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The case tells the story of a strategic change and cultural shift at Innolume a start-up focused on unique laser production. George Gogolev, who represents the company's investors, is attempting to move the company away from customized productions for niche applications to mass production for the datacom market. Innolume won the Prism award - the "Oscar" of the photonics industry - for a laser dedicated to data transmission. However, the company lacked clear market vision, financing, production methods, quality controls and product readiness level. Although George convinced the investors to support the turnaround, it became apparent that the company's main challenge were cultural in nature. The Germany-based Innolume team consisted mainly of Russian scientists who were highly focused on R&D and technological excellence. At the same time, they lacked business development and were not customer-centric. The team was not supportive of the investors' initiative and sabotaged the changes, triggering open conflict between the staff and the new management. It took a comprehensive change management process to bring the new strategy and the company culture into alignment, and get the team on board. Finally, the company got on the right track for mass production. However, there were still some challenges related to product readiness. The issue of time becomes critical, and Innolume needs to speed up to benefit from the window of opportunity for entering the datacom market.

One of India’s leading stainless steel conglomerates, Jindal Stainless Limited (JSL) specialized in manufacturing flat sheets and coils, specific sections, pipes, and tubes. Abhyudaya Jindal, the managing director of JSL, was recently informed about the growing number of counterfeit products on the market that were adversely impacting JSL’s brand reputation and sales, as well as goodwill towards the company.<br><br>This case explores the challenges faced by Abhyudaya Jindal as he tried to address the issue of counterfeiting in the stainless steel pipes and tubes market. The case discusses various ways a company can battle counterfeit goods and how co-branding can be used as a market strategy. The case also examines how strengthening relationships with channel members can help a brand fight counterfeiting.

Urban Company (UC) was a digital labour platform that connected consumers with service providers (referred to as “partners” by UC) for home services such as plumbing, painting, and beauty and salon services. UC was ranked as the top digital platform company in India in the Fairwork India Ratings in 2020, but on October 10, 2021, the company met with a protest by its women partners from the beauty and salon segment. Two months later, on December 20, it faced another protest from its partners for unfair work practices. UC had shown a stellar performance in 2020, registering a 146 per cent increase in its revenue. However, the company was unprofitable, and its losses inflated further in 2021. Accommodating the partners’ demands might deteriorate the company’s bottom line further and might adversely impact the success of its initial public offering, planned for 2023. Additionally, continued unrest by the women partners might tarnish the company’s image, adversely affecting its rating in Fairwork’s annual survey. There was also a possibility that the government might impose stricter norms for the functioning of digital platforms. What should the company do to appease the protesters while also protecting its bottom line?

Urban Company (UC) was a digital labour platform that connected consumers with service providers (referred to as "partners" by UC) for home services such as plumbing, painting, and beauty and salon services. UC was ranked as the top digital platform company in India in the Fairwork India Ratings in 2020, but on October 10, 2021, the company met with a protest by its women partners from the beauty and salon segment. Two months later, on December 20, it faced another protest from its partners for unfair work practices. UC had shown a stellar performance in 2020, registering a 146 per cent increase in its revenue. However, the company was unprofitable, and its losses inflated further in 2021. Accommodating the partners' demands might deteriorate the company's bottom line further and might adversely impact the success of its initial public offering, planned for 2023. Additionally, continued unrest by the women partners might tarnish the company's image, adversely affecting its rating in Fairwork's annual survey. There was also a possibility that the government might impose stricter norms for the functioning of digital platforms. What should the company do to appease the protesters while also protecting its bottom line?

In 2022, Cher Wang, CEO and Chairwoman of HTC, was focused on the company's pivot to virtual reality and the metaverse. Growing competition in consumer virtual reality from Meta, Sony, and Chinese headset manufacturers had altered the competitive landscape since 2017. This supplement updates the case "HTC and Virtual Reality" (718-421).

