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CEO Jeff Immelt considers whether GE is moving fast enough on its new Industrial Internet initiative. The undertaking includes building out an Industrial Internet, connecting machines and devices, collecting their data and operations, and providing services to clients based on analytics of this data and information. The case considers the implications of such an initiative across all 6 of GE's business units, and how best and how quickly to execute the strategy. The firm has committed $1b in investment, building out a new software center in California, and a commercial sales function at headquarters to deploy the new products and services.

Mark Fields, Ford Motor Company's COO, had to ensure the company's current business model of building cars and trucks remained strong, while concurrently navigating the company into the radily expanding industry of personal mobility. Personal mobility required new technologies and business models that were intraditional at Ford, and Fields had to evaluate the traditional business model colliding with the new business model. To direct these new technologies and business models, Ford released its "Blueprint for Mobility," which established near-, mid- and long-term goals to make mobility accessible and affordable to all. The case focuses on the launch of three mobility experiements (car sharing, parking, and on-deman ride sharing), and ask students to determine how Fields should balance these types of experiments with the company's traditional operations. Further, was Ford doing enough in the mobility space, and if so, was it moving fast enough? What new sources of revenue could Ford derive from mobility solutions?

From the late 1990s to 2006/2007, Samsung Electronics moved from one of 170 TV manufacturers to gain dominant TV market share year over year from 2007-2013. As digital technologies increasingly converged in 2013-2014, the industry faced new questions: What was the future of TV? The case considers Samsung Electronics TV Group's product development processes, as the company's mobile and TV offerings increasingly converged and consumer demands and behavior pushed the historically clear boundaries of product, content, engagement and interaction.

In May 2014, Bill McDermott will become the sole CEO of SAP AG, the world leader in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) field. The case occurs in January 2014 at SAP's investors meeting, at a time when the company's stock is near record high. A 2010 strategy committed the company to a transition to cloud computing. The main driver behind this transition was the development of SAP HANA, an in-memory computing technology that combined database, data processing, and application platform functionality. Ownership of cloud infrastructure was a key question. SAP could build, own, and operate its own data centers, or partner to locate SAP HANA and other products with other cloud infrastructure providers, such as Amazon, Microsoft, or IBM. McDermott also had to make decisions around the organization and leadership of the company's cloud efforts.

Operations Strategy bridges the gap between the strategic plan directed by executives and the emergent strategy that occurs through the many decisions of managers and employees. The goal of operations strategy is to optimize operations' resources to best fulfill the strategic objectives of the firm. There are two central elements to an effective operations strategy. The first element provides the long-term objectives for operations in support of company strategy and answers the question, "What do we have to do?" The second offers a plan to meet those objectives and answers the follow-up question, "How are we going to do it?" A resource-based operations strategy framework offers a way to evaluate operations strategy by looking at the resources that influence a firm's ability to create and deliver its primary offerings. There are 5 categories of resources: Physical Resources; Human Resources; Intellectual Property, Software, and Methods; Ecosystem Resources; and Financial Resources. In the framework each category is described in terms of the resources and their uses, the way they are integrated with one another into systems, and the plans for future development. Strategic alignment is the level to which the complete operating system is able to implement the company's strategy.

Senior management at P&G has put a strong emphasis on using data to make "better, smarter, real-time business decisions." The Global Business Services (GBS) organization has developed tools, systems and processes to provide managers throughout P&G with direct access to up-to-date data and advanced analytics. In addition, GBS has embedded analysts within the business units to work alongside leaders and managers in driving real-time information-based decision making. Equipped with the tools provided by GBS, Alan Torres, vice-president of North America Fabric Care, must finalize the forecast for P&G's laundry detergent sales. Results for the two months since introducing concentrated powder laundry detergent in select retailers saw a surprising jump in sales of over 10%, but would the trend continue as the concentrated detergents were introduced across North America?

Supplement for case 613031. Update on progress of Microsoft's Server & Tools Business through August 2012. Pleased with the Windows Azure product, Satya Nadella must decide how to attract customers to the cloud based platform.

Supplement for case 613031. Update on progress of Microsoft's Server & Tools Business through July 2011. Satya Nadella and his team explore whether or not to support Linux on Windows Azure.

In 2011, Microsoft's Server & Tools Business (STB) was large, fast growing and highly profitable on the strength of traditional packaged product lines led by the Windows Server operating system. Even as the current packaged business was performing exceptionally well, Microsoft's leadership understood that cloud based solutions would become more prevalent in the future. As the newly appointed President of STB, Satya Nadella had to find a balance between managing the current packaged business and building the cloud offering.

A discussion of the history and processes behind the development of Microsoft's Office 12 software.

