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"One of the hardest disciplines in business and in life is tearing down what you've built to build something better," writes the founder and former CEO of Qualtrics--among the hottest tech companies of the past decade. He explains how the company grew from a family start-up in Provo, Utah, to be acquired by SAP in January 2019 for $8 billion: "the largest private enterprise-software acquisition in history." At its IPO two years later, the opening price valued Qualtrics at three times that amount. Qualtrics transitioned from a single-product market research company primarily serving academia to a multiproduct company serving enterprises with customer-experience, employee-insights, and market research offerings. Along the way, Smith had to ask his colleagues and coworkers more than once to rebuild the technology stack, replace code, and realign a portion of the 300-person workforce.

Today it's not unusual for corporations that have dominated their markets for decades to be blindsided by upstarts with radical new business models. A lot of young ventures, on the other hand, raise vast sums of money and attract tens of millions of customers, only to collapse when they can't figure out how to fend off imitators. In these situations and many others, the underlying cause is often a failure to take a holistic approach to strategy. Strategy today demands more than classic competitive positioning. It requires making carefully coordinated choices about the opportunities to pursue; the business model with the highest potential to create value; how to capture as much of that value as possible; and the implementation processes that help a firm adapt activities and build capabilities that allow it to realize long-term value. Neglecting any of those imperatives can derail a strategy, but CEOs frequently zero in on just one. Entrepreneurs tend to focus on identifying a golden opportunity and don't think enough about how to monetize it; leaders of incumbents, on capturing value but not new ways to create it. By tackling all the elements of strategy and integrating them well, however, firms will greatly increase their odds of success.

An analysis of 1,172 public companies over 19 years reveals that the more uncommon a leader's given name is, the more his or her strategy deviates from the industry norm.

Organizations can attempt to improve strategy implementation by developing strategy execution maps, which aim to translate strategic objectives into specific activities and provide sufficient clarity to inform employees' decisions and actions. However, managers often encounter pitfalls, both in framing the process and in developing maps. This article suggests how to overcome these pitfalls, describes several applications of causal maps to further enhance strategy execution, and illustrates strategy execution maps for organizations with distinctive strategies.

This case demonstrates how, through trial and error, Qingdao Kutesmart Co., Ltd. ("Kutesmart," formerly known as Qingdao Red Collar Group Co., Ltd.) executed its strategy of "building a customer-to-manufactory (C2M) business ecosystem," following transformation from mass production to mass customization. In 2015, Kutesmart launched Magic Manufactory to explore consumer-oriented garment customization. However, when public response fell below expectations, the new brand closed its physical stores in the second half of 2016. Drawing on the lessons learned from the failure of Magic Manufactory, Kutesmart launched Cotte Yolan, a proprietary made-to-measure garment brand designed by founder Daili Zhang with an eye on handing over the reins to daughter Yunlan Zhang. To ensure a successful succession, Daili, who was about to retire, formulated Cotte Yolan's own governance framework and carried out a range of organizational changes. He believed that with this governance system, companies in other industries could also transform to customization and succeed in succession. Looking ahead, father and daughter had different views regarding the future position of Cotte Yolan: should it be a fashion brand, a made-to-measure garment supplier, or a project to promote the transformation and upgrade among traditional companies? In addition, would Cotte Yolan's governance framework prove crucial for implementing Yunlan's C2M strategy and leading the company into the future?

This case series illustrate how Sanquan Food (hereinafter "Sanquan") evolved from a small family-run startup into an innovative listed company during China's reform and opening-up, and how the family's corporate "DNA" guided the strategic transformation. The cases offer a prime example of a smooth leadership succession at a Chinese family business and emphasize that successful successions are usually a drawn out process, rather than a one-off event. Case (A) describes how Sanquan's governance evolved as the business matured from a family-owned startup into a family-controlled public company. Governing family businesses is notoriously difficult due to the complex relationships between family members, company ownership, and management. This case describes the dynamic intersection between the "second curves" of corporate strategic upgrading and intergenerational succession at a time of sweeping social change in China. It explores family, business, and social systems to analyze how, and to what extent founders and successors are involved in business affairs, and looks at the key challenges faced by corporate decision-makers.

