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Frank Desiere, VP Strategy and Business Development, Roche Diagnostics CPS and his team including Guido Bartalena, Head of Strategy, Roche Diagnostics CPS had together created a 6 months journey called BOOST or Building our Organization's Strategy Together of engaging 50% of the organization (through volunteer sign-ups). BOOST comprised 58 interactive workshops that ran between February and June 2018 across all CPS's main sites and several additional locations. The workshops were facilitated by 72 senior leaders from across the organization and 803 employees took part in the sessions, both from within CPS and from other Roche Diagnostics business areas. Over 11,300 ideas were generated during the program and Bartalena's team qualified and clustered all of them, to ensure that every contribution was considered. However Bartalena was now faced with a critical fork in the road. How was he going to incorporate these ideas into the overall strategy, and how would it be communicated back to the community?

Presentation to accompany product 8B21D006.

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (VCHA), with guidance from the British Colombia (BC) Provincial Health Services Authority, had been responsible for organizing and executing an effective COVID-19 response. Its approach for testing capacity and supply chain management had been influenced by several factors: lack of supply, lack of labour, lack of testing expertise, and provincial government mandates. Although these factors had constrained the VCHA’s ability to control the virus, BC’s projected case increases posed serious concerns within the current management. The head of the VCHA wondered how she could better position the VCHA to combat COVID-19 in the long term while securing enough supplies. As she was concerned that COVID-19 cases would continue to surge, she knew this strategy had to be effective and time-sensitive.

Vivian Yuan seeks to bolster the Tsinghua University Education Foundation's fundraising efforts and investment goals in a new era of Chinese higher education. Competing with elite members of China's C9 League of top universities, she must develop a set of incentives and deliverables for alumni and non-affiliated donors which can bridge the gaps in their own investment and philanthropic prospects. To do so, she must specify what makes the university unique as a donation opportunity, and highlight the things TUEF can accomplish that no one else can.

What has been the impact of the Affordable Care Act (2010) on healthcare coverage in the United States? While this significant piece of legislation put America's healthcare system on a long-awaited path towards universal healthcare coverage, the struggle to provide coverage to millions of uninsured people is far from over. The case examines aspects of the national healthcare system including Medicaid and Medicare, employer-based insurance and healthcare exchanges. It also examines what the ACA left undone and how legislative changes in 2017 and the COVID pandemic highlighted the fragility of health care provision in the US.

Set in July 2020, this case talks about a solar park public-private partnership (PPP) project in Madhya Pradesh, India. Manu Srivastava, Chairperson of Rewa Ultra-Mega Solar Limited (RUMSL), and his team had decided to go ahead with the project without the support of viability gap funding (VGF). However, the project faced a setback when the central government lowered the solar VGF tariff by 10%, forcing RUMSL to look for innovative ways of attracting lower bids. After consultations with solar developers and potential financiers, Srivastava and his team introduced many de-risking measures like payment security mechanisms, land availability guarantee, project termination and grid unavailability compensation and tax-change risk coverage clauses in the power purchase agreement. The team also implemented innovative features like an optimum scheduling mechanism (to attract a high credit off-taker) and a data room with updates on land and internal evacuation infrastructure availability before the start of the bidding process. The overall strategy was to avoid the 'Goldilocks syndrome' and create a perfect balance between risks being transferred and known risks being accommodated. An e-reverse auction was used for the bidding process. The final tariff achieved was 40% less than the VGF tariff. RUMSL's nuts and bolts approach of process innovation motivated the central government to shift its focus from VGF to scalable market-based financing models. A "Standard Bidding Guidelines" for solar projects was introduced by the government, incorporating many features of the Rewa project.

The case illustrates the application of value-based health care to dental medicine. ClearChoice Dental Implant Centers was a rapidly-growing network of dentist-owned independent implant clinics. The targeted market included 23 million people, 15% of the US adult population aged 65 or older, who were completely edentulous (toothless), and the 12 million more who were edentulous in either their upper or lower jaw. Relative to dentures, dental implants enabled stronger biting forces and greater chewing capacity, leading to healthier diets and a higher quality of life. Each ClearChoice clinic was staffed with a multidisciplinary care team to provide one-site, full-mouth dental implant restorations during a single surgical day. ClearChoice Management Services provided management and administrative support to all the clinics in the ClearChoice network, including a proprietary electronic dental records system to capture patient information, patient reported outcomes (PROs), site costing, and process times. CEO Kevin Mosher wanted to double the company's size within three years, and faced the challenge of sustaining its highly-rated patient experiences and excellent patient outcomes during the next period of rapid growth.

