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In October 2022, The Kroger Company and Albertsons Companies Inc. announced their intention to merge their grocery businesses in the United States. By the fall of 2023, the proposed merger was facing lawsuits and protests from various stakeholders including politicians, employee labour unions, and consumers. The merger agreement required the deal to be completed by mid-January 2024, although this date could be extended if both sides agreed. This seemed an appropriate time for an analyst to take a closer look at the merger’s potential benefits, including evaluating potential synergies to be gained from the proposed merger. However, the analysis would have to consider the industry’s regulations. An analysis of the proposed merger would have to carefully consider both the qualitative and quantitative benefits that could arise from The Kroger Company and Albertsons Companies Inc. joining forces in the highly competitive US grocery market.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W37098.

In January 2023, the diagnostic services provider Simira Diagnostics (Simira), founded in Navi Mumbai, India, in 2017, decided to launch a company-wide rebranding project. When unveiling the new logo to the team, the co-founder emphasized the need to become a purpose-led organization with patient centricity at its core. The redesigned brand's logo and tag line would include a new service delivery proposition. As she worked to strengthen the company's brand identity, the co-founder knew that merely capturing the essence of the organization in the logo and tag line would not be enough; she would have to support the branding process by devising an effective advertising and communications strategy to ensure an accelerated level of brand awareness by Simira customers. She would also have to ensure a consistent and seamless customer service experience to strengthen the brand and patient centricity.

Even when companies try to encourage bottom-up innovation, ideas from employees rarely see the light of day. Researchers have found that managers can be a significant barrier to implementing novel ideas from employees when they feel insecure about their status within the organization. Once they recognize this, organizations can take steps to incentivize managers to better promote ideas from employees to the benefit of the managers, their subordinates, and the company itself.

The Japanese sake market witnessed a 40-year decline, fueled by shifting consumer preferences and an aging customer base. Asahi Shuzo Co. Ltd. (Asahi Shuzo), a once-struggling brewery from Yamaguchi, defied the trend with the success of its singular brand of sake, Dassai. By 2022, under the leadership of the founder and chairperson of the company, Asahi Shuzo's sales surpassed ¥ (yen) 16.5 billion, marking a phenomenal 165-fold increase since 1984. Expanding into 20 countries by 2016, the company aimed for a 50:50 revenue split between sales brought in from its Japanese market and sales brought from its overseas markets. In 2017, Asahi Shuzo's president and fourth-generation owner embarked on a bold venture-to construct its first overseas brewery in New York. Initially estimated to cost ¥1 billion, by March 2023, due to delays related to COVID-19, the costs increased to ¥8 billion. The opening of the Dassai Blue Sake Brewery in New York in October 2023 raised questions about what the global market's impact would be on Dassai as a premium sake brand. As the brewery in the United States became a reality, challenges and uncertainties unfolded, shaping the narrative of Dassai's strategic evolution.

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

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.

Trimster was a premium men’s personal care e-commerce start-up founded in 2015. In India, where trust deficit was a primary reason for the failure of new brands, most customers preferred cash on delivery (COD) modes of payment. Companies, however, preferred prepaid orders not only because they guaranteed the customer’s intent to purchase but also because COD orders were much more likely to result in returns that would take a heavy toll on Trimster’s reverse logistics costs, reducing the company’s profit margins and leaving less money for the company to invest in marketing to acquire new customers. In an increasingly competitive market, Trimster’s senior vice president of sales and marketing needed to decide on the best payment modes to pursue in order for the company to achieve sustainable growth.

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.

This case study examines the integration and the multifaceted role of technology in the Digiturn workplace, a multinational high-tech startup specialized in digital product development and online presence solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It discusses characteristics of knowledge work in the IT industry and in particular for high-tech startups. The case highlights the tension between the need for standardization to ensure efficiency and the desire for flexibility to accommodate individual work styles and cultural differences. This case study contributes to the literature on digital collaboration in multicultural startup environments, offering insights into the strategies for successfully managing at distance multicultural global virtual teams in a way that respects cultural diversity and promotes inclusive engagement. It also provides practical implications for managers and HR professionals in similar contexts, emphasizing the role of HR in guiding digital transformation and shaping company culture in the digital age. The case be used to discuss implications of use of digital technologies and AI in the workplace (e.g. trust, ethics).

The case focuses on external hiring and internal mobility (expatriation) implemented by the Danish bunker trading giant OW Bunker, trader and reseller of fuel (bunker) to shipping firms. As the firm pursues an aggressive international expansion and significant growth, the used staffing strategies are under pressure. OW has successfully internationalized to roughly 30 different countries with shipping or oil extraction activity, growing the number of front-office, core employees, to 180 (from 130 in previous years). It was, before its collapse in 2014, the largest bunker trading firm by the volume of sales.

