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This case describes Keroche co-founder Tabitha Karanja's decision to exit the wine business following the Kenyan government's 2007 increase in excise taxes on wine. In August 2007, Keroche introduced the vodka drink Viena Ice as a replacement for its fortified wines, and in August 2008, it entered the beer market with the launch of its Summit Lager premium beer. The case describes the success of Keroche's products in the Kenyan beer market, despite an initial intense advertising campaign by Keroche competitor EABL for its own Tusker beer.

This case describes Keroche's growth after entering the beer business in 2008. Although the company was operating at full capacity and not able to fulfill all of its orders, Tabitha Karanja had set a goal of growing Keroche's share of the Kenyan beer market from slightly over 1% to 20%. In 2010, Tabitha Karanja had invested US$2.5 million in a PET bottling line to increase capacity of Keroche's vodka drinks. However, in 2010, the government had passed a law requiring alcoholic drinks to be sold in glass containers, which made the PET investment obsolete. Now, in 2011, Tabitha Karanja sought new funding for a glass bottling line. The case asks whether, in the midst of these new investments, it was also time to expand beer capacity by building a new and larger plant.

This case describes Keroche co-founder Tabitha Karanja's 2012 decision to invest in additional production capacity. In November 2012, with a loan from Barclay's bank, Keroche began constructing a new state-of-the-art beer brewery using German technology. The new plant, completed in March 2015, greatly increased Keroche's beer production capacity. The company also made investments to increase capacity for its Viena Ice and Crescent vodka drinks. The case describes Tabitha Karanja's aggressive production, marketing, and distribution strategy, and the company's resulting growth by 2017. It also describes Keroche's ongoing competition with EABL, including a 2016 EABL lawsuit against Keroche, and Keroche's continuing struggles with the Kenyan government.

Sundaram Multi Pap Ltd. (Sundaram), based in Maharashtra, India, was in the business of school and office stationery and e-learning. The company had been in the business successfully for more than two decades, backed by some innovative and cost-effective marketing strategies and excellent labour management. However, by 2017, the situation had changed. Losses had accrued in the core business in its subsidiary digital education business. The company had not announced any dividends since fiscal year 2014/15, after having an unbroken track record of profits and dividends over a decade. High interest cost, low sales, and high fixed expenses had caused mounting losses for the company. Changing market dynamics were also challenging, with a shortage of raw materials, low margins, and an increase in competition. In 2017, with the company's stock plunging in value, management had to decide how to revive this ailing company.

In August 2018, Glenwood Laboratories Canada Ltd. (Glenwood), an importer of medical devices from the United States, is caught in the crossfire of public policy. In June 2018, the United States imposed a 10 per cent tariff on the import of raw aluminum from Canada; in July 2018, Canada imposed a retaliatory tariff of 10 per cent on the import of processed aluminum from the United States. As an importer of aluminum oxygen cylinders from the United States for distribution to its Canadian customers, Glenwood is in the middle of a trade war between the two countries, whose aluminum supply chains have been integrated for over two decades. Glenwood's president and chief executive officer (CEO) must examine the options before him and find a way forward.

In 2014, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) had just taken over operations of the Delhi Airport Metro (DAM), which connected the Indira Gandhi International Airport to the New Delhi railway station. However, high capital expenditures, excess operational expenditures, and low ridership meant that the concessionaire, which had been operating since 2011 on a public-private partnership model, was continuously reporting losses and therefore decided to quit the project in June 2013. When project operations were transferred to the DMRC, the metro's overall capacity utilization was a very low 5 per cent and the line had few riders and operational losses. The DMRC's director of operations had the challenging task of making the DAM operationally viable. There were several available options. Should he consider rationalizing the fares; increasing ridership by connecting the Delhi Metro Airport Express Line to passenger hubs; improving the amenities or attractions at the metro stations; or offering hassle-free travel for different groups of customers?

After the former chief executive officer (CEO) of U.S.-based Starbucks started to voice his political opinions in September 2016, both Starbucks and the CEO faced backlash. As the CEO and former chairman of a large company, he may have felt entitled to voice his opinion as an individual voter. However, public backlash-from both sides of the U.S. political spectrum-suggested that commentators, looking to respond to him, were actually targeting Starbucks. In 2019, the challenge for Starbucks' new CEO was to find a way to tactfully extricate Starbucks from political conversations.

