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Nintendo languished in last place during the console wars of the early 2000s, with game industry analysts suggesting that the Kyoto-based firm exit the gaming console market altogether. Instead, Nintendo used Blue Ocean Strategy to redefine market boundaries, creating the best-selling video-game console ever, the Nintendo Wii. Targeting noncustomers, the Wii outsold Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox combined, until the market was disrupted by smartphones and tablets. Mobile technology targeted the same noncustomers, offering easy-to-understand games and controls, and Wii sales suffered. Nintendo initially responded by introducing a tablet-like console, the Wii U, a poor copy of the tablet experience that was a dismal failure. Stepping back, Nintendo again used Blue Ocean Strategy to "value innovate" with the Nintendo Switch, the only console to outpace the Wii in sales, and by moving into adjacent markets, working with businesses in which it held a minority stake to release the wildly popular Pokémon Go and other mobile games.

At the BMW Group, Gregor Gimmy, a serial entrepreneur and former consultant, introduces the Venture Client (VCL) model to engage with start-ups and boost corporate innovation. The case discusses its initial success at BMW and the rationale that drove Gimmy to establish a new model of external corporate venturing (ECV). It also provides background information on the key forces shaping the auto industry today, the challenges faced by legacy automakers as technological developments accelerate, and the emergence of new rules and new players.

This note provides a framework for addressing the classic chicken-or-egg dilemma facing entrepreneurs launching nascent multi-sided platforms. There are several conditions that lead to a difficult chicken-or-egg problem: strong network effects, high multi-homing costs, limited differentiation, and high other barriers to entry. To overcome this challenge and create competitive advantage by reaching critical scale in network size, there are three categories of solutions to the problem: increasing value, decreasing cost, or subsidizing value for the platform participants. For a multi-sided platform, there are also dynamic considerations for addressing whether to stage one side of the platform first or build both simultaneously.

In early 2017, Judith Judson (Harvard Business School MBA, 2000), Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER), was reflecting on the results of the initiative she had led to identify the contribution advanced electricity storage could make to electricity generation and distribution in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The study was the first major output from the $10 million Energy Storage Initiative (ESI) launched by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker's administration in May 2015. The advanced simulation techniques employed in the study indicated that over a ten-year period, the optimal deployment of storage capacity would cut the cost of electricity for consumers in the Commonwealth by $230 million per year, deliver $110 million in annual revenues for storage providers, and reduce CO2 emissions by 100,000 tons a year, the equivalent of taking 22,000 cars off the road. Moreover, neighboring states would benefit from $250 million in lowered wholesale prices. To deliver these benefits, 1.77 GWh of advanced storage would be required across the grid, costing between $970 million and $1.35 billion. Incorporating the perspectives of a wide body of stakeholders (from utilities to municipalities to generators), the study wound up recommending a suite of policies that would facilitate the installation of 600 MWh of storage capacity by 2025, representing about 6 minutes of the state's daily electricity consumption and delivering $800 million in benefits to ratepayers. It would also make the Commonwealth a leader in advanced storage technology and deliver substantial greenhouse gas reductions. At the end of 2015 according to figures from the Department of Energy, Massachusetts ranked 23rd in the United States in energy storage deployment, well behind the leader Arizona, with nearly 300 MWh, and Texas, with over 150 MWh.

Managers often engage in risk-averse behavior, and economists, decision analysts, and managers treat risk aversion as a preference. In many cases, acting in a risk-averse manner is a mistake, but managers can correct this mistake with greater reflection. This article provides guidance on how individuals and organizations can move toward greater reflection and a more profitable aggregate portfolio of decisions. Inconsistency in risk preferences across decisions is a costly mistake for both individuals and for organizations.

Facing imminent disruption, many large, established firms have embraced innovation as a way to develop new growth businesses. To succeed in the face of disruptive change requires established firms to master three distinct disciplines: ideation, to generate potential new business ideas; incubation, to validate these ideas in the market; and scaling, to reallocate the assets and capabilities needed to grow the new business. This article illustrates how two successful firms (Amazon and IBM) have developed approaches that address all three disciplines.

