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In January 2022, Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) announced the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Activision) for US$68.7 billion. With a growing franchise of games, and with Microsoft's apparent ambitions for the games console market, Activision was an attractive acquisition target. Activision owned some of the most popular games in the world and had a $54 billion market value in 2020. The acquisition would also take Microsoft a step closer to expansion into the metaverse, where-along with the cloud gaming and video game software industries-it hoped to gain an edge. However, gaming was a small part of Microsoft's business. So why had Microsoft pursued the acquisition? What advantages did Microsoft see in it? And what would the move mean for Sony Interactive Entertainment (Sony), the market leader in the video games industry? Finally, how should Microsoft address the allegations of harassment and other employee complaints that had arisen at Activision and set right the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues that had arisen at Activision?

London Hydro, Inc. (London Hydro) must forecast the electricity demand of the firm's clients. The Ontario Energy Board had just announced the results of a pilot program to introduce a new pricing scheme to residential energy consumers in Ontario. This was the origin of tiered pricing, which was based on overall monthly energy usage. In the past, consumers had all been on a time-of-use plan where energy was more expensive during peak hours and cheaper in lower-demand hours. Thus, London Hydro had to anticipate the potential change in client behaviour and predict the effects of the pricing shift. Using data it had gathered on individual household energy consumption, London Hydro hoped that by forecasting which consumers might shift to the new tiered pricing plan it could gain key insights that would help the firm understand what effects the plan might have on its revenues and on its clients' consumption behaviours.

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Firms in mature industries often find themselves at a strategic crossroads, forced to choose between consolidating their position in existing market segments or breaking into new markets. At SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Wuling"), the scales tipped in favor of the latter option: the company challenged the status quo by developing the Hongguang MINIEV (hereinafter "MINIEV"), a model featuring a minimalist design and no redundant features. The company also encouraged customization to adapt to shifting user preferences, turning the MINIEV into a fashion statement. By doing so, Wuling could avoid fighting for existing market share and break into the mass market for customized cars. In April 2021, nine months after its launch, the MINIEV was China's best-selling electric vehicle (EV) for the eighth consecutive month. It also topped the global EV sales rankings in January and April 2021. Despite its success, the MINIEV did not bring a sense of safety for Wuling's general manager Shen Yang and deputy general manager Xue Haitao. Instead, the two worried about how long the sales momentum would last, what sort of product strategy Wuling should adopt in the future, and which path to take-specifically, to tap into the higher-end segment with upgraded products or to consolidate its position in the value-for-money segment.

Axis Bank was the fifth-largest bank in India, one of the world's fastest-growing economies. In 2006, the bank set up a trust, Axis Bank Foundation, to manage its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. In Phase 1 of its CSR journey, it had followed three of the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations and achieved the mission of "generating one million livelihoods in a sustainable manner," ahead of schedule. Encouraged by the success of Phase 1, Axis Bank planned to include three additional Sustainable Development Goals to guide Phase 2 with the mission of "generating livelihoods in a sustainable manner for two million households." Rajesh Dahiya, who oversaw Axis Bank's CSR initiatives, was faced with several key decisions for framing the CSR strategy for Phase 2 based on an evaluation of the performance in Phase 1 and the lessons learned in that phase.

Autodesk's new CEO launched three strategic initiatives that would transform the company into a global leader in software products and services for architecture, engineering, and construction. The company would be a customer-centric organization, with the new technologies and apps its customers demanded. How would the company meet the challenge of customer expectations-and their fears about shifting to cloud-native solutions? After all, different customer segments were likely to have distinctly different expectations-but delighting customers with next-generation cloud solutions would power their operations, as well as Autodesk's growth. At the same time, how would Autodesk balance old and new products, and make the transition seamless? This would involve an internal cultural shift, as engineers generally preferred to write new code, and take on new challenges, vs. leveraging existing code. But shared services-in which teams leveraged common, existing services to save time, ensure quality, and move fast-were critical to development the new platforms. As the Autodesk CEO commented, "Perceptions change lightning fast, but it takes a lot longer for people to change."

