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This case is the follow-up of Kingdee A(6-311-351). In 2011, Kingdee made strategic investments and business expansions, suffering net profit decline despite operating revenue growth and also changes to top managers.

For decades, management consultants and the popular business press have urged large firms to flatten their hierarchies. Flattening (or delayering) typically refers to the elimination of layers in a firm's hierarchy and the broadening of managers' spans of control. The alleged benefits flow primarily from pushing decisions downward to enhance market responsiveness and improve accountability and morale. Has flattening delivered on its promise? This article demonstrates that flattening management layers can have the opposite effect from their intention. In fact, flattened firms typically exhibit more control and decision making at the top.

The chief public relations (PR) strategist for SG Media is using the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) as an example in her public relations training session. In 2011, the TTC has been in the news because of a combination of poorly managed fare hike announcements and the perception of lax service quality. Consumers have taken to publishing, on social media sites, images of TTC employees seemingly in violation of service standards. The strategist is thinking about an appropriate PR strategy that the TTC could rely on to rectify its image.

Russia and China are neighbors with complementary needs: Russia has an abundance of energy resources, which China needs to fuel its industry. The case analyzes the evolution of the China-Russia energy relations in the post-Cold War period, with an emphasis on the political factors, external and domestic, impeding and contributing to the full realization of the potential of energy ties between Russia and China.

In 2012, J Sainsbury Plc (Sainsbury's), the number three supermarket chain in the UK with £22.3 billion in sales, appeared to have put the troubles of the past behind it. For over 70 years, Sainsbury's had been the UK's largest grocer, but Tesco had overtaken it in 1995 and then Asda knocked it into third position in 2003. When Justin King took over as CEO in 2004, UK sales were flat and UK profits languished at 40% below their 1999 levels. He cut prices and restored sales growth, and from 2007 onwards, Sainsbury's had outperformed Tesco on same-store sales growth. What did King need to do to sustain Sainsbury's revival?

Global Unichip Corporation (GUC) is a design services company that acts as a front-end to TSMC, the world's largest semiconductor foundry. In so doing, it masked the complexity of the latest process technologies and reduced the entry barriers for small firms to utilize the latest technology. In acting as an aggregator, it was also able to capture scale benefits. But it saw a change in the market coming as a major systems house customer came to GUC directly. Did this mean that it was enabling competition with TSMC's most important customers? Was it fostering disintermediation, and what did this portend for the future shape of the industry?

It was October 3rd, 2012, and all was not well at Tesco, the UK's largest supermarket chain with revenues of £64.5 billion ($104 billion). CEO Philip Clarke unveiled the first half-year profit drop in almost 20 years and, in the UK, the majors Asda and Sainsbury were closing the market-share gap, while niche players like hard discounter Aldi, with prices as much as 20% below Tesco's, and premium-grocer Waitrose were both growing fast. What did Clarke need to do to restore confidence and get Tesco back on track?

Monocle, a magazine on global affairs, culture, and business, was founded by Tyler Brule to counter a perceived deterioration in the quality of print publications available at the newsstand. Monocle differentiates itself from other publications through its diverse international coverage and related newspaper, radio, and shop offerings. The case investigates the growth of Monocle and how the publication has developed its unique relationship with readers and advertisers.

Supplement to case 712424.

In July 2010, Sujit Patil, head of corporate communications for Mumbai-based Tata Chemicals Limited (TCL) has to develop a company branding strategy after a series of acquisitions. TCL has acquired several of the top producers in the soda ash business, making it a commanding player in the global industrial and commercial markets for this product. The acquisitions include the large British producer, Bruner Mond; the US leader, General Chemicals Industrial Products; and Kenya based Magadi Soda - all of which have well-known brands and established customers. The senior management at TCL wants to see these new companies unified under a single global brand. But that task has proved difficult to execute given the long-standing brands and centuries-old companies. Kenyan Magadi Soda even has a town named after it! Patil must consider his next steps - whether to sustain the long-standing and well-selling brands, or scrap them all for a new global brand representing what is now the second largest soda ash producer in the world.

Reliance Industries had evolved into a major player in the Asia Pacific region, and had begun to make its presence felt in the global petrochemicals and refining business segments. It had also made forays into exploration and production for oil and gas in multiple regions worldwide. This case study addresses the evolution of the company from a family-owned small-scale textile manufacturer to a global powerhouse within a few decades. It provides insights into how the company was able to trade on its competitive advantages at home in building a global strategy. Within the entrepreneurship and family business realm, the case allows for a rich thematic discussion around understanding the role of entrepreneurial leaders, the pros and cons of family control in large corporations, and impact on minority shareholders. From a global strategy perspective, the case provides a rich description of the nuances of building competitive advantage in emerging market contexts, the benefits of late movers in the race to globalize, and the unique modes of competition adopted by companies from newly industrializing countries. Since it is set in India, the case offers a comprehensive look at ground realities in that country, covering topics ranging from capital market conditions, governmental control and regulation as barriers to growth, and the role of external relationships management as a key competitive weapon in driving sustainable advantage

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Planning for post-merger integration typically focuses on operational issues, such as harmonizing product lines and financial and human resource information systems, and determining which employees are retained and which ones are let go. Attention is also paid to the identity of the merged enterprise in a superficial sense. The name of the acquirer may be retained, or a new logo may be created or a new name found. But for organizations to achieve the psychological synergies required to realize economic synergies from mergers and acquisitions, the authors argue that executives need to attend to a more complex, deeper set of identity issues. These issues define the essence of the entity and give employees a clear answer to the question "Who are we?"and external stakeholders a clear answer to the question "Who are they?"The first question refers to an organization's members'view of what makes it unique among all other organizations. The second question captures what external audiences believe is the essence of the organization. Left unattended, these deeper identity issues will diminish engagement and will inevitably affect the performance of the merged entity. Operational integration post-merger is a necessary but not sufficient condition for successful performance. Careful attention to identity integration is also essential for success. The authors argue that there is no "one best way"and that in fact there are four distinct paths that can be followed to achieve identity integration: assimilation, federation, confederation and metamorphosis. Each of these paths represents a particular combination of the answers to two questions that managers must confront in anticipation of a merger or acquisition: What should be done with the identities that the parties to the merger bring with them (in other words, their historical identities)? And how should a common identity for the future be built?

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article.

Big data, the authors write, is far more powerful than the analytics of the past. Executives can measure and therefore manage more precisely than ever before. They can make better predictions and smarter decisions. They can target more effective interventions in areas that so far have been dominated by gut and intuition rather than by data and rigor. The differences between big data and analytics are a matter of volume, velocity, and variety: More data now cross the internet every second than were stored in the entire internet 20 years ago. Nearly real-time information makes it possible for a company to be much more agile than its competitors. And that information can come from social networks, images, sensors, the web, or other unstructured sources. The managerial challenges, however, are very real. Senior decision makers have to learn to ask the right questions and embrace evidence-based decision making. Organizations must hire scientists who can find patterns in very large data sets and translate them into useful business information. IT departments have to work hard to integrate all the relevant internal and external sources of data. The authors offer two success stories to illustrate how companies are using big data: PASSUR Aerospace enables airlines match their actual and estimated arrival times. Sears Holdings directly analyzes its incoming store data to make promotions much more precise and faster.

Dozens of multinational companies from emerging markets are roaring out of obscurity to compete head-to-head with the world's great corporations--without paying much attention to the kind of strategy making that is typically taught in business schools. Unencumbered by complicated or calcified rules about which markets to focus on and how to grow, these firms are achieving success by executing first and analyzing later, pursuing headlong expansion, and embracing turbulent markets. Mauro F. Guillen of the Wharton School and Esteban Garcia-Canal of the University of Oviedo in Spain say that these companies' tendency to make strategy on the fly may be the reason they don't garner the kind of respect in the developed world that is showered on the likes of GE, IBM, and P&G. In this article, the authors take a close look at three firms--Mexico's Bimbo, the number one bread baker in the world; India's Ocimum Biosolutions, a contract R&D and research firm; and Egypt's Orascom, a conglomerate operating in many of the world's most chaotic regions--to understand how their mind-set feeds their success. In today's world, all companies need to be able to function in unpredictable business environments. Emerging multinationals already know how to do that--it's what they're used to. Lessons from their success are applicable to global firms wherever they're from and wherever they do business.

SparkPlace is a two-year-old business with a hot new product: software that manages and measures the effectiveness of permission-based marketing campaigns for social media. The company is in the process of deciding on which of two customer segments to focus its strategy. Each segment has demonstrable advantages, but developing the product for and marketing to both segments simultaneously could pose big challenges. Is the argument against being "all things to all people" a valid one? If so, which customer segment should SparkPlace target? Or is there a single strategy that can capture the potential value of both types of customers without draining the company's resources? These questions are at the heart of this fictionalized case by Jill Avery, of the Simmons School of Management, and Thomas Steenburgh, of the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Expert commentary comes from regular HBR contributor Roger Martin, of the University of Toronto, and from Mike Volpe, chief marketing officer at HubSpot, the company on which SparkPlace is based.

SparkPlace is a two-year-old business with a hot new product: software that manages and measures the effectiveness of permission-based marketing campaigns for social media. The company is in the process of deciding on which of two customer segments to focus its strategy. Each segment has demonstrable advantages, but developing the product for and marketing to both segments simultaneously could pose big challenges. Is the argument against being "all things to all people" a valid one? If so, which customer segment should SparkPlace target? Or is there a single strategy that can capture the potential value of both types of customers without draining the company's resources? These questions are at the heart of this fictionalized case by Jill Avery, of the Simmons School of Management, and Thomas Steenburgh, of the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Expert commentary comes from regular HBR contributor Roger Martin, of the University of Toronto, and from Mike Volpe, chief marketing officer at HubSpot, the company on which SparkPlace is based.

SparkPlace is a two-year-old business with a hot new product: software that manages and measures the effectiveness of permission-based marketing campaigns for social media. The company is in the process of deciding on which of two customer segments to focus its strategy. Each segment has demonstrable advantages, but developing the product for and marketing to both segments simultaneously could pose big challenges. Is the argument against being "all things to all people" a valid one? If so, which customer segment should SparkPlace target? Or is there a single strategy that can capture the potential value of both types of customers without draining the company's resources? These questions are at the heart of this fictionalized case by Jill Avery, of the Simmons School of Management, and Thomas Steenburgh, of the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Expert commentary comes from regular HBR contributor Roger Martin, of the University of Toronto, and from Mike Volpe, chief marketing officer at HubSpot, the company on which SparkPlace is based.

The management of Germany's Brainlab AG, a leading provider of software-driven oncology and surgery solutions, needs to evaluate strategic options for proceeding without an exclusive hardware partner in its most profitable business segment.