Case (B) discusses the implementation of closed-loop management at a family business that underwent a strategic transformation, and explores mechanisms for evaluating company performance by family, business, and social metrics.

This case examines how a traditional manufacturing company can be challenged by a new market environment and its strategic options. The company in this discussion, TIDIY, is a middle-sized ceramic tile company based in Foshan. In 2014, TIDIY split from Oceano, a sibling brand under parent company Teda, and became an independently managed entity. TIDIY's restructuring coincided with major changes in the construction ceramics market in China. As such, TIDIY faced a market that was fundamentally different to the one in 2004 when it was founded. Once rapid growth had slowed, overcapacity and product similarity created fierce competition, and the industry was fragmented. The preferred sales model also changed from selling via distributors, to strategic partnerships with large real estate developers. Newly independent TIDIY had to find its own path. Compared with better-established competitors, TIDIY's brand awareness and access to capital were limited. What should TIDIY do to achieve differentiation? This case explains how TIDIY leveraged anion technology and "charted itself a new path". Company chairman Feng Hongjian and Managing Director Li Qiang renamed the brand "TIDIY Ceramic Tiles", upgraded stores into anion experience centers and sciences museums, trained distributors' salespersons, engaged designers, improved customer satisfaction to create positive word-of-mouth, iterated products. He implemented various policies to provide strong organizational support. These strategies enabled TIDIY to grow by 37% during the first year after independence. TIDIY then set itself a goal to double its revenue in three years. To this end, TIDIY identified three possible strategies: investing in R&D and inventing tiles with new functions, applying anion technology to products other than tiles, or expanding its business scope to the health industry. What might be the right strategy for TIDIY? This case will help students understand the challenges and strategies of transforming a

This case relates to Shanghai Huanxin Electronic Technology Company (hereinafter "Huanxin"), and discusses the company's decision to launch a new scheme for shared strollers. Huanxin, established in 2012, initially focused on providing technologies and services for government-funded public bicycle programs and metro cards. In 2016, following the arrival of bike-sharing in China, Huanxin rolled out its own scheme called '100Bike'. However, it was very short-lived. The company subsequently launched "Share++", an IoT SaaS platform for business customers which aimed to make their products and services (such as umbrellas) available for sharing. However, "Share++" soon encountered difficulties, including customer acquisition challenges and high operating costs. Therefore, Zhao Wei, CEO of Huanxin, decided to focus on a specific segment. By chance, he had heard his family complaining about the lack of baby strollers available for rent when they went on holiday. This inspired him with the idea of launching a stroller rental scheme. Should Huanxin enter into this new market?

This case explores the implementation of Huanxin's shared stroller scheme 'Pandastroller', launched in September 2017. To achieve rapid growth, Pandastroller established a franchising model in June 2018, which aimed to boost its market share by leveraging its franchisees' funds and marketing channels. The franchising model was gradually expanded, and by the first half of 2019, it had started to deliver positive results. However, the speed of expansion was still far below expectations. What could Pandastroller do to accelerate its expansion?

