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In March 2021, delivery app CEO Oscar Pierre and his team consider strategies to grow Glovo's quick commerce delivery service and to approach their expansion in Kenya.

Atrae Inc. was a Japanese software firm providing platform matching services for job recruitment in the software engineering industry. As compared to traditional Japanese firms, Atrae adopted a unique approach to managing its employees. Instead of the rigid hierarchy and top-down management approach that typified a Japanese firm, Atrae had a flat organizational structure and heavily relied on decentralized decision-making and individual motivation. The company’s unique culture was viewed as a key driver of its business success—success that the company’s founder and chief executive officer wanted to advance with a public listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. However, while the public listing would allow Atrae to grow substantially, it would also necessitate formal organizational checks and balances that could harm the company’s organizational culture. Would a public listing propel Atrae to greater heights or would it result in the company’s demise?

Atrae Inc. was a Japanese software firm providing platform matching services for job recruitment in the software engineering industry. As compared to traditional Japanese firms, Atrae adopted a unique approach to managing its employees. Instead of the rigid hierarchy and top-down management approach that typified a Japanese firm, Atrae had a flat organizational structure and heavily relied on decentralized decision-making and individual motivation. The company's unique culture was viewed as a key driver of its business success-success that the company's founder and chief executive officer wanted to advance with a public listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. However, while the public listing would allow Atrae to grow substantially, it would also necessitate formal organizational checks and balances that could harm the company's organizational culture. Would a public listing propel Atrae to greater heights or would it result in the company's demise?

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (VCHA), with guidance from the British Colombia (BC) Provincial Health Services Authority, had been responsible for organizing and executing an effective COVID-19 response. Its approach for testing capacity and supply chain management had been influenced by several factors: lack of supply, lack of labour, lack of testing expertise, and provincial government mandates. Although these factors had constrained the VCHA's ability to control the virus, BC's projected case increases posed serious concerns within the current management. The head of the VCHA wondered how she could better position the VCHA to combat COVID-19 in the long term while securing enough supplies. As she was concerned that COVID-19 cases would continue to surge, she knew this strategy had to be effective and time-sensitive.

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (VCHA), with guidance from the British Colombia (BC) Provincial Health Services Authority, had been responsible for organizing and executing an effective COVID-19 response. Its approach for testing capacity and supply chain management had been influenced by several factors: lack of supply, lack of labour, lack of testing expertise, and provincial government mandates. Although these factors had constrained the VCHA’s ability to control the virus, BC’s projected case increases posed serious concerns within the current management. The head of the VCHA wondered how she could better position the VCHA to combat COVID-19 in the long term while securing enough supplies. As she was concerned that COVID-19 cases would continue to surge, she knew this strategy had to be effective and time-sensitive.

Presentation to accompany product 8B21D006.

In October 2018, fashion, wellness, and beauty retailer Sylvarella implemented a Buy Online, Pickup in Store (BOPS) program in an attempt to counteract a sales decline. While BOPS had the potential to meet customer expectations for a seamless order and fulfillment experience, it also posed operational and financial risks. After six months, CEO Sylvia Coparella decided to meet with her vice president (VP) of store operations and VP of e-commerce to evaluate the impact that the program had on their respective departments, as well as the impact to the store overall. Coparella must decide whether to continue the program, continue the program with significant changes, or discontinue the program and instead adopt a different omnichannel retail model.

In April 2019, Sylvarella CEO Sylvia Coparella must assess the impact of the company's Buy Online, Pickup in Store (BOPS) program on her company's overall sales. To do so, she must review analyses of both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar sales data and compare the results to the company's sales prior to the program implementation. At the same time, she must consider the program's impact on intangible factors within her company, including organizational culture, equitable compensation, and employee morale. Coparella must determine whether to continue the BOPS program, continue the program with significant changes, or discontinue the program and instead implement a different omnichannel retail program.

