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This note introduces a framework for analyzing value capture (through bargaining and pricing) and bargaining advantage (or value capture advantage), i.e., a firm's (superior) ability to capture a share from the value it helps create.

This note introduces a framework for analyzing the sustainability of competitive advantage. (While it applies more broadly, it was developed as a component of the PVA framework.)

"Setting Aspirations-Mission, Vision, and Values" introduces students to the concepts of organizational aspirations and the links between mission, vision, and values with strategy. The main Reading presents a framework for analyzing aspirations. It also discusses the differences between mission and vision, and it uses industry examples to explore how mission and vision form a firm's strategy and contribute to its strategy process. In addition, it addresses general misconceptions about organizational aspirations and the perils of misusing aspirations. A supplemental Reading.

This note introduces a concise but comprehensive framework for analyzing value creation and value creation advantage, i.e., a firm's superior ability to increase the spread (or gap) between its offering's customer value (or WTP) and supplier cost (or WTS). (While the framework applies more broadly, it was developed as a component of the PVA framework.)

Sandoz, which made a significant investment in bio-similars as a way to differentiate itself from its generic drug industry peers, has to negotiate with its parent company and the innovative pharma division on how best to commercialize its bio-similar portfolio. What is the best way to balance the parenting advantage of Novartis with the unique demands of the generic drug industry?

At the end of 2005, Tommy Hilfiger is taken private by Apax Partners after years of disappointing performance and strategic impasse. Students are asked to evaluate alternative strategic options for the company, and to propose a concrete turnaround plan for the first 100 days after the acquisition.

Supplement for Transforming Tommy Hilfiger (A), 714451.

PageWell, an e-reading platform provider, was preparing to launch PageWell 2.0 to the larger full-time MBA student market after a successful trial of PageWell 1.0 in Executive MBA (EMBA) classes at the Kellogg School of Management. Research had shown that full-time MBA students would be very interested in using products that allowed electronic access to course materials everywhere and across many platforms and that allowed electronic note-taking and storage. To better understand this user group, PageWell conducted a market research survey of students, faculty, and administrators to gauge their needs, preferences, and potential interest in the PageWell product. The study revealed that MBA student usage patterns, scenarios, and behavior varied significantly from EMBA student needs and perceptions. PageWell now had the task of prioritizing the product requirements and recalibrating the market requirements document to more accurately reflect student needs and thus create a viable product.

In 2013, Babcock International Plc (Babcock) was the largest engineering services provider in the UK with sales of over £3 billion. Under the leadership of CEO Peter Rogers, Babcock had grown revenues and profits nearly tenfold over the previous decade as it benefited from increased public sector outsourcing. In 2012, for the UK's Ministry of Defense (MOD), Babcock trained over 50,000 troops, maintained the nuclear submarine fleet, provided engineering support for military vehicles, and managed numerous facilities at military bases. On the civil side, the company decommissioned aging nuclear plants, maintained the Metropolitan Police auto fleet and other emergency services fleets, and was the UK's leading trainer of engineering apprentices. Babcock's leadership team believed that continued pressure on public spending would provide opportunities for double digit growth in the UK for at least five years. However, this might not come from Babcock's primary customer, the Ministry of Defense. What other national and local government agencies might the firm target? On the civil side, the resurgence of the salience of nuclear power generation in the mid 2000s had appeared to be good news for Babcock with its long-standing nuclear expertise, but the April 2011 Fukushima nuclear leak in Japan had shed doubt on future construction, while the fracking of shale deposits to extract natural gas promised a much lower cost supply of abundant energy. Nevertheless, decommissioning nuclear power stations promised steady and growing work. What other opportunities might Babcock pursue in the UK? Meanwhile, analysts were pushing for more international expansion but efforts at building business in South Africa, Canada, and Australia had been slow, with only 16% of revenues coming from outside the UK in 2013, a figure little changed since 2005. What would drive Babcock's long term future growth?

All companies claim that their strategies are customer driven. But when "customer" means any number of entities in a company's value chain--consumers, suppliers, retailers, even internal units like R&D--managers tend to lose focus, and their firms become vulnerable to competitors who have clearly defined who they serve and how. In this article, Robert Simons of Harvard Business School presents a framework that can help companies develop strategies that are truly customer-centric. The framework lays out four steps: (1) Identify the best primary customer for your business. This choice determines what resources and capabilities you invest in and how you organize your business. Amazon serves four very different types of customer (consumers, sellers, enterprises, and content providers), but it devotes the lion's share of its resources to pleasing consumers, even if that means sellers or content providers sometimes feel shortchanged. (2) Create processes to learn what your primary customer's values are. Data analytics, ethnographic research, and other methods can reveal needs and preferences that customers themselves may not be aware of. (3) Allocate resources accordingly, using one or more of the five business-model configurations: low price (Walmart), local value creation (Nestle), global standard of excellence (Microsoft), dedicated service relationship (IBM), or expert knowledge (Merck). (4) Build an interactive control process to monitor shifts in the assumptions that underlie your choices and prepare an action plan to respond.

The case may be used in the latter part of a core course on strategy, or in advanced or elective courses on strategy which deal with business models, or in courses on mergers and acquisitions. There is data in the case for students to do some modeling using spreadsheets to experiment with and evaluate alternative strategies and business models, especially in the context of the acquisition of Lee Enterprises. The context is especially challenging given the difficulties faced recently by so many newspapers, suggesting this is a problem for the industry as a whole and not just a problem for a single newspaper company. Through discussion of this case, students may be expected to expand their understanding of industry structure analysis and business model analysis, and also to examine in detail the financial implications of alternative strategies and business models using spreadsheets. This case demonstrates well the implications of specific strategies for the financials of a company.

Interface ranks among the top three manufacturers in the carpet industry, measured by revenues per year. Through its sustainability program, the company has achieved astounding results. Still, while Interface has made tremendous strides, company leaders are not content to rest. Interface developed its Mission Zero with the objective of eliminating all negative environmental impacts. During their reading and discussion of the case, students are asked to find solutions that will allow the company to scale its sustainable sourcing program and use its purchasing power to drive the social impact investments of others.

Pacific Gas & Electric is the second-largest investor-owned utility in the country and the largest in California, serving 15 million people across 70,000 square miles in central and northern California. Revenues at the utility are sliding as Kent Harvey, the company's CFO, considers legislation coming before the California legislature that will allow utility customers to purchase up to 100% renewable power from an offsite, local facility. The program is capped at 600 MW, but if it is amended to expand capacity, PG&E will face another hit to its bottom line. Students are asked to put themselves in Harvey's shoes and decide whether the company should lobby against the bill or adjust its policies to integrate more clean energy into its portfolio.

Kellogg Chief Sustainability Officer Diane Holdorf is facing a campaign by environmental activists who allege that the company's Indonesian supplier Wilmar International is illegally growing palm and is engaged in slash and burn practices. Protestors are lining up outside the company's Battle Creek, Michigan headquarters to rally against the partnership. While Kellogg only uses a small amount of palm in its products, the partnership with Wilmar provides the company with important strategic access to the Chinese market. Holdorf will be speaking with Kellogg's CEO in two days and is expected to provide him with her recommendations on how to proceed. Students are asked examine the extent of Kellogg's accountability for Wilmar's actions and decide how to respond to the allegations against its joint venture partner.

Founded in San Francisco in 2009, Square finished 2012 as the darling of Silicon Valley; flush with more than $340 million in funding, the firm had grown to several hundred employees in just three short years. It processed more than $10 billion annually in credit and debit card payments from small business owners that used Square's smartphone-enabled card swipe device wherever cellular or wireless Internet service was available. However, Square's success had attracted new entrants into the mobile payments processing space, both in the United States and abroad, threatening to derail the company's remarkable trajectory. With its latest financing round valuing the company in excess of $3.4 billion, management and investors were considering which strategies would continue-even accelerate-the company's growth.

Whole Foods has successfully rolled out a new store in a low-income neighborhood of Detroit and company leaders are looking to scale the model to Chicago's Englewood neighborhood and beyond. Chicago would offer $11 million in incentives, but the neighborhood lacks the hospital and university of Detroit's Midtown, whose employees frequent the grocer during lunch and after work. The brand many know as "Whole Paycheck" must find a way to make itself relevant to low-income populations and address issues of food access and poverty. Students will be asked to evaluate the business decision to enter low-income areas, considering both the "business bottom line" versus "business triple bottom line" debate.

Mara Group is a rapidly growing Pan-African conglomerate run by its entrepreneurial CEO Ashish Thakkar. The case explores Thakkar's decision on which African markets to expand operations into.

Mara Group is a rapidly growing Pan-African conglomerate run by its entrepreneurial CEO Ashish Thakkar. The case explores Thakkar's decision on which African markets to expand operations into.

The H&M case is set immediately after the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh. The case explores questions of who is to blame and how it should be addressed. There is no guarantee that H&M garment manufacturing had not been subcontracted to one of the factories in Rana Plaza, and Helena Helmersson, head of sustainability at H&M, must meet with the CEO, Karl-Johan Persson, to discuss how the company will respond and devise a plan to face the media coverage and public scrutiny of the apparel industry that is sure to follow. This case was written under the supervision of Andrew Hoffman at the University of Michigan by graduate students Marianna Kerppola, Ryan Moody, Likangjin Zheng, and Amaryllia Liu.