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In early 2016, stock markets around the world plummeted, raising the threat of another major depression enveloping the world. In their struggle to recover from the post-2008 global recession, many nations had expanded their money supply and lowered interest rates, with the aim of stimulating both consumer spending and corporate investment. While some of this monetary expansion increased production and employment, much of it created bubbles in asset prices, especially in the prices of equities. Investors faced such low returns from bonds and other fixed-income assets that they poured their funds into equities, which increased price-earnings ratios to exceptional levels. This bubble in stock prices amplified the risks of a severe crash. What could—and should—governments do to avoid a significant stock market crash and a global depression?

In 2014, the executive director (ED) of India’s Petroleum Conservation Research Association needed to prepare the next phase of the association’s marketing campaign and media plan, which aimed to promote long-lasting and responsive energy-saving behaviours among India’s petroleum users. The ED was eager to incorporate new media into this marketing campaign but knew that the various segments of the diverse and broad target audience had different media preferences and habits. How could he and his team create the right message and the right media mix to achieve this goal? What would be the best way to distribute the campaign’s resources across the various communication channels to successfully execute the marketing strategy?

本個案公司，朗捷科技的產品銷售市場為北美。公司接單後由位於台灣的分公司採購零組件，然後藉由不同的運輸方式運到美國組裝銷售。本個案的問題在於公司為了避免在美國的庫存，付出了極高的運費。討論如何改變庫存管理方式，以減少支出，是本個案的討論重點。

In 2011, four Canadian non-profit organizations have a mandate to prevent injuries and face similar and worsening problems. Each organization is spending an escalating amount of time fundraising to support its operations. Key stakeholders are expressing confusion because injury prevention is a crowded space and many non-profit organizations are seeking both dollars and partnerships. Most troubling, the four non-profit organizations are struggling to assess whether they are actually making a difference by preventing injuries and saving lives. The leaders of the four organizations must decide how to proceed — and whether the best solution is offered by collaborative or competitive strategies. Use role play supplements 9B15M122A.

In 2014, the general manager of the established and successful Hong Kong-based company Hung Fook Tong, which produced and sold herbal teas, wondered how his company could profitably expand to mainland China. After Hung Fook Tong’s recent initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, its shareholders’ equity had tripled. The initial public offering committed Hung Fook Tong to expanding its business in mainland China; however, that market posed many challenges, in part because it represented a far larger market. The general manager knew it was critical to determine a suitable and successful expansion strategy.

For over five years, the third generation (G3) of Valley Pulp & Sawdust Carriers, Ltd.<br>had been laying the foundation for the professionalization of the family firm. However, it was met with resistance from the second generation (G2). G3 had no ownership in the family business, and no true leadership role. At the management meetings, only four votes counted—the four votes of G2 members who were shareholders of the business. G3 members needed a commitment and clarification regarding their roles and future in the company. The question was how to approach G2. The G3 cousins knew that the challenge for them to garner G2’s respect and to have G2 understand G3’s roles and contribution to the family business would be nothing short of daunting.<br><br>This case series also includes Valley Carriers (B): Working on Versus Working in the Business 9B16M096 and Valley Carriers (C): Restructuring the Governance of the Family Firm 9B16M097.

In 2011, after decades of the eye-care needs of India's semi-urban and rural population being largely ignored by both government and commercial enterprises, the corporate team of Drishti established two eye hospitals to address these unmet needs. However, Drishti faced some tough challenges in expanding its operations. Given that Drishti’s hospitals were located in semi-urban and rural areas, attracting and retaining highly-trained professional staff was very difficult. Drishti also needed to consider the implications of accessing equity capital to pursue its social goals. With its business model showing positive results, should Drishti opt for rapid growth or achieve slower growth by using internally generated funds? In the pursuit of financial goals, would Drishti need to compromise on any of its social goals?

In 2010, the recently appointed chief executive officer of VOSS Water (VOSS), a Norwegian luxury bottled water company, had been given an opportunity to take the brand in a new direction. He knew that take-home retail markets represented a huge opportunity for growth for a company that was used to selling its water in on-premises, luxury locations such as resorts and restaurants; however, the company’s past attempts to grow into the retail space had produced dismal results. VOSS’s new leader understood that he would have to work hard to unite his team behind his vision. How could he learn from the steps of his predecessors and use hindsight to create an opportunity for the luxury water brand?

In 2014, the chief executive officer (CEO) and owner of Pak Sweets was worried about diversity issues in his organization. The sweets-making factory, once a one-room business and now a full-fledged factory in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, was highly dependent on blue-collar workers. Each production process required workers with diverse skills, so the company hired employees from different provinces of Pakistan, representing multiple ethnicities. The ethnicities were fundamentally diverse with different languages, cultures, and codes of conduct. As the company grew, conflicts increased between employees of different ethnicities. This everyday minor problem turned into a major challenge when it caused property damage, financial losses, and a decline in productivity. Pak Sweets was unable to meet demand, and the company’s reputation was at stake. The CEO believed that firing the troublemakers was not an option; it would only address the problem temporarily and might result in union strikes and lockouts. The CEO needed a plan to resolve the ethnic-based conflicts in the factory and their negative impact on the company.

Ed Williams Mens Wear, a family-owned retailer of high-quality men’s clothing, had a single location in Calgary, Alberta. The store had been very successful for over 20 years. The founder’s son was planning to take over the business, but he had concerns about the company’s aging market and was looking to grow and/or diversify the business. Available options included opening another location, expanding the store, or changing the product offering. Competitive conditions in the Calgary marketplace were heating up with the entry of a number of higher-end American retailers. The founder's son needed to evaluate all the alternatives in order to carry Ed Williams Mens Wear into the future.