Set in Mumbai, India, during 2020, the case explores how Munish Sharda, the Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Future Generali India Life Insurance Company Limited (FGILI), turned around the firm's key business metrics. FGILI was a joint venture of Future Group, an Indian retail behemoth; Generali Group, a leading Italian insurance company; and Industrial Investment Trust Limited (IITL), an investment trust company. In 2014, seven years after its incorporation, FGILI was persistently underperforming on several key business metrics. The company brought Sharda on board to effect an organizational transformation. He implemented a well-orchestrated transformation plan by focusing on building an ethical foundation, fostering customer centricity, and grooming a strong leadership team to steer business strategies. He also harnessed technology to build organizational capacity for the transformation. Ruchira Bhardwaja, the Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO), aided Sharda in operationalizing the transformation strategy. Five after the transformation began, FGILI had improved its rank among the country's life insurers, enhanced customer satisfaction, and mitigated workforce attrition. The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in January 2020 brought the world to a standstill and hamstrung FGILI's transition. With most of its employees working from home, FIGILI had rolled out measures to sustain the changes and gains it had accomplished. With a surge in demand for coverage anticipated, Bhardwaja had to uphold the performance orientation and customer centricity of FGILI's workforce, which had suddenly become widely dispersed and remote. Meanwhile, Sharda, not satisfied with having risen to the 15th spot among the country's life insurers, wanted FGILI to become one of the top 10. He was concerned about the way forward for increasing FGILI's growth, which was short of the targeted 30% compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

In early 2021, PepsiCo Inc. (PepsiCo), one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies, was undergoing immense criticism for its role in global health issues including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, malnutrition, and cancer. As far back as 2010, executives at PepsiCo had recognized that “society, people, and lifestyles have changed” and that PepsiCo had no choice but to move in healthier directions. Although PepsiCo had made impressive strides in reducing the negative health impacts of some of its products, criticism persisted that it was not going far enough.

In early 2021, PepsiCo Inc. (PepsiCo), one of the world's largest food and beverage companies, was undergoing immense criticism for its role in global health issues including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, malnutrition, and cancer. As far back as 2010, executives at PepsiCo had recognized that "society, people, and lifestyles have changed" and that PepsiCo had no choice but to move in healthier directions. Although PepsiCo had made impressive strides in reducing the negative health impacts of some of its products, criticism persisted that it was not going far enough.

In 2019, Ajith Rai, Executive Chairman of Suprajit Engineering Limited (SEL), a pioneer in the design and manufacture of mechanical control cables in India, is contemplating his company's future growth strategy in the face of changing trends and demands in the automotive sector. Established as a private limited company in 1985, SEL became a public limited company in June 1995. In its over three decades of existence, SEL had grown from a single-product, single-customer, single- segment, single-brand, and single-location company to a multi-product, multi-business, multi-brand, multi-customer, multi-location, global company. SEL's growth and evolution as a truly diversified company was the result of Rai's ability to expand its operations in domestic and overseas markets organically and inorganically through acquisitions. In 2019, when the case is set, new developments in the automotive sector, both in terms of new technology as well as competition, made it necessary for SEL to take stock and plan for the future. Rai decided it was time to conduct a thorough analysis of the business, its growth both organically and inorganically, its ability to integrate its acquisitions, and its environment, in order to reinvent itself and identify the next wave of growth. By tracing SEL's inspiring growth story and highlighting the reasons behind its success, the case provides valuable insights into the rapid growth strategies used by entrepreneurial firms.

In April 2021, Charles Wells, founder and CEO of HelloSelf was reflecting on the company's progress since it launched two years earlier. HelloSelf's goal was to help the mentally ill recover and those who were mentally fit to stay well and feel even better. To do this, the company intended to provide members most in need with convenient access to PhDs in Clinical Psychology. For members with moderate needs and those seeking personal coaching HelloSelf would develop AI-powered "personalized psychological advice." This platform would provide its members with the ability to set goals, track progress, and discover new things about themselves. While it would take time to build all these capabilities, Wells identified the first step as providing clinical psychology-based talk therapy - Clinical Behavior Therapy (CBT) and other clinically tested methods - to those in most need. Progress to date, according to Wells, had been "reasonable." The company had built a platform to support effective, secure, online therapy with rigorous measurement of outcomes, and 125 therapists were using it to provide help to over 400 members every week. Members could track their progress on a native app. This was helping almost 2,000 members a year to get well and generating annualized revenues of £2.5 million. Now, the company was aiming to be 10 times bigger within three years - "hypergrowth" according to Wells. But this was only the beginning. The long-term goal was to help 20 million people a year which would require hypergrowth for more than a decade! How was HelloSelf going to do it?