The case is about Sea Limited (NYSE: SE), once Southeast Asia's most valuable listed company with a market capitalisation of over USD231 billion in October 2021. The company began as an online game distribution platform, and quickly evolved into a digital services ecosystem with an offering that included e-commerce and digital financial services. Being mobile-centric and focusing on emerging markets are at the core of Sea Limited's business model. In two post IPO fundraisings in December 2020 and in September 2021, it had amassed close to USD10 billion from the market. Investors were bullish towards Sea's prospects for growth. Yet, the global macro socio-economic conditions were challenging. Geopolitical tension between the US and China is increasing. Supply chains are disrupted. Interest rates are climbing, and the threat of global recession looms large. The case asks, under such conditions, how can Sea Limited address these challenges and realise its potential for further growth?

The vision of Anand Mahindra, Chairman of the Mahindra Group, in spearheading climate leadership in India, focusing on the proactive steps taken in steel manufacturing by Mahindra Sanyo Special Steel Limited (MSSSPL) through science-based targets is presented. Case set in 2021, when businesses in India and countries around the world were recovering from the unprecedented setbacks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the October 2021 COP26 Glasgow Summit, India had committed to achieve net zero by 2070, further reinforcing the need for corporates to take massive steps in reducing their carbon footprints. Anand Mahindra and Anirban Ghosh, Chief Sustainability Officer at the Mahindra Group, believe that there is an opportunity for the Group to do more to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The case illustrates the risks posed by climate change to businesses and the business benefits of setting science-based targets that can spur increased innovation potential, greater resilience against regulatory uncertainties, improved credibility among the new generation of investors, customers, employees, and other stakeholders, as well as better competitive advantage. Three years after committing to the SBTi, climate-induced challenges had become even more critical, necessitating swifter action to cut emissions across the value chain. The case discusses GHG emissions across 3 scopes, highlighting the value chain activities that contribute to Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions. MSSSPL has committed to reduce their emissions by 35% by 2030. Some of the measures adopted by MSSSPL to meet their GHG emissions reduction commitments to the SBTi such as improvements in raw material usage in various manufacturing processes, energy-efficient technologies to cumulatively reduce specific electricity and oil consumption, water use management, and waste management measures through a circular economy strategy. What more needs to be done by the company to keep up the momentum?

Leaders must know how to deliver bad news to employees and outside stakeholders. Whether an organization is responding to a complaint, communicating about a crisis situation, or notifying employees about a change in company policies or downsizing, its executives and managers must focus on creating an appropriate response while maintaining goodwill for the organization. This note addresses how executives can do just that. Where exactly do companies go wrong in their responses to crises? How can executives more effectively take responsibility in a disaster while at the same time crafting a positive image for the company? How can all leaders better communicate bad news of any kind?

Fernando Rios, CEO of RIMAC Seguros y Reaseguros (RIMAC), a leading insurance company in Peru, had been driving an intensive digital transformation at the company since 2018. By modernizing its IT infrastructure and support applications across critical business units, Fernando sought to deliver a superior customer experience through faster response times, enhanced security, and improved business continuity and resiliency, especially throughout the pandemic. By 2022, the company had built a strong foundation from which to scale up its advanced analytics and AI capabilities to enhance its value propositions beyond insurance and focus on delivering well-being. This was in line with its newly articulated corporate purpose, "We protect your world; we promote your well-being." Two questions remained uppermost in Fernando's mind: How can RIMAC accelerate the democratization of the benefits of AI and advanced data analytics? / How will AI capabilities drive the company's well-being agenda in the next three years?

This case study tells the story of Ambienta, an Italy-based asset management company that was an early entrant in the field of sustainable investing. From the very beginning, founder and managing partner Nino Tronchetti Provera saw sustainability as a "mega-trend" with broad implications for the national economy. By contrast, Ambienta's competitors - a category that now includes some of the world's largest asset managers - apply ESG-based investment criteria that often present more questions than answers about how environmental sustainability can drive financial returns.