In 2010, when India opened up its defence sector to private manufacturers, Armada India set up a factory in West Bengal. However, the factory faced issues of low productivity, delivery delays, and high rejection rates. A quirky new general manager of maintenance applied Buddhist philosophy to his human resource management practices. The workers, who until then had felt unimportant, now felt happy and engaged as they adopted the manager’s ideas, which appealed to their local psyche. Strong results were seen in terms of improved production, productivity, and morale. However, senior managers had significant global expansion plans and were wary of this general manager’s unorthodox management style. They hired a highly qualified, U.S.-educated human resource (HR) executive who scoffed at the “unsophisticated” practices of the manager and sought to change them, despite their success. What was the manager to do? Was the new HR executive justified in trying to impose more traditional business methods?

The owner of a designer handbag company, 442 McAdam, found she could no longer manufacture in-house the quantity of handbags required to meet existing orders. Manufacturing would need to be outsourced, and the owner would have to choose between a local manufacturer and an overseas manufacturer. Local manufacturers offered the same quality as overseas manufacturers but charged higher prices. International manufacturers, while offering lower prices, required larger minimum order quantities. Regardless of the manufacturing option she chose, the owner wondered whether the minimum levels of inventory she needed to order could be sold within the upcoming six-month style season.

Swedish camera manufacturer Hasselblad was founded in 1841. The brand reached new heights in 1969, when astronaut Neil Armstrong used a Hasselblad camera to take the first photos on the moon. For decades, Hasselblad was renowned for making the world’s best high-end, medium format cameras for professional photographers. Faced with the paradigm shift from film-based to digital imaging, the company launched digital cameras and also diversified into the luxury digital camera market through a strategic partnership with Sony. On November 5, 2015, Hasselblad announced a minority stake investment by Shenzhen-based DJI, a global market-leader in aerial camera photography. Changes to Hasselblad were inevitable. Was Hasselblad poised to take its core competency in medium format photography to the next level?

The Boeing Company, one of the dominant players in the aerospace industry, aimed to construct a supply chain architecture that was effective both domestically and globally, while simultaneously building its capacity to enter into agreements with small and diverse suppliers. A top executive at Boeing, who was responsible for both corporate supplier relationships and small business liaisons, needed to determine the approach that would yield the most optimal results for the company. Should she adapt supply chain principles to incorporate diversity, or should she view supply chain management as one element in an overall drive to increase diversity at the company?

The eHomemakers project was founded in 1998 to provide skills and employment for disadvantaged women in Malaysia. The women worked from home, weaving baskets out of recycled magazines from which they could generate income. This means of self-support was particularly beneficial to stay-at-home mothers and disabled women who were unable to work. By 2011, the enterprise was struggling for viability in Malaysia, which led the founder to consider crossing the border to Singapore to explore opportunities in that country to avoid having to give up on her social enterprise altogether.

In 2015, the new chief executive officer of Wichita County Health Center (WCHC) was evaluating his organization’s strengths and weaknesses in light of a changing environment for health-care delivery in rural Kansas. WCHC faced three key issues: whether to sign a service agreement with Colorado-based Centura Health; whether to hire additional full-time nursing staff instead of paying high fees to an external staffing company; and identifying opportunities to grow its patient base. To assist with these three decisions, WCHC needed to conduct a strategic planning process using the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) framework. For the related technical note, please see product no. 9B16M076.

The two co-founders of India’s online retail aggregator Baggout needed to come up with some ideas that would create new growth for their company. Baggout’s e-shopping website had been operational for two and a half years, and during that time, the start-up had enjoyed considerable success in the highly competitive and rapidly growing online retail market. The two partners wanted to establish a strategic growth plan for the upcoming year in 2016, but they knew they would first have to address some important questions if they hoped to identify ways to capture a larger share of the digital marketspace: What technical and digital capabilities would Baggout need for success in the future? What were the possible scalability issues for Baggout? What marketing strategies could the company implement to ensure increased adoption of the Baggout mobile application?

In early 2013, an analyst at an insurance company was examining whether IndusInd Bank, a mid-size bank in India, would be a good investment for the insurance fund’s equity portfolio. From January 2008 until March 30, 2013, the bank’s stock had tripled under its new management. The analyst wondered whether deploying funds in the bank would yield any significant returns. He decided to use the available financial information and the residual income valuation method to forecast the company’s stock price.

Lenovo, China’s largest personal computer manufacturer, had just replaced its American chief executive officer (CEO), the third replacement since the company’s 2005 acquisition of IBM’s personal computer business. The leadership shakeup was seemingly caused by the worsening conditions in Lenovo’s key target market and the company’s subsequent disastrous financial loss, but, in reality, the reasons were more complicated. Lenovo was dealing with the most challenging internal issues that a globalizing Chinese company could experience: retaining international executives under severe distress, integrating two companies with distinct cultural roots, and dealing with changed power relations on the board, including the awkward relationship between a Chinese executive chairperson and a foreign CEO.

Bajaj Auto Limited (BAL), the world’s largest manufacturer of three-wheel vehicles, was about to launch India’s first quadricycle, built indigenously for applications that were uniquely useful for urban transportation in developing markets such as India. The four-wheel vehicle was being launched as a completely new category in the Indian market by BAL’s Commercial Vehicle division. The dilemma facing the BAL team was whether to brand the new product as an extension of the company’s three-wheel market leader or as an independent brand. Furthermore, what degree of endorsement would be required from the master brand, “Bajaj”? The potential success of this vehicle would have a profound effect on BAL’s ability to develop its brand image and carve out a leadership position in a new category of commercial vehicles in India.