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This is an MIT Sloan Management Review Article. As companies recognize how important a digital strategy has become, they find themselves torn between different strategic options. The first decision is to choose between a customer engagement or a digital solutions strategy. Which to pursue depends on existing capabilities and competitive direction - but companies should avoid trying to do both.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review Article. The current corporate sustainability movement is unsustainable, the authors argue. Not because companies are pursuing the wrong goals - but because they are going about them the wrong way. Never before have companies been more conscious of the need to run their businesses in an environmentally, socially, and economically responsible fashion. Yet never before have theory and practice been wider apart. When it comes to practicing and not just preaching sustainability, many companies struggle and most flounder in developing and implementing a sustainable business model. Many executives know and feel the importance of making their businesses sustainable. But many of them can't make the transformation occur. Worse still, many don't even know they're failing. Based on their experience and observations, the authors identify key roadblocks to embedding sustainable business models and offer a roadmap to circumvent them. According to the authors, companies need to recognize that sustainability is not just another change initiative. Change-management initiatives are usually driven by some external factors or by lack of internal performance and are typically directed at increasing profitability and shareholder value. Sustainability, on the other hand, is about people and planet as well, not just profit. Sustainability involves creating value for all stakeholders in the ecosystem and viewing profits as a consequence of such value creation. Sustainability also requires a business to look at its entire value chain. A company's sustainability initiative, the authors argue, should be led by the CEO and should become a priority for the board. Business executives should also strive to attract the support of the company's middle management.

This two-part case traces the evolution of the Tata Group, one of India's largest and well-known business groups, from inception until date. The first case principally focuses on Ratan Tata's leadership of the Tata Group, from 1991 to 2012. Tata Group History, the first section of the case, traces the early years of the Tata Group, its management philosophy, the leadership years of its legendary chairman, JRD Tata and ends with the elevation of Ratan Tata as chairman of the group in 1991. Leading Change details the group's transformation under Ratan Tata's leadership. Passing the Baton describes the succession process that led to the appointment of Cyrus Mistry as chairman of the group in late 2012. The second case describes Cyrus Mistry's leadership of the group until it ended abruptly with his sudden removal as chairman of Tata Sons on October 24, 2016, and the reinstatement of Ratan Tata as interim chairman.

Supplement to case IMB597. This two-part case traces the evolution of the Tata Group, one of India's largest and well-known business groups, from inception until date. The first case principally focuses on Ratan Tata's leadership of the Tata Group, from 1991 to 2012. Tata Group History, the first section of the case, traces the early years of the Tata Group, its management philosophy, the leadership years of its legendary chairman, JRD Tata and ends with the elevation of Ratan Tata as chairman of the group in 1991. Leading Change details the group's transformation under Ratan Tata's leadership. Passing the Baton describes the succession process that led to the appointment of Cyrus Mistry as chairman of the group in late 2012. The second case describes Cyrus Mistry's leadership of the group until it ended abruptly with his sudden removal as chairman of Tata Sons on October 24, 2016, and the reinstatement of Ratan Tata as interim chairman.

i-flex is a unique illustration of an Indian software product company that emerged from an ecosystem dominated by software services firms. The case comprises two parts. The first part, set in late 2005, describes the company's evolution into a global market leader in the banking software industry ending with its acquisition by Oracle. The second part of the case, set in 2015, provides an update on the evolution of the company in the 10 years since its acquisition by Oracle.

Supplement to case IMB603. i-flex is a unique illustration of an Indian software product company that emerged from an ecosystem dominated by software services firms. The case comprises two parts. The first part, set in late 2005, describes the company's evolution into a global market leader in the banking software industry ending with its acquisition by Oracle. The second part of the case, set in 2015, provides an update on the evolution of the company in the 10 years since its acquisition by Oracle.

The number and value of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) continue to grow, with record increases in the U.S. and Asia Pacific in 2015. Yet, despite calls from academic literature for more consideration of the human and behavioral factors in such massive change, there remains an inordinate focus on the financial or quantitative aspects. We connect the newer streams of research with efficiency and growth imperatives via an illustrative analysis of ANZ New Zealand's horizontal merger with The National Bank of New Zealand. ANZ successfully completed a brand and technology merger by prioritizing the customer, addressing employees' socioeconomic concerns, providing enough time and resources to ensure efficiencies, and rebranding enriched customer services and revenues. The results were overwhelmingly positive and provide a useful template for how M&As should be executed in the future using a people-first approach.

Increasingly, firms are integrating environmental sustainability into their business strategies. Yet, sustainability is a complex topic and many firms need to form environmental partnerships to access additional resources-in the form of investments, technologies, expertise, public image, and/or political influence-to develop competitive advantage. Environmental partnership decisions are difficult, however, because they often need to reconcile multifaceted sustainability issues with multi-level, and potentially divergent, strategic goals. To meet their intended objectives, companies should carefully consider the type of environmental partnerships and partners that can best meet their needs. Based on a review of the literature, interviews with executives responsible for environmental partnerships, and publicly available data, we find firms engage in three main types of environmental partnerships: innovation-seeking, legitimacy-building, and policy-influencing. Each type of partnership benefits from different types of resources and partner choices. Herein, we describe the advantages of each type of environmental partnership and partners that may best support them. Given that many firms develop environmental partnership portfolios, managing multiple environmental partnerships simultaneously, we also discuss the implications of our research for environmental partnership portfolios.