Student spreadsheet to case W19524

Joyous Group Holdings, a small and medium enterprise, provides photography, portraiture services and regalia rental for graduation events in Singapore. It competes against more established players in a market that appears to have limited growth. While competition in this market appears stable, headwinds are brewing in the horizon on multiple fronts. How can Joyous Group Holdings navigate an increasingly digital environment and grow its business in the age of wefies, selfies, and instant mementos? This case challenges readers to assess the external environment and capabilities of Joyous Group Holdings so as to recommend strategic actions to achieve growth.

In 2000, The Gap, Inc. (Gap) was the world's largest player in specialty fashion retailing, and companies such as Inditex of Spain, H&M of Sweden, and Fast Retailing of Japan were less than a quarter of Gap's size. But after two decades of growth, Gap's progress stalled in the early 2000s, while these players continued to expand. Inditex overtook Gap in 2008, H&M in 2010, and Fast Retailing in 2016. Inditex continued to set the pace ten years later in 2019, and Gap appeared to be falling ever further behind. Since 2000, four Gap CEOs had struggled to turn around the company. While several temporary profit increases appeared to herald a recovery, a sustained rally remained elusive and the share price remained volatile. Mickey Drexler, who joined the firm in 1983 and became CEO in 1995, had been primarily responsible for Gap's rise to global prominence, but he was fired in 2002 after two years of double digit, same-store sales declines and a 75% drop in the stock price. His successor, Paul Pressler, appeared to have engineered a remarkable recovery, but was fired in 2007 after disappointing sales and another slump in profits, leaving Gap to be run by interim CEO Robert Fisher, son of founder Donald Fisher. Pressler's permanent replacement, Glenn Murphy, fresh from a successful turnaround at a Canadian drug-store chain, promised tighter price controls, lower administrative costs, and a leaner, more aggressive Gap. He cut costs and drove up earnings per share, but sales continued to decline in his first few years in office. A sales and profit revival in 2012 looked promising, driving the company's share price up 50%, but it proved short-lived, and Murphy announced in 2014 that he would step down, handing over to company veteran Art Peck (HBS '79). After four years under Peck's leadership, the company was still struggling to rediscover its old magic, while Inditex was going from strength to strength.

In April 2019, Manoj Badale and Charles Mindenhall, co-founders of Blenheim Chalcot, were contemplating how they might go about developing their portfolio. Since founding the company as an internet consultancy called netdecisions in 1998, Badale and Mindenhall had transformed Blenheim Chalcot into the United Kingdom's "leading digital venture builder," having successfully built, and, in 15 instances, exited, 42 businesses across a number of sectors, including technology, financial services, sport, media, property, and education. In 2018, Blenheim Chalcot had portfolio sales of over £350 million and employed over 3,000 people. Unlike a traditional venture capital firm, Blenheim Chalcot was a "venture builder," often developing its own ideas then bringing in and supporting entrepreneurs with a range of services and support, and funding them in return for a majority equity stake (typically 80-90%). The idea was to increase the probability of success by allowing the entrepreneurs and their teams to spend less time fundraising and dealing with time consuming tasks, such as property, recruitment, legal set up, and gaining access to a client network. This enabled the entrepreneur to focus more on product and customers. The downside of this approach was that the growth of the group was somewhat constrained by the founders' own capital and their access to co-investment funds. As Badale and Mindenhall contemplated the future, they were asking themselves how they could best develop their ecosystem for building innovative businesses. In October 2018, they had opened an office in New York. They were also partnering with Imperial College London to open a 200,000 square-foot tech and innovation campus in early 2020. Should they continue on their current track? Or, should they be bolder, perhaps going public, adding new sectors, more businesses, bigger opportunities, and expanding into new geographic markets?

As recently as 2017, General Electric (GE) had been touted as an example of how established companies could pre-emptively transform their businesses digitally, without waiting to be forced to do so by their competition. But in 2018, the wheels appeared to fall off GE's transformation, amid a crisis that included leadership changes, dividend cuts, credit downgrades, and a stock price crash. The company announced that it would sell GE Digital, the newly built-up organization at the heart of its celebrated transformation. This case examines the digital transformation that GE had been attempting and the challenges it encountered. Students will develop ideas about what happened and what GE's experience means for digital transformation initiatives within other established firms.

The first Freshippo store opened in Shanghai, China in January 2016. It was not until nine months later that the second store was opened. However, from that point on, Freshippo stepped up its nationwide expansion by opening a new store every six days, on average. By June 2018, Freshippo owned 46 stores in 13 cities and had set a target of operating over 100 stores by the end of 2018. When entering a Freshippo store, customers not only saw an array of fresh produce that reminded them that they were in a supermarket, but they also saw food being prepared, people dining, and meals being packaged and sorted in bags for customers to pick up and take home to eat. Although the number of services were impressive, flaws had started to surface in the evolution of Freshippo's business model, such as store management issues, poor service, and long wait times for food preparation. Freshippo had to make some decisions regarding expanding and exploring new business models, or instead resolving problems and making improvements. Which option was a higher priority?