This is the second of a two-part case study about Ambienta, a leading European asset manager focused on environmental sustainability. Case A introduces students and participants to the company and its unique profile in the industry. Ambienta's mission statement is "Sustainability adds value." The company has developed a proprietary methodology (the Environmental Impact Analysis or EIA) to demystify the linkage between financial returns and doing good for the planet. Case B is an exercise in which participants put themselves into the shoes of Ambienta's Sustainability & Strategy head as he applies the EIA to four hypothetical companies (based upon investment candidates actually analysed by Ambienta).

What started as a FMCG distributor in 1967 in Kenya as Export Finance Company, is now a dynamic global conglomerate across 48 countries and 5 continents - Export Trading Group. ETG was taken over by the then CFO Mahesh Patel after exit of the founding stakeholders. It was then when the company shifted its focus to being a key regional player. In the next 35 years, the company grew systematically. Business focus evolved when Patel saw an opportunity in logistics in remote sub-Saharan Africa. This was followed by business expansion with supply chain diversification and significant infrastructure investments. All the different businesses amalgamated under a single group for better operations and ease of scaling up. They were later divided into six separate verticals for better management. Vamara (FMCG vertical) was launched in 2018 as the company moved towards digitalisation - externally and internally. ETG plans to focus on new business opportunities and continue to diversify across geographies and portfolios.

This case talks about the 3P (People Planet Profit) strategies of Ant Group backed MYbank, which was established as an online bank in China, as part of Alibaba's ecosystem, with the vision of providing inclusive finance services to SMEs and farmers in rural China. In April 2022, however, the Chinese economy was grappling with the after effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and macro-economic trends had predicted slower growth for the year. The aggregate net profit of China's commercial banks was expected to grow at around 10% in 2022, compared to 12.6% in 2021. However, despite the challenges, there was optimism at MYbank as the company had reported a year-on-year growth of 31.6% for the first quarter of 2022, with loans and advances for the first quarter totalling a staggering US$ 27 billion. Banking had traditionally always paid more attention to high-net-worth individuals, fewer accounts and more one-on-one relationships. MYbank however, had focussed on technology, innovation, quick transactions, large volume of low-income consumers, and lower operational costs to create a sustainable business model. However, ripple effects of the pandemic were plaguing its target customer segment - SMEs and farmers from low-income backgrounds in rural China - who were grappling with economic uncertainties. Could MYbank continue to adopt a low margin, high volume model like assembly line businesses to target large swathes of the rural population and generate profit in the process? Could MYbank become the McDonald's of digital banking in China?

Legal decisions made at the state and federal levels on controversial social policies have a direct impact on business, particularly when such rulings conflict with stakeholder values. The authors provide examples that illustrate why companies need to be prepared to respond strategically to sudden public policy changes and political upheavals, and offer five principles to help leaders plan a course of action.

The case focuses on the transformation of OCP, a state-owned monopoly that mined and exploited Morocco's phosphate reserves. By 2021 it had become an organization with a mission to contribute to the sustainability of food security as the custodians of 70% of the world's phosphate reserves. Phosphate is one of three vital ingredients in fertilizers that are used to grow healthy, drought-resistant plants, and contributes to sustainable agriculture. This is nowhere more urgent than in Africa: sub-Saharan Africa has the world's fastest-growing population, but an impoverished agricultural system and only one-third of its arable land is cultivated. Helping smallholder farmers to cultivate more land with robust crops could improve the continent's sustainable agriculture and better feed its population. In 2016 OCP Group's Chairman, Dr Mostafa Terrab, launched "the Movement," a vaguely defined initiative to "liberate energy" and develop collective intelligence to build a more purposeful sustainable future. The Movement's goal was to continue the group's transformation from a hierarchical phosphate producer to a global, digital and learning organization with a mission to create sustainable growth for everyone. The case describes the Movement's philosophy, intention and principles: self-organization, an advice process, and collective intelligence based on a shared vision that all people can contribute to the organization and its ecosystem through collaboration. The Movement brings people together to anticipate future challenges and stakeholder expectations and to bring innovative ideas to life. By 2019, the Movement had launched 60 projects involving 9,000 people that have diversified the group's business activities, enhanced the employee experience, created growth opportunities and community engagement in Morocco and across Africa. Several of these projects have been anchored into the Group and have increased its focus on inclusive business and sustainable development.