In April 2019, Sylvia VP of Store Operations Axley Vega must review an analysis of her department's sales data to determine the impact of the company's Buy Online, Pickup in Store (BOPS) program. BOPS implementation created significant problems for the store operations team, including an increased workload for store associates without additional compensation, difficulties managing the fulfillment demands of the program, and declining customer satisfaction. As she prepares for a meeting with CEO Sylvia Coparella and VP of E-commerce Charla Limont, Vega must determine whether BOPS has helped or harmed her department. She must also decide whether to recommend the program continue, continue with significant changes, or discontinue.

In April 2019, Sylvarella VP of E-Commerce Charla Limont must review an analysis of her department's sales data to determine the impact of the company's Buy Online, Pickup in Store (BOPS) program. The program implementation created significant problems for the e-commerce team, including difficulties with the inventory management system, a high volume of abandoned shopping carts, and disgruntled social media influencers. As she prepares for a meeting with CEO Sylvia Coparella and VP of Store Operations Axley Vega, Limont must determine whether BOPS has helped or harmed her department. She must also decide whether to recommend the program continue, continue with significant changes, or discontinue.

In May 2020, a senior business analyst at Workplace Safety Trainers (WST), a small business based in London, Ontario, was developing an initiative to increase efficiency in WST's shipping and logistics warehouse. The coronavirus pandemic had just started to shift the landscape of business, and WST had decided to procure and sell personal protective equipment through its online safety supply shop. After one month of unprecedented demand and round-the-clock efforts, orders had started to stabilize, and WST was considering implementing some investment initiatives to help the shipping and logistics team build out their shipping infrastructure. The senior business analyst needed to decide whether to invest in a developer to implement an e-commerce fulfillment platform, or invest in semi-automated sealing and labelling machines.

The case opens in February 2021 as Mohamad Ballout, co-founder and CEO of Kitopi, a Dubai-based managed cloud kitchen platform, is looking over the company's 2020 results. Propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, delivery orders had been on the rise globally and dine-in restaurants were more than ever focused on profitability. Against this backdrop, Kitopi had seen high traction in its business and the management needed to decide on which growth opportunities to focus. The case provides an overview of the pain points of the various players in the on-demand food ecosystem -the aggregators, the restaurants and the customers- and lays the ground for the nascent cloud kitchen business worldwide complete with the competitive outlook. The case also provides a detailed overview of how Kitopi structured its kitchens, how the company developed proprietary software to track space utilization and efficiency across its operations, and how it built it supply chain capabilities. While the B2B positioning of the company enables Kitopi to help restaurants expand much faster and in a less costly way, the company is mainly invisible to customers who don't know that their food order is coming from a central kitchen. Also, the company has been witnessing the consolidation of aggregators across its markets. The case puts the reader in Ballout's shoes, who wondered if the company could feasibly continue to own the supply side of the business and retain its position as a primarily B2B company without risking being squeezed out by the aggregators, who owned the customer relationship and data. Should the company focus on building on its currently small B2C arms, consider licensing it tech stack, or be squarely focused on its core business?

Founded in 2015 by Dan Gilbert, Josh Luber, and Greg Schwartz, StockX was an online platform where users could buy and sell unworn luxury and limited-edition sneakers. Sneaker resale prices often fluctuated over time based on supply and demand, creating a robust secondary market that bore similarities to the stock market. Inspired by these similarities, StockX's co-founders created a secondary platform that tracked sneaker resale prices over time and that emphasized authenticity, anonymity, and transparency. In 2017, StockX began to experiment with ways to expand from the secondary market into the primary market, using a new type of online auction known as an initial product offering (IPO). Based on the results of its first IPOs, was StockX on the right track with its strategy to expand into the primary market?

It was June 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Frances Edmonds, head of sustainable impact at HP Canada Co., the Canadian subsidiary of HP Inc. (HP), was continuing HP’s decades-long pursuit of sustainable impact. HP had worked nearly two decades with strategic partners like Lavergne Groupe to redesign its products and make plastic circular. HP was now committed to using 30 per cent post-consumer recycled plastic across its personal systems and printers by 2025. However, decreasing commodity prices during the COVID-19 pandemic, global supply challenges, and lowered global collection of recycled content could potentially undermine HP’s recycling efforts and goals. Edmonds was considering possible strategic, tactical, and operational actions to cope with the situation and sustain HP’s aspirations. Would HP’s circular supply chain remain viable and competitive?

