Familia Torres, a Spaniard winery, had been working actively since 2008 to mitigate and adapt to climate change through its Torres & Earth program. At the beginning of 2022, when the pandemic was finally nearing its end, the challenge for Familia Torres was how to define a sustainability strategy for the future. This had led Familia Torres to search for new terroirs at higher altitudes to find the right balance of heat during the day and cold at night, in order to achieve a quality wine. Another strategy had been to recover local ancestral varieties, resilient to these new climate scenarios. The threat of water scarcity also loomed over the vineyards, as well as other ecological risks which reduced its productivity. A "beyond sustainability" strategy was presented as a hopeful one, which focused on reversing climate change from the local sphere of action and was consistent with the family motto "the more we take care of the land, the better wine we produce". However, this promising strategy involved many uncertainties. From a commercial perspective, it was not clear how it would affect production, how it would be articulated with the commercial strategy, or whether consumers would know how to appreciate this product. From an ecological perspective, it was unclear how much carbon it would absorb, and for how long. In the light of this situation, the Familia Torres management team sometimes ask themselves whether they should maintain the strategy of going "beyond sustainability" or consider strategies more con-sistent with the mainstream approach to climate resistance viticulture, such as, for example, the genetic improvement of the grapes, or intensify the strategy of transfer to colder areas.

In late August 2019, Dr. Manuel del Castillo, CEO of the SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital, was wrapping up a three-month stay in Washington, D.C. and preparing to present his hospital's new innovation strategy to the Management Committee upon his return. Along with Dr. Jaume Pérez-Payarols, the Director of Innovation and Research, he had defined a number of strategic innovation priorities for the next phase of HSJD's innovation journey. However, they still needed to decide how best to approach implementation and whether to adopt a more centralized or decentralized approach. As part of this decision, questions regarding the management of budgets, performance metrics, and speed also had to be considered. During the previous ten years, the two doctors had introduced innovation slowly, using minimal resources and fostering the voluntary contributions of the hospital professionals. Over time, the focus evolved from isolated projects that solved problems for specific groups of patients to cross-departmental projects that affected the core business, such as digital health and new business models. During the same time period, the hospital had sought new revenue via internationalization in order to sustain financially the complex level of care it offered. Given the hospital's evolution, the two doctors debated how to strengthen and accelerate the change effort, and each favored a different approach. They agreed to take time to think through their options and to make a decision when they reunited in the office in Barcelona a few days later.

In early 2011, José Manuel Villanueva and Lucas Carné, founders of Privalia, an online fashion discount store, were about to submit to the Board of Directors a strategic plan that could mark the beginning of a new phase in the company's growth. Since its inception in 2006, Privalia had grown at a fast pace: three years later, it was already profitable in Spain and expanded into Italy, Brazil and Mexico. By 2010, it had secured market leadership in every country where it operated. However, the competition grew just as fast, and the experience acquired over recent years indicated that speed and market size proved key in online fashion sales. Privalia already operated in Spain and Italy, but, if it really wanted to become a relevant player in Europe, the company needed to move into the topmost markets like Germany, France or the United Kingdom. Villanueva and Carné decided to strengthen Privalia's international expansion by venturing into the German market. Thus far, Privalia's international growth had unfolded organically, via the creation of affiliates in the countries where it had moved into (Italy, Brazil and Mexico). Now, in order to enter the German market, should Privalia set up a subsidiary or should it acquire Dress-for-Less that was up and running in a leading local market position? Villanueva and Carné did not have much time. A board meeting had been scheduled to make a final decision. They needed to design a clear growth strategy, evaluate their options and prepare an entry proposal for Germany.