Within a decade, Apple twice changed its mind about where the boundaries of the firm should lie. In 2010 the company introduced an Apple-designed custom "system on a chip" (SoC) for its iPhone and iPad products, which replaced non-customized Samsung chips. Then in 2020, Apple announced that it would end its 15-year partnership with Intel and begin designing the microprocessors inside its new Mac computers. This was the second time Apple had switched microprocessors in its computers. From 1994 to 2005, Apple computers ran on IBM PowerPC microprocessors, which were incompatible with the dominant Intel x86 chip architecture. At the time, Apple had only a 4 percent share of the personal computer market. In 2005, the company announced it would switch its Mac computers to Intel chips to take advantage of Intel's industry-standard architecture and superior product roadmap, which would enable Apple to build the products it envisioned. In November 2020, Apple unveiled three Mac computers that used its new custom M1 processor. Apple's custom chip contained numerous special-purpose accelerators that enabled performance and capabilities not accessible with off-the-shelf chips. As it did when it switched to Intel microprocessors, Apple provided software emulation technology that enabled existing Intel-based apps to run on the new Macs until they were updated to work with the new Apple chips. Huawei and Samsung had developed custom SoCs for their smartphones, but no other personal computer company followed Apple's path.

Third Place Winner; 2022 DEI Global Case Writing Competition. Ashima Patel, senior vice president and chief diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) officer at Shoppers Market, a global retailer, has made progress but needs to do more, especially regarding decreasing representation of women of color in the company. In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd and effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Shoppers Market, like other companies across corporate America, has been called upon to show that it is advancing racial equity with how it hires, promotes, and does business. While Shoppers Market had established a diversity office in 2007, the company wanted to redouble its commitment to DEI and hired Patel in October 2020 to lead the charge. With Patel's leadership, the company made significant strides in DEI and released its first-ever mid-year DEI report in September 2021. However, Shoppers Market was facing a challenge that most of corporate America was grappling with: a lack of improvement in representation for women of color. Though women of color represented about one in four U.S. employees at Shoppers Market in mid-year 2021, they made up just 4.3% of people at the officer level-people with president or vice president in their titles. Despite an increase in hiring, the representation of women of color at Shoppers Market had declined by 8% overall, and by 33% in leadership positions, over the last five years. This declining representation was a growing cause for concern for the CEO, James Spyers. He had committed to showing sustained improvement in representation for women of color in leadership positions by 2025 and was due to present a solid plan to the board of directors by the end of 2021. Patel and her team knew they needed to quickly understand and address the underlying causes. This case provides insights into a key aspect of DEI: intersectionality and its implications for the corporate world. Students will explore the challenges facing women of

First Place Winner; 2022 DEI Global Case Writing Competition. Cara Sabin (she), a Black woman, became the CEO of Sundial Brands in 2019. The Sundial beauty brands focus on the personal care needs of Black women and men. In 2017, Unilever acquired Sundial Brands in a deal valued at $1.6 billion, one of the largest beauty and personal care deals in the United States to date and the largest consumer products deal involving a majority Black-owned company. Key to the acquisition was that Unilever agreed to allow Sundial to operate as a separate, autonomous company. As Sundial's CEO, Sabin was the public face of the brand. She was regularly interviewed and her picture was used for in-store marketing materials. Her personal values aligned strongly with Sundial Brands' mission and purpose. However, the company was still owned by Unilever, where the top executives were white men. As part of the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, customers started increasing their support for Black-owned businesses while calling for the boycott of white-owned businesses that marketed to the Black community. It was in this environment in June 2020 that Sabin reviewed online attacks on SheaMoisture, Sundial's flagship brand, for being owned by Unilever. Sabin needed to decide how SheaMoisture should address this crisis. Should she wait to see if it would blow over? If not, what was the correct communication strategy? As a Black woman, was she willing to incur the personal attacks that would inevitably occur if she responded?

In 2015, David Crane was the CEO of NRG, the second-largest energy producer in the United States. NRG got most of its power from fossil fuels, but Crane - hired as CEO in 2003 as NRG emerged from bankruptcy - had invested heavily in alternative energy, loudly proclaiming the business benefits of being a leader on climate change. But by 2015, facing investor and board pressure, Crane was forced to spin off NRG's renewable assets, marking the end of his bold strategy.

Janice Greer works for NVX Pharmaceuticals, a US firm with increasing global operations. Not long after Greer's promotion to country head for Japan, their boss suggests that widespread layoffs will be needed to help bring performance of the international units in line with domestic operations. Cultural differences between US and Japanese work practices and traditions complicate the decisions Greer faces in dealing with members of their team. How should they navigate this delicate situation?

Mei-Ling Liu has come a long way from her humble beginnings in a small town on the coast of Taiwan. She is in New York City to interview for an assistant professor position at Columbia University's business school. After completing undergraduate studies in Taipei-and following much soul-searching-she had departed for the United States to earn her PhD. Now, six years later and against long odds, she is a step away from a faculty position at the prestigious school. But she finds herself face to face with an unexpected and formidable foe-a very combative interviewer. Can she collect her wits, parry the thrusts, and win the job?

