Faced with declining market share and sales, Natura, Brazil's second largest brand in the cosmetics, fragrances, and toiletries market, expanded its customer reach by moving from a direct-sales company to a multichannel company. In 2014, Natura added online catalogs, physical stores, and drugstores to its well-established direct-selling model, but the results were disappointing. Between 2014 and 2016, three different Natura CEOs attempted to lead the company in the strategic transition to focus less on the direct sales consultants and more on reaching the end consumers directly with multiple channels and touchpoints. On October 2016, the company's board appointed its former commercial vice president, João Paulo Ferreira, as the most recent CEO. Ferreira's challenge was to find the right balance between the direct-selling and other channel formats to market Natura, thus enabling it to thrive in the face of intense competition in the beauty and personal care market in Brazil.

By late March 2014, the ridesharing company Uber was on a roll, rapidly expanding service to untapped markets and gaining new, enthusiastic customers, as well as a few vocal and visible detractors. Uber's innovative organization of the supply-demand matching process produced eager customers who recruited others. Buzz marketing and aggressive recruitment of drivers augmented growth. This case presents Uber as an example of a middleman adding real value for consumers and upstream suppliers (limo drivers). Unlike Tesla, which battled to sell cars directly to the public, Uber created value by adding a layer between limos and prospective riders, organizing the market for convenience and transparency for both sides. Where Uber stirred up the competitive equivalent of a hornet's nest was with expansion from the livery car market into the taxi service market with UberX. The material allows for a lively discussion around disruptive digital technology and the firm's business model.

It's the end of the quarter, and the sales staff at Exceso Corp. is scrambling to meet CEO R. Foley Vinton's overheated 9% sales target. Sure, the sales team has always hit its target in the past, and yes, that number was based on its forecast data. But the fact is, the projection was based on raw data. And as Martin Wu, the company's head of sales, warns Vinton, sales will do well to hit 3%. Vinton remains unconvinced. He has already given that number to the analyst community, and, he thinks, if he keeps up the pressure, Wu will find a way to make it, just like he always does. So Wu and his sales team do what they have done in the past--discount the heck out of their product and load up the distribution channel. That's great news for Alice Dias over at Flemings ValuMart. She just stocked up on 3,000 cases of ClickZipPlus at a 6% discount to the standing price, with the idea of shipping most of it to diverters and to other ValuMarts in regions that haven't been offered such a good deal. But it's bewildering to analyst Andrea Valdini who, after Vinton has just shepherded her through a plant cranking at full production, can't find any eight-packs at a store near the very offices where she and her colleagues are pondering the health of Exceso's stock. "They can't keep this up much longer," suggests a ValuMart manager, pointing to the empty shelves that are the ClickZipPlus display. As he falls asleep that night, Vinton thinks they'll be able to kick the loading habit--someday, when the timing's better. But should they? In R0205A and R0205Z, four commentators offer advice on this fictional case study.