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Cognizant Technology Solutions (Cognizant) was a multinational corporation that operated in the information technology (IT) services sector and provided consulting and business process outsourcing services to its clients. As the world fell into the clutches of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company faced a series of challenges, through 2020 and into the start of 2021, that rocketed its employee attrition rates to an all-time high while also affecting revenue. During early 2021, the company was faced with the herculean task of retaining employees in the face of uncertainty and an extremely competitