During the COVID-19 pandemic, SATA CommHealth, a Singapore-based social enterprise, made several strategic decisions in order to turn itself around, sharpen its organizational purpose, and reformulate its organizational strategy. SATA’s new strategy enabled it to secure a significant public contract in 2022, giving it a mandate as a primary care provider for migrant workers. As SATA’s financial performance stabilized, the board and the management were confronted with the next strategic dilemma: On the one hand, the organization could align itself with the national movement focusing on preventive care and population health; on the other, it could attempt to establish new capabilities to provide chronic disease care for an aging populace or dialysis care to a rapidly growing population of persons with end-stage kidney failure. Which course should SATA take to fulfill its mission of promoting lifelong health and serving the community in Singapore?
As a pioneer in the plant-based alternative meat industry, Beyond Meat had experienced rapid growth for many years, primarily driven by increasing environmental concerns and health-conscious consumers. By 2022, the company experienced several challenges, some of which were industry-wide, while others pointed to internal issues relating to operations, human resources, and its product as well as geographic diversification strategies. Its stock value had dropped dramatically during the year and one-fifth of its global workforce had been axed in an effort to save costs. Ethan Brown, the chief executive officer and co-founder, had to decide whether he should maintain the company as it is or to make a change, either subtle or drastic, to regain sales and move forward.
In March 2021, the founder of Hampstead Tea, a specialty-tea processor based in London, United Kingdom, found herself at a crossroads. Since 1995, the founder had been exporting packaged tea to countries in the European Union (EU) as well as selling it locally in the UK market. But effective December 31, 2020, the United Kingdom had exited the EU; in 2021, companies in the two regions could no longer buy and sell goods freely across their borders. Uncertainty had gripped the flow of trade during the first three months of the new year. In March 2021, the founder was examining three options going forward: (1) divest the EU operations and focus on the UK market; (2) continue to cater to both the home market and the UK market, as before; and (3) relocate to a geography within the EU to focus on EU markets. The case offers a useful and engaging way of presenting to students the principles of effectuation as it relates to business entrepreneurship.
Teresa Ward, founder of Grandma Treesaw’s Bannock (GTB), had recently received positive media coverage from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and was hoping to leverage it to grow her Yukon-based bannock-mix business. She was considering two options: expand her direct to consumer offer by working with Shopify Inc. to improve GTB’s e-commerce sales or grow her product portfolio by introducing two new flavours of bannock mix. A few questions loomed in Teresa’s mind: Could she do both? Did GTB have the organizational resources to pursue this expansion plan successfully? What should her implementation timeline look like? What financial analysis would need to be done to support the decision-making process? She wanted to decide which option to pursue in the next three to four weeks.
After importing three hundred bags of ground sacha inchi, a seed with promising nutritional benefits, from Peru, Kayla Gray has important decisions to make. Her new venture, Sachi Superfoods, is ready to launch; however, she does not have a clear plan on how to best market her product. Gray must decide on the best market segment to pursue in addition to the most effective marketing channel for her product.
Founded in 1984 in Vancouver, Aritzia has been a massive success story, expanding across Canada and into the United States with no signs of slowing down. In March 2020, however, with the COVID-19 pandemic spreading rapidly through North America, the women’s fashion retailer was forced to shutter all its 97 boutique stores and shift sales to the e-commerce channel, while making other key financial and operating decisions to respond to the pandemic. In May 2020, with Aritzia given the green light to begin slowly and cautiously opening its locations, the CEO and the executive team needed to decide how to move forward in a time of crisis and continue its growth plans.
