AMAG is Switzerland's premier automotive retail and service company, holding exclusive rights to import Volkswagen Group car brands such as Audi, Volkswagen, Skoda, Cupra and Seat. In 2022 AMAG had 7,300 employees and a revenue of CHF 4.4 billion. The electrification of the automotive industry and the introduction of the agency model by the Volkswagen Group are major challenges for the traditional Swiss company. The case describes AMAG's traditional business model, including recent changes, its vision and ambitions. Follow Frank Boemerle, the head of strategy at AMAG retail, as he develops new business models and captures insights about the company's transformation journey. New business models like Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and Retail as a Service (RaaS) are elaborated and described. Existing and future profit pools are analyzed, and new business opportunities and threats are discussed. The EV transformation and digitalization require up to 50% fewer employees in the after-sales service business, and the impending agency model questions the current infrastructure and capital employed. Therefore, AMAG is searching for new mid-term revenue streams and new employment for the workforce. Change management and up-skilling of the employees are additional challenges after the changes in the financial transactions of future business models on a subscription base. Shall AMAG invest in renewable energy to offer electrification packages to customers next to EVs? Shall AMAG expand to Italy and France? Shall AMAG expand the EV portfolio with new brands from China and potentially risk its exclusivity with Volkswagen? Support Frank in the analysis and make your conclusions on how AMAG can stay in business in Switzerland beyond 2030, given that the electrification of mobility and the new agency model disrupt the main revenue streams of AMAG's current business model.

In 2022, Elon Musk, known for his innovative ideas and often compared to Steve Jobs, made a big move by buying Twitter for $44 billion. He then started transforming the microblogging platform, rebranding it as "X." His goal was to turn Twitter into a super app like WeChat in Asia, combining many services like messaging, shopping and payments into one platform. This change was aimed at making Twitter more than just a place to post short messages, but a hub for various digital activities. The case study explores why Musk decided to take this bold step. It looks at the benefits he expected by bringing different digital services together. However, Musk faced many challenges during this transformation. The study discusses the impact of his decisions, including cutting down the workforce, changing policies and the reactions from users, advertisers and regulators. These issues show how difficult it is to change a well-known social media platform. Additionally, the study examines the problems Musk encountered in trying to make Twitter like WeChat in Western countries, where the digital environment is different from Asia. It considers what this big change could mean for the future of social media, online privacy and e-commerce, suggesting how this kind of transformation could change the way people use digital platforms. In short, "Has Elon Musk X'd Out?" provides a detailed look at Elon Musk's attempt to reshape Twitter. It gives insights into the challenges of creating a super app in the West and discusses the transformation's possible effects on the digital and social media world.

This case is about the dilemma faced by Elisabeth Vardheim, a C-level executive at Statnett, Norway's transmission grid operator. As a result of its participation in the Paris Agreement, Norway decided to greatly accelerate the national energy transition. An increased reliance on electricity, however, brings with it a pressing need for more high voltage power lines. As executive vice president for construction at Statnett, Vardheim must choose between two ways of increasing Oslo's electricity transmission capacity: string power lines on 40-meter-high towers or bury them underground. However, although the upgrade is indispensable, neither solution seems to have any chance of being approved. Vardheim has to contend with powerful stakeholders. There is the local population, which opposes overhead power lines due to their impact on the landscape - the "not in my back yard" effect. There is also the regulator, who must act in accordance with regulations that favor the most cost-effective solutions to keep electricity prices low for all Norwegians. The case is not just about choosing between two solutions. Obtaining the construction license also means having a good understanding of the forces involved, the licensing process and the applicable regulations. The student is taken on a journey that includes stakeholder management analysis, the decision-criteria perspective and real option valuation. Students are subsequently divided in two groups, each attempting to win the other over to their chosen option. This usually creates a stalemate and a lack of consensus which is then solved by an "Aha!" moment thanks to the use of an embedded option, an approach that will solve the case and lead to the attainment of the construction license.