It was June 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Frances Edmonds, head of sustainable impact at HP Canada Co., the Canadian subsidiary of HP Inc. (HP), was continuing HP's decades-long pursuit of sustainable impact. HP was now committed to using 30 per cent post-consumer recycled plastic across its personal systems and printers by 2025. However, decreasing commodity prices during the COVID-19 pandemic, global supply challenges, and lowered global collection of recycled content could potentially undermine HP's recycling efforts and goals. Edmonds was considering possible strategic, tactical, and operational actions to cope with the situation and sustain HP's aspirations. Would HP's circular supply chain remain viable and competitive?

Meddo is a healthcare service delivery innovation in India that simplifies the patient journey through outpatient services, lab tests, and medicines management. It was born out of a collaboration between a medical doctor who cofounded a hospital chain, and an entrepreneur who had led a major food-delivery service. The case allows for the exploration and growth of a business model innovation in the complex ecosystem of healthcare.

Most manufacturing companies face the possibility of a product recall crisis, if not within their own firms, then certainly somewhere within their supply chains. Recall crisis management typically finds a home within literature on crisis management, public relations, communications, marketing and brand management, and related fields. However, this research seldom addresses the operations support that must be mustered behind the scenes. The tumultuous material flows that can occur during a product recall imply a supply chain disruption. An effective response during the heat of a crisis therefore requires the foundation of a well-oiled supply chain. In this article I draw on learnings from the operations and supply chain management (OSCM) literature, integrate them with important precepts from the general crisis management and product recall literature, and identify managerial best practices that will help managers better prepare for product recall crises.

This case uses the impact of the global pandemic on the concentrated meatpacking industry to explore management of supply chain disruptions. COVID-19 had created massive problems at Tyson Foods, with high infection rates among workers, plants closing, and farmers unable to deliver livestock to processing plants. This translated into shortages at grocery stores. Then the president of the United States issued an executive order that meat-processing plants were to stay open to ensure the food supply. At the time, Tyson Foods had decided to close the majority of its facilities, but with the order, the meat-processing giant could remain open and workers could not hold the company liable if they got sick on the job. Tyson Foods struggled with workers getting sick, with creating protocols for clean line work, and with getting products to supermarkets. The material in this case brings the opportunity to explore a vitally important supply chain, the resiliency of that supply chain, and important decisions around fragility, security, fairness, and employees' welfare. In addition, the case allows exploration around how Lean operations leads to efficiencies, but supply chains may not be resilient to disruption. Furthermore, examining John Tyson's public letter in select newspapers provides the opportunity to explore crisis communication and crisis leadership.

Florian Hillen, co-founder and CEO of VideaHealth, a startup that used artificial intelligence (AI) to detect dental conditions on x-rays, spent the early years of his company laying the groundwork for an AI factory. A process for quickly building and iterating on new AI products, Hillen believed that the AI factory would prove a competitive advantage when he took his company to market. The AI factory consisted of four stages: the data pipeline, which required labeling dental pathologies on x-rays; algorithm development, which required writing computer programs that learned to recognize the presence of dental conditions and identify them in un-labeled x-rays; an experimentation platform, which tested the accuracy of Videa's diagnoses and determined the appropriate sensitivity of the AI models; and software infrastructure, which deployed the company's AI programs and managed the process for cleaning, storing, and transmitting data. Hillen knew that his company's technology would appeal to individual dentists or dental service organizations (DSOs), who could use AI to make diagnoses more accurate and improve patient trust. Yet Videa would also benefit insurance companies, who could use the technology during the claims review process. Poised to take the company to market, Hillen must decide which customer segment to pursue.