In August 2018, after nearly six months of searching, Charles Wells was convinced that he should found HelloSelf to help people improve their sense of mental wellbeing. Those feeling mentally unwell would receive support from fully qualified clinical psychotherapists, while those feeling good would receive coaching and support to feel even better. Having researched a wide range of opportunities in the "BrainTech" space, including measuring brain function in job recruiting and brain-machine interfaces to control equipment, Wells had concluded that the search for mental wellness was the problem he would commit to solving. Now he had to develop a business model that would help turn HelloSelf into a successful enterprise and shape his launch strategy.

In 2020, over half of all initial public offerings (IPOs) in the United States were special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), blank-check companies that typically had two years to find a business to take public, usually through a reverse merger. Together, 248 SPACs raised over $83 billion, 46% of the total US IPO proceeds in 2020. The SPAC boom accelerated in 2021. By the end of March 2021, there were 298 SPAC IPOs year-to-date, raising $96.6 billion. At the time, SPAC sponsors were eagerly seeking out opportunities in sectors such as fintech, healthtech, renewable energy, and electric vehicles to invest the $136 billion they had at their disposal. Moreover, there was another $66.4 billion in SPAC IPOs in the pipeline. The opportunities for SPAC sponsors were attractive, as much as a ten-times return on their investment, but SPAC investors had also made some spectacular returns. For instance, Luminar Technologies, a leading producer of sensor technology for autonomous vehicles, entered into a definitive agreement with a SPAC in August 2020, for a post money valuation of $3.4 billion. At the end of March 2021, it was valued at $8.3 billion, down from a day-end high of $13.5 billion, but still up 135% on flotation. Proponents of SPACs touted a more efficient and streamlined path to public markets compared to the traditional IPO process - a type of "regulatory arbitrage." There was also the benefit of giving retail investors opportunities that would be otherwise reserved for private equity and institutional investors. Yet many industry observers were skeptical of the SPAC boom, noting the misalignment between sponsor and shareholder interests, the opacity of the process, and the poor historic returns of the entire asset class. They believed that the SPAC boom would soon end.

In April 2020, the interim president of the 3D printing and digital manufacturing business of HP Inc. was weighing his options in resolving three managerial dilemmas: (1) How should HP promote technology awareness among industrial customers? (2) How should HP scale up its production of 3D printers? (3) How could HP promote shorter technology adoption cycles among industrial customers?

When the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 affected commercial circulation in various regions around the world, Heilongjiang Feihe Dairy Co. Ltd. (Feihe), a leading Chinese dairy company, had been facing difficulties for a while. The company’s enterprise strategy was actively adjusted, and various measures were taken to protect the company’s supply of raw materials and the business operations of its production, distribution logistics, sales, and other departments from adverse effects of the pandemic in the first quarter of 2020. Feihe announced that its revenue growth rate in the first quarter of 2020 would not be less than 30 per cent. However, due to the impact of COVID-19, the pattern of competition among milk powder brands had quietly changed. Although Feihe had successfully gained a share of the high-end market, which had previously been dominated by foreign brands, its proportion of this market was still not high. At the same time, the rapid rise of other domestic brands had disturbed Feihe’s brand appeal of being “more suitable for Chinese babies” and its claim that its sales were far ahead in China. How should Feihe further adjust its strategy to properly deal with its competitive relationship with other brands?

Seattle-based Dropbox Inc. (Dropbox) was a leading provider of cloud storage and online collaboration tools. The company had successfully grown a global user base by combining digital channels (user-driven viral growth) with investments in physical assets (offices and infrastructure) overseas. However, in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced individuals and organizations worldwide to work remotely and created an unprecedented growth opportunity, the company found itself outflanked by more aggressive rivals. Dropbox needed to reassess its existing strategy and find a way forward.