This case describes the efforts of City Football Group (CFG) to purchase Esporte Clube Bahia (Bahia), a Brazilian professional soccer club. CFG's strategy was to acquire under-performing clubs worldwide, invest money in high-profile players, and improve the teams' performances. The company also aimed to develop young players on its lower-tier teams and then funnel them to Manchester City, its highest-performing team, once they matured. CFG instructed the teams to follow a similar style of play and, in some cases, changed teams' jerseys and names to conform to CFG's brand. Purchasing Bahia presented the opportunity to gain a foothold in Brazilian soccer, an under-monetized market poised for rapid growth. Yet Bahia was a mid-tier team with no star players. It was also unclear whether Bahia's fans and players would meld with CFG's culture and expectations. At the conclusion of the case, CFG CEO Ferran Soriano discovers that the price for Bahia is significantly higher than reports had initially indicated. Is the club worth the price?

One of the most iconic American companies, General Electric (GE) was founded in 1892 in New York state. Named among the original dozen companies on the Dow Jones index in 1896, it was the list's most tenacious holdout, maintaining its "blue chip" stock status for over one hundred years. Throughout its history, GE survived, indeed initiated, revolutions across industries, technologies, and managerial practices. By the time award-winning "Manager of the Century" Jack Welch retired from his position as CEO in 2001, GE's market capitalization was over $410 billion. That peak was never surpassed, and the subsequent decline tested company leadership. Welch's hand-picked successor CEO Jeffrey Immelt oversaw GE's near-bankruptcy in 2008 and warranted SEC penalties for misleading investors between 2015 and 2017. Media critiqued his replacement, John Flannery, for lacking urgency as he slashed the company's once-coveted dividend in half. In October 2018, H. Lawrence Culp became the first outsider CEO in the company's history after another Board intervention. With a changing landscape that had rendered Welch's handbook outdated and recent leadership that had been heavily criticized, Larry Culp faced looming strategic challenges. Would Culp's financial, managerial, and structural transformation empower long-term value creation?

In 2018, Francisco Staton, Managing Director of Arcos Dorados in Colombia had to decide on the company's strategy to expand its food ordering and delivery business in the country. Arcos Dorados stood as McDonald's largest independent franchisee, and Colombia was one of the 20 markets and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean where the company operated. Arcos Dorados had analyzed the conditions under which the company would offer delivery services at its restaurants, following the announcement of agreement entered into by McDonald's corporation for offering delivery globally through a last-mile delivery company. As there were local limitations not addressed by the global agreement, Arcos Dorados' Colombia's management team were considering two potential alternatives that could help to address them. The first alternative hinged on stepping up the company's efforts to consolidate its own delivery service. With the second alternative, the company would pursue partnering with last-mile delivery platforms under more favorable conditions than the ones agreed upon by the global agreement. What would be the best alternative to move forward?

In 2020, Francisco Staton, president of Arcos Dorados' Caribbean Division, and Héctor Orozco, Managing Director of Arcos Dorados Colombia, were looking into Arcos Dorados' options to consolidate its food delivery service in Colombia. This time the matter at hand hinged on signing an exclusivity agreement with a startup that had recently moved into Colombia's market.

After the 2008–09 financial crisis, the Chinese shipping industry grew markedly and took on a more dominant role in global shipping. As a result, it was felt by some that China’s state-driven economic model had possibly created an unequal playing field. Under the political agenda of the Belt and Road Initiative, specifically the Maritime Silk Road, Chinese state-owned enterprises acquired strategic infrastructure assets, establishing a global network of shipping infrastructure through investments in strategically important ports and terminals. The growth of China’s shipping industry raised several concerns in Europe and for AP Moller–Maersk, the largest container shipping conglomerate in the market. By late 2020, some European governments were becoming more cautious; the European Union had increased restrictions on investments by Chinese companies, and European governments had become increasingly outspoken about China’s geopolitical ambitions. How could AP Moller–Maersk use non-market strategies to better position itself relative to increasing competition from China?