個案總覽

After a wild and volatile year, Bulb, a new entrant in the UK residential energy market, ended March 2018 with 329,171 properties, 1.2% of the total residential energy market). This was 150% ahead of a plan for 130,000 properties and almost ten times the size the founders, Amit Gudka and Hayden Wood, had imagined in August 2015 when they first launched. Bulb was now one of the top 12 energy suppliers in the UK. Gudka and Wood were convinced that if they reinvested all their profits in growth, they would reach 500,000 properties by March 2019, and reach more than 1 million by March 2021. This would mean postponing the launch of a range of value-added services they had included in their original Launch Plan, but it could make Bulb number 7 in the industry and the first real challenger to the UK's "Big Six" leading energy suppliers to pass the one million-member mark. Even so, Bulb would still be less than 40% of the size of the smallest member of the Big Six and one sixth the size of the leader, British Gas. Was it time to seek more funding to really challenge the Big Six, making renewable energy mainstream? And did it make sense to delay value-added services to support energy conservation, distributed generation, and the switch to electric vehicles, or should they seek funding to support these initiatives too?

This note introduces the first module of the RC Strategy course, What Is Strategy? It helps students develop their perspective on what is a strategy, what is a good strategy, and how strategy development differs across contexts.

This short case, meant for pairing with HBS case 615-013 "AmazonFresh: Rekindling the Online Grocery Market," explores Amazon's rationale for acquiring Whole Foods.

In 2014, Shenzhen Bauing Construction Holding Group Co. Ltd. (Bauing Group) decided to expand internationally, and successfully established subsidiary companies in several Southeast Asian countries. Based on this success in Southeast Asia, Bauing Group decided in 2016 to expand further by entering the US market. However, doing so entailed some challenges and difficulties, including cultural and regional differences, language barriers, and the need to become familiar with different construction standards and laws. Bauing Group also needed to address a pressing issue: determining its market entry strategy. Should it enter the market through licensing, greenfield projects, franchising, business alliances, exporting, turnkey projects, joint ventures, or acquisitions?

Jiang Yong founded Tiantong & Partners in 2002, seeking to radically improve the level of litigation-related services in China. By 2015, Tiantong was the premier Chinese litigation firm with the highest per lawyer revenues. The firm focused exclusively on high-stakes litigation, particularly Supreme Court appeals, and enjoyed a 90 percent win rate. Building off its success, Tiantong also began offering Internet apps. Yong was betting that the tiny 23-lawyer firm would transform litigation in China. In 2014, Tiantong developed an application called Tiantong Litigation Circle on the WeChat platform with the goal of connecting lawyers across the legal profession. Within the first year, the program recorded 150,000 followers, one million shares, and 10 million page visits. The firm figured that more than half of all practicing lawyers in China were followers. By the end of the year, Tiantong had also released the first professional reading app for lawyers. In May 2015, Tiantong released an Internet tool to support case research, accessible to anyone who needed to find precedents. The firm faced significant opportunities in both businesses. Yong needed to decide whether to continue making efforts in both directions, or whether to prioritize one over the other.

At the end of 2016, the leadership team of Commonwealth Joe Coffee Roasters-Robert Peck, Chase Damiano, and Jeremy Martin-had begun an ambitious retail expansion strategy in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area for their specialty coffee business. That October, they had opened their first custom-designed store in a brand-new luxury apartment building. The new store was an immediate success, even though a Starbucks had recently opened across the street. At the same time, a separate business line-selling cold brew coffee in kegs to office customers-had grown unexpectedly. Many new office accounts were added, even as the team promoted the new retail store. Now, as Peck, Damiano, and Martin prepared for the next capital raise, targeted for February 2017, they evaluated their strategy going forward. Should Commonwealth Joe stay with retail, or should they shift their strategy to focus on the office business?

The ongoing U.S.-China trade war had lifted South American soybean prices to 20% higher than the CBOT price. Domestically, a severe drought had undermined Argentina's 2018 soybean production, leaving Argentine soy crushing plants extremely undersupplied. Pressed by the country's economic emergency, Argentina´s President Macri had imposed new tariffs on farming exports. With these and other factors in mind, Enrique and Alejandro Duhau had to decide what to plant the following year and whether to lease additional land for agriculture. Should they prioritize the market opportunity for soybeans over technical factors such as crop rotation? What risks would increasing the amount of leased land entail? Would it prove convenient to pay a higher-than-usual price to secure more leases? Was their hedging strategy appropriate or should it be revised based on the current context?