The chief executive officer and co-founder of DoorDash was facing various challenges. Based in San Francisco, California, DoorDash was the market leader in the US food delivery services industry. In December 2020, despite ongoing losses, the start-up launched the largest initial public offering of the year in the United States. Market observers believed that intense competition in the US food delivery services industry and DoorDash’s questionable business model fundamentals would make profitability difficult to achieve. Restaurants were raising objections to food delivery platforms, seeing profits shrink due to commissions paid to the platforms. Consumers were paying at least 40 per cent more on orders made through an online delivery platform compared to self-pickup. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer demand for food delivery services increased and DoorDash reported a profit for the second quarter of 2020. DoorDash was expanding rapidly, after several rounds of funding. Could the co-founder prove critics wrong about the business fundamentals of his food delivery platform? How could he create a sustainable profit for DoorDash?

Stripe, a San Francisco-based financial and software as a service (SaaS) company, is launching a platform to encourage its clients to invest in carbon removal technologies. The new platform, Stripe Climate, allows clients to divert a percentage of their credit card revenue to fund carbon removal companies. The case asks students to justify Stripe's decision to enter the carbon removal investing space by launching a product that does not generate any profit. Should Stripe, a fintech services company, be entering the carbon removal technologies industry? The case introduces students to different carbon offset and removal strategies that companies have deployed, which can lead to robust discussion about the effectiveness of corporate approaches to climate change solutions. Additionally, this case provides background for rich debate on the role of the private sector in taking leadership roles to address climate change.

The chief executive officer and co-founder of DoorDash was facing various challenges. Based in San Francisco, California, DoorDash was the market leader in the US food delivery services industry. In December 2020, despite ongoing losses, the start-up launched the largest initial public offering of the year in the United States. Market observers believed that intense competition in the US food delivery services industry and DoorDash's questionable business model fundamentals would make profitability difficult to achieve. Restaurants were raising objections to food delivery platforms, seeing profits shrink due to commissions paid to the platforms. Consumers were paying at least 40 per cent more on orders made through an online delivery platform compared to self-pickup. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer demand for food delivery services increased and DoorDash reported a profit for the second quarter of 2020. DoorDash was expanding rapidly, after several rounds of funding. Could the co-founder prove critics wrong about the business fundamentals of his food delivery platform? How could he create a sustainable profit for DoorDash?

In late May 2020, the two founding and managing partners at Redhill Capital, in the Pearl River New City district of Guangzhou, China, were considering various reasons why the year was developing far differently than they had expected. The two-year-old venture capital firm’s limited partners and investees were all shocked by the dire developments, as was the entire country and the whole world. Earlier that year, rapidly spreading outbreaks of COVID-19, which had started in Wuhan, in China’s Hubei province, had led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, and many countries were closing down their borders. With the world seemingly plunging into a deep depression, the two founders of Redhill Capital were wondering about the future of their venture capital firm, which normally invested in medical technology and biotechnology. How should the company’s strategy be adjusted to survive the crisis and take advantage of new opportunities in the rapidly changing world?

Presentation for product W25006.

In 2016, Peter Keith and his cofounders started Meuwly’s Ltd. (Meuwly's) as a subscription food-box service, and in 2018, they established a physical presence in one of the liveliest locations in downtown Edmonton, Alberta. The expansion diversified the company’s revenue streams, including retail, wholesale, special events, and subscription sales. The company strove to be sustainable, but faced a number of challenges. First, customers valued the sustainable, “eat-local” ethos of Meuwly’s locally sourced products but not its single-use product packaging, which failed to reflect the company's sustainability goals; Meuwly’s experimented with alternatives, but these compromised the product quality customers expected. Second, the company’s commitment to paying employees above minimum wage affected its profit margins and financial resources and constrained its availability to pursue sustainability initiatives. Third, misleading industry marketing pervaded the delicatessen market, compromising growth and pricing strategies. Finally, the local delicatessen market was saturated and very competitive. In November 2019, Keith faced important questions regarding the future direction of the company’s sustainability strategy: how could he design an appropriate stage-two sustainability strategy for Meuwly’s while retaining the company’s loyal customer base?