The case relates the growth story of a transformative medical diagnostics company as it moves from idea to maturity at a critical time when leaders must determine what to do about the falling stock price. As the case unfolds, it shows how an idea for transforming cervical cancer testing was converted to a proof-of-concept, followed by years of scientific and technological research to create products. The case portrays gaining FDA approval while short on resources, persuading skeptical insurers to pay for a new diagnostic test, and managing the challenges of subsequent growth, profit, and maturity while facing the emergence of new technologies and competitors. Students are asked to adopt the role of a newly hired vice president of business development to decide how to address the company's situation. They must identify and frame the problem, generate alternatives and evaluate them critically, then prepare recommendations for an upcoming board meeting. Students take into account industry and company data as well as strategic realities. They examine what makes creating, growing, and managing a science- and medicine-based company different from doing so with other technology companies, especially consumer hardware and software with which students tend to be most familiar. Color printing of the case is recommended for clear interpretation of exhibits.

This case study investigates the phenomenal development of M-PESA in Kenya, the world's most successful mobile phone-based financial service, and the way it transformed its parent company, Safaricom from being an incumbent telecommunications operator to also becoming a digital platform working across different industries and sectors through an extensive business ecosystem. Safaricom, Kenya's incumbent telecom operator, developed M-PESA in partnership with Vodafone. The service was launched in March 2007 and has since been used by more than 23 million people in Kenya! It started off as a mere person-to-person remittance service and now provides a wide array of financial services for retail customers, businesses and government. Nearly a decade after its launch, M-PESA has drastically transformed the daily life of its users as well as Kenya's economic landscape, where it impacted the banking and telecom landscape, boosted the development of e-commerce and facilitated operations for thousands of small businesses, online and offline. Internationally, M-PESA has become a role model for mobile financial services and payment platforms as well as inclusive business practices. Learning objective: The case provides insights about the digital business transformation (DBT) of an incumbent telecom operator through the offering of mobile financial services. It helps to: Comprehend the why, what, and how of DBT; Assess the different dimensions of DBT; Appreciate the crucial role in DBT of leadership, lean management, talent development and organizational alignment; Understand the business opportunities enabled by leveraging breakthrough innovation, digital platforms, and big data.

The automobile industry has been shaped by several inflection points, each signaling a dramatic shift. Since the turn of the new millennium, it has been caught in a wave of radical transformation. For auto majors, it is no longer about pursuing sales growth and higher margins through scale, international expansion and outsourcing. The very definition of what it means to be a car manufacturer is being challenged by four mega trends that are transforming the entire automotive ecosystem: (1) the rise of electric vehicles, (2) car sharing as the new form of ownership, (3) mobility as a service, and (4) connected and intelligent cars as a precursor to autonomous vehicles. These trends bring opportunities and threats that automakers have never encountered before. They are looking for ways to get in front of these trends, rather than being caught on the back foot with their business model disrupted. How should they respond? Can they form the right partnerships and innovative alliances to ride out the turbulent shifts? Learning objective: Identifying the disruptive changes in an industry. How can traditional companies deal with ongoing industry shifts? Jumping the S-curve requires unconventional thinking in addition to traditional business wisdom.

This case describes the origins of the traditional circus, including its rise to popularity in the United States in the 1800s, and examines the factors that led to its decline in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Emerging markets have become an attractive destination for multinationals as they provide these companies with high growth potential due to low product penetration and also help them in reducing costs of production due to reduced labor costs. The case brings out the trajectory of growth of Micromax Informatics Limited which started as a company depending on China and Taiwan for manufacturing of their handsets because of better technological infrastructure, stronger supply chain and cost effective workforce. As the government enhanced import duty on CBU (Completely Built Unit) electronic products and reduced excise duty and import duty on SKD (Semi Knocked Down) units required for manufacturing of electronic products, Micromax started its production facility, Bhagwati Products Limited in India and reduced import of finished electronic products to a large extent. To keep the cost low all across the value chain, it focused on development of indigenous design and manufacturing capabilities to achieve higher localization. This helped Micromax in keeping the cost of the products low and thus being a cost leader in the market. The case also brings out how costs can be kept low by utilizing central and state government initiatives in providing subsidies that helped the company build competitive advantage and how these specific actions resulted in creation of a vibrant electronics industry in the country. This case focuses on the specific issues faced by Bhagwati Products Limited, the production arm of Micromax in production of mobile phones locally, with regard to sourcing of raw material, manpower, research and development, competition and reduction in cost of production.