Shipping conglomerate and industry leader Maersk Group has to figure out a strategy to remain competitive in the struggling shipping industry. In the face of sluggish global trade, overcapacity in the shipping industry and falling freight rates, the company has managed to stay afloat by conducting cost cuts and operational improvements. But the strategic direction ahead is not clear. And to further complicate the issue, its other major revenue stream in the oil and gas business isn't doing well either. Falling oil prices has severely affected the profitability of its upstream oil and gas division. Søren Skou, recently appointed CEO of the company, now has to forge a new strategic direction for Maersk. Should he look into M&As, alliances, or even dispose of the oil business? How can he further differentiate Maersk and create a competitive strategy for sustainable growth? This case explores the strategic options of a market leader in a competitive dilemma. It touches upon concepts of alliance, M&A, differentiation, horizontal diversification, vertical integration, and technology adoption. It also looks into the issues of companies operating in China, where state-owned firms are incentivized to adopt cross-subsidization.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and big data seem at odds with each other, but with the Healthy China 2030 blueprint and China's Internet Plus action plan announced in March 2015, the ambition of Gu Sheng Tang to integrate the two is not too far-fetched. GST's vision is to become a central intelligence unit for Chinese medicine, mining the extensive medical data it harvested toward building a big-data-driven TCM solution. Since inauguration in 2010, the Group has reinvented TCM's outpatient service with its Chinese Medicine Practitioner Partner Scheme, enabling experienced practitioners in the public sector to enter private practice. It has also developed an institutionalized supply chain integrating procurement, processing, testing, and prescription of herbal medicine. It operates an online platform for appointment scheduling and healthcare support services. In August 2017, the company successfully raised CNY1.1bn funding. How should the company use this cash injection to optimize its business strategy to take advantage of China's state mobilization of the Internet Plus strategy?

Founded in 2012 in Dalian, Liaoning Province, China, Dalian Venture Workshop Technology Service Co., Ltd. (Venture Workshop) was a business incubator that provided early stage start-ups with incubation and investment services. In 2014, China identified Venture Workshop as a "state-level technology business incubator." By 2017, Venture Workshop had become the largest incubator in Northeast China. However, behind its prosperity, it had faced years of losses. Since its establishment in 2012, its only source of income was the fees it charged for renting office space to start-ups. Its standard rates were far lower than market prices, which made it difficult for Venture Workshop to generate sufficient income. In February 2018, the chairman of Venture Workshop needed to increase Venture Workshop's income and avoid subsequent years of losses. What was the best strategy to pursue?

Ganzeb Microfinance Institution (Ganzeb) was formed as an extension of an indigenous non-governmental organization, and provides loans to rural Ethiopians to fund their business ventures. The microfinance industry is heavily regulated by the Ethiopian government, and the political landscape is not very stable. Since its inception in 2000, Ganzeb has been run by the same chief executive officer. The company flourished until 2006, when its financial performance declined as a result of an increasing number of defaulting loans from clients. Many other organizational problems have also emerged, which are quickly degrading the institution's work. Now, in late 2008, the chair of the board of directors is faced with threats from the National Bank of Ethiopia: he must fix the problems or lose Ganzeb's licence to operate. The board chair is being asked to meet with the bank to talk about the situation and the proposed solutions. He must figure out how to fix the problems of high turnover among staff, poor financial performance, and a lack of communication between the different levels of the organization.

In 2010, when China surpassed the United States to become the largest global market for automobiles, China's Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. (Geely) entered the global automobile industry by acquiring Volvo Group's cars division from Ford. Seven years later, Geely bought a controlling stake of 51 per cent in Lotus Cars, a stake in the truck maker AB Volvo, and a 10 per cent share of Daimler AG worth US$9 billion, becoming its largest shareholder. On August 31, 2018, Ford's chief executive officer faced a strategic challenge: assess the level of threat that Geely posed and how to respond to it, if necessary. Was Geely's rise in the market endangering Ford's market position?

In 2015, TELUS Corporation (TELUS) needed to decide whether to either ignore the concerns of the local community and power up its newly installed cellphone tower-located 84 metres from the University of Calgary's child care centre-or relocate it farther from the centre. Both TELUS and the University of Calgary claimed that the cellphone tower would emit radio frequency waves at a level well below the safety threshold according to Health Canada's Safety Code 6. However, parents of children at the centre were not satisfied with this claim. TELUS and the University of Calgary decided to hold a public consultation meeting to address the issue. What options did TELUS have? Was the socially responsible solution the best way to address the situation?