Few would argue that artificial intelligence (AI) will have widespread implications for business and society. The authors argue that business leaders should focus their attention on understanding the effects in three key areas: jobs, inequality and competition. They outline both the pessimistic and optimistic views of AI's effects and provide their own views with respect to AI and jobs, AI and inequality and AI and competition. Among other things, they argue that the impact of AI will not affect all people and all firms equally, and that leaders must carefully consider their decisions in this arena, as they will have long-lasting effects on society.

A growing number of organizations-particularly in the public sector-are embracing behavioral insights to design and enhance their products, policies and services. The challenge is this: Their leaders and workers are human too, and are therefore influenced by the same heuristics and biases that they are attempting to address in customers. The authors-from the world renowned Behavioral Insights Team-introduce three core activities of policy making and strategy-making in any industry: noticing, deliberating and executing. In the article they focus on the first two stages-noticing and deliberating-and present some of the most important behavioral insights within each category-including confirmation bias and framing effects. They then provide tools to mitigate common biases.

The authors argue that Behavioral Science can make important contributions to innovation through nudges and other proven methods; but they believe it can contribute at an even greater scale by partnering with other disciplines-in particular, with the field of design. They introduce their integrative model, which hinges on the notions of where to play and how to win-first introduced by Roger Martin and A.G. Lafely in their book, Playing to Win. In the end, they show that by partnering with design and framing behavioral science as a speculative tool in addition to an evidence-based one, we can collectively better envision the new, in addition to testing the known.

Stephane Kasriel, the CEO of Upwork, the leading platform for freelance labor, updates his progress on how to redesign its business model in 2019.

In 2016, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Feihe International Inc. (Feihe), the manufacturer of a leading infant formula brand in China, was considering whether his company should enter Canada. Although the company would be challenged by the Canadian dairy industry's unique supply management system, Canada was eager to attract foreign investment and the CEO needed to overcome the intense domestic competition in China's infant formula market. The CEO needed to decide on an integrated strategy to enter Canada. Should he pursue a greenfield strategy, an acquisition, or a joint venture?

In 2013, India passed a law to make corporate social responsibility mandatory for large companies. The case examines the context in which the CSR legislation was introduced and how Tata Motors Ltd (TML) responded to it. Case (A) explores the meaning of corporate social responsibility and the question of whether a company should put community projects before profits. Case (B) examines Tata Motors' CSR programmes in depth and provides an opportunity to consider their impact. Students are challenged to come up with their own ideas for how the philosophy of "more from less for more" can be used to address issues related to poverty and lack of education in India.

Supplement to case IN1581 In 2013, India passed a law to make corporate social responsibility mandatory for large companies. The case examines the context in which the CSR legislation was introduced and how Tata Motors Ltd (TML) responded to it. Case (A) explores the meaning of corporate social responsibility and the question of whether a company should put community projects before profits. Case (B) examines Tata Motors' CSR programmes in depth and provides an opportunity to consider their impact. Students are challenged to come up with their own ideas for how the philosophy of "more from less for more" can be used to address issues related to poverty and lack of education in India.

Baabuk, a Swiss based start-up with a branded offering in wool footwear was founded in 2014 by the married couple Dan and Galina Witting. Since then and to 2018, the founders have grown the firm to now offer three product lines of wool footwear, employ 5 staff and book CHF 1.4 Mio net revenues from selling its products across online, distributor and retail channels. The case introduces Baabuk's history, current business and financial situation. The case also highlights the competitive environment with specific focus on Allbirds, a venture-capital backed US start-up. Allbirds has a similar core product to Baabuk. Whilst Baabuk has remained self-financed, Allbirds has raised a number of funding rounds with a most recent valuation of US1.4bn. The case presents the founders in a position where they feel the potential of the product has been clearly demonstrated but also face an increasingly competitive environment. Their primary concern is to formulate the right channel and pricing strategy, but they are also considering external investment to help scale the business. They are in a dilemma as to how to take Baabuk forward and wonder whether they are asking themselves the right questions.