In February 2019, the owner of the Yukon Soaps Company (Yukon Soaps), based in Mayo, Yukon, was contemplating the path forward for her business. Founded in 1998, Yukon Soaps was a provider of hand-crafted artisanal soap featuring Indigenous artwork. Yukon Soaps had been experiencing double-digit annual sales growth over the past several years, and demand was steadily exceeding supply. The owner felt that her business had reached a critical point, and she knew it could not grow without addressing several pressing growth challenges, many unique to its northern context: (1) the cost of sourcing ingredients and shipping them via air freight to Yukon significantly drove up the cost of goods sold; (2) Yukon Soaps’ product was currently produced in the owner’s basement, which severely limited production capacity; (3) the business currently sold to Yukon retailers, directly to customers through fairs and farmers’ markets, and through an online e-commerce platform, and there were significant trade-offs associated with each sales channel. The owner’s primary goal was neither revenue nor profit growth, and as the challenges that came with growth threatened her primary goals and values, she was questioning the value of expanding the business. Should she expand Yukon Soaps, or should she remain a small-scale player? How could she address the unique challenges that she faced in Mayo, Yukon?
In December 2018, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Carrot Rewards (Carrot), a profitable Canadian social enterprise, was facing a turning point. The company, which had been founded three years earlier, was about to implode. Its single largest client had just conveyed its decision to pull out, causing a sudden 65 per cent drop in the company’s annual revenue. Should Carrot continue with the prevailing model—one day at a time? Should it launch a freemium version of its app? Should it pivot toward new geographies and new locations? Should it begin to focus on new verticals and go after new clients? Should it go on the auction block and salvage what is left of the original company? The founder and CEO wondered whether the future held workable options other than those he was considering in dealing with the enterprise he had founded, built, and nurtured.
Igraj Uči Rasti (IUR), which meant “play, learn, grow” in English, was the name of a company in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) that produced educational materials to teach basic literacy skills to children aged 3 to 10. The company’s founder and chief executive officer had envisioned IUR products being present in all homes and schools across BiH. However, in May 2019, IUR was at a crossroads, and the founder faced challenges regarding his distribution strategy, operations, product offerings, target markets, and staffing. He was considering several possible options to increase profits and scale his business, but he wanted to analyze potential outcomes and assess how they would affect his personal goals and overall business feasibility. As he considered several possible options to drive additional profits and scale his business, he wanted to use both quantitative and qualitative analyses to determine potential outcomes in relation to his goals and to the business’s long-term viability.
In late August 2018, the chief operating officer of Success HR Solutions, a Vietnamese software start-up, was contemplating the strategy for relaunching her product, a cloud-based human resources software product that handled various payroll and human resources functions. She needed to decide how to sell and price her product for the target market in the Vietnamese economy. As she evaluated her options, she had to consider the overall Vietnamese business landscape, the future of the industry, her company’s current capabilities, and her organization’s overall vision.
In June 2018, Lena Koke, the co-founder of Axess Law Professional Corporation, a legal services enterprise in Toronto, Ontario, was examining how to take the firm to the next level of growth. Koke had to determine what legal products and services the firm could expand and diversify into, how the firm should leverage information technology to reinforce its low-cost positioning, and how the firm should finance growth. The co-founder must evaluate the road map that she chose, and develop a long-term strategic plan for the firm.
In December 2016, two years after the founding of Medicloud, a Singapore-based start-up that offered a medical appointment-booking application, the founder and chief executive officer recognized that the start-up had yet to monetize. A decision regarding a pivot was imminent. He also recognized that there were new opportunities in the areas of employee benefits and insurance for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). He needed to answer two pressing questions before the company’s initial funding ran out: Should the start-up pivot to serve SMEs? If so, what kind of products and services should it offer to the SMEs?
In 2018, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Zashita Inc. (Zashita) was contemplating the future strategic direction of his security and electrical contracting firm based in Irkutsk, Russia. The company had experienced outstanding sales growth since its founding in 2013, and this trend was expected to continue into 2019 with the existing business. Despite this, the CEO had identified a new, untapped opportunity in Irkutsk—smart home technology installations—and was trying to determine whether he should risk expansion into this expensive but potentially highly profitable market. Alternatively, he could focus on spending his resources on Zashita’s existing business or look elsewhere for new opportunities. The CEO needed to decide on the future strategic direction of Zashita and determine the best course of action for allocating the company’s resources to ensure future profitability for the company and its workers.