In August 2018, MoviePass, a New York City-based movie ticket subscription service, faced an acute cash crisis that threatened its ability to continue in business. The company had disrupted the movie exhibition industry by offering movie tickets at a discounted monthly subscription price. Despite having quickly grown its subscription base to 3.2 million, it faced several challenges. The company had cash to survive for only the next two months, and a competitor was pushing its own subscription service. As a disruptor in the newly emerging subscription economy, MoviePass faced an existential crisis. How could the chief executive officer and his team increase MoviePass's subscription base and turn the company's first-mover and wider-network advantages into greater profitability-before the company ran out of capital?

By 2018, NIO Inc. was more than just a car company. By providing high-performance smart electric vehicles and the ultimate user experience, NIO had shown its commitment to creating a pleasant lifestyle for its users and creating a worldwide "user brand." Based on mobile Internet thinking, NIO created its own unique business model with the user experience at its core. Unlike Tesla Inc., NIO took only four years from its inception to its launch, while Tesla spent about seven years to achieve this. While NIO and Tesla were often equated, NIO's founder, Ben Li, specifically differentiated NIO from Tesla with his powerful statement that "becoming the world's most user-satisfied company is more important than revenue." To achieve this great value proposal, NIO had to develop its own business model.

Student spreadsheet to case W19506

In 2018, China was the biggest market for Internet services in the world. Along with the country's huge market size, its comparatively low penetration made it an immensely attractive market for search engine services. To capture this market, Google was planning to re-enter the Chinese market-after leaving in 2010-with a censored search engine codenamed "Dragonfly." The move was opposed by human rights activists, Google's own employees, and the U.S. government. Google had the opportunity to improve its share in the global search-engine segment if it could somehow tap into the vast Chinese market. But the tight control over Internet services by the Chinese government on one hand, and the protests by various interest groups on the other, had put Google in a tight spot. Google had to decide if it should go ahead with the plan to offer Dragonfly in China. Should Google instead explore other market and non-market strategies to re-enter the Chinese market?

In March 2018, Ontario Education Collaborative Marketplace (OECM) was an unlikely high-growth company. From its humble origins as a collaborative experiment to create efficiencies for the education sector-an experiment that had lost money and had to be financially supported by the government-the organization had adopted the culture of a high-growth start-up. OECM facilitated the procurement by universities, colleges, and school boards of everything from pencils to computers. By pooling orders, OECM was able to provide better prices from suppliers, thereby saving taxpayer dollars. OECM aimed to become "the Amazon of education sector" procurement. The total education sector procurement market in Ontario was CA$4 billion. OECM currently facilitated CA$255 million in transactions, but it was looking to control CA$2 billion of the market. Having become profitable under the leadership of a new chief executive officer, and newly independent of government support, OECM's management was now challenged to continue to transform the organization's public-sector culture in order to achieve high growth. What strategy should OECM use to achieve its aggressive growth targets? How should OECM scale up?

PowerChina was an integrated construction group that provided investment and financing, planning design, engineering construction, equipment manufacturing and operations management for hydraulic and hydropower projects and infrastructure. According to the company's data, PowerChina had over 50 per cent of the medium- and large-sized flood mitigation and water supply reservoir construction market worldwide. The aim of the company was to build a world-class comprehensive construction investment group that was globally competitive and of high quality and efficiency. However, the integration of international business and localization in certain markets combined with international and domestic development meant that PowerChina needed to remain cautious and vigilant. PowerChina's managers were confident with the prospect of its international expansion to accelerate the company's growth rate, but it was still necessary for them to seriously consider the strategy they should choose in the next phase of their internationalization, and how to upgrade their risk management system in these changing times.

In 2016, the founder and managing director of Smaart Home Furniture, a furniture manufacturer in southern India, faced a dilemma. Although the business remained profitable, it was facing stiff competition from local players, branded and non-branded players, and online retail stores. The founder and managing director was considering extending his manufacturing business by also offering sofa servicing, which would require changes in the company's production, organization, and management. It would also require a rethinking of the firm's approach and interaction with its consumers. Should he start offering services? If so, should sofa servicing be launched as a separate entity or as part of the offerings of the existing manufacturing unit?