The case describes how Patricia Heidtman, chief innovation and sustainability officer and member of the executive board at Sika, creates a roadmap for sustainability, including a net zero pledge. Sika deliberately put Patricia - also a trained chemist - in charge, unlike many companies that assign the sustainability agenda to the CFO, the head of PR or legal, or even a designated CSO. Sika is a specialty chemicals company with a leading position in developing and producing systems and products for bonding, sealing and damping, as well as reinforcement and protection in the construction and automotive industries. The company had over 27,500 employees and sales of CHF 10.49 billion in 2022. In her role, Patricia faces four main challenges. First, the regulatory environment for a global, publicly listed company like Sika changes fast and significantly, as the measurement standards are still developing. Second, scope 1 and 2 emissions count for only about 2% at Sika; 98% are related to scope 3, which the company does not control directly. Third, Sika has over 100 subsidiaries worldwide, and each market and customer segment is very different, requiring a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach. Finally, Sika's growth trajectory estimates a 300% revenue increase by 2050. Given this growth rate, reducing emissions by 75% would not decrease any emissions in nominal terms. An important step in implementing this commitment across the organization is a series of regional net zero workshops, with the aim of bringing everyone to the same level of understanding, since net zero affects every part of the business in different ways. At the same time, sharing the learnings and obstacles created valuable input for the regional and global pathway to net zero. This input will serve as a foundation for Sika's 2028 strategy. Through peer discussions instead of top-down mandates, Patricia wanted to create strong alignment between departments and regions on key decarbonization levers.

Denner AG is a leading food discount retailer in Switzerland. It has 591 of its own stores and 269 run as a franchise called Denner Partner; its revenues amount to about CHF 4 billion. Historically 25% of Denner's revenue has come from alcohol and tobacco sales. Although Denner is positioned in a highly competitive market, the foundations are changing rapidly. Food retail discounters have developed over the last years, and customer expectations of performance have risen, especially since the market entry of Lidl and Aldi. Therefore, Denner is in an environment where it needs to adapt quickly and continually. Denner was acquired by Migros - the biggest food retailer in Switzerland - in 2010 with the clear goal of enriching the offer within the whole group. A second reason for the acquisition was that Migros is not allowed to sell alcohol and tobacco, in accordance with its bylaws. Since the Covid pandemic, retail and food trends seem to have changed for good. In addition, the prospect of Migros starting to sell alcohol is forcing Denner to rethink its current strategy. COO Urs Kneubühler is charged with advising and convincing the board of the best strategic direction to ensure future growth and revenues, while taking into account the opportunities and threats arising from new food and retail trends.

The case tells the story of a strategic change and cultural shift at Innolume a start-up focused on unique laser production. George Gogolev, who represents the company's investors, is attempting to move the company away from customized productions for niche applications to mass production for the datacom market. Innolume won the Prism award - the "Oscar" of the photonics industry - for a laser dedicated to data transmission. However, the company lacked clear market vision, financing, production methods, quality controls and product readiness level. Although George convinced the investors to support the turnaround, it became apparent that the company's main challenge were cultural in nature. The Germany-based Innolume team consisted mainly of Russian scientists who were highly focused on R&D and technological excellence. At the same time, they lacked business development and were not customer-centric. The team was not supportive of the investors' initiative and sabotaged the changes, triggering open conflict between the staff and the new management. It took a comprehensive change management process to bring the new strategy and the company culture into alignment, and get the team on board. Finally, the company got on the right track for mass production. However, there were still some challenges related to product readiness. The issue of time becomes critical, and Innolume needs to speed up to benefit from the window of opportunity for entering the datacom market.

As Switzerland's largest retailer, Migros is operating in an industry with negative growth, sales developing towards online and fierce competition. The Swiss healthcare industry on the other hand is growing with an average growth of 3.0% over the last 10 years, with a growing importance on household budgets, making up for 12% of GDP. Migros operates with an organically grown structure, regrouping 10 regional cooperatives, which are owned by 2.2.m members (Swiss residents) and gathered under the Federation of Migros Cooperatives (MGB) which acts as headquarters. According to the vision of its founder, Gottlieb Duttweiler, the group is pursuing a social mission and profitability targets are set defensively. Since 2015, with the acquisition of Medbase, the group started building a footprint in healthcare, gradually expanding with the acquisition of paramedical services and pharmacy chains. The company announced to further expand its footprint by organic expansion whilst it started a strategic partnership with a health insurer. The company disposes of key capabilities such as reach and brand awareness which can be leveraged to make an impact in the health industry. In its current form, the health arm is being developed as a separate vehicle (Medbase) and kept away from the Migros brand. There is a conscious direction to minimize damage to the Migros brand in case there is a strategy shift in the future. The healthcare industry is growing rapidly but the market has significant inefficiencies and needs an overhaul to remain sustainable. It is a high margin business as compared to the retail industry and also comes with the potential to position Migros as the provider of a single-owned, health insurance solution which could serve as a catalyst to a necessary transformation of Migros.

