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The YouTube channel Digital Vidya Kendra (DVK) was launched by J. Singh in 2011 with a mission to develop future managers and researchers. However, the company soon encountered hurdles in its goal to fulfill its mission. DVK maintained a high level of quality in the content of its videos, but increasing the number of subscribers proved difficult. By November 2019, DVK had registered only 500 subscribers—half the minimum number needed to start earning money on YouTube. Its unique videos helped it to gain viewership from scholars, researchers, and academics. However, despite a potential for rapid global growth, DVK’s growth rate started dropping in 2020. Something needed to be done to save the company; therefore, Singh tasked his digital marketing team to conduct surveys and research, using 67 of the company’s videos, to investigate the issues and problems that had arisen. The DVK research team had to determine what information the numbers were revealing, what factors were affecting DVK’s performance, what demographics were affecting business performance, and how cost effective Google Ads were in terms of user traffic, revenue, and hours watched.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W34312.

On September 9, 2022, Singapore Management University (SMU) President Lily Kong launched the SMU Sustainability Blueprint at her fourth President's State of the University Address to an audience of over 600 faculty, staff, students, and guests. While paying attention to sustainability was not new for SMU, this focus intensified from 2017, when plans were put in place to considerably reduce energy and water consumption, as well as waste, so that the whole of SMU could achieve a carbon neutral campus by 2030. In 2020, when the SMU 2025 Strategic Plan was announced, Sustainable Living was highlighted as one of the three strategic priorities of the university. In the following year, the SMU Sustainability Taskforce was formed, entrusted with crafting the Blueprint, which would chart actions in concerted ways across four key strategies supporting the Sustainability Living priority: Cultivate a Greener University, Develop Change Agents Through Sustainability Education, Drive Impactful Research, and Foster Resilient Communities. By September 2022, SMU had made considerable progress in its sustainability journey, but these efforts had also come with their share of challenges. Among the many difficulties encountered were tough decisions over ensuring that all the buildings were energy-efficient green buildings, fossil fuel divestment, interdisciplinary collaboration in the curriculum development for sustainability education, and the coalescence of disparate research efforts across the different schools. Attempts to build resilience within the SMU community during the COVID-19 pandemic - a period of disruptions, uncertainties, and stress - had not been easy too. Looking ahead, Kong contemplated: What else could she and all at SMU do to accelerate and deepen the university's sustainability progress? What trade-offs would have to be made to achieve an ideal state of sustainable living?

New research shows that factors unrelated to employees' knowledge, capabilities, and behavior such as who they report to, their access to accelerator roles, and whether they take advantage of flexible working arrangements play a leading role in who gets promoted. When managers understand the circumstances that contribute to or block paths to promotion for women and people of color, they can apply proactive career management to help position employees for advancement more equitably.

Over two decades old, Effet Boomerang is an advertising agency based in Quebec, Canada. In recent years, it has found it harder to win client contracts, which has been partially due to changes in the industry. This has left its co-founder and president examining her options for repositioning the agency. This case provides an interesting opportunity to introduce students to internal and external analyses by having them examine how a small firm may leverage its strengths to effectively adapt to a changing industry.

When budgets are tight, learning and development is often one of the first programs to be cut but that's shortsighted, the authors contend. In this article, they explain how prioritizing ongoing employee training and upskilling benefit not just individuals but their teams and the company as a whole. They also discuss three strategies to help managers effectively allocate L&D resources and suggest approaches to help employees secure professional development funding.

Captain Fresh, a tech-enabled business-to-business (B2B) seafood marketplace based out of Bengaluru, India, had been enjoying phenomenal success. Founder Utham Gowda set out to simplify the seafood supply chain in a fragmented, unstructured, and complex market. He was sure that going forward, technology would play a major role in building high-quality distribution infrastructure that would take fish from sea to plate. In January 2022, having achieved revenue growth of more than 700 per cent from September 2020 to September 2021, Gowda was faced with three equally compelling options for growth. In January 2022, he was faced with three equally compelling options for growth. The first was to set up Captain Fresh's own business-to-consumer brand; the second was to add mutton and chicken to his product offerings; and the third option was a bold proposal to go international by expanding to the United States. Another exciting strategy was expanding Fishgram, the unique proprietary marine supply-chain technology platform Gowda had built to help fishers connect directly to buyers across various geographies. There was an opportunity to monetize the platform by offering it to non-competing fishers as a software as a service. Which of three options should he choose while maintaining his original goal of easing problems in the country's fish and seafood supply chain? Should he offer Fishgram to fishers and other businesses?

