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Garmin at the Crossroads (Case A) reviews the history of Garmin from its founding in 1991 until 2008. After 17 consecutive years of profitable growth in the personal navigation devices (PND) industry, Garmin was a top player with a strong cash position. However, challenges loomed with the advent of alternative global navigation satellite systems, increasing penetration of smartphones, the reshuffling of the digital map data market, and the industry's consolidation. The case explores the options available to Garmin to weather the storm. Case B (Garmin 2019) describes the changes in the industry in the following decade, how Garmin responded, and the resulting performance.

It is impossible to predict the future, but this is a task policymakers are effectively expected to do when deciding how to deploy scarce resources to the benefit of future constituents. This case therefore looks at one tool in particular-scenario planning-that actors in both the public and private sector employ to, while not predicting the future, prepare for it as much as possible. The case uses Ilan Steiner, head of the Currency Department at the Israeli central bank as the protagonist; one of the biggest questions he has had to address in the last few years has been what the future of cash will look like. Some people argue that the proliferation of new technologies-such as Venmo-will make paper currency obsolete. Others point out that paper currency demand is actually increasing in many countries, despite the availability of digital payment systems. The case is divided into three sections. The first introduces Ilan Steiner and provides some background on currency use around the world. The second section introduces scenario planning and then discusses how railway executives employed scenario planning to investigate possible futures for coal demand and their impact on the railway industry. The last section is a memo 'from' Ilan that requests students to prepare their own scenario plan for the future of cash in Israel. Case number 2100.0

In 2017, Gemini Edibles and Fats India Private Limited (GEF India), a Hyderabad-based company, was in the business of trading, manufacturing, and marketing edible oils and fats. In the eight years since it was founded, GEF India had become the top-selling edible oil company across South India with a 40 per cent market share. The company wanted to double its current revenues by 2021, which would place it in competition with national producers. Consumption of edible oil in India was increasing, and domestic production was not meeting demand. GEF India wanted to capitalize on the opportunity, but the revenue targets indicated no ordinary increase. What should its growth strategy be? Was there a need to revisit its marketing communication strategy in order to strengthen its brand amid increasing competition? From an organizational perspective, did the growth challenge require a shift in the company's culture or internal communication strategy?

This note provides a very concise (2 page) introduction to relative cost analysis, with a simple example.

This case explores how Walmart should compete with Amazon.

The case on Wipro BPO's Base)))TM highlights the critical decisions faced by service businesses as they develop products and platforms. This case elucidates the evolution of the Indian business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, Wipro's competitive position in the industry, and the architecture of the Base))) Suite of products. As Base))) began contributing to Wipro BPO's competitive advantage, the company had to make a few key decisions regarding product integration, verticalization, and network management in the context of Base))) Suite of products.

This case discusses the evolution and dynamics of the Indian sugar industry. It provides a detailed analysis of various factors that impact the structure and attractiveness of the industry in India. It further explains how the global industry scenario is developing and has an influence on the advancement of the industry in India. It throws light on various aspects, such as government regulations, geographical differences, technological trends, availability of substitutes, barriers for exit, lack of sufficient focus on by-products, demand and supply forces, change in global practices and guidelines from international agencies such as WHO, that influence the elevation and future of this industry. In a scenario where sugar producers persistently face high inventory situation, high cost of production, exit restrictions and stiff government regulations, along with other global factors such as excess supply and stagnant consumption growth, innovative players are also struggling to maintain profitability, can Indian sugar manufacturers find ways to sustain their business? Would complete deregulation, backward or forward integration, further diversification into by-products, moving into multiple geographies, changing the source of sugar or strategic partnerships with other global companies be good enough options to turnaround the situation?

The European leader in offshore wind, the Danish Orsted is building a global position and entering markets where offshore wind is nascent.

Sandy Sim is a senior consultant at Future Solutions, a strategy consulting firm. She was tasked by Comfort Del Gro (CDG), a multinational land transport company, to help revive their taxi business in Singapore. Companies like Grab, a regional third-party taxi-booking app, and Uber, a global transportation app, made use of technology to improve the booking of taxis and introduced private cars to meet the demand for taxis, especially at peak hours. Many customers found their services better and more convenient to use. Some taxi drivers prefer to use the Grab app for client bookings or drive private cars instead. What should Sim recommend for CDG to turn around its flagging fortunes in the taxi segment?

Spreadsheet supplement for Case SMU136

City transformation is complex. This case study examines the combination of policies and management decisions undertaken by Mr Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) in transforming Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. Jakarta had been facing serious urban development issues that affect the economy and political stability of Indonesia. Despite well-laid out plans where he aimed to alter the oft-regarded corrupt and incapable bureaucracy in Jakarta into a clean, capable and efficient administration, Ahok faced many leadership challenges when implementing large-scale transformation of major city in a developing country.

