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After losing market share to low-priced competitors such as Harry's and Dollar Shave Club for several years, Gillette decided to fight back by launching new products and increasing advertising. When these efforts failed to stem the losses, Gillette decided to cut the prices on its razors and blades in April 2017. Bonnie Herzog, an equity analyst at Wells Fargo, must assess how the recently announced price cuts are likely to affect Gillette's earnings and its parent company's earnings (Procter & Gamble owns Gillette). As part of her analysis, Herzog must estimate the price elasticity of demand for Gillette's razors and blades. The case contains scanner data which allows students to calculate both price elasticities for a sample of Gillette products, and sufficient data to estimate the financial impact.

Since its establishment in 2005, Hamburg's Martini Klinik had single-mindedly focused on prostate cancer care with a commitment to measure long term health outcomes for every patient. A wholly owned subsidiary of the University Hospital Hamburg, Martini Klinik was a "hospital in a hospital" in close proximity to other medical departments and services. By 2019, Martini Klinik had become the largest prostate cancer treatment program in the world with 8,000 outpatient cases and more than 2,500 surgical cases annually. Patients came from all over Germany and from around the world. A new and expanded facility was under construction to have the capacity to manage more patients with prostate cancer.

"The case describes how three INSEAD alumni founded a fintech company called Prodigy Finance and created a new market of international student loans by solving a long unaddressed problem in the finance industry. Lack of access to financing was a major barrier impeding international students' pursuit of advanced education outside their home countries, especially for those aspiring to study in "high-earning advanced degree programs" at top universities where tuition fees were steep and few scholarships were available. Traditional banks were oblivious to the burning need of the international student population as their practice focused on domestic borrowers and their local past credit records. The founders of Prodigy Finance challenged the assumptions of the finance industry by creating a lending platform based on a forward-looking and cross-border risk assessment model, thereby effectively connecting international student borrowers with individual and institutional investors. Prodigy Finance has so far helped over 11,200 students from 132 countries, who have borrowed more than US$538 million. The strategic move of Prodigy Finance constitutes an illustrative example of new market creation through nondisruptive creation, a concept coined by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, authors of international bestsellers Blue Ocean Strategy and Blue Ocean Shift. By identifying and solving a burning problem that had never been addressed before, Prodigy Finance created a new market beyond existing industry boundaries, unlocking and capturing a burgeoning new demand without challenging or displacing the existing businesses of the finance industry. This case comes with a teaching note and three short videos. The latter can be downloaded for free for teaching purposes from https://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/

Iconoclasts with strongly held beliefs and a willingness to buck orthodoxy, Apple's Steve Jobs and the Chicago Bulls' Phil Jackson shared similarities in character, leadership style, and life experience that extended beyond the extraordinary successes they achieved in their chosen fields. Both came of age in the United States of the mid-20th century, a time and place characterized by Americans' growing interest in philosophical traditions outside of the Western mainstream. In their teens and twenties, both men became interested in Eastern religious practices. As young men, Jobs (who would as a teenager travel to India to study Buddhism) and Jackson (whose interest in Eastern practices earned him the nickname "The Zen Master") developed a particular affinity for the Zen tradition of Buddhism, which had a lasting influence on each man's worldview. Although Jackson and Jobs were very different leaders operating in remarkably different industries, both men's rise to the top of intensively competitive fields were influenced by their commitment to three Zen principles: nondualism, practical wisdom, and inherent enlightenment. This note gives a brief overview of the history of Zen and the philosophical framework that underpins it, then describes the potential that these three tenets hold for unlocking strategic insights.

When Anders Eriksson was appointed CEO of Bonnier News in June 2016, he took the helm of a storied Swedish media business in the midst of a momentous transformation. Bonnier News included three of Sweden's most important newspapers-Dagens Nyheter (DN), the national paper of record; Dagens Industri (DI), the top business daily; and Expressen, a tabloid that reached roughly half of the country's population-and the southern Swedish daily HD-Sydsvenskan. But the digital age had presented multiple challenges to each of these entities, and to media enterprises worldwide, and Bonnier had grappled with its response to the changing environment. It was Eriksson's task to set Bonnier News on a growth trajectory that would eventually lead to take-off. This case explores Bonnier's restructuring; group level strategic leadership; development of group-level digital competencies; and business-level strategies.

In early 2019, arc Thrift Stores was supporting 14 Colorado chapters of the Arc, an organization that advocated for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) in schools, helped individuals with I/DD live more independently, and supported legislation regarding their rights all across the state. The chief executive officer and marketing director of arc Thrift Stores were reviewing a survey they hoped would help them understand arc Thrift Stores' customers and broaden the interest in arc Thrift Stores among younger generations. By all measures, arc Thrift Stores was very profitable, but its core audience was aging, and the team wanted to ensure that it continued the successes of its past 50 years into the next 50 years. The company wanted people to understand the value of shopping their stores and the quality of items they could expect to find there. How could the company make inroads with a younger demographic? Should it focus more on sustainability? Should it consider moving into the e-commerce space?

