CEO Hubert Joly has successfully tackled BBY's two main problems - declining comps and margins - and engineered a financial turnaround within his first five years on the job. Now Joly must develop and implement a strategic plan to create a sustainable competitive advantage for Best Buy in the highly competitive, electronic retail industry. With less than 20 percent of revenues coming from online sales, Best Buy is still predominantly a bricks-and-mortar store with an online presence and has not yet transformed into a "bona fide, multi-channel retailer." The case provides an overview of Best Buy's main competitors: Circuit City (now defunct), Walmart, Target, Apple, and Amazon.com. It further highlights the threat emanating from the continuous shift to online retailing.

Steve Easterbrook became CEO in March 2015 after it became clear that his predecessor's turnaround strategy was not working. Financially, McDonald's is struggling, with declining sales growth, a 15 percent decrease in net income, and stock prices below their 2012 price point, while the overall market is on the rise. The company is not benefiting from the economic recovery, as consumer preferences (and especially millennials) are shifting toward healthier options for dining out. Meanwhile, competition is fierce, with several direct competitors (e.g., Wendy's), higher-end burger joints (e.g., In-and-Out Burger), and fast casual chains (e.g., Panera) all outperforming the burger giant. Internally, the company is struggling with defining its strategic identity. Menu diversification has increased operational complexity which has slowed service times. Efforts to attract new customers by adding higher-end items have shifted McDonald's price points upward, while customer perceptions of quality (and willingness to pay) are at an all-time low. McDonald's size makes it an easy target for labor activists and health advocates, further compounding its public perception issues. By trying to be all things to all people, McDonald's finds itself in a classic "stuck-in-the-middle" strategic dilemma. Easterbrook must find a way to be a strategic leader who is willing to make tough decisions and transform McDonald's into a "modern, progressive burger company."

CEO Hubert Joly has successfully tackled BBY's two main problems-declining comps and margins-and engineered a financial turnaround within his first three years on the job. Now Joly must develop and implement a strategic plan to create a sustainable competitive advantage for BBY in the highly competitive, electronic retail industry. With only 10 percent of revenues coming from online sales, BBY is still predominantly a bricks-and-mortar store with an online presence and has not yet transformed into a "bona fide, multi-channel retailer." To be successful, Joly knows that his strategy must garner the support and involvement of all of the company's main stakeholder groups: customers, employees, vendors, investors, and society. The case also provides an overview of BBY's main competitors: Circuit City (now defunct), Walmart, Target, Apple, and Amazon.com.

Don Thompson became CEO of McDonald's in July of 2012. McDonald's total shareholder fell from 34.7% in 2011 to -10.75% from 2011 to 2012. Thompson is under fire to turn things around in 2013. Former CEO Jim Skinner's "Plan to Win" had turned the company around in the last decade, and Thompson, Chief Operating Officer under Skinner, was looking to recreate that success. Thompson wanted to focus on improving the menu, customer experience, and McDonald's brand.

The case is written from the perspective of Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, as he ponders the company's strategy over the next several years. At one point, Bezos believed there was room in the marketplace for the Kindle as a dedicated e-reader alongside tablets and laptops. Since its introduction in 2010, however, Apple's iPad has become the all-in-one vehicle for digital content, and competition in the mobile device industry has risen sharply.

CEO Hubert Joly must devise a turn-around strategy that will enable Best Buy to survive in an increasingly competitive consumer electronics market. By year-end 2012, Best Buy's stock price had dropped roughly 60% over a two-year period and same store sales and overall profitability were showing a consistent, negative trend. On the plus side, revenues were increasing (at a marginal rate), while Best Buy continued to dominate its competitors in terms of sales volume and U.S. market share. In addition, Best Buy's online business was growing by 15% to 20% each quarter. Still, critics were doubtful that Joly could save the company, which seemed intent on following Circuit City down the fast-track to bankruptcy.

Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm Computing, wants software that "thinks" like the human brain. His latest company, Grok, has developed "Hierarchical Temporal Memory" (HTM), a cutting-edge pattern-recognition software that functions as the human brain does. Hawkins struggles with how to license Grok's software while protecting Grok's intellectual property.