The case describes the challenges around sustainability within the Energy industry using Royal Dutch Shell (Shell) as an example. Two key challenges for Shell are explored: How to meet the demand for energy sustainably and profitably, and how to gain a licence to operate from society. Further, the case presents some negative views of Shell in the media; describes what is happening in adjacent industries, the investor community and with policy makers that will impact the energy transition; and concluded with what Shell, other oil and gas companies and policy makers are doing in relation to the sustainability and the energy transition. Lerning objective: The case can be utilized to accomplish several learning objectives: 1) How sustainability topics affect business strategy, and vice versa; 2) How to manage through a major industry transition (using PESTEL to assess "new" vs "old" industry); 3) How the media and external communications policies impact strategic decision making; 4) Overall awareness of sustainability.

In cities and towns across America, leaders in local governments, businesses, nonprofits, educational institutions, faith-based organizations, labor unions, and other organizations are coming together in new ways to help their communities prosper. Why are such cross-sector collaborations arising now? What purpose do they serve? What key decisions must their leaders make? What principles might guide those decisions? This note suggests a way to think about such questions.

May 2016, Singapore. Umesh Shah, the head of Unilever International (UI), was pleased with what his team had been able to achieve since the business unit was created at the beginning of 2012 by merging the operating companies' export units with the purpose to better exploit the "white spaces," i.e. business opportunities created by new global trends and marginal areas not given proper focus and support by Unilever operating companies (OpCos) because they did not belong to key core brands, consumers, channels and geographies. By late 2015 UI had grown into a very profitable business, doubling the turnover it had inherited in 2012, by pushing the envelope of Unilever sales and filling some cracks within its existing markets and channels. This included, for example, growing Unilever's presence in smaller markets like the Pacific Islands, increasing the sales of non-core brands in fringe markets, targeting original subgroups of consumers (such as immigrants, religious and other ethnic categories) in traditional markets or focusing on non-traditional channels such as airports and tax-free outfits. UI faced strong resistance from the OpCos initially, but gradually won them over. He still faced critical questions about UI's future. Would its ambition to almost double turnover by 2020 require making bigger bets and accepting more risk? What was the optimal scale of UI business in the long term? Should it review the working arrangements with the OpCos to remain mutually beneficial? Would the next generation of UI leaders come from within or outside the business? Were changes in the way staff were evaluated and compensated required? Learnong objective: Developing a white space organization, nurturing the internal entrepreneurs, managing fast growth, new business models, intrapreneurship, managing incentive programs, managing brands on the margin, niche marketing, expansion strategies on the fringe.

This tool can be used to design, or test the design, of any job in any organization. The module introduces four concepts: span of control, span of accountability, span of influence, and span of support and explains how these variable affect job design. JDOT includes four sequential steps to test whether the resources provided to the job being analyzed are sufficient to meet the demands imposed by that job. After determining whether a job is designed for success (or failure), JDOT provides a menu of items that can be changed to improve the effectiveness of the job. While this module is designed to be used alone, it is part of the Strategy Execution series. Taken together, the series forms a complete course that teaches the latest techniques for using performance measurement and control systems to implement strategy. Modules 1 - 4 set out the foundations for strategy implementation. Modules 5 - 10 teach quantitative tools for performance measurement and control. Modules 11 - 15 illustrate the use of these techniques by managers to achieve profit goals and strategies. View the full Strategy Execution series at: hbsp.harvard.edu/strategy-execution.

The case explores opportunities and challenges confronting the Harvard Business School as it seeks to maintain its differentiated strategic positioning in the face of a rapidly evolving management education landscape.

The case explores opportunities and challenges facing the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences as it: 1) grapples with rapid undergraduate enrollment growth and its smaller scale relative to other top engineering schools, and 2) prepares to move two-thirds of its faculty and classes to a new campus in Allston, 1.5 miles from its current Cambridge location.

This module reading pulls together key concepts and techniques from the Strategy Execution series into an integrated model - the levers of control. The four levers are: (1) belief systems, (2) boundary systems, (3) diagnostic control systems, and (4) interactive control systems. The module discusses how top managers use the levers of control to inspire commitment to the organization's purpose; stake out the territory for experimentation and competition; coordinate and monitor the execution of today's strategies; and stimulate and guide the search for strategies of the future. The power of this integrated approach to strategy implementation is illustrated in two contexts: the introduction of performance measurement and control systems over the life cycle of a growing business and the use of the levers by managers taking charge of a new business. While this module is designed to be used alone, it is part of the Strategy Execution series. Taken together, the series forms a complete course that teaches the latest techniques for using performance measurement and control systems to implement strategy. Modules 1 - 4 set out the foundations for strategy implementation. Modules 5 - 10 teach quantitative tools for performance measurement and control. Modules 11 - 15 illustrate the use of these techniques by managers to achieve profit goals and strategies. View the full Strategy Execution series at: hbsp.harvard.edu/strategy-execution.