In December 2022, Steve Noakes, Board Chair of Binna Burra Lodge Ltd, Queensland, Australia learned that they had received government funding of AU$18 million to reconstruct the Lodge and cabins lost in the 2019 bushfires. The timeframe was tight for this major re-build which would need to adhere to a safer, more sustainable, and fire-resistant materials. They were also committed to re-building with a stronger Binna Burra spirit that would include the meaningful involvement of the local community, including the local Indigenous population, the Yugambeh languages people, but it also had to be financially viable.

The founders of the app-based credit line MoneyTap shared a vision of creating an inclusionary multi-product banking experience. The company’s gross revenue had surged from its first year, but while the business was doing well, growth was not coming easy because of intense competition. The organization wanted to expand its offerings to include a pay-later feature, credit cards, and digital savings and become India’s first full-stack neobank. The team’s current brand, MoneyTap, was a personal credit-line brand, and to expand it to a full-service neobank required a new brand strategy and a rethinking of the brand architecture. While branding and its concepts were perceived to be more applicable to consumer goods, the founders were convinced that their fintech start-up could only move to the next level by leveraging the inherent power of a strong brand.

Audioteka S.A. was established in 2008 and had a presence in various European markets. It was time for Audioteka to reaffirm its value as a fast-growing mid-sized Polish company. By 2022 the company offered 80,000 audiobooks in 11 languages. Newly appointed chief executive officer Arkadiusz Seidler was exploring possibilities to enter new markets that could help the company grow. An unusual direction had been identified, India. Preliminary data indicated that the idea was promising. But was it worth considering a project that could be perceived as an expression of overconfidence and eccentricity on the part of Audioteka's current management? To date, no Polish company had achieved success in India.

This role-play exercise presents students with a realistic and complex negotiation challenge: it asks them to participate in a quantifiable negotiation between managing partners in a venture capital fund who are embroiled in a co-founder dispute. The negotiation is multifaceted, focusing on both reputational safeguards and financial outcomes across five key quantifiable issues. The negotiation is also underscored by an atypical yet critical ethical conundrum, offering a rich context for exploring the interplay between ethical considerations and business decision-making. These scenarios compel negotiators to engage deeply with the ethical dimensions of their strategies, assessing not only the limits of their own moral flexibility but also the veracity of their adversary's claims.

This role-play exercise presents students with a realistic and complex negotiation challenge: it asks them to participate in a quantifiable negotiation between managing partners in a venture capital fund who are embroiled in a co-founder dispute. The negotiation is multifaceted, focusing on both reputational safeguards and financial outcomes across five key quantifiable issues. The negotiation is also underscored by an atypical yet critical ethical conundrum, offering a rich context for exploring the interplay between ethical considerations and business decision-making. These scenarios compel negotiators to engage deeply with the ethical dimensions of their strategies, assessing not only the limits of their own moral flexibility but also the veracity of their adversary's claims.

Founded in September 2016 and based in Beijing, China, ZOMOZOMO primarily conducted business through its gamified freelancers' platform, where designers' works were publicly requested, reviewed, chosen, and rewarded, eliminating some of the long-standing troubles within the industry, such as inefficiency, fragmentation, and lack of transparency. The company soon became a prominent player in the design industry. The first four years of the company witnessed the rapid expansion and diversification of its client base, which began to include many influential brands such as Amazon.com Inc., Nike Inc., and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. However, ZOMOZOMO began to find it increasingly challenging to meet the needs and requirements of its high-end clients in terms of response time, service quality control, and confidentiality. In deciding to shift from a bidding platform to a provider of one-stop design solutions, ZOMOZOMO needed to determine whether it should prioritize building its internal capabilities or seek external partnerships to deliver high-quality design solutions to its high-end clients.

Mamaearth was founded by husband-and-wife duo Varun and Ghazal Alagh in 2016. The core value proposition of Mamaearth’s offer focused on toxin-free, safe products based on natural ingredients, which resonated strongly with its target audience. Despite operating in a tough and competitive industry with many large, established global and Indian companies, Mamaearth had been able to build a strong presence in the market and achieve unicorn status in 2022. One remarkable aspect of the firm’s growth had been that it was one of the few unicorns that—along with strong top-line growth—had a positive bottom line and had turned profitable in the previous two years. This early success gave founders and investors the confidence to plan their next move, which was to issue an initial public offering (IPO) at a valuation of $3 billion in 2023. But the IPO was planned at a time when there was a marked downturn in funding in the start-up ecosystem. Further, the post-listing performance of some of the other celebrated unicorns had been less than satisfactory, resulting in heavy losses for investors. Therefore, many unicorn firms that had been planning IPOs had deferred their plans. Facing the possibility of such a poor scenario, should Mamaearth move ahead with its IPO, defer in anticipation of a more opportune time, or find alternative means of raising funds?