Paul Waddle works for Tripod Capital (Tripod), a venture fund focused on investing globally in fintech start-ups. Ambitious and a self-starter, Waddle is in pursuit of fast-growing the Nigerian payments platform DigitApt. As he enters the final stages of closing a deal, he is confronted with cultural differences between US and Nigerian work practices and traditions. Understanding and appropriately integrating these differences could be the key to adding DigitApt to his portfolio and continuing his steady upward rise at Tripod. This vignette is meant to serve as the kind of scenario one encounters increasingly in the world of business (and society in general) where seemingly opposing forces coexist and require careful analysis, interpretation, and synthesis.

Our story starts in 2001. Mike Caswell, an engineer and early Starbuck's employee, creates a technology that permits better flavor and increased margins, for fresh-roasted coffee in retail stores. Years of engineering and fundraising, franchising, disputes, hopes and frustrations ensue. Jamie Robertson joins in 2017, as both investor and CEO of a new unit in the UK and opens a store in London. The Covid pandemic hits, but Jamie perseveres, as he has realized that it is the customer experience that will make the difference. Jamie and his team open additional stores in London, Jamie is named CEO of the group, and eventually they are successful in raising significant funds for expansion in the UK and the US.

Blake Cody is a consultant who has been brought in to optimize and increase efficiency at a manufacturing plant mired in a market slump. He identifies divisions between two groups of employees-salaried (permanent) and hourly (temporary)-as a central challenge. Are misaligned values, incentives, and work practices at the root of the problem? Resolving the tensions could lead to significant improvements for the plant and the firm, but the divisions run deep. What solutions can Cody propose?

Colleen Burton has taken over the account of a Swiss client for her New York-based financial-services company. Landing the account, after a long courtship, had been a coup for her midmarket firm. The investor, however, has expressed his disapproval and unease with his new manager, and Burton's best efforts have failed to win him over. On a trip to Switzerland, she learns of a personal conflict of interest involving one of the client's outside fund managers. She cannot afford to jeopardize this critical relationship for her firm-or breach her code of ethics. Gaining the client's trust as his adviser just got trickier.

Abdullah "Abe" Al-Multaq works in the acquisitions team of a large and ambitious US tech company. As his team undertakes due diligence at a target company he had identified in Saudi Arabia, cultural differences between representatives of the two firms flare up, chilling relations between the groups. Being from Saudi Arabia originally and brought up in an Islamic home, Abe feels responsible to act as a cultural mediator. Will he be able to bridge the widening schisms to save the deal?

The case describes how FC Barcelona's Innovation Hub (BIH) helped the club generate revenues through digital means when Covid 19 struck, causing football stadiums and their merchandise outlets to close for months, with damaging financial consequences. Launched in 2017, the BIH allowed pitch performance to be combined with long-term strategic initiatives. By March 2020 (when Covid hit) it had created an end-to-end ecosystem that engaged with external partners through open innovation. Having tried to negotiate lower salaries with players but failed, the club was forced to find other solutions to fund its activities - through the BIH. In May 2022, FC Barcelona was voted the most innovative football team worldwide by the Sports Innovation Lab. That same year, the club announced a partnership with Spotify, the popular audio subscription streaming service, renaming its stadium Spotify Camp Nou - a first in bringing music and football together, giving players and artists a global stage and opportunities to connect with fans worldwide. https://publishing.insead.edu/case/barca-innovation-hub

The case describes the family tensions and corporate crisis at City Developments Limited (CDL), a large and well-reputed Singaporean property firm that was the flagship company of a larger family-controlled business group. The gradual transition to the third-generation leader was marked by an aggressive growth strategy in China, which unravelled when the Chinese property sector experienced headwinds and CDL’s Chinese joint venture partner experienced liquidity problems. These events forced the family firm to write off US$1.32 billion in 2021, causing it to report its first loss in decades. Moreover, four board members resigned, with one citing “unresolved differences in opinion” as part of his rationale for his resignation. The combination of a corporate crisis and a family boardroom drama elicited questions as to what steps the company should take to recuperate from the adverse events and resume its internationalization strategy.

Many of the most successful firms - such as Alibaba, Google, and Uber - operate platforms. Electric vehicles (EVs) are platform goods as well because value comes from the vehicle plus complementary providers. Gasoline vehicles are also platform goods, but managers in the industry can ignore that because the refueling network is mature. However, temporal and structural differences in network effects for electric vehicles make it crucial for EV firms to incorporate platform strategies. This article explains these differences and outlines the key platform strategy decisions that EV firms need to make, including platform network coordination, launch, and openness.