Sonova, market leader for hearing aids, has rapidly grown through acquisitions of manufacturers and retailers while maintaining acquired brands. Recently launched digital solutions offer Sonova's products with new options but challenging to scale in light of multiple brands and diverse channel situation. Amplifon improves its position by selling own branded hearing aids connected with a proprietary digital platform. As the market moves towards digital, Amplifon seems to be better positioned since they can offer an end-to-end solution under one single brand. In the landscape of multiple product and channel brands and the fast-moving competitive environment, how should Sonova react?

New management under CEO Bracken Darrell transformed Logitech into a company with a design-led focus. The product and brand portfolio are diversified with a strong focus on audio, video, gaming and other cloud-connected devices. This ultimately leads to a significantly lower dependency on the PC market, financial success, a transformed corporate culture, and high recognition in the industry. The strategy is not fundamentally different from the previous attempts, but the leadership style and strategy execution are radically changed. With the departure of key executives, Logitech and its CEO in 2019 are again at crossroads and are looking for new ways to grow.

Logitech has sold billions of computer mice and other computer peripherals over the 38 years of its existence. It was a typical growth company profiting on the success of the PC with an unprecedented history of top and bottom-line growth. With the decline in PC sales, Logitech needed a new strategy. Under the lead of new CEO Gerald Quindlen, the company developed a "Four- Screen" strategy and introduced two major post-PC products: a smart-TV-device named Logitech Revue (based on Google TV) and Lifesize, a high-end video collaboration solution. Both attempts failed dramatically and left the formerly highly successful company in a crisis.

Big corporations have structured processes and frameworks for strategic projects review, and professionals are well trained and versed on developing detailed project plans. But, the execution discipline is frequently overlooked or completely neglected, which results in staggering project failures, even when they are strategic to the business in a fast-changing environment, and even when it has the appropriate sponsorship from the senior management. This case study is based on the events and outcomes of one such project, MyCHC, driven by Merck in China. It demonstrates the benefits of a structured framework to secure a successful strategic project execution. MyCHC was a key strategic digital transformation project to develop a digital platform to support physicians and patients make informed decisions for diagnosis and treatment of diseases and to diminish the transactional friction to set appointments and follow-up. Although the project was solving both patients and physicians' problems and had strong support from the senior management it ended up discontinued and was eventually merged into another project. The framework for smart execution from Gilbert et al. 2008 was utilized to analyse the case to better understand what went wrong during the execution of the project that was set for success with the appropriate focus, scope and sponsorship. An application of the framework highlights the need to secure the best team, a better rehearsal of the execution to identify risks and potential roadblocks, more investment to inspire and engage the team members and key stakeholders, and to follow through and keep the team energized, which were the missing elements that led the project to be folded eventually. The case demonstrates not only the importance of a structured approach to secure the success of a strategic project in a complex internal and external environment, but also the challenges to bring about a key digital transformation in an industry incumbent.

Netflix's stellar growth is jeopardized by a changing competitive landscape and fluctuating trust from the market related to its strategy of extensive proprietary content development. With the rising presence of Google's YouTube and Amazon's Prime Video, as well as Apple's Apple TV Plus and Disney's Disney Plus entry into the ring, customers get access to a broader range of content and aggregated offerings. Still, content seems king, and Netflix seeks to outrun competitors with their own award winning and broad video library. That however requires increasing content investments followed by costly marketing efforts to sustain growth. Critics wonder if Netflix's continued binge-spending will translate into sustainable growth while debts increasingly weight on the balance sheet and cash flow remains negative. In a time when most competitors seek to vertically integrate or platformize, often fueled by deep pockets, is Netflix pursuing still the right strategy? Or does Netflix need to revise its business model in order to successfully compete also in the future? This case explores what's going on for and around Netflix, inviting students to redefine Netflix's future strategic direction.

The "Amazon in B2B - Friend or Foe" case describes a possible entry of Amazon B2B to the European Heating Ventilation and Air Condition (HVAC) industry. The case addresses questions like core competencies, Industry attractiveness, disruption, building and sustaining a competitive advantage. The readers can discuss how Grundfos should react to the growing online distribution channel and if the current Grundfos distribution model sustainable. Where the main objective is to come up with fourdistribution model alternatives that Grundfos can implement and choose the one that Grundfos shall pursue and argue why the model is chosen.

In 2018 Intel celebrates 50 years in business amidst "a corporate transformation as we grow beyond our traditional PC and server businesses into data-rich markets addressing the explosive demands to process, analyze, store, and transform data." In this case, we will look into the history of Intel and the semiconductor Industry background, which provide a starting framework to compare the business models and value chain of Intel and one of Its competitors, ARM. A closer look at previous moves shows that Intel has made bets in many different fields which today are successful and yet is still struggling. Competitors such as ARM seemed to have a more agile value chain and reaped its benefits In [he past. However, ARM also seems to be stagnating, thus raising doubts whether its model is really a map to follow. In this context, it js unclear whether Intel is agile enough to respond to changes in the industries it operates in. Considering the industry environment, what strategy should be chosen based on challenges in environment and existing resources and capabilities? Robert Noyce, one of the company's founders, advised: "Don't be encumbered by hist01Y, go off and do something wonderful." So what will the next wonderful thin be for Intel?

The case describes the dynamics and potential transition of grocery shopping into New Retail concept - a term introduced by Jack Ma and projected to disrupt the way retail industry is working now. The Case discusses and hints that there might be a different game Alibaba and Amazon are playing when merging online and offline shopping and creating a new customer experience with their respective HeMa and AmazonGo initiatives. The hype around the concept with likes of Starbucks and Zara trying to create strategic partnerships with Alibaba for creating the New Retail format suggest that there is a bigger picture involved. The Case highlights the difference in the resources and capabilities utilized by the New Retail players and the traditional brick and mortar retailers, such as Wall Mart, Carrefour and others and suggests that the wholistic "ecosystem" approach might bring a different flavour to the traditionally low margin industry through leveraging the payment system and creating a last mile delivery platform for further growth.

The case CodeCheck (B) answers this question by introducing the CodeCheck Insights. It is the vehicle by which CodeCheck provides analytics and insights to producers of food and cosmetics, which generated CHF 600'000 revenue in 2019. In addition, CodeCheck Insights sells context-specific advertising, which also generate about CHF 600'000 revenue in 2019. While these are solid numbers for a startup, the growth ambition of Boris requires a new financing round for CHF 5-7 million.

The case CodeCheck (A) explains in which ecosystem the company is embedded, the technological backbone of the company, and provides information about the growing importance of conscious consumer. It ends with the question of Boris Manhart, CEO and Founder of CodeCheck, should monetize this rich and valuable data to finance the further growth of the company.

This case is about global marketing, brand equity, overall business strategy and supply management. The case outlines the bold and polarizing strategic choices made by The Macallan management between 2009 and 2017 and offers an opportunity to debate and discuss the next best strategic move for The Macallan brand. The Macallan is part of the Edrington Group, which distributes the Famous Grouse, Scotland's leading blended whisky and The Macallan, which is now the global number three single malt Scotch whisky. The Macallan built a strong brand equity and reputation with its rich flavored whiskies, using age as the key communication tool to indicate quality for decades. In 2009 The Macallan launched its first single malt whisky in travel retail without any age statement on it. The travel exclusive line up was followed by additional products for retail focused on color as a differentiator. These new retail products replaced the majority of The Macallan's age line-up in the biggest market Europe (ages between 8 and 17), while older versions stayed on the market. These surprising innovations were in response to the growing demand combined with serious supply constraints. The Macallan invested in extending its production capacity, and students will be able to debate whether The Macallan should move back to the old age days or keep moving on with the strategy introduced in 2009. Or use a strategy combining both.

Many B2B companies seek to grow beyond traditional product lines by venturing into new services. Yet they often overlook the opportunity to capture sales from free services they provide. This article outlines the free-to-fee, or F2F, service transition. It shows how to inventory free services (categorizing them as profit drains, distributor delights, competitive weapons, or gold nuggets) and lays out a path for profitably generating revenues.

This case addresses the key aspects of strategy analysis and strategic decision making (e.g. Porter's Five Forces, Key Success Factors, Value Discipline Model), putting special emphasis on global marketing, positioning, segmenting and branding (Keller Brand Equity Model, Brand architecture); primary emphasis of the case is on an outside-in view with the exception of the Tracey / Wiersema Value Model. Attention is especially given towards outlining how an existing premium product and service portfolio can be complemented with a value offering, whilst managing the preservation of the legacy premium business and hedging any potential cannibalizing effects. It thereby allows for a controversial discussion and reflection on the introduction of such a dual-segment strategy (Hambrick's Strategy Diamond). Further, the case then broadens the scope and provides the base for an open discussion about potential chances and risks for a product-/service-centric company to become an integrated / cross-segment / total solution provider. Learning objective: 1. How to develop and evaluate strategic options? 2. How to pursue a dual-segment strategy and how to enter the market? 3. What are the implications by entering a dual-segment strategy? 4. Which elements can be used to differentiate the two segments? 5. What are the principal brand differentiators in pursuing a dual segments strategy? 6. Assessing how strategy can evolve as a consequence to shift in the (external) context?