This case explores the competitive war between Snap, Facebook, and TikTok in 2021. The strategic focus is on Snapchat: how should it respond to the emergence of TikTok, and how should it compete with the dominant competitor in its space - Facebook. The case examines the history of Snap, its emerging threat from TikTok, and its on-going struggles to become profitable in the shadow of intense competition from Facebook, and especially Instagram. Looking at strategy from the perspective of Snap CEO, Evan Spiegel, the case asks whether Snap should seek new demographics to grow the user base, explore alternative business models such as WeChat, differentiate itself with augmented reality, or focus on privacy to distinguish itself from the competition. The context of these strategic choices is how do you win in a world with strong network effects and much larger competitors.

In September 2019, the founder of a personal emergency response systems (PERS) company reached a pivotal point with her business. She had created the ORA device, a customized hardware and software product, intending to disrupt the growing PERS industry while helping to improve the lives of older adults and their caregivers. But while the product and the company received considerable positive feedback and publicity, sales had not met the founder's expectations. The founder brought plenty of experience, skills, and innovation to her business, and also identified an important new market segment for her product. Still, she was aware that technology start-ups were notoriously challenging to start, grow, and maintain. The founder felt that she had reached the end of the line for her business and had to make a decision about its future. She had to identify opportunities and threats in the market and determine if the company had a sustainable competitive advantage. She also had to decide whether to focus entirely on the new segment she identified or make a new strategic move and raise another round of funding for growth. Alternatively, she wondered if she should instead sell the technology, or the entire company, and resume her executive position in the financial industry.

Imperfect Foods is a grocery delivery company providing lower-cost items that may have aesthetic shortcomings and would typically be discarded. Despite its laudable anti-waste goals, Imperfect Foods has received significant pushback from the sustainability community. Critics are concerned that the for-profit organization is diluting its goal of reducing food waste by incentivizing overproduction. The director of public affairs for the company must soon deliver a communications strategy to Imperfect Foods' executive team that addresses critics' claims that the company is harming the environment by commoditizing "ugly" foods and working closely with industrialized farms that can profit from overproduction. The case presents a robust opportunity for students to debate whether or not a private company can focus on purpose and profit simultaneously.

In mid-2020, Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber) acquired Latin American-based mobile application Cornershop, which delivered online grocery purchases to the consumer's home. The operation involved technology firms based on multisided platforms. Uber, which focused on the intermediation of passenger transport, had expanded to businesses such Uber Eats for the delivery of restaurant meals, while Cornershop's focus was the purchase and delivery of supermarket products. Recently, Walmart had attempted to acquire Cornershop, but Mexico's antitrust authorities would not authorize the acquisition. Uber's acquisition of Cornershop involved important managerial challenges. What were the main sources of value? Should the two companies be managed separately or as joint units? Would Walmart have been a better fit for Cornershop? What was the best strategy to grow in this multisided business space?

Xiaomi India Private Limited (Xiaomi India), a subsidiary of the Chinese smart phone company Xiaomi Corporation, controlled a major share in the Indian market. However, its dominance was threatened by geopolitical tensions between India and China. The two countries shared a 4,000 kilometre border and a history of dispute over the border's actual demarcation. Tensions brewing over the international border during early 2020 precipitated an armed clash between Indian and Chinese troops at one border post that resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers. In response, the Indian government issued orders for companies to declare the identity of products made in China, with a preference for products made in India. A consumer boycott of Chinese products was also posing a threat to the Xiaomi brand's market leadership position, while competitors saw an opportunity to expand their market share. How could Xiaomi India overcome the current negative environment and prepare for similar potential conflicts in the future?

In May 2020, Scenic Floral Inc. (Scenic), a Beamsville, Ontario start-up that sourced fresh cut flowers from Colombian farms and the Niagara Peninsula, was aggressively looking to expand the business. The company's Mother's Day sales had started out very slowly in 2020 as the floral industry in Canada and worldwide began to recover from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. While a flurry of last-minute orders from Scenic's two largest customers meant sales for the holiday had been strong overall, the company's manager and partners knew they would have to strike a careful balance in growing their business-continuing to focus on their main customers while considering whether to expand the current product line, add retail customers, perform processing services, serve as a sub-supplier, export to the United States, or launch into e-commerce. Capacity constraints meant they might need to make trade-offs between growing the core business and appropriately timing new opportunities. With so many opportunities available, how could they maintain their existing customers while planting the seeds for growth when the timing was right?