Recent disruptive events like the pandemic and war in Europe have exposed businesses weakened by short-sighted leadership decisions, and many companies risk being unprepared for the new challenges that will inevitably emerge. The authors analyzed Southwest Airlines, Boeing, and GE to understand how and why successful companies sacrifice the business excellence they spent years building for near-term financial gains that ultimately harm investors, employees, and customers.

Many factors influence corporate governance in a family firm, the most prevalent form of business entity in Latin America. National culture affects a family firm's societal values, as well as economic, political, and legal systems of governance. Normative behaviour and expectations are also key factors that affect both individual and organizational norms. The firm's characteristics are another major source of influence. In addition to these major factors, various other variables play a role on shaping the firm's corporate governance, including family unity, patriarchal expectations, and inclusivity of the family definition. All of these factors can influence the numerous decisions that family businesses make in regard to their corporate governance, which makes it impossible to apply one approach for all family firms in Latin America. Each organization's board of directors may have specific characteristics that require different mechanisms to make effective governance decisions. This technical note discusses an evolutionary pattern of corporate governance, rather than a single approach, that could be effectively applied to the decision-making board of a family firm in Latin America.

Having developed a blockchain product to track the end-to-end movement of goods being transported along the pharmaceutical supply chain, Zuellig Pharma also has tested it in real life situation involving distribution during the critical Covid-19 phase. The company's Vice President and Head of Digital and Data Solutions is now seeking ways to scale up product for multiple markets, multiple users, and multiple applications even while blockchain, as a bourgeoning technology, is itself facing scaling limitations.

In June of 2022, Jada Abimbola, chief executive officer and owner of Workplace Safety Trainers (WST), needed to develop a strategy for the business after experiencing stagnating profits during the coronavirus pandemic. WST was one of Ontario’s foremost private occupational health and safety companies, providing training for businesses that needed to comply with the standards of the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training, and Skills Development. Abimbola was considering several alternatives to revive the business while remaining committed to its new employee-centred focus: maintain the status quo, offer first aid training, or develop and sell a new line of physical goods. Abimbola was also considering cashing in on her investment by selling the business and moving on. This case will also serve as a talking point for the importance of occupational health and safety in various industries.

On December 6, 2022, in Phoenix, Arizona, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) Executive Chairman Mark Liu outlined the company's ambitious plans to invest $40 billion to build semiconductor manufacturing plants in Phoenix. The event also celebrated the passing of The Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act of 2022 (CHIPS and Science Act), which aimed to inject $280 billion in financial subsidies and incentives to boost domestic manufacturing of advanced semiconductors in the US and increase production capacity. As Mark Liu stared out at the desert and the soon-to-be TSMC plant, he wondered if the decision to move to the US was driven by geopolitics or business opportunity. Could the US create a credible and robust domestic manufacturing ecosystem? Time would tell whether the CHIPS Act would yield long-term results or if it was too late for the US to regain its dominance in the semiconductor industry.

This case series focuses on Theranos Inc. (Theranos), a health care technology start-up founded by Elizabeth Holmes in 2003. Theranos focused on developing a revolutionary blood-testing technology that was supposed to be able to detect diseases using only a few drops of blood. Once valued at US$10 billion, the company never demonstrated its alleged technological breakthrough, and Holmes was eventually charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for fraud and deceit. In 2018, Theranos was forced to shut down its operations, and in January 2022, Holmes was found guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The case series explores Theranos’s history, as well as the role of overconfidence bias in Theranos’s downfall.

