個案總覽

In early June 2020, the owner of BYKlyn, an exercise bike fitness studio in New York, was considering her response to the business disruption that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic had caused the health and fitness industry. BYKlyn had recorded consistent annual growth since its launch in 2014. The fitness studio owner had been confirming her business expansion plans by moving into a larger space in the city when the pandemic struck in early 2019. Consequently, she was forced to shut down the business in mid-March 2019, in compliance with COVID-19 regulations. After a two-month lockdown, the New York state government announced phased-in reopening plans, and the fitness studio owner was considering three options for restarting her business: reopen at the existing premises; move to a virtual environment with a new business model; or set up an outdoor fitness club, which would offer fitness club members a completely new workout format.

The founder of Cheekbone Beauty, an Indigenous enterprise in the Niagara Region of Ontario, was driven by the goal of becoming "the first Indigenous woman to create a unicorn beauty brand from Canada." In early 2021, she was seeking resolution to an ongoing entrepreneurial dilemma: How should she identify the fledgling company's unique strengths and build them into sustainable competitive advantages?

In February 2020, the director of Global Creative Intelligence at McCormick & Company, Inc. (McCormick), was grappling with some challenges at his desk at the company's headquarters in the United States. Having been mandated to deploy Artificial Intelligence (AI) in developing new products-in partnership with IBM-he had been interfacing with over 500 product developers at the company's various locations worldwide. The director faced three managerial dilemmas: How should he get the company's product developers to trust the findings of AI? How could he teach and train AI to become smarter? And how should he deal with the global-local dynamics at McCormick in launching AI-engineered products?

In March 2020, the chief innovation and strategy officer (CISO) of Amsterdam-based Koninklijke Philips NV (Philips), a global leader in health technology, was surveying the distance that Philips had traversed in its transition from products to platforms. The CISO faced three managerial dilemmas: How could he transform the long-standing functional orientation at Philips into a multidisciplinary alignment? How could he ensure that Philips's customer-facing teams moved from a transactional mode to a relational mode? And how could he motivate employees to deal with a burning platform when they did not see one?

The chief commercial officer of Johnson Controls International, a multinational manufacturer and marketer of security systems, was noticing a change in the buying behaviour of one of its premier customers. As one of the company's designated strategic accounts, this customer was entitled to multi-level collaborative support. Of late, the customer had been taking a "bid-and-buy" approach to its purchases, ignoring the standards agreed to in the strategic agreement with Johnson Controls International. It also sought a scaled-down version of a security system, and this ran contrary to the original strategic account agreement. The chief commercial officer was examining the way forward with the customer. Should he demote it from the strategic account status to a regular sales account, despite the risks involved in doing so?

In early April 2020, COVID-19 began impacting trade, commerce, and industry globally. The founder and president of Innovative Automation Inc., a custom machine builder in the small and medium enterprise sector in Ontario, Canada, was facing two main dilemmas. First, how should he ensure that the internal channels of communication at the company remain open as its employees-like everyone in the rest of the province and indeed the rest of the world-dealt with a largely unknown virus? Second, how should the company enforce social distancing-made mandatory by the provincial government in its bid to contain the spread of the virus-at its manufacturing facility?

In March 2020, the founder of an auto mechanic shop in a Toronto suburb was contemplating a five-year growth strategy. Given the disruptions in both the auto mechanic sector and the automotive industry at large, she wondered whether her plan was realistic. Should the founder execute the growth strategy according to plan or change the plan and lead the business in a completely different direction?

In April 2018, the two co-founders of SafeMotos, a motorcycle taxi service in Rwanda, in Central Africa, were examining their expansion plan. Their start-up had not yet become profitable, but they were already making plans to expand into the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo. They were also driven by the larger goals of replicating their tried and tested growth model in other cities on the African continent and moving quickly into the underserved city transportation markets of Asia and the Far East. As they reviewed their four-year experience of working in Africa, they were facing a singular question: What should be the roadmap for scaling up their ride hailing service?

In February 2020, the executive vice-president of Manufacturing and Supply Chain at CoolIT Systems (CoolIT), met with the company's chief executive officer (CEO) in their Calgary office. The company had recently developed a new range of products that provided liquid cooling solutions to large-scale data centre installations for high-performance computing. In addition to expanding capacity to meet demand, the CEO was also concerned about the requirements and expectations of the company's new customers and the implications for its operations and supply chain. He asked the executive vice-president to prepare recommendations for CoolIT's operations and supply chain strategy for its line of products for the data centre market. What would the relationship with a contract manufacturer entail, and what key capabilities did CoolIT need to look for in a potential supplier?

