. Communities of common interest formed around these ideas (stocks). When a stock made sufficient progress, and attracted sufficient support, top management could put corporate resources behind it, resulting in a new product, process improvement, or new technology. There were three types of stock: cost-savings ideas, product ideas that utilized technology the company already understood, and new technologies that the company should evaluate. The market began in 2004 and was very successful. By mid-2006, Rite-Solutions had begun to license it to other companies. Discusses the culture of Rite-Solutions, the operation of Mutual Fun, and asks about the application of this tool in other corporate environments.

In November 2005, Microsoft prepared for a global launch of its next-generation game console, the Xbox 360. Microsoft's original Xbox had been introduced a year after Sony's Playstation, but would beat Sony's next-generation system to market by a substantial amount. It would also play an important part in Microsoft's future strategy, where the home entertainment system was seen as a major growth opportunity. Describes the evolution of the video game console business and the evolution of the Xbox, both from a design and manufacturing perspective. Microsoft's decisions for the original Xbox supply chain are described, together with the changes in the supply chain that were made for the Xbox 360. Asks questions about the motivation for changes to the supply chain, the risks and benefits of global rather than regional launch, and the use of contract manufacturers. Prepares students for discussion of how supply chains must evolve to support changing business strategy.