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CEO Tom Siebel navigates his artificial intelligence (ai) startup through a series of pivots, market expansions, and even an elephant attack to become a leading platform ad service provider. The case describes his unusual management approach emphasizing employee testing and selection, customer testing and selection, and a high degree of professionalism. This case is accompanied by an eight-segment video series (preview below) that shows Tom Siebel discussing his management philosophy. A link to access the videos in the classroom is provided on p. 2 of the Teaching Note.

In May 2018, the De Beers Group shocked the diamond industry when it announced it was launching a new fashion jewelry brand of laboratory-grown (synthetic) diamonds. The reaction was swift as people sought to understand the company's motivations: was it a "huge gamble" or a "Machiavellian masterstroke"? What was the objective of the new product launch, would it succeed, and how would this new business affect the Group's core business of selling natural (mined) diamonds? This case is intended to be used in conjunction with and to follow a related HBS case: The De Beers Group: Exploring the Diamond Reselling Opportunity (HBS #717-430).

In 2017, the contract between the Andretti family auto racing business, Andretti Autosport, and Honda Motor Company (Honda) would come to an end following the racing season. Generational family resources and dynamic social media capabilities had created a sustained competitive advantage (SCA) for Andretti Autosport. Also, key strategic decisions surrounding primary engine sponsorship and enterprise diversification afforded the chief executive officer the benefit of financial resources required to fund his Andretti Autosport racing operations across multiple racing platforms. More strategic decisions would have to be made as the contract between Andretti Autosport and Honda was coming to an end. Although the Honda collaboration had been successful, was it the best partnership to sustain the multi-generational organization into the future? What engine sponsor would be the best for Andretti Autosport to partner with for the next racing season?

The case describes how Bayer, one of the oldest and largest life-science companies in the world, recognised that innovation driven solely by the traditional R&D process that characterised the sector would not be sufficient to remain competitive, given the major changes underway in pharma and crop science and the broader trends in digital disruption. This recognition came from the very top, CEO Marijn Dekkers, who took the decision in 2015 to instigate a major corporate restructuring: Bayer would focus on its core life-science businesses (pharmaceuticals, consumer health and crop science) and spin off its material science business as a completely separate company. Beginning in 2016 under Board member Kemal Malik, Bayer began to put an innovation strategy in place that deliberately sought a systemic approach, meaning company-wide, to make innovation the responsibility of all Bayer employees. The question then arose how to put this vision into effect. How could Bayer promote greater innovation throughout the company, given that it had more than 100,000 employees spread over 75 countries? What actual initiatives could be undertaken to make innovation more effective and impactful? The case details how Monika Lessl, who reported directly to Malik, put in place a cross-divisional and cross-functional team to identify the most important areas to tackle and how, by 2018, the innovation programme she oversaw had "real momentum", with more than 1,000 people having some sort of formal role in support of innovation, more than 5,000 involved in innovation training, and more than 35,000 connected through the company's innovation portal.

The case describes how Mike Bracken, the newly appointed head of the UK Government Digital Service (GDS), took on the massive challenge of setting up, from scratch, a centralised team to deliver online public services efficiently online across all of the government's digital channels. This involved not merely overcoming great operational and technical challenges - legacy IT systems, lack of recognition and reward for specialist skills - but instigating deep cultural change and securing senior-level buy-in to make the necessary changes happen. The case illustrates how to approach implementing large-scale change across a highly bureaucratic organisation; in this case, the UK government. As such, it is a beautiful illustration of where agile works well. One key point to note is that, rather than focusing on the specifics of agile working, it demonstrates when agile methods can be a very powerful tool for enabling change. It also illustrates the importance of a decisive leader in getting an agile way of working implemented (and to some extent, risk-taking on the part of Mike Bracken and his sponsor in government). We will discuss the pros and cons of this approach.

How do incumbent firms respond over time to a potentially disruptive technology? This article documents the strategies of 12 large pharmaceutical firms over 25 years as they addressed the opportunity/threat of biotechnology. All showed awareness of biotechnology's potential, but their response profiles varied dramatically in terms of timing (early/late) and focus (external/internal). Late movers mostly made large acquisitions to "catch up," but early movers maintained their lead in terms of biotechnology-based drug sales and profitability, and those with a more "open" response profile performed better. This response involves a three-step process: building awareness (sensing), building capability (responding), and building commitment (scaling).