The chief executive officer (CEO) of Freshii Inc., a leading Canadian-based, international franchised restaurant chain, had developed a distinctive corporate culture at the restaurant’s head office. In July 2017, Freshii was expanding its healthy food, fast casual restaurants at the rate of about one store per week, and the CEO wanted to ensure a common culture in the chain’s ecosystem. The task fell to the chief people officer to develop a plan that would take into consideration three developments that were relevant: the chain was on the verge of exponential growth; it was transforming from a restaurant brand to a health and wellness brand; and it was entering new lines of business by partnering with retail chains and airline companies. Given the diverse cultures at the store level, how could Freshii ensure a consistent corporate culture across the Freshii ecosystem? And how could Freshii convert its corporate culture to become both a sustainable and scalable competitive advantage?
In February 2017, the co-founders of Passion Connect were considering potential monetization strategies for their company. Passion Connect was an online platform based in Bangalore, India, that helped people identify, nurture, and live their passions. The company provided users with curated content, events, and connections related to their passions—from painting and music to travel and food. Passion Connect aimed to raise a Series A round of venture capital financing by the end of 2017. The co-founders had to find an effective monetization strategy before approaching potential investors. They had to consider both qualitative and quantitative outcomes for each strategy, the fit with the business’s goals, and the impact on profitability, feasibility, and user experience.
In May 2017, the owner and co-founder of the Sun Café & Bar (Sun Café) contemplated the future strategic direction of the restaurant, which offered both Nepalese and continental cuisine. Though Sun Café had shown growth since its opening in 2013, it had not achieved the revenue or brand reputation that the co-founders had hoped for. Facing mediocre financial performance within a fiercely competitive industry, the co-founders wondered where they should go from here, should they pursue new avenues for growth. They had six months before the fourth-year anniversary of the café to discuss strategic issues and come to a decision.
It was September 2009 when 21-year-old entrepreneur Lu Chengdui first considered entering the partnership that led to his becoming the chairman and general manager of Wenzhou Cijueshi Science and Technology Co. Ltd. (Cijueshi) in Zhejiang Province, China. Lu started his entrepreneurial efforts when he was in college; he became a serial entrepreneur and achieved great performance. His story drew the attention of both the media and the public. Lu was known for his perseverance and his courage in overcoming difficulties and pursuing his dreams for success. He was a role model for college students who wanted to be entrepreneurs. As he considered a possible involvement in Cijueshi, a company that specialized in developing, selling, and repairing pottery and porcelain, Lu wondered about entering a business in a field where he had no practical experience. What had made him so confident in his previous entrepreneurial success? How had he motivated himself to realize his entrepreneurial targets? He looked back at his entrepreneurial experiences to date to find answers to these questions and motivation for this new endeavour.
The founder and chief executive officer of Twenty One Toys Inc., a Canadian designer and manufacturer of educational toy sets, was considering her firm’s future in 2017. The company had doubled its revenues each year for the past two years with its first toy—and, thus far, its only product—the Empathy Toy. The entrepreneurial founder had defied the odds, gaining recognition for her product and securing funds from socially focused awards and firms. She had built up a supply chain, starting with ethically manufactured toys, and had sold her products both directly to schools and through distributors to the wider retail market. The biggest current challenge for the firm was determining its growth strategy for the Empathy Toy and for its second product, the Failure Toy.
In early September 2016, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Samsung), a leading manufacturer of smartphones headquartered in South Korea, released the new generation of its flagship smartphone, the Galaxy Note 7. Despite initial positive reviews and a strong market reception, just eight days later, Samsung voluntarily recalled 2.5 million of the smartphones, after receiving reports of the devices overheating and catching on fire. The problems persisted even with the replacement device, and the company decided to cease all production and sales of the Galaxy Note 7 in October 2016. Samsung faced a highly commoditized market, decreasing global demand, and increasing competition, but the company now also needed to deal with one of the biggest recalls in the history of the industry. What had gone wrong, and how could the company move forward?