ZURICH (SWITZERLAND), MAY 2018 - Cristian Grossmann arrived early in the office that day. It had not been a breeze for Beekeeper to reach its current situation: a quickly expanding company with over 130 employees across the world, with a plethora of large clients. It was not so long ago that he had started a side-project with a university friend to develop an anonymous flirting platform for students. Several pivots later, the project had started getting a lot of traction and disrupting the hospitality industry's way of working. The last 12 months had been much more turbulent than expected, and Grossmann was mulling over how the next 12 months would look like. It was crucial for Beekeeper to continue growing, yet there were more and more indications of the organization's rapid growth leading to overwhelming complexity. So how could Grossmann steer the company towards even more growth while staying agile and exciting?

MILAN (ITALY), SEPTEMBER 2018. The Strategic Lab at De Agostini, part strategic think-tank and part assessment tool for the next-generation talent of the Drago-Boroli family, owners of De Agostini, was brainstorming the future direction of the diversified, family-owned group. After almost 100 years in the publishing and printing business, the third-generation family leader Marco Drago set the family firm on a radical new course, which included globalization and diversification across media and communication, gaming, and financial services to create a powerhouse, with entities listed on three different stock exchanges. However, diversification did not come without its challenges. Could portfolio repurposing also serve to anchor the family's identity? Were family values properly embedded in the current structures and investments? Should the holding structure be perennialized or be treated as a temporary arrangement until the next major liquidity event, when assets would again be refocused on a single industry? Did the legacy publishing business still serve a purpose or should it be disposed of? Emotional ties ran deep, but so did the losses... and those were not sustainable. Could it be turned around or pivoted to capture the latest digitalization wave?

McDonald's newly appointed CEO Chris Kempczinski, who assumed office on November 4, 2019, is the protagonist of the case. With $21 billion in sales (in 2019) and 45,000 restaurants globally (thereof 27,000 in the United States), McDonald's remains the largest quick-service restaurant (QSR) chain. Attempting to be "everything for everybody," McDonald's fell victim to being "stuck-in-middle," without a clear strategic position. Kempczinski must confront several challenges if he is to return the company to its former glory, including: 1) How to balance the need to introduce new items while addressing "menu bloat"? 2) How to re-establish the reputation for quality products? 3) How to appeal to Millennials? 4) How to upgrade the customer experience through all channels and locations (in-store, delivery, and drive-through)? 5) How to reignite growth?

In 2007, Twentieth Century Fox faced a number of issues in the production of Avatar-a movie that was widely anticipated but had raised concerns in the production studios. Studio executives doubted the appeal of the plot and worried that audiences would not like the story. The movie needed to create an emotional appeal to attract audiences and make sufficient box office receipts. If the movie could not do this, Avatar would become one of the biggest money losers in the history of the movie industry. The project encountered many challenges in development-particularly in terms of time, budget, and technology, and the decision about whether to continue to invest or to pull the plug was extremely difficult. At what point did the risk become too significant? How should the studio decide when to go forward with a project and when to cancel it?

In 2017, the global market for rechargeable lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries was 126 gigawatt-hours (GWh) valued at $37 billion, growing by $10 billion in two years. Once confined largely to consumer electronics and appliances, the rapid increase in demand was spurred by the adoption of electric cars and buses. Moreover, the falling cost of batteries was sparking interest in another potential huge market-the electrical utility sector. Batteries could be used to store electricity in periods of low demand and release it when demand was high, significantly reducing the need for peak generation capacity. However, historically, the costs of doing this had been prohibitively high. In response to the expected demand, several companies had announced "gigafactories," plants that, combined, could produce many times more output than total global demand in 2017. Tesla, Inc., the electric car maker, was the first. In 2014, it announced a 35 GWh battery plant, costing $5 billion, to be built in Nevada, enough capacity to fulfill global demand in 2013. In 2017, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he would announce an additional four gigafactory locations to supply the global market. Tesla was not alone in its battery ambitions. In late 2016, start-up Alevo began delivery of its new "GridBank" batteries from a 3.5 million square-foot facility in North Carolina, with the potential to scale to 60 GWh. Alevo claimed its batteries lasted four times longer and were safer than the conventional Li-ion batteries used by Tesla. Anxious not to be reliant on third parties, in 2017, several automakers had announced plans to build battery capacity, including General Motors and Daimler. Indeed, Daimler announced two plants for its Mercedes brand cars, one in Germany and one in China. New start-ups were also entering the fray, with Northvolt AB of Sweden partnering with ABB of Switzerland to build a 32 GWh facility.

