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Management at Deutsche Post DHL Group is designing a three-country test of investment in a new health and wellbeing strategy.

Aaron Jonnerson, vice president of marketing at the automotive division of Avellin, must make marketing mix decisions for the launch of Eco7, a new environmentally-friendly motor oil. The company's performance has been mediocre, shareholder pressure is increasing, and expectations are high for Eco7. However, Jonnerson faces significant challenges in ensuring a successful launch. The market for passenger car motor oil (PCMO) is mature and consumers are price-sensitive. Furthermore, the independent oil change outlets that are Avellin's core customers have declined relative to other channels. Jonnerson must design the best pricing strategy to ensure a successful launch. The Eco7 case asks students to examine consumer behavior and channel conflict and factor them into a product launch. The launch comes at a time when the company may need to adapt to changes in a market that is increasingly commoditized and in which the relative importance of different distribution channels is changing. Students are asked to make recommendations on pricing and distribution and to consider which trade-offs the company should make.

Student spreadsheet for case 916507.

On April 24, 2013 the Rana Plaza factory building collapsed in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Over 1,100 people were killed in the worst industrial accident since the Union Carbide plant gas leak in Bhopal, India. Most of the victims worked for garment factories, whose primary clients were European, US and Canadian firms. Export contracts to such firms had helped Bangladesh become the world's second largest clothing exporter. Rana Plaza was not the first tragedy to occur in Bangladesh's garment industry, and without intervention, more might follow. International brand owners, domestic and foreign governments, labor unions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), stepped up to discuss their responsibilities for improving conditions for Bangladeshi garment workers.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 915501.

The Ethiopia: An Emerging Market Opportunity? case centers on the potential and challenges of entering an emerging market. It provides a brief overview of the Ethiopian market, market reforms and policies, and the business environment faced by foreign companies. Three multinational businesses, CareCo, ShoeCo, and MedCo, must decide whether and how to enter the Ethiopian market. Students are asked to make a recommendation for each company based on the attractiveness of the market, the factors that matter most for success, and an assessment of what applies to the companies.

In June 2014, leading healthcare and consumer technology company, Royal Philips ("Philips"), announced its HealthSuite Digital Platform to house healthcare data and enable applications used by physicians and patients. Philips had strong equity in the healthcare technology space, due to its extensive portfolio of medical devices and related software sold primarily to hospitals. Philips designed the first two apps for the platform (eCareCoordinator and eCareCompanion) in-house, but it planned to open it up to third-party developers who would create an array of health-focused apps. Healthcare had long lagged behind other industries in adoption of technology as well as patient-relationship management. However, many health players had recently increased investment in new infrastructure and data analytics. Would the new Philips HealthSuite Digital Platform find success in the rapidly evolving industry?

In October 2013, Colgate-Palmolive Company, the world's leading oral care company, was about to launch its new Colgate® Maximum Cavity Protection™ plus Sugar Acid Neutralizer™ toothpaste in Brazil. Oral care category accounted for 46 percent of Colgate's $17.4 billion sales worldwide in 2013. The new toothpaste was clinically proven to reduce and prevent cavities more effectively than toothpaste with the same level of fluoride alone. All major industry players, including Procter & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline and Colgate itself, had long ago launched products with the maximum amount of fluoride allowed by Health authorities. Yet cavities remained a significant threat to public health in many countries, both developing and developed. As Suzan Harrison, Colgate's president of Oral Care, prepared to launch CMCP+SAN in Brazil, the world's third largest oral care market, her executive team was divided over the product's positioning and pricing. Should it be positioned as a basic product to maximize reach for its health benefits or as a premium product for consumers who sought superior cavity protection?

The CEO of a health care-based REIT is considering alternative nursing home investment strategies. Students must consider macro-industry trends, scale and scope issues and consumer segmentation data in making their recommendations.

In 2014, Dr. Michael Dulin, chief clinical officer for analytics and outcomes research and head of the Dickson Advanced Analytics (DA2) group at Carolinas HealthCare System (CHS), successfully unified all analytics talent and resources into one group over a three year period. Rapid increases in computing power and decreases in data storage costs had enabled DA2's data architects to build predictive models incorporating complex clinical, financial, demographic, and claims data that would have been impossible to create only a few years before. However, in 2014, both Apple and Google announced features in their new mobile operating systems that collected and displayed output from various health-wearables (like heart-rate monitors or step-counters), as well as electronic medical record (EMR) data. Their expertise in analytics, access to demographic and location data, as well as large consumer bases, led Dulin to consider which players consumers would trust to integrate their healthcare data in the future and what role DA2 could play.

The case describes a program that CVS Health recently implemented to improve medication adherence, an important problem from societal, public policy, and firm perspectives. A test of the program, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement, increased the proportion of adherent customers by 1.4 percentage points. Students are asked to quantify the system-wide economic benefit of this improvement and draw upon insights from behavioral science to examine approaches for boosting medication adherence.

Mental illness has been described as an epidemic affecting nearly a quarter of all Americans in their lifetimes, often during their most productive working years. Managers who can design organizations that maximize mental health can minimize these risks and boost productivity. This note serves as a guide to understanding mental health in the American workplace. It provides an overview of the most prevalent mental health conditions among employees and the aspects of the work environment that can exacerbate the issues. It also looks at the costs, both to individuals and to companies, of treating or not treating mental health conditions, and outlines the legal framework, insurance plans, and managerial responses to accommodating employees who struggle with mental health issues. To engage students in a role play, the note includes a vignette featuring a struggling CEO.

This (B) case provides a brief description of the outcome of the (A) case.

In 2014, Pfizer proposed a friendly acquisition of AstraZeneca, but the AstraZeneca board resisted over price and strategy concerns. Was this good for pharmaceutical consumers? Pfizer, like pharmaceutical companies in general, faced difficulties in growing sales due to the challenges of developing new drugs. Over the previous decade or more, Pfizer had pursued acquisitions as a way to acquire new drugs, increase sales, and to reduce costs by combining operations and cutting staff. Pfizer, a U.S. company, was also interested in AstraZeneca, a U.K. company, as a way to reduce its corporate taxes. In recent years, AstraZeneca had significantly strengthened its pipeline of potential new drugs and its board felt it was in a strong position to go it alone. The company's CEO also indicated that an acquisition would be disruptive to its drug development efforts and delay new drugs coming to market. U.K. politicians expressed concerns over downsizing and job losses in the economically important pharmaceutical sector. The case allows readers to explore who benefits from a potential acquisition (shareholders, employees, drug consumers) and which of these stakeholders should be considered when deciding on an acquisition.