After twenty years of growth unprecedented in the sports apparel industry, Under Armour finds itself with a new record to beat: making the leap from $5 to $10 billion in sales - a feat only accomplished to date by competitors Nike and Adidas. At the heart of this challenge is how Under Armour can maintain its brand's authenticity while adding new products that fuel future growth. The case traces the evolution of Under Armour's brand and describes how the company chose to extend or not extend its brand into adjacent categories and markets in the past. Now Under Armour needs to decide on their next steps. Should the company focus on its core markets? Should it stretch the brand into more adjacencies? Or should it consider something more radical, like app-related sales through subscriptions and wearable technologies?

Medtronic is adapting its strategy to changes in health care competition and payments. It has decided to develop new relationships with payers, hospitals, and physicians to become more accountable for patient outcomes and total costs. The case describes new forms of partnerships for therapy optimization, management of acute care episodes, and management of chronic care patients.

By the 1930s, AT&T dominated the American phone industry, serving 10 million telephones and employing over 100,000 switchboard operators. But beginning in the mid-1910s, the company began changing from manually-operated switchboards to mechanical switching systems that were faster and more cost-effective and did not require human operators. By the 1930s, the changeover has been completed or is underway in most American cities with over 50,000 people. The rollout of the new technology is garnering a good deal of public attention, not just for the unfamiliar new "dialing" process that customers are required to learn, but also because of the mass layoffs of the women who served as operators. The job cuts have even resulted in reports from the Department of Labor and Congressional hearings. As the rollouts continue across the country, AT&T questions how to handle the layoffs and the reaction to the new system.

Great strategists rely heavily on numbers as they go about their work. This note offers an overview of the highbrow and lowbrow quantitative tools that individuals commonly encounter during strategy courses and in actual strategy work. The note focuses especially on simple calculations that often produce important insights.

In April 2017, Victoria Sopik and Jennifer Nashmi, CEO and CFO (respectively) of Kids & Company, a Canadian childcare provider that they had co-founded in the early 2000s and developed into a nearly 100-unit enterprise, are discussing how the company should proceed with its planned U.S. expansion. Kids & Company already has five U.S. childcare centers in and around Chicago, Illinois, and one under construction in Boston, Massachusetts, but before going any further, the two leaders plan to discuss what they have learned so far from their U.S. experience, and how that should inform their strategic growth decisions moving forward. Unlike Canada, the U.S. already has other large, for-profit childcare providers, so Kids & Co. will have to grow in a more mature market, albeit one where Kids & Company's leaders still see substantial opportunity. Company leaders also believe that the company's "boutique" childcare centers, which maintain a strict focus on customer service and flexible childcare options, would be well-received by U.S. consumers, and help it stand out from the existing, more-standardized options. The question now is how, and how fast, to grow. Should it just replicate the exact model it has developed in Canada-which has proven somewhat challenging thus far in the few years it has operated in the U.S.-or adjust elements of its model? Should it look to acquire established providers, or possibly even franchise the brand?

This case, set in 1990, describes the history of Walmart and asks what competitive strategies Kmart might adopt in response to Walmart's success. It discusses the strategy and organization of both companies in terms of HR practices, store location, distribution, information technology, procurement, pricing, and company culture. This (A) case is the first in a multi-part series that goes on to describe the results of Kmart's competition with Walmart, as well as Walmart's later grappling with ecommerce and Amazon.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. How can managers reduce the number of "unknown unknowns" a project faces? Even projects that employ sophisticated techniques for risk management can encounter surprising derailments. But new research shows that modeling a project's subsystems helps expose risk areas. So, too, can scenario analysis, the use of checklists and data mining. "Directed recognition, which can entail both project design and behavioral approaches, can convert knowable unk-unks [unknown unknowns] to known unknowns,"write the authors.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Collaborations between companies and universities are critical drivers of the innovation economy. These relationships have long been a mainstay of corporate R&D -from creating the knowledge foundations for the next generation of solutions, to serving as an extended "workbench" to solve short-term, incremental problems, to providing a flow of newly minted talent. As corporations look to open innovation to augment their internal R&D efforts, many of them are turning to universities to anchor an increasingly broad set of activities, especially those grounded in engaging with regional innovation ecosystems such as Silicon Valley, Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Block 71 in Singapore. Universities are essential stakeholders in innovation communities that also include corporations, government entities, venture investors, and entrepreneurs. In addition to being sources of people and ideas for corporations, university collaborations assist corporations in opening up new avenues of engagement with a broader innovation ecosystem. While the aspirations of university-industry partnerships can be easily described, many companies are finding that establishing and running partnerships effectively can be difficult, even when key financial resources and human capital are available. A core reason for the difficulty, the authors write, "is that university culture -characterized by high autonomy and distributed governance -maps poorly to corporate culture." The authors provide a set of six questions for managers, which make up the basis of a form they call the "university partnership canvas."They designed a form (which is downloadable from the digital version of the article) to help corporations assess and develop strategic approaches to their university partnerships. By working through the six questions, companies can develop a strategic perspective on what types of partnerships are best suited to their needs.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Businesses develop strategies to address complex, multi-layered business environments and challenges -but to execute a strategy in a meaningful way, it must produce a set of specific priorities focused on achieving clear goals. Rather than trying to boil the strategy down to a pithy statement, executives will get better results if they develop a small set of actions that everyone gets behind.