In early 2011, José Manuel Villanueva and Lucas Carné, founders of Privalia, an online fashion discount store, were about to submit to the Board of Directors a strategic plan that could mark the beginning of a new phase in the company's growth. Since its inception in 2006, Privalia had grown at a fast pace: three years later, it was already profitable in Spain and expanded into Italy, Brazil and Mexico. By 2010, it had secured market leadership in every country where it operated. However, the competition grew just as fast, and the experience acquired over recent years indicated that speed and market size proved key in online fashion sales. Privalia already operated in Spain and Italy, but, if it really wanted to become a relevant player in Europe, the company needed to move into the topmost markets like Germany, France or the United Kingdom. Villanueva and Carné decided to strengthen Privalia's international expansion by venturing into the German market. Thus far, Privalia's international growth had unfolded organically, via the creation of affiliates in the countries where it had moved into (Italy, Brazil and Mexico). Now, in order to enter the German market, should Privalia set up a subsidiary or should it acquire Dress-for-Less that was up and running in a leading local market position? Villanueva and Carné did not have much time. A board meeting had been scheduled to make a final decision. They needed to design a clear growth strategy, evaluate their options and prepare an entry proposal for Germany.

In early 2011, José Manuel Villanueva and Lucas Carné, founders of Privalia, an online fashion discount store, were about to submit to the Board of Directors a strategic plan that could mark the beginning of a new phase in the company's growth. Since its inception in 2006, Privalia had grown at a fast pace: three years later, it was already profitable in Spain and expanded into Italy, Brazil and Mexico. By 2010, it had secured market leadership in every country where it operated. However, the competition grew just as fast, and the experience acquired over recent years indicated that speed and market size proved key in online fashion sales. Privalia already operated in Spain and Italy, but, if it really wanted to become a relevant player in Europe, the company needed to move into the topmost markets like Germany, France or the United Kingdom. Villanueva and Carné decided to strengthen Privalia's international expansion by venturing into the German market. Thus far, Privalia's international growth had unfolded organically, via the creation of affiliates in the countries where it had moved into (Italy, Brazil and Mexico). Now, in order to enter the German market, should Privalia set up a subsidiary or should it acquire Dress-for-Less that was up and running in a leading local market position? Villanueva and Carné did not have much time. A board meeting had been scheduled to make a final decision. They needed to design a clear growth strategy, evaluate their options and prepare an entry proposal for Germany.

The case tells the story of Chef Ferran Adrià and describes the transformation of elBulli, a renowned Michelin three-star restaurant located in Spain's Costa Brava, since the restaurant's opening in 1961 until its closing in 2011. Why would Ferran Adrià close elBulli? Was the iconic restaurant yet another financial crisis victim? Had the chef and his team tired of success or run out of creative juices, unable to keep up with the hectic innovative pace required to create new, ground-breaking menus year after year? What else could have possibly driven Adrià to turn away from the restaurant's huge, untapped demand, with some two million reservation requests a year and a seating capacity for 8,000? Why would he risk turning this "gastronomic success" -a restaurant that had been named the world's best restaurant five times- into a foundation yet to be formulated and shaped?

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Companies are surprisingly obtuse, the authors say, when it comes to the formation of new alliances. What often happens is that a business unit will form a partnership that serves its own parochial interests. All too often, however, the value that such alliances add at the business-unit level is negated by the resulting harm to the company due to the incompatibility of the new alliance with existing ones. Forming a partnership with a company that is an arch rival of an existing partner, for instance, can create such ill will that it leads to the overall destruction of value in the company. The solution, the authors argue, lies in both structure and process: Companies should create a central "alliance function"-an individual or a department at the corporate level that is charged with overseeing and coordinating the formation of new alliances. And the decision of whether to enter into a proposed alliance should be subject to a rigorous set of analytical steps in which the company examines the costs and benefits of the proposed alliance, not only for the business unit that is directly involved but also for the company as a whole.

In recent years, academics and practitioners have recognized that sponsorship relationships operate as strategic alliances. Additionally, they have emphasized the lack of analytical approaches which allow an understanding of the developmental process of such alliances. In an attempt to fill this gap, examines how key sponsorship characteristics change over different stages of the life cycle (formation, operation, and outcome) to determine the success or failure of the relationship. Specifically, proposes a life cycle model that articulates general paths in sponsorship relationship developmental stages and the behavior pattern of sponsorship characteristics. Throughout this framework, illustrates the reasoning with examples drawn from the UBS/Team Alinghi sponsorship relationship.