In 2012, just before the Christmas holiday season, a 13-year-old girl, McKenna Pope, filed a petition of complaint to Hasbro, a leading North American toy manufacturer. She wanted to end gender stereotypes in children's toys. Hoping to fulfill her younger brother's Christmas wish, Pope realized that there was only one pink and purple variant of the Easy Bake Oven available in the market. The oven was viewed as gender specific (only for girls) making boys reluctant to play with it. Even the commercials and the packaging of the toy featured only girls, creating a reluctance among young boys to play with it. Pope decided to write to Hasbro with the support of an online collaborative platform called change.org. The petition questioned Hasbro's product planning and created awareness about the firm's gender based marketing strategies. Surprisingly, the petition gathered support from not only parents, but also from some of America's culinary experts who voiced their concerns about creating a divided culture.

India's airline industry was an oligopoly, with six major players in the market. IndiGo, launched in 2006, had become India's largest airline and a dominant player, after having taken advantage of market conditions, including a rise in per capita income that led to increased demand for air travel. However, in 2018, after a decade of consistent profitability, IndiGo was experiencing a decline in profits that was affecting its share price. The airline's management needed to consider how the company could sustain its market-leading position over the long term and even increase profits, while accepting the minimal control it and its competitors had over ticket prices, amid an atmosphere of rising costs for aviation fuel and personnel costs.

The case explores Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse's mission to disrupt the global payments industry by leveraging the cryptocurrency XRP. Students will learn about Bitcoin and the blockchain industry, as well as Ripple's unique crypto business model. The case provides an opportunity to navigate the areas of distributed technology, platforms, regulation, and global payments, from the perspective of a San Francisco software startup with over $20 billion in digital assets.

Aperture Investors is a startup investment firm that seeks disrupt the asset management industry through competitive differentiation by charging investors primarily when its portfolio managers outperform the marketplace. Headed by Wall Street veteran Peter Kraus and backed with substantial and patient seed capital, Aperture seeks to attract both star portfolio managers and assets from mutual funds and hedge funds. Kraus believes that his innovative business model addresses the current dysfunctional fee and incentive structures in the industry, which have led to long-term market underperformance, and that Aperture will address the reasons that are motivating investors to shift to cheaper, passively-managed index and exchange-traded funds.

Peter Alkema, chief information officer of Business Banking at First National Bank in Johannesburg, was puzzling over ways to ensure that codeFest, the event he had inaugurated, would continue to thrive beyond 2018 without his direct involvement. His brainchild had begun in 2015 as a one-day hackathon with 100 participants. Three years later, it had grown to become a six-day coding and innovation extravaganza. Now, in May 2018, Alkema wondered what features of codeFest should continue into the future. What should be improved upon? And what novelties should be injected to take the event to the next level?

After more than a decade of development, US-based Synergy Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Synergy) received marketing approval from the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) for its first drug, Trulance, which targeted a large market that had only two other approved competitors. Synergy now needed to scale up from a research-and-development shop to a sales-and-marketing powerhouse. The company had not partnered with a larger pharmaceutical company during the regulatory review process, which was typical for smaller drug development companies, and as a result, it retained 100 per cent of the sales revenue but had virtually no in-house sales or marketing capability. In September 2018, the company was heavily indebted and the stock was priced below US$2; many wondered if Synergy had been right to go it alone or if it should continue that strategy for developing the lucrative North American market. With a new chief executive officer, Trulance sales beginning to accelerate, and other products moving through the FDA approval process, Synergy needed to decide whether to stay the course and become a full-fledged pharmaceutical company or seek a partner and stick to its research and development competency.