個案總覽

Formed in 1997, Star Alliance was the first global airline network or constellation. Its aim was to shift the airline industry away from a network of loose bilateral agreements between individual airlines to a more comprehensive network of multilateral agreements between members. A wave of deregulation in the industry in the 1970s and 1980s, which opened free travel between countries, led to the creation of three major global constellations: Star Alliance, Oneworld, and SkyTeam. These networks conferred many benefits on their members, such as cost sharing, loyalty program management, and increased flight load. However, in early 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic had devastating effects on the airline industry. The focus of airline alliances thus shifted from greater connectivity between members to survival in the new global landscape. Would this strategy help airlines survive the COVID-19 crisis? Was group-based competition needed to thrive during a pandemic? Their main concern was whether or not the powerful frameworks they created would be able to help member airlines survive this crisis and regain their pre-pandemic financial stability.

In 2019, the global airline industry generated revenues of over US$880 billion. One year later, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, demand had fallen to half of its previous level and airlines faced tough challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic was a new and severe crisis. The responses of airlines and their alliances depended on the fundamental economics and structure of the industry. To devise new strategies for their futures, global airlines had to consider the economics and market structure of their industry. Would the fundamental economics of the airline industry be forever affected? Would the industry return to a "new normal" at some point?

This case follows Christophe Weber, President and CEO of Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, a leading pharmaceutical company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, as Takeda considers acquiring Shire Plc, a biotech company based in Ireland. The acquisition would turn Takeda into a top ten global pharmaceutical company; however, other pharma companies were showing initial interest in acquiring Shire, and the acquisition would require a large amount of funding. Other concerns about the bid were nonfinancial. Over the last two decades, Takeda had aggressively pursued globalization and was now a global company with two thirds of revenue raised outside Japan and a diverse management team. What was the implication of acquiring Shire? Was now the right time to take such a big step? Was the acquisition in line with the company's goals? How would the combined company be managed? Would the acquisition put an end to Takeda as a Japanese company?

This case is a follow up to HBS Case No. 721-373, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (A). Following the events of the previous case, Takeda reached an agreement to acquire Ireland-based Shire Plc. The case follows some of the achievements and challenges Takeda and its employees face following the acquisition. It outlines the company's situation in 2019 and raises discussion about its future prospects.

The global fashion industry was among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, facing major disruptions on an unprecedented scale. On the retail side, challenges included store closures as part of government lockdown measures, as well as sudden shifts in market demand since many consumers were largely confined to their homes and facing economic uncertainty amid a deepening recession. On the supply side, complex and vulnerable global value chains proved to be ill-prepared for factory closures, prolonged shipping delays and reduced labor capacity due to lockdown measures, as well as sudden order cancellations due to a halt in customer demand. While these supply and demand shocks were triggered by the events of the global pandemic, they came on the back of a laundry-list of sustainability issues for which the fashion industry had since long been widely criticized, such as the environmental impact of textile waste and exploitative labor conditions for workers at the bottom of the value chain. A global leader in apparel, PVH Corp. (hereafter referred to as PVH) - parent company of iconic fashion brands Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein - found itself in the same boat as many players in the fashion industry. PVH suffered significant declines in revenue and earnings, and was forced to make difficult decisions, including permanent store closures as well as substantial lay-offs and furloughs. Stefan Larsson, the president of PVH, who would succeed Emanuel Chirico as CEO in early 2021, had major strategic issues to address, not only to get the company through the COVID-19 crisis but to future-proof it in a challenging post-pandemic world.

In 2011, Daniel Herrero, CEO of Toyota Argentina (TASA) since 2010, was about to meet with the Secretary-General of the union representing automotive industry workers in the country. The company produced vehicles in Argentina since 1997 at their plant at Zárate, and, in 2005, Argentina became one of the four countries selected by Toyota Motor Corporation to assemble models using the Innovative Multipurpose Vehicle (IMV) platform. However, Toyota's manufacturing plant in Zárate (Argentina) had been performing poorly compared to similar plants, affecting its competitiveness, and TASA's management held the union responsible for most of the plant's inefficiencies. Anything was possible as a result of the meeting, from shutting down production at TASA and focusing on their distribution business, to complete capitulation to all the union's demands.

Toyota Argentina (TASA) and the union representing automotive industry workers in the country had been working together since 2011 to address the challenges faced by Toyota's manufacturing plant in Zárate (Argentina). The strategy for moving forward was built on an agreement signed by both parties called the "Reborn Plant." In 2015, with slow progress at Zárate plant and the macro-conditions rumbling on, Daniel Herrero, TASA's CEO, reflected on what to do next.

The case describes the creation and evolution of Brazil's first low-cost airline - GOL. From the outset GOL was driven by innovation and within a few years of operating had become the country's leading airline. Although initially a low-cost carrier, over the years it became increasingly customer-centric, striving to improve the customer experience by removing the pain points of air travel. As competition from new low-cost entrants intensified, could GOL maintain its lead in the domestic market? Was it destined to become the Uber of the airways, in a segment between low-cost and full-service offerings, relying on innovation to keep costs down? The case discusses GOL's options for growth, specifically its potential for international expansion.

The case describes WeWork's by-now-infamous fall from grace, during the turbulent autumn of 2019. Governance, financial strategy, and ethics are all prominent themes. WeWork had been a dominant player in the coworking office space market and had tried to create an ecosystem that allowed tenants of its office space to collaborate easily with one another, as well as one that offered third-party services. The case allows instructors to discuss commercialization strategies, boundaries of the firm, and issues related to investors in private versus public markets.

This is a follow-up to case A, which describes Operation "Lava Jato" (Car Wash) in Brazil, one of biggest anti-corruption investigations in the world. It laid bare the shady relationships between government contractors, political campaign agencies and high-profile politicians in what were known as 'pay-for-play' schemes - bribes and campaign contributions paid by major corporations to officials and political parties in exchange for lucrative government contracts that were over-invoiced to 'cover the costs'. Case B describes the latest developments until the end of 2020, including how former Judge Sergio Moro joined, then resigned from President Bolsonaro's government, corruption scandals related to Covid-19, and discusses the changes that Operation Car Wash brought to companies in Brazil, namely Petrobras and Odebrecht.

In September 2017, Uber Technologies Inc. hired a new chief executive officer with instructions to prepare the company for an initial public offering and repair its internal culture and reputation. By the end of 2019, however, the company's past wrongdoings were continuing to haunt the organization. The new leader had to deal with ongoing legal issues related to driver classification and a new ruling in the US state of California that would require drivers to be paid minimum wage and receive sick days and health benefits. The company also faced accusations by a former manager who claimed that employees had engaged in questionable tactics to steal trade secrets. The public learned that the company had paid US$100,000 to hackers to conceal a November 2016 data breach, which exposed the personal information of 57 million riders and drivers. In July 2019, Uber Technologies Inc. came under investigation by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over accusations of gender discrimination. Later that year, its license to operate in London, UK was revoked. Almost 18 months into the new leader's tenure, the path to repairing the company's character reputation and struggling market value was still not clear.

In 2010, multibillionaire George Soros offered to donate $100 million to Human Rights Watch (HRW) - this would be both the largest donation ever received by HRW and the largest ever made by Soros. Soros, a long-time supporter of the organization, had set several stringent conditions to the offer extended via his Open Society Foundations. HRW had to commit to (1) increasing its international presence, (2) increasing the proportion of donations coming from outside the U.S. to fifty percent of total contributions within five years, (3) diversifying the geographic origin of board members, and (4) raising additional funds to match Soros's donation. While Part A of the case focuses on the original offer, Part B is set in 2020 and summarizes what happened at HRW after it accepted the donation.

In 2010, multibillionaire George Soros offered to donate $100 million to Human Rights Watch (HRW) - this would be both the largest donation ever received by HRW and the largest ever made by Soros. Soros, a long-time supporter of the organization, had set several stringent conditions to the offer extended via his Open Society Foundations. HRW had to commit to (1) increasing its international presence, (2) increasing the proportion of donations coming from outside the U.S. to fifty percent of total contributions within five years, (3) diversifying the geographic origin of board members, and (4) raising additional funds to match Soros's donation. While Part A of the case focuses on the original offer, Part B is set in 2020 and summarizes what happened at HRW after it accepted the donation.