The case study on HackerEarth traces the evolution of an open innovation management platform, the different enterprise issues related to innovation management or new product introduction that it could help address and the challenges that still persist when it comes to organizations embracing open innovation. The case also illustrates how a two-sided platform that started out with the recruitment assistance model evolved into one that could assist organizations to more seamlessly connect with external innovators who could help bring about breakthrough innovations. It helps the reader understand how the platform moved up the value chain by leveraging the same two sides, but by helping address higher order challenges wherein enterprises needed new ways of keeping up with the demands for innovation in products and services. The case can be used to teach the basics of multi-sided platform business models, the different actors in the platform business and the concept of network effects. It should help the students appreciate the differences between the pipeline and platform business models, and how a platform business model can bring in additional competitive differentiation to enterprises that leverage its services.

Airports Authority of India (AAI) was constituted as a Statutory Authority under the Airports Authority of India Act 1994, with main functions of control and management of Indian air space. As of March 2017, AAI managed a total of 125 airports, which included 11 international airports, 08 customs airports, 81 domestic airports and 25 civil enclaves at defense airfields. Until 2005-06, AAI airports handled 100% of the passenger traffic in the country. The share dropped to slightly less than 60% in 2006-07 and further to 40% in 2008-09 due to handing over of a few airports to private players. Over the years, AAI had been concerned about its reduced market share and the possibility that more and more airports would be developed outside their control. Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) was increasingly encouraging state governments to develop airports, and where possible in the public private partnership (PPP) mode. AAI participated as a bidder in the bidding for Mopa airport, Goa. It lost the bid to GMR Airport Limited (GAL), which is part of GMR Group. A bid for another airport at Bhogapuram, which would serve Visakhapatnam, in Andhra Pradesh was on the cards. This airport was to replace the existing civil enclave in the Visakhapatnam naval airport. This case focuses on whether AAI should bid for Bhogapuram or not. Lessons can be drawn from the experience of bidding process for Mopa.

Charity fundraising in the UK was a deep red ocean when Comic Relief started. Costs were up and donations were down. To stand out from the crowd, organizations had to work harder at fundraising and marketing. Yet Comic Relief rapidly achieved 96 percent national brand awareness and has now raised over £1 billion without spending anything on marketing. Its flagship event, held once every two years, is almost a national holiday in the UK. The case reveals how Comic Relief redefined the problem of the charity-giving industry - from how to get the wealthy to give out of guilt, to how to get everyone 'to do something funny for money' - thus reconstructing the market boundaries. It understood how to create new demand by looking to nondonors and what turned them off (the blocks to giving). In so doing, it erected formidable barriers to imitation - cognitive, organisational, economic and legal. Its enduring success relies on the alignment of its value, profit and people propositions. It can be used to teach the following Blue Ocean concepts: (1) the Buyer Utility Map; (2) the Three Tiers of Noncustomers; (3) Barriers to Imitation; and (4) Disruptive versus nondisruptive creation.

Code2040 is a not-for-profit organization founded by two Stanford MBA classmates to build pathways for black and LatinX college students to gain experience with technology companies and successfully launch careers after graduation. This case continues an earlier case about the founding and early years of Code2040. It picks up with the 2016 election of US President Donald Trump. His election led to dramatic changes in the environment and support for diversity initiatives in which Code2040 operates. As a result of this singular external factor, in 2017, Code2040 faced unprecedented and unanticipated challenges in securing industry support for programs. This case presents the acute personal and professional questions and issues that faced founder CEO Laura Weidman-Powers at this critical juncture in Code2040's existence. Key questions included: • What shifts in strategy are required to ensure continued organizational survival and effectiveness in a vastly changed landscape? How should she manage the change? • How can a founder CEO devise and implement a successor plan that meets both personal and organizational priorities? • What can a board do to devise and implement a successor plan that meets an organization's priorities and will enable future growth and success in accomplishing its mission? The case is presented in two parts. Part A leads up to the founder CEO's decision to step down. Part B asks students to consider how to execute the CEO transition. Detailed teaching notes provide insights from key stakeholders, including board members, founder and new CEO, and member of the Code2040 staff regarding what actually occurred. Importantly, the case includes each person's recommendations for how to plan for and implement CEO transitions.

The case takes students through the creation and evolution of Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program - a public and private partnership to provide education, a network of support and capital to small businesses across the U.S.