After the legendary founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) retired, the new chairman had to grapple with fresh challenges related to its China market. A recently opened factory in China had to find ways to reverse its financial loss and meet its full capacity; one of its major Chinese customers was facing sanctions by the U.S. government; China was investing billions of dollars in building its own powerhouse to compete in semiconductor production. The transition from 4G to 5G technology in the telecommunication industry, and the U.S.-China trade war also added to the uncertainties facing TSMC. What had changed in the competitive landscape for TSMC, and how should it respond to the changes? What were the options for the company in doing business with China, when the country had become both a customer and a competitor?

In the early days of the internet, the author was studying electrical engineering at Stanford, excited by the possibilities of the new technology. Later, working in the San Francisco office of the investment bank Alex. Brown & Sons, he gained an in-depth understanding of how to transform an idea into a corporation. Obsessed with the notion of starting a venture in his native Middle East, he moved to Dubai at age 23. There he saw that Arab youths were having a hard time finding work, while business owners were having a hard time finding workers--and he decided to start an online jobs marketplace to connect them. Fewer than 1% of people in the Arab world had internet access at that time, so clients had to be educated in the smallest details of the online universe. That meant installing the first web browser on many of their computers, training HR managers to dial into the internet, and printing and hand-delivering CVs. Today, with tens of thousands of registered companies and more than 36 million job seekers, Bayt has expanded within the Middle East and beyond, offering solutions including applicant tracking systems, video evaluation programs, and virtual event fairs. And in most of the Middle East, the internet culture it helped establish is thriving.

Every year the damage done by cyberbreaches seems to grow bigger. It looks as if hackers just keep getting more effective. But cybersecurity experts Parenty and Domet think there's another reason companies aren't successful at thwarting cyberattacks: They don't truly understand their cyberrisks, because they focus only on their technological vulnerabilities and relegate responsibility for managing threats entirely to security and IT staff. And because of that, they don't muster the right defenses. A better approach involves getting input from a broad range of employees and, especially, board members and company leaders. It starts with identifying the company's critical business activities and the risks to them. Instead of asking how your computer systems could be attacked, for instance, ask how an attack could disrupt your supply chain, expose your trade secrets, or make you fail to meet your key obligations. Next, inventory the systems supporting those activities, examine their vulnerabilities, and identify potential attackers. This information, which should be gathered into a cyberthreat narrative for each activity, will allow you to plan, prioritize, and make more-targeted cybersecurity investments.

The CEO of a climbing-gym chain whose UK locations are faltering must decide whether to press on or pull back from his international growth plans. This fictional case study by Simon Greathead features expert commentary by Anthony Geisler and David Spigner.

The CEO of a climbing-gym chain whose UK locations are faltering must decide whether to press on or pull back from his international growth plans. This fictional case study by Simon Greathead features expert commentary by Anthony Geisler and David Spigner.

The CEO of a climbing-gym chain whose UK locations are faltering must decide whether to press on or pull back from his international growth plans. This fictional case study by Simon Greathead features expert commentary by Anthony Geisler and David Spigner.

Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher founded Zurich-based start-up Climeworks in 2009 based on technology they had developed, which they claimed would help slow the massive challenge of climate change by capturing CO2 directly from the air. Several hurdles still stood in their way, but Gebald and Wurzbacher had an entrepreneurial mindset and ambitious plans for their business and its potential impact on humanity. The pair put all their efforts into developing the robust technology, reducing costs of production and building a viable business model to directly capture and sell carbon dioxide - a market yet to be developed. Climeworks aimed to remove 1% of global CO2 emissions from the Earth's atmosphere by 2025. The vision was bold and could only be achieved through massive growth, including 250,000 installations the size of Climeworks' flagship plant in Switzerland. One main issues Climeworks needed to address was reducing the uncertainty around the desirability of the solution, meaning identifying and leveraging market demand. Once the prototype had been developed, the company needed to find markets for its end product, carbon dioxide. Which industries would be good targets? Could Climeworks create completely new markets for the solution?

Climeworks took a multipronged approach when seeking markets for its end product: emissions reversal, beverages and fuel. Climeworks emissions reversal solution involved the direct physical removal of the same amount of emissions from the atmosphere as had been created. Once captured, the CO2 could then be permanently and safely stored underground. Also, the global beverage industry had become one of the biggest consumers of CO2 in the world. Valser, recently certified as Switzerland's first climate-neutral mineral water, was the first brand to leverage Climeworks' technologies for its drinks. Finally, air-captured carbon dioxide could be combined with hydrogen and turned into a fossil fuel substitute. It was still unclear which of these markets would prove successful for Climeworks or whether government regulations would be adapted to support carbon removal. But it was clear that industry disruption was needed to reduce emissions drastically and avoid the most destructive effects of climate change. What was also sure was that entrepreneurs Gebald and Wurzbacher had no plans to slow down until they had fulfilled their bold vision of solving one of the greatest challenges through innovation.