Adam Famularo, general manager, Cloud Computing business, CA Technologies, and David Dobson, WVP and group executive, Customer Solutions Group, were preparing for a presentation on communicating and positioning CA Technologies' new strategy for cloud computing. Analysts had voiced concern over several 2010 acquisitions, and highlighted CA Technologies' need to clearly state its strategy and objectives and identify a compelling way to position and differentiate its cloud offerings. Industry pundits claimed the mainframe- CA Technologies' bread and butter- was dead and would go away. Famularo knew CA Technologies' line of products was anything but outdated, having evolved to help enterprises manage and secure their increasingly complex IT environments. In 2010, analysts reported that CA Technologies' mainframe business was strong and accounted for over 60% of the firm's revenues and a majority of its profits, with no sign of slowing down. But given the attractiveness of CA Technologies' current mainframe and distributed business lines, how firmly would the company back the emergent cloud business? Should CA Technologies' cloud business be positioned as an incremental, complementary addition to its mainframe and client-server businesses or should it be framed as a disruptive and entirely revolutionary technology?

Ricoh, the Japanese copier manufacturer, is committed to reducing its environmental impact to one-eighth of its 2000 levels by 2050. It has already introduced three stages of environmental awareness to its operations, and its recycled copier business broke even in 2006. The company developed environmental accounting methods and produces annual environmental and sustainability reports, but Ricoh is concerned that investors may not take these efforts into account.

Business ecosystems require careful orchestration and strategic choices regarding make/buy/partner decisions and membership access. This case examines the strategic and technological issues related to managing SAP's thriving ecosystem of user communities, software vendors, integration partners and technology providers. It details how the ecosystem gets developed and the challenges in meeting the needs of the internal organization, large partners, and small up and coming firms. SAP executives, in this case, have to make a decision if a relatively small startup firm should be elevated to the highest strategic partnership level, normally reserved for very large firms.

In June 2004, as the newly appointed vice-president of the meals division, Jim Murphy was facing a crisis with one of General Mills' key brands, Hamburger Helper. The metrics for this brand had universally declined with marketing margin, volume, penetration, buy rate, facings, and advertising target rating points all down. In addition, Hamburger Helper was facing an increasingly competitive environment in the dinner category with Kraft, Lipton, ConAgra and Campbell's all recently entering the market. Brainstorming by Hamburger Helper's brand management team resulted in two potential solutions: (1) to reduce production costs through the simplification of the Hamburger Helper line by reducing the complexity of the product and eliminating the less successful SKUs and (2) to re-consider the way that innovation was employed in brand development. How should Jim Murphy and his brand management team in order to turn this brand crisis around?

Microsoft's and Wal-Mart's preeminence in modern business has been attributed to any number of factors--from the vision and drive of their founders to the companies' aggressive competitive practices. But the authors maintain that a bigger factor of their success is the success of the networks of companies with which Microsoft and Wal-Mart do business. Most companies today inhabit ecosystems--loose networks of suppliers, distributors, and outsourcers; makers of related products or services; providers of relevant technology; and other organizations. The analogy between business networks and biological ecosystems vividly highlights certain pivotal concepts. The moves that a company makes will, to varying degrees, affect the health of its business network, which in turn will ultimately affect the organization's performance. Because a company, like an individual species in a biological ecosystem, ultimately shares its fate with the network as a whole, smart firms pursue strategies that will benefit everyone. So how can you promote the health and stability of your own ecosystem, determine your place in it, and develop a strategy to match your role? Knowing what to do requires understanding the ecosystem and your organization's role in it. Is your company a niche player, a keystone, or a dominator?

Surging costs of building a state-of-the-art fabrication facility were pushing firms to outsource manufacturing while advanced technologies were requiring a tighter coupling between design and manufacturing. Explores the development of strategy in this environment. Although Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) began as a pure-play manufacturer, its position in the industry grew, and it had the power to wield influence over several critical control points in the chip development process. The central issue is the decision TSMC must make regarding how to structure its dependencies and interfaces with its customers and technology suppliers.

The CEO of a Silicon Valley start-up needed to make organizational and product changes to deliver a new software solution to a Fortune 500 customer. He was wondering how he should structure the company to best meet the requirements for this particular customer, while also positioning the company for future growth. He was operating under a tight time frame and was considering options ranging from focusing the entire company on this one project to spreading out his team over several projects. The case raises such issues as developing a successful business model for a software company, outlining a distinction between software platforms and software applications, strategies for product development in tight time frames, leading a company through a transition, knowing when it is time to change directions, setting and communicating a new direction amid ambiguity, and judging how much change employees can handle at one time.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. People often talk about business competition as if it's a short race: Get to market first and you are bound to win. Indeed, the importance of first-mover advantage has been drummed into the heads of many business executives, and some have almost been brainwashed to think that speed is everything. But when a new technology like the Internet threatens to transform an industry, the companies that are quickest to respond aren't necessarily the ones that reap the greatest benefits. In fact, choosing a fast strategy can lock them into a set of decisions that actually hurt them in the long run. Instead, organizations that choose the right strategy for the entire race--both for the early and late stages--will come out ahead. The authors have found that companies that respond quickly by launching a spin-off usually have difficulty achieving true staying power in the market. For enduring success, incumbent companies are better off creating a group that is--or will eventually be--integrated within their organizations. Only then will they be able to tap fully into their numerous strengths and assets, leveraging their incumbent's advantage.

Details how to design, launch, and scale a rapidly growing Internet venture. Focuses on the challenges and opportunities involved in leveraging a network of partners.