Better World Books was founded as a for-profit "B corporation" committed to a triple bottom-line of financial, social, and environmental performance. After early growth, BWB now faces challenges growing while sustaining their social-entrepreneurship business model. Problems such as narrow margins, shrinking supply, low brand awareness, and even copycat competitors are a few of the issues BWB faces. CEO David Murphy must decide how to handle these issues in a way that keeps BWB competitive in the crowded used-book industry and creates value for all of BWB's stakeholders.

Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm Computing, wants software that "thinks" like the human brain. His latest company, Numenta, has developed "Hierarchical Temporal Memory" (HTM), a cutting-edge pattern-recognition software that functions as the human brain does. Hawkins struggles with how to license Numenta's software while protecting Numenta's intellectual property. He must also balance moving his research forward with creating a profit and sustaining his company. Hawkins, who doesn't want to lose control of this company like he lost control of Palm Computing, must decide what strategic alliances to make or not make to ensure that his dream of making computers "more human" becomes reality.

Best Buy has survived the economic recession that took out competitor Circuit City only to find an increasingly competitive landscape. Their dominance of the retail electronics industry is being challenged by online retailers and big-box retailers such as Walmart and Target. CEO Brian Dunn is scheduled to present a five-year growth plan to shareholders in just two months. With an uncertain economy and invading competitors, what strategies for growth should he present to keep Best Buy from the same fate as Circuit City?

Jeffrey Immelt started his tenure as General Electric's CEO in what would be called the "Decade from Hell". It started in 2001 with an economic depression due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and was followed by the global financial crisis in 2008. GE's stock price fell 13% in a single day after missing its quarterly earnings forecast in 2009. On the heels of that loss, Standard & Poor's downgraded GE's AAA credit rating. Despite Jeffrey Immelt's efforts, the share price reached its all-time low of $6.66 on March 5, 2009. By 2010, GE's market capitalization was cut in half to $200 billion. Immelt knew that something had to change with GE's Corporate Strategy. He focused efforts on innovation in energy and healthcare that became known as ecomagination and healthymagination initiatives. Ecomagination sought innovative solutions to ecological challenge while healthymagination focused on delivering solutions for the healthcare industry. By 2010, the efforts from these initiatives had restored some of GE's market capitalization, but were far from the original $400 billion that he had inherited as CEO. Was Immelt's strategic plan enough to carry the company back to its former glory? And, would investors have the patience to stick o this path?

Infosys' global delivery model was being challenged by the United States backlash against outsourcing. Tax incentives and H1B visas for foreign workers were being reformed to support this policy. The tax incentives being proposed were meant to save American taxpayers $210 billion over ten years by repatriating taxes on foreign profits. Arguments for the H-1B reform advocate ensuring that where there are qualified American workers, those jobs are filled with those individuals before foreign workers. Also, competitors like Wipro and Tata were challenging Infosys' global consulting strategy. How should Infosys react to pressure to hire costly local talent while trying to remain competitive?

Roche had just finished purchasing the last public shares of Genentech in an effort to secure their expertise in biotechnology. However, the recent failure of the colon cancer drug, Avastin, had raised questions about the partnership. Roche's main motives in the acquisition were to gain rights to Avastin and use it for a myriad of other applications. Positive clinical trials would have lead to significantly increased sales and growth into other cancer applications. Instead, the negative results caused Roche shares to drop by 10 percent. The incident raised questions at Roche about the efficiency of drug development at Genentech. Phase III trial failures represented a significant loss of time and money. And, in this case, the FDA revoked Avastin's approval for treatment of breast cancer causing further harm to revenue opportunities for Roche. Now that Roche was in charge, expectations were raised for producing successful Phase III trials that would bring more products to market. But, what was the appropriate resource allocation for early drug discovery and Phase II and III trials? On one side, Genentech wanted to focus on early drug development as a means to keep the future product pipeline well stocked; on the other side, Roche was focused on getting drugs through Phase II and III trials and into the market to generate revenue.

Better World Books was founded as a for-profit "B corporation" committed to a triple bottom-line of financial, social, and environmental performance. After early growth, BWB now faces challenges growing while sustaining their social-entrepreneurship business model. Problems such as narrow margins, shrinking supply, low brand awareness, and even copycat competitors are a few of the issues BWB faces. CEO Andrew Perlmutter must decide how to handle these issues in a way that keeps BWB competitive in the crowded used-book industry and creates value for all of BWB's stakeholders.