This case series focuses on Theranos Inc. (Theranos), a health care technology start-up founded by Elizabeth Holmes in 2003. Theranos focused on developing a revolutionary blood-testing technology that was supposed to be able to detect diseases using only a few drops of blood. Once valued at US$10 billion, the company never demonstrated its alleged technological breakthrough, and Holmes was eventually charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for fraud and deceit. In 2018, Theranos was forced to shut down its operations, and in January 2022, Holmes was found guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The case series explores Theranos’s history, as well as the role of overconfidence bias in Theranos’s downfall.

This case series focuses on Theranos Inc. (Theranos), a health care technology start-up founded by Elizabeth Holmes in 2003. Theranos focused on developing a revolutionary blood-testing technology that was supposed to be able to detect diseases using only a few drops of blood. Once valued at US$10 billion, the company never demonstrated its alleged technological breakthrough, and Holmes was eventually charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for fraud and deceit. In 2018, Theranos was forced to shut down its operations, and in January 2022, Holmes was found guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The case series explores Theranos’s history, as well as the role of overconfidence bias in Theranos’s downfall.

In 2022, Ola Electric Mobility Private Limited (Ola Electric), a motor vehicle manufacturing company based in Bengaluru, India, was embroiled in a privacy controversy pertaining to the use of customer data. Ola Electric had voluntarily published the telematics data of one of its customers on its Twitter account. This was done in response to allegations by a customer whose son was involved in a serious accident while riding a scooter manufactured by Ola Electric. The company’s actions sparked Internet-wide discussions regarding data privacy, with numerous people voicing their distaste for its response. Moving forward, Ola Electric needed to take action to mitigate the effects of the controversy. Meanwhile, governments, companies, and consumers needed to understand their responsibility in relation to data privacy, given that data collection would become more prevalent in future.

The company concerned is Agria Corporation. Several months after a successful IPO, a board member and the key executive in the on-shore operating company in mainland China demanded more money and company shares and threatened resignation if the demands were not met. The board learned of this, and was faced with two important decisions. First, whether or not to agree to the demands, given that this executive may be very difficult to replace. Second, what should be disclosed to the public and when should this disclosure be made. Given the unstable group corporate structure of this on-shore Chinese company, the situation could easily and dramatically affect the share price, and even spread to similarly structured, US listed, mainland Chinese companies.

In 2022, Ola Electric Mobility Private Limited (Ola Electric), a motor vehicle manufacturing company based in Bengaluru, India, was embroiled in a privacy controversy pertaining to the use of customer data. Ola Electric had voluntarily published the telematics data of one of its customers on its Twitter account. This was done in response to allegations by a customer whose son was involved in a serious accident while riding a scooter manufactured by Ola Electric. The company's actions sparked Internet-wide discussions regarding data privacy, with numerous people voicing their distaste for its response. Moving forward, Ola Electric needed to take action to mitigate the effects of the controversy. Meanwhile, governments, companies, and consumers needed to understand their responsibility in relation to data privacy, given that data collection would become more prevalent in future.

This case describes the decarbonization strategy of Arcos Dorados-McDonald's largest independent franchisee, operating in 20 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean-and how the company measured its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including those generated directly by the company and by all of its suppliers. Set in May 2022, the case also describes the challenges faced by the company to understand the composition of its carbon footprint, as well as the actions it has taken to reduce it. Under CEO Marcelo Rabach, Arcos Dorados was focusing on reducing its carbon intensity. While the company had made progress in reducing carbon emissions from its operations, it now needed to develop a plan to address emissions in its supply chain, which directly impacted the composition of its menu. Options to reduce the carbon impact of menu items included replacing (or mixing) the beef used in sandwiches with less carbon-intensive ingredients; shifting sales toward chicken-based meals; adding plant-based menu options; and increasing the share of sales driven by coffee and ice cream. The plan should align with the company's double-digit growth strategy while also controlling costs to maintain profit margins. Confronting these challenges, what was the best product mix and prioritization for these alternatives? Which products should get more resources to develop and market? How should the company forecast demand for these products? And how could they ensure that their efforts to reduce their carbon intensity would avoid hampering the company's growth, especially given its context of fierce competition and macroeconomic and social disruptions?