The founder and chief executive officer of impak Finance Inc. had grown his financial technology start-up, based in Montreal, Canada, into a company with two main business lines: an extensive and comprehensive assessment and rating agency that used advanced social impact measurement and scoring software, and an online marketplace platform that used the cryptocurrency impak Coin and connected like-minded consumers, investors, and businesses to support socially sustainable and responsible firms aligned on their economic and financial principles. In case A, after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the founder wondered which strategic direction he should take to ensure the long-term sustainability of impak Finance Inc.-invest heavily in developing the rating agency or grow the impak marketplace?

In case B, in late summer 2020, the founder has decided to prioritize the company's rating agency, advocating for robust and standardized impact assessments for all firms. He felt confident about his company's new strategic direction and focus during the pandemic. But how could he ensure impak Finance Inc. grew toward its mission and attained financial sustainability?

This note gives managers a concrete perspective on what 'a strategy' really is, what makes a decision 'strategic,' and what 'strategic thinking' means. It also gives them practical frameworks to assess whether some set of decisions is really a strategy and how to assess a strategy's effectiveness. It finally also gives managers a starting point for developing strategy in the form of the '4+3 Elements.' The note builds on the theory of 'strategy as core guidance.' (This is an in-depth rewrite of "Strategy and Strategic Decisions" HBS 712-500.)

The notion that innovation is tied to creative destruction is embedded in the psyche of innovators and entrepreneurs, which is why individuals and companies instinctively focus on disruption in pursuit of innovation and growth. But is disruption the only way to innovate and create new markets? And is it the best way? This case explores the other side of market-creating innovation, what Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne call "nondisruptive creation". It happens when you innovate and create new markets where there once wasn't anything, so there's no displacement. Emerging from online gaming, esports is a new sporting experience where spectators watch professional athletes compete playing video games. Since esports is an entirely new industry, it does not disrupt an existing market. The case illustrates the evolution of esports from a game for individual players to a spectator sport, creating an entirely new market space where both incumbents and new entrants find new business opportunities, as well as the social and economic impact of nondisruptive creation by examining the externalities of esports on various industries and communities.

Today's leaders are in need of best practices for dealing strategically and operationally with a distributed, diverse workforce that crosses internal and external boundaries. We contend that the best way to address the shift to managing all types of workers is through the lens of a workforce ecosystem a structure that consists of interdependent actors, from within the organization and beyond, working to pursue both individual and collective goals.

A cup of Starbucks was a middle-class symbol in China. Since the opening of its first store in China in 1999, Starbucks had conquered the Chinese coffee market with its experience driven philosophy. Nonetheless, a few ambitious and well-funded Chinese tech entrepreneurs had decided to challenge Starbucks. Founded in October 2017, Luckin Coffee expressed a desire "to be part of everyone's life, starting with coffee." Leveraging its core competence in technology and a business model focused on delivery and heavy discounts, Luckin scaled up rapidly. By 2020 it operated more stores in China than Starbucks. But Starbucks was responding to the new threat, forging an alliance with Alibaba backed Ele.me. In this situation, what should both firms do to do to win the war for China's coffee consumer?

By the end of 2019, HelloFresh was able to deliver a profit for the first time in its history. Ever since it was founded in 2011, its founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Dominik Richter and his team had worked tirelessly to turn HelloFresh into the largest player in the global meal kit industry. The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020 fundamentally changed the landscape and triggered changes in customer behavior that marked the beginning of outstanding revenue growth for HelloFresh. With millions of households forced to stay home, restaurants closed and widespread fear among people about catching the coronavirus, HelloFresh found itself in an ideal setting to grow as its home-delivered, delicious and healthy meal kits enjoyed terrific success across markets. Moving its global customer base up from 2.5 to 4.2 million in just a few months, HelloFresh was looking confidently at 2021 and beyond. Yet, two challenges appeared to be critical for the company going forward. First, even though sales had grown as a result of the lockdowns imposed by governments in several markets, could this remarkable growth be maintained in post-pandemic times? Second, the company had already invested heavily in its sustainability strategy, with Richter announcing in August 2020 that the company aimed to become the first carbon-neutral meal kit company globally, primarily through its participation in carbon offsetting programs. Yet, high amounts of plastics were still used in each HelloFresh box delivered worldwide. Would the carbon offsetting programs be enough to really win the sustainability battle going forward?