In 2016 (A case), the founder of Tokyo Smoke, a cannabis retailing enterprise based in Toronto, needed to attract investors. The former Google Inc. employee had taken advantage of public policy changes in Canada and was modelling his retail business on Starbucks Corporation, which had educated North American consumers about coffee and captured a huge share of the coffee market. He needed investment capital in order to build his brand and needed to determine an appropriate valuation as part of his pitch for investment capital. By 2018 (B case), he had to address new challenges in his role as chief retail officer of Canopy Growth Corporation (Canopy), the Canadian licensed producer of cannabis that had taken over the company he founded. How could he position Canopy as a world leader in retail cannabis?

Supplement to case W19534 In 2016 (A case), the founder of Tokyo Smoke, a cannabis retailing enterprise based in Toronto, needed to attract investors. The former Google Inc. employee had taken advantage of public policy changes in Canada and was modelling his retail business on Starbucks Corporation, which had educated North American consumers about coffee and captured a huge share of the coffee market. He needed investment capital in order to build his brand and needed to determine an appropriate valuation as part of his pitch for investment capital. By 2018 (B case), he had to address new challenges in his role as chief retail officer of Canopy Growth Corporation (Canopy), the Canadian licensed producer of cannabis that had taken over the company he founded. How could he position Canopy as a world leader in retail cannabis?

In August 2017, the Canadian country leader of Red Hat Inc., an open source software company, was reviewing the progress made by the Canadian subsidiary of the American multinational in bridging the gender gap. The subsidiary had met its target of increasing the ratio of women in its sales team from 5 per cent in August 2014 to 40 per cent in July 2017. The country leader was examining ways to leverage the takeaways from the four-year experience in reducing the gender gap in an effort to not only sustain the momentum but also go beyond gender parity.

Supplement to W18507

Supplement to W18507.

In July 2013, the chief executive officer (CEO) of TVOntario (TVO) was reviewing a report from consultants for the future direction of the organization. TVO was an educational media organization under the Ontario Ministry of Education, in Canada. TVO's mandate was rooted in supporting the ministry's social role of providing education-a crucial public good-to Ontarians of all ages. Over time, the mandate was broadened to include current affairs, documentary, and drama programming. But unlike its private-sector peers in the television industry who relied on commercial advertisements as a source of revenue, TVO depended on annual grants from the ministry of education to the extent of 66 per cent of its annual expenditure. For the rest, it relied on donors and on its own revenue-generating programs. At the end of the 2012/13 broadcast year, TVO reached 83 per cent of Ontarians. However, new data was emerging that showed early adopters to Internet video were beginning to watch as much as 45 per cent of their television through non-traditional channels. The consultants outlined a five-year plan with three strategic directions. The CEO must decide on the direction and the execution plan that will place TVO on a path of recurring growth.

The factory manager of John Deere Reman, located in Edmonton, Canada, was preparing for a meeting in September 2017, with the general manager of Global Reman Operations and Marketing at the company's head office in Springfield, Missouri. John Deere's remanufacturing operations had been steadily improving over the last decade. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss opportunities for changes to John Deere's remanufacturing operation that would provide value to the company, improve customer service, and support the company's commitment to environmental sustainability.

In May 2014, Honda Canada was planning to relaunch the Honda Fit-its entry-level car. The purpose of the relaunch was to kick-start growth in sales of the Honda Fit, which had fallen from 14,836 units in the launch year of 2008 to 9,512 units in 2013. The target customer group was an up-and-coming demographic cohort known as millennials. Honda Canada's manager of Customer Conquest Management was mandated with strategizing and executing the relaunch. She had to make two core decisions: How should Honda Canada connect with millennials, and what communication medium should it choose to reach them?

In 2012, a pilot study undertaken by the data services team of the Dow Chemical Company in the polymer division of the multinational company's Midland, Michigan, plant had revealed an uncanny trend on the company's shop floor. Plant engineers were working for the data; the data was not working for them. The data services director saw an opportunity to reverse the trend through the deployment of big data capabilities and, more specifically, enterprise manufacturing intelligence (EMI), a subset of big data. How should he gain user acceptance of the proposed EMI?

In the hotel industry, the reuse of towels is considered a main step toward reducing hotels' high carbon footprint. Windermere Manor, a private, high-end hotel, has established a routine to encourage its guests to reuse towels; however, the hotel's towel-replacement rate exceeds its towel-reuse rate. The intended routine for identifying towels for reuse is not being followed, even by the hotels' own housekeeping staff. The hotel's general manager examines the reasons for the breakdown of routine and considers ways of correcting the situation.

The Chief Information and Security Officer (CISO) of HDFC Bank Ltd, a leading private sector bank in India, is examining the options before him in strengthening the bank's online security subsequent to a phishing attack on the bank's customers. Introducing an additional level of security involving new gateways for each online transaction seems a foregone conclusion. But the CISO must contend with customer convenience which is becoming a source of differentiation in a competitive banking scenario. The case provides an opportunity for students to develop a road map for the CISO in reinforcing the online security of a new generation bank.