A corporation that employs an "outside-in" startup program needs to screen a large number of potential startups and assess each time: What is the value of the startup's offering to our business, and what resources and support will the startup need so we can actually obtain its offering? However, many startups are not very good at communicating their customer value proposition in a way that helps the customer firm making such assessments. This article recommends that startups construct two sequential value propositions. The Innovative Offering Value Proposition communicates how the startup's offering creates superior value for the customer. It answers the question: What is extraordinary about the startup's offering that will enable the customer to solve a significant problem it has or achieve a top priority it has? The Leveraging Assistance Value Proposition conveys what the customer firm will get in return for providing support and resources to the startup. It answers the question: What will make it worthwhile from the customer's perspective to support the startup to realize its innovative offering?

Tonya Lanthier tucked her twin 13-year-old girls Teagan and Ramsey into bed and gave each of them a big hug. She considered herself blessed to have two happy children and a fast-growing business that enabled dentists to find well-matched auxiliary staff, and for dentists, dental assistants, hygienists and front-office staff to find jobs they loved. Her company, DentalPost, was by all accounts thriving. Earlier in the week, however, she'd attended a workshop on product and service innovation and a couple of her fellow participants had suggested ways that what they had learned could be put to use in Tonya's business. "We've got the most comprehensive solution in our industry," she thought to herself, "and we've been making it even better - one step at a time - for more than a decade. There's always been an opportunity for us to innovate and that's probably still true, even now. So, I wonder what our next innovation should be?"

Self-driving cars are moving from science fiction to showroom fact, or at least to a car summoning platform. Waymo, the self-driving car division of Google, has ordered 82,000 self-driving cars for delivery through 2020. Cruise Automation, from General Motors, is perfecting their own fleet. Countless companies are driving full-throttle into the future. This case explores whether self-driving cars (autonomous vehicles or AVs) are a red ocean or blue ocean opportunity, and explains the difference between technological innovation and value innovation. It will prompt students to think about disruptive innovation and nondisruptive market creation, and why inventors of major technological innovations throughout history have often failed to meaningfully monetize their inventions.

This case documents the history of Ashok Leyland (AL), the second largest commercial vehicle manufacturer in India, and captures its growth and journey up to 2007, when the company adopted its new vision of more than doubling in size in a fairly mature industry. The challenge that the case poses to students is to understand how the firm, widely regarded as a small player globally and as a regional one even within India, could fulfill this ambitious vision.

The second part of this two-part case examines the actions that Ashok Leyland (AL) took to achieve its aggressive growth plan and the consequences it faced when there was an abrupt negative demand shock. The case describes the challenge before AL's management when faced with bankruptcy, and invites readers to consider how this once-proud company could be transformed and led towards profitability and growth.

Case A & B (ISB113 & ISB115) have also been made available in a combined version.

DHAN Foundation, based in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, was a non-government organization with a difference. It was neither a philanthropic organization nor a service organization but a development organization focused on grassroots development aided by professional management. This series of cases focuses on DHAN's journey in the realm of healthcare, tracing the genesis and evolution of its community health efforts, particularly during the first decade of its existence (1997 to 2007), and describing the challenges the Foundation faced along the way and its responses to those challenges. Case A describes the story of an unusual project undertaken by DHAN and several partners to take state-of-the-art medical diagnostic services to the doorsteps of villagers in a remote part of Tamil Nadu. The project was a collaborative effort involving Philips, a leader in electronics, healthcare and lighting; Apollo Hospitals, a major corporate hospital chain in India; Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), a high technology research center; and DHAN, a key player in the development sector. The project, anchored by Philips, came to an abrupt halt at the end of 2006 when Philips announced its withdrawal from the venture as the volumes it had anticipated had not materialized and the high overheads associated with the project were proving to be uneconomical. Apollo, also disappointed that it had not reaped the expected benefits from the project, followed suit. With these key collaborators opting out, the technology support of ISRO had little relevance. M. P. Vasimalai (Vasi), the Executive Director of DHAN, reeling from the unexpected termination of an important project that would benefit the community, was faced with a dilemma: Should he follow the lead of Philips and Apollo and abandon the project or find some way to take it forward?

DHAN Foundation, based in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, was a non-government organization with a difference. It was neither a philanthropic organization nor a service organization but a development organization focused on grassroots development aided by professional management. This series of cases focuses on DHAN's journey in the realm of healthcare, tracing the genesis and evolution of its community health efforts, particularly during the first decade of its existence (1997 to 2007), and describing the challenges the Foundation faced along the way and its responses to those challenges. Case B takes off where Case A leaves Vasi, and describes his decision to set up a secondary care hospital at Theni, Tamil Nadu, following the exit of Philips and Apollo Hospitals from the DISHA project. The case traces the fundraising and project management challenges DHAN faced along the way and its response to those challenges.

DHAN Foundation, based in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, was a non-government organization with a difference. It was neither a philanthropic organization nor a service organization but a development organization focused on grassroots development aided by professional management. This series of cases focuses on DHAN's journey in the realm of healthcare, tracing the genesis and evolution of its community health efforts, particularly during the first decade of its existence (1997 to 2007), and describing the challenges the Foundation faced along the way and its responses to those challenges. Set in 2007, this case seeks to synthesize the decade-long experience of DHAN in the realm of healthcare. M. P. Vasimalai (Vasi), DHAN's Executive Director, is tasked with making an important presentation to the Prime Minister and a team of government officials. Obviously, the good work of DHAN in this arena had not gone unnoticed. In preparing his presentation, Vasi must journey through DHAN's experience and the dilemma it is grappling with: whether to continue its healthcare interventions on a project-by-project basis or adopt a holistic healthcare model, bringing together its multiple and diffused healthcare-related initiatives under a common canopy for ease of administration and to derive the benefits of synergy.

By 2014 Altice had made over 20 acquisitions in 8 countries followed by an IPO resulting in a market capitalization of €5.7B. By mid-2015, it was worth $35B, 369% higher than the IPO price. It entered the US market with a successful bid for a major US cable operator, becoming the only European provider to take an aggressive position in the US market. It subsequently made an offer for Cablevision, but its stellar capitalization growth was interrupted by a 70% drop in share price, driven by investors' concern about its ability to continue to execute its M&A playbook, especially with larger integrations in the US. Altice responded by increasing equity financing and playing down further M&As. Another investors' concern was customer attrition, experienced by Altice in some markets due to over-aggressive cost-cutting, resulting in poor network quality and customer care. In response, it increased CAPEX in France, Israel and Portugal but was it enough to stop attrition and increase revenues? Or should it exploit other options to drive incremental revenue, e.g. leveraging and expanding content creation capabilities or moving beyond voice and data into cloud computing, internet security, call centers etc. Having started as a small regional operator, Altice became a significant global player and #4 in the US, proving that an M&A strategy can create value. It took average performing businesses and created greater value based on its strong telecom and M&A capabilities. Now, Altice must decide how to stay ahead of the game and which resources and capabilities to develop. The case explores how Altice applies its M&A playbook and leverages its capabilities to compete and grow in a mature industry. Why do telecom operators sell to Altice and how can it offer more than other firms? The case also promotes discussion about the sustainability of Altice's business model, future strategic moves and its reasons for entering the US market.

The case describes Xiaomi's IPO application in 2018, which sheds light on the company's finances and indicates a rebound from declining sales two years ago to a period of strong international growth. It also reveals Xiaomi's revenue and profits from Internet services such as advertising and gaming on its MIUI user interface. Additionally, the case shows Xiaomi's performance on the global smartphone market, showing a good year-over-year growth as well as a maintained leading role in India market. On a way to become an "innovation leader", Xiaomi faces challenges such as the management of ecosystem partnership, and the global expansion especially into the high-stakes U.S. market.

In mid-2015, the managing director of Feed Green Ethiopia Exports PLC (FGE), one of Ethiopia's leading export companies, faced a pivotal decision. FGE specialized in herbs and spices, and the price of one of FGE's major products, paprika, had skyrocketed in the past six months. As a result, FGE had sustained a massive loss. This problem had taken a toll on FGE's profitability, and the company's future was on the line. The managing director needed to mitigate this problem and prevent it from occurring again. He saw three alternatives: FGE could maintain the status quo, operate its own farm in one of two locations, or purchase its spices directly from local farmers. Maintaining the price and quality of the products and providing excellent customer service were the company's main priorities, regardless of which option it chose.

Anhui LIGOO New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (LIGOO) had survived and made developments in the field of battery management systems (BMS) in the changing environment of new energy vehicles (NEVs), amid policy adjustment in China. Established in 2010, LIGOO had achieved a respectable market share and acquired a reputation as possessing excellent BMS technology in the electric vehicle industry. However, due to a cold market in the industry and weak reception for these vehicles, LIGOO's performance began to decline. The company made its first transformation, applying BMS technology to the communications and coal mining industries, enabling LIGOO's survival and ability to improve BMS technology when many other BMS technology companies were going bankrupt. In 2013 and 2014, the Chinese government began to enhance its support for the NEV industry, prompting LIGOO's chief executive officer to consider whether LIGOO should continue its existing business in the communications and coal mining industries or rejoin the NEV industry.