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Describes Google's history, business model, governance structure, corporate culture, and processes for managing innovation. Reviews Google's recent strategic initiatives and the threats they pose to Yahoo, Microsoft, and others. Asks what Google should do next. One option is to stay focused on the company's core competence, i.e., developing superior search solutions and monetizing them through targeted advertising. Another option is to branch into new arenas, for example, build Google into a portal like Yahoo or MSN; extend Google's role in e-commerce beyond search, to encompass a more active role as an intermediary (like eBay) facilitating transactions; or challenge Microsoft's position on the PC desktop by developing software to compete with Office and Windows.

Dell Inc., with its vaunted Direct Model, defined success in the personal computer industry for more than a decade. Starting in the mid-2000s, however, the company fell on hard times. In 2009, Michael Dell and his management team must figure out why the Direct Model has faltered and what they can do to revitalize the company.

What you need to be able to talk about intelligently if you mention that you have a strategy: 1) your overall strategic direction; 2) your strategic targets; 3) your competitive formula; 4) your current competitive challenges; 5) the resources and capabilities you need; 6) your competitive advantages; 7) your strategic priorities and 8) how you communicate your strategy in a simple, compelling way in form of a "strategy elevator statement". Learning objectives: What the key building blocks of a strategy are.

The managing directors of Berkshire Partners, a mid-sized private equity firm, address strategic and organizational challenges in response to turbulent market conditions, rapid firm growth, and the transition of leadership from its founding partners to the next generations. To address some of these dynamics, and to protect Berkshire's corporate advantage, the managing directors established three executive oversight committees, developed new specialized corporate functions, and incubated an internal hedge fund group. Students are given the opportunity to assess Berkshire's recent changes in corporate strategy and organizational design and to formulate recommendations going forward.

This case examines Millennium's strategic and organizational responses to the rapid evolution of the biopharmaceutical industry. In the early 2000s, as Millennium's competitive advantage in early-stage research slipped away and its losses mounted, founder CEO Mark Levin moved the firm downstream away from research and towards drug development and commercialization, while narrowing horizontal breadth from over a dozen therapeutic classes to just three. In 2005, Levin hired Deborah Dunsire from Novartis as CEO to lead Millennium's continuing transformation. Students are asked to put themselves in the shoes of incoming CEO Dunsire and to provide organizational recommendations to execute the new strategy.

Models to monetizing news in the digital landscape which is real-time, searchable, sharable, multi-sourced, anytime, any screen were emerging in 2010. Could content creators get people to pay for what they watched, read, listened to, and shared online? Were news aggregators riding on the backs of the new content generators? Or were they providing a new stream of audience directly to new sites which needed to create innovative models to monetize their content? As more delivery models were on the horizon (location-based breaking headlines via cell phones) and more content production unhinged from a commercial entity (images captured and uploaded from personal cell phone cameras), the news industry landscape became freewheeling and individualistic. The straight line model of content generator, distributor to reader was gone.

The case 'Google Inc.' describes Google's history, business model, governance structure, corporate culture, and processes for managing innovation. It reviews Google's recent strategic initiatives and the threats they pose to Yahoo!, Microsoft, and others. It also asks what Google should do next. One option is to stay focused on the company's core competence, i.e., developing superior search solutions and monetizing them through targeted advertising. Another option is to branch into new arenas; for example, build Google into a portal like Yahoo! or MSN; extend Google's role in e-commerce beyond search, to encompass a more active role as an intermediary (like eBay) facilitating transactions; or challenge Microsoft's position on the PC desktop by developing software to compete with Office and Windows.

This mini-case details the history of Dell and its made-to-order production system. From a simple computer assembly and delivery company, Dell grew to dominate the PC industry by leveraging information and focusing on efficiency throughout the supply chain. However, changes in consumer tastes and supplier cost structure led to the decline of Dell's performance in 2005. What happened? This case is included in Module 2 of the course Business Thought & Action.

Twitter is a micro-blogging company that allows users to send short text updates to others. The site is used by people, including celebrities, government officials, and businesses. It helps to raise money for non-profit organizations and provides first-responders with information during a natural disaster. Even though almost 10 million people visited the site in early 2009, the site had no strategy for monetizing the traffic. The case allows students to examine potential monetization strategies for Twitter.

This note is an adaptation for classroom use of Chapter 2 of "The Services Shift" by R.E. Kennedy (2009). It introduces students to Michael Porter's 1985 value chain approach to strategically analyzing firms, which says that a firm is a system of interconnected activities with both physical and information linkages. It takes students through the basic steps of analyzing a firm's value chain, explaining that to truly understand how a firm can create and capture value, it is important to explore how activities within the firm are organized and coordinated. The note concludes with some general insights to take away from the value chain framework. To apply this framework to specific companies, this note can be taught in conjunction with "Note on Exploring the Value Chain of Branded Fashion Goods", which profiles Gap Inc. and Deckers Outdoor Corp., and gives students a context in which to use the value chain framework. This case is included in Module 1 of the course Business Thought.

This note explains the considerations involved in determining a firm's vertical, horizontal, and geographic scope. It is organized into five sections: An introduction that presents important questions related to strategy formulation that managers face after mapping their firm's value chain; a second section that provides a brief introduction to Transactions Cost Economics, a framework that helps explain firm governance and scope decisions; a third section that links TCE considerations to decisions about a firm's vertical and horizontal scope; a fourth section that explores the issue of where to locate activities; and a fifth section that concludes. This case is included in Module 1 of the course Business Thought & Action.

David Hartstein founded KaBloom in 1998 with the financial backing and encouragement of his partner, Thomas Stemberg, chairman and CEO of Staples, Inc. They wanted to increase flower purchases in the U.S. by changing the way Americans thought about buying flowers, and they sought to encourage U.S. shoppers to buy flowers not only on special occasions but as often as they bought bread and milk. In 1999 Inc Magazine named KaBloom a "Hot Start-Up." However, nearly three years and one recession later, KaBloom failed to live up to its forecast of grossing $15 million in 2000. KaBloom's early growth came to an end in 2001, with 34 shops. A dozen of the company-owned stores were not performing well, and their failure was eating into the profits of the other 22 stores. Hartstein chose franchising to better connect the stores to their respective neighborhoods and to reduce the high turnover of personnel at the store level, but new problems arose. He had to make a series of operational and structural decisions in 2005 after facing additional business challenges.

This case describes the crisis of a small deteriorating zoo located in a small community in an economically depressed region. The key decision point is defined at the beginning as the newly hired zoo director is preparing a turnaround plan. The students need to come up with a vision, a strategy and a concrete plan taking into consideration of the park's limited resources and the environment within which it operates. The case outlines the history of the fifth oldest zoo in the U.S. and its gradual deterioration in parallel with the local and regional economy. In the three years prior to the appointment of the new director, the decline had accelerated, mainly due to weak management and turmoil at the top. The facility had lost its accreditation by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and permanent closure was a realistic possibility although the board was resolved to keep the park afloat. Many shortcomings listed in the case had caused the zoo to lose its accredited status and they needed to be addressed as part of a turnaround plan towards reaccreditation. Also, the public needed to be assured of the zoo's viability. The start of the new season was only a few months away and the new zoo director had to sort through a multitude of problems and decide what to do, to develop a budget for the upcoming season and present a convincing strategy to the board. Most critical was to increase funding, yet the city and the county were unlikely sources given the poor state of the local economy.

This case depicts the current and future challenges faced by The Tantramarsh Club, more commonly referred to as The Pub, Mount Allison University's (MTA) non-profit club. The case is set in April 2008 as the winter semester was finishing up in the small town of Sackville, New Brunswick, located on the southeast coast of Canada. The Pub had experienced several years of financial difficulties, however, the 2007 / 08 year was expected to be a financially sound year. The primary protagonist, Manager, Jonathan "Scooter" Clark, was worried about the organization's ability to sustain financial stability once The Pub moved to its new location, planned for August 2008. Members of the board, who were involved in discussions around the future of The Pub, were secondary protagonists in the case. The board and Scooter had to determine the most appropriate business model for The Pub as it moved to its new location. The case draws attention to a changing external environment and the impact this had upon The Pub. Competition in Sackville was friendly, but relatively fierce. The most significant consumer group for The Pub, students, were price sensitive, fickle and quick to move onto a different bar if a competitor offered something more appealing. National trends indicated less spending on alcoholic beverages and increased spending on food. Moreover, campus pubs across the country were changing their business models, moving from a focus on alcohol to food and diversified entertainment options.

In early 2010, e-readers like Amazon's Kindle, and Apple's impending iPad, threatened to disrupt the book publishing industry. The case provides an overview of the industry, describes the broader trends regarding e-readers, and asks: how should major publishers like Random House respond to these trends?

"Safety net" providers play an essential role in delivering health care to underserved populations in states such as California. As the prominence of the safety net increases, medtech innovators seeking to make a difference have begun to design and develop new technologies to help these providers improve the quality and cost effectiveness of their care. This note introduces practical considerations that should be taken into account when developing technologies targeted at the safety net. Specifically, by looking downstream in the biodesign innovation process to anticipate issues related to safety net economics, reimbursement, technology assessment, and purchasing behavior, innovators can begin to understand how to adapt their approach and create new technologies that are not just meaningful, but feasible for adoption in the complex safety net system.

Meetup, an on-line company providing means of arranging face-to-face meetings, is deciding between two options of increasing its revenue by investing to: (i) increase new sign ups, (ii) improve the engagement of existing users.

Brief discussion of resources and capabilities, their importance, and their role in the creation of competitive advantage.

The majority of new product ideas never make it to market. This note is a concise description of what separates the winners from the losers. In other words, what are the characteristics of good opportunities for successful new products or services? This note is an ideal tool for introducing research and insights about product success rates. This case can be taught in conjunction with the profile "A Personal Genomics Company: 23andMe." This case is included in Module 2 of the course Business Thought & Action.

This note profiles two companies--Gap Inc. and Deckers Outdoors Corp--with a focus on their value chains. It includes financial information and breaks down the parts of the two companies' value chains for students to analyze and compare. It is intended to be preceded by "Note on the Value Chain: A Framework for Analyzing Firm Activities." This case is included in Module 1 of the course Business Thought & Action.