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In January 2024, Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Holdings Inc. (Ben & Jerry’s), a subsidiary of Unilever, was facing several critical decisions. It had been over a year since the company had been sued by its independent board about the company’s decision to sell its Israeli business to a long-time licensee in that country. That situation was resolved with the court ruling against the independent board. However, guiding principles had to be developed to prepare for similar situations in the future. Specifically, the Ben & Jerry’s management team had to work with its independent board to help avoid such incidents from reoccurring. Ben & Jerry’s also had to achieve a balance among the perspectives and demands from various stakeholders, which were sometimes in conflict with each other.

As Chief Executive Officer Maya Kambeitz sat in her Calgary office preparing for the upcoming mid-2018 board meeting, she considered a potential growth strategy for Norfolk Housing Association (Norfolk Housing) that would align with its core values: to offer inclusive and affordable housing, and to maintain financial stability in 2019 and beyond. Norfolk Housing was a social enterprise registered as a non-profit corporation in Calgary, Alberta, offering rentals of affordable and priced-to-market apartments in shared buildings. Kambeitz wanted the board to consider whether or not to acquire another building, ideally near the current locations, to expand their operations. The increased number of units would improve operational efficiency through economies of scale and serve more people, aligning with the social enterprise’s dedication to both long-term financial sustainability and social purpose. However, expansion would require financing and support to acquire and manage the new building, which could put Norfolk Housing’s financial sustainability at risk.<br><br>The challenge was to achieve Norfolk Housing’s purpose to expand and provide affordable housing to more Calgarians while also maintaining long-term financial stability, which ensured that current tenants would not lose their homes if the association failed. Kambeitz had learned about Riley Park Place, a property with 24 units that was for sale. The location was close to their current properties and its acquisition had potential. However, there were some questions about whether the opportunity aligned with Norfolk Housing’s purpose and financial sustainability.

The Indian Premier League (IPL), a Twenty20 cricket league, underwent a transformative shift in 2022 as the IPL governing council conducted an e-auction for media rights, valuing them at US$5.64 billion. Viacom18 secured digital rights for $2.57 billion, highlighting the growing significance of online platforms. Disney Star invested $3.02 billion in exclusive TV and over-the-top rights, contributing to the IPL's global popularity and revenue. Special packages, including weekend matches, attracted diverse investors, elevating the league to the second-highest globally-after the US National Football League. Unbundling media rights increased competition, emphasizing the elevated value of digital rights. Amidst competition between Disney+ Hotstar and Jio, strategic evaluation became crucial for the IPL's position in the evolving sports broadcasting landscape, raising questions about global reach, digital engagement, revenue enhancement, and the pivotal role of media rights in sports property growth and valuation.

It was June 2023, when Dr. Himanshu Awasthi, founder of Prajiv Farm Solutions, considered expanding his business by addressing the challenges in the agricultural sector, particularly fodder production. Recognizing the issues faced by Indian farmers-low productivity, lack of technical knowledge, and reliance on monsoons-he had decided to specialize in cultivating green fodder crops for livestock feed. He understood that fodder crops improved soil fertility, reduced soil erosion, and diversified income streams. Starting in 2016, Prajiv Farm Solutions cultivated hybrid fodder crops including sorghum, berseem, and Napier grass on its 24-acre farm. Six years later, it was time to scale up. As a low-value, high-volume crop, the challenges differed for fodder cultivation. Delivery of green fodder was also a time-bound activity, and the company had found it challenging to reach distant markets. Awasthi wondered what the most suitable model would be for scaling up. Could he convince other farmers to take up fodder as a business? How could he reach more distant markets? Would a hub and spoke model be suitable? Awasthi also wondered whether forming farmer-producer organizations was a viable solution to address scalability. He had to consider the strengths and weaknesses of each option before deciding on the most feasible.

Owner and general manager of Hunter Steel, is struggling to decide what to do about Ontario's labour shortage as a result of COVID-19. The steel company is categorized as Tier 2, and requires general labourers and saw mechanics within each warehouse in order to efficiently run operations. Currently, each of his 5 warehouses are short 2 general labourers. This is unsustainable and poses a threat to meeting demand, Hunter must decide a course of action. He can either invest into partial automation eliminating the need for as much labour to be employed, pursue a labour government assistance program, continue status quo and hope, or pursue a marketing campaign that markets to consumers and potential hires.

In 2020, Cathy Siskind-Kelly and Rob Kelly, co-founders and co-owners of Black Fly Beverage Company were deciding whether they should undertake a major expansion of their company's production facility. Black Fly was started in London, Ontario in 2005 and had grown to be one of the largest ready-to-drink brands in the alcoholic beverage industry. Part of Black Fly's business relied on a co-packer for their canned products, and increasing challenges including supply-chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic made their reliance on the co-packer increasingly risky. The move would not only allow them to massively increase their capacity, but bring their can production in-house, as well as become a co-packer for other beverage companies

Student Spreadsheet to accompany product no. W36145.

Christina Stembel, the founder and CEO of Farmgirl Flowers Inc., has always emphasized quality, speed, and efficiency in her San Francisco–based online flower delivery company. Her teams have operated like assembly lines, shipping 10,000 bouquets daily during peak periods, which has ensured competitive pricing. Before the pandemic, Stembel expands Farmgirl Flowers Inc. to Ecuador, and when it is forced to close its San Francisco facility, she shifts all production to Ecuador.<br><br>Valentine’s Day 2023 poses a challenge, as shipping the flowers from South America takes three days, while South American prices are higher due to pandemic-related supply chain issues, ultimately resulting in customer dissatisfaction. Stembel aims to regain competitiveness by bringing operations back to North America. But the questions remain: how and where should this happen?

This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Argentina. It highlights Argentina's economic and political transformation in the decades leading up to 2024. The case gives an overview of some of the main obstacles faced by businesses operating in the country, contrasting these with the efforts undertaken by the government to improve the country's business climate. This is illustrated through the discussion of a business dilemma in which Latam Airlines considers re-entering the Argentinian market.

This case focuses on the efforts of Bavarian Nordic A/S, a Danish pharmaceutical company, to create a new COVID-19 vaccine. Their vaccine is based on a newer technology and has the potential to provide longer-lasting protection than the currently dominant BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. However, the project also faces obstacles related to uncertainty of vaccine efficacy, financing, product positioning, distribution, and access to production infrastructure. Indeed, given the head start of the incumbents' vaccines, the dominance in this business of large pharmaceutical companies, and the multitude of other COVID-19 vaccines, some wonder whether the company should be going down this path at all.

Businesses today face serious talent gaps. The share of companies reporting staffing shortages is at an all-time high: 77%. Last fall the United States had 9.5 million unfilled jobs but only 6.5 million unemployed workers. Many open positions demand sophisticated know-how that cannot be supplied by AI or by training new hires. Every day 10,000 Americans reach the traditional retirement age of 65, which exacerbates the problem. Critical skills, experience, and connections can walk out the door with each retirement. The good news is that many older employees want to keep working; in fact, nearly 60% say they're receptive to the idea of working during retirement. It's time for companies to stop overlooking this large, valuable labor pool. Employers need to shed their misconceptions about older workers and take measures to make the most of their experience, creating phased retirement programs, offering refresher courses, and recruiting through retiree networks, among other strategies. Older employees' knowledge can be leveraged through coaching roles, on multigenerational teams, and in institutional systems. But companies will have to work to engage their seasoned staffers, offering them flexibility, the right benefits, and opportunities for connection.

Health systems are struggling to address the many shortcomings of health care delivery: rapidly growing costs, inconsistent quality, and inadequate and unequal access to primary and other types of care. However, if retailers and health systems were to form strong partnerships, they could play a major role in addressing these megachallenges. While some partnerships do exist, they are rare and have only scratched the surface of their potential. Rather than focusing on the direct-to-consumer model that retailers have largely employed, the partnerships should offer much broader care. Drawing on real-world examples, the authors outline four key actions that retailers and health systems should take: (1) They must move beyond convenience to offer comprehensive care. (2) They should move care from clinics into the home. (3) They should leverage data to improve clinical care and the customer experience. And (4) they should change how-and by whom-health care work is done. Implementing these four actions would generate improvements that would benefit not just patients but also the organizations that pay for their health care.

During his former career as a kidnapping and extortion negotiator, the author handled sensitive cases all over the world. Through his experiences, observations, and conversations with other experts in the field, he developed a deep understanding of what works and what doesn't in high-stakes negotiations. Now he advises executives and corporations about what he calls the level-five mindset, which involves deep listening to better understand and interpret a counterpart's self-perception and perspective. He offers eight tools to both ensure and demonstrate that mindset: minimal encouragers, open questions, reflecting back, emotional labeling, paraphrasing, "I" statements, effective pauses, and summarizing. Using them, he writes, will "boost your capacity for empathy, your ability to find common ground, and your chances of gaining your counterpart's cooperation."

The renowned soprano talks about developing confidence, overcoming stage fright, and juggling five jobs at once.

This case discusses the creation of Montreal's BIXI bike share system. Just one year after its official launch in the summer of 2009, the service had been sold to Ottawa, Gatineau, and Toronto, as well as to cities in the U.S., Great Britain, and Australia. Despite this remarkable success, it had quickly run into major financial difficulty. The Public Bike System Company (Société de vélo en libre-service, or SVLS, in French), the non-profit organization that managed it, had posted a $5 million loss. In 2011, the auditor general's report highlighted serious problems with BIXI's financial management. After just two years of operation, it had racked up $37 million in debt. In early 2014, faced with legal proceedings, the PBSC had declared bankruptcy. To save BIXI, Montreal's city council had approved a $108-million bailout package, and a few years later, it was deemed by Montrealers to be a resounding success at both the national and international levels. In 2023, BIXI had 10,000 bikes - including 2,600 electric bikes - in service at some 830 stations throughout Greater Montreal. After declaring bankruptcy, how did Quebec's experiment in urban mobility become a source of immense pride for Montrealers?

The Solidarity Fund (the Fund) was established in March 2020 by a business group in South Africa to support the South African Government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. By September 2022, the Fund had proven highly effective and helped stabilize the healthcare system, provided economic support to the most vulnerable, and also encouraged the population to get vaccinated. Gloria Serobe, the Fund's chairperson, was happy to have seen it succeed and complete its objectives. She pondered its future as lockdowns eased and the initial hardships of the pandemic slowly dissipated. The President of the Republic of South Africa personally contacted Serobe and asked that the Fund not be closed so that it could be maintained for future crises. Serobe and the board of directors needed to determine what options were available for the Fund-should it remain dormant or be closed?

BC Cancer was a provincial government–funded treatment and research organization that provided cancer care in British Columbia (BC), Canada. During 2021–2022, BC Cancer developed a connected chatbot to improve patient access to information and reduce demands on the telephone nursing lines. A project manager oversaw the chatbot’s development and ran a proof of concept in Victoria, BC, from March to June 2022. While this allowed her working group to obtain feedback from nurses, other user data regarding the value of the connected chatbot was limited and inconclusive. Following the completion of the proof of concept, the project manager had to decide whether BC Cancer should continue to roll out the connected chatbot, and if so, how.

When delegation doesn’t go well, it’s often due to a lack of trust in the people or the process. Many leaders focus on the people side but overlook the process side of the equation: You need trust in both for delegation to succeed, as the authors’ real-world examples show. In this article, the authors share a framework that suggests four ways to approach delegation, depending on the trust level at hand.

BC Cancer was a provincial government-funded treatment and research organization that provided cancer care in British Columbia (BC), Canada. During 2021-2022, BC Cancer developed a connected chatbot to improve patient access to information and reduce demands on the telephone nursing lines. A project manager oversaw the chatbot's development and ran a proof of concept in Victoria, BC, from March to June 2022. While this allowed her working group to obtain feedback from nurses, other user data regarding the value of the connected chatbot was limited and inconclusive. Following the completion of the proof of concept, the project manager had to decide whether BC Cancer should continue to roll out the connected chatbot, and if so, how.

In mid-2023 Akash Gupta, CEO of GreyOrange Ltd (GO), an Atlanta-based robotics firm, had to decide whether GO still needed its exclusive technology partnership with LOGI, a leading US-based contract logistics firm. Since 2018 the partnership had been instrumental in establishing GO as a major provider of robotic solutions in the warehouse automation space. With new management at LOGI, a renegotiation had become inevitable. Numerous options were possible. These ranged from complete discontinuation of exclusivity, to continuation of exclusivity with revised pricing terms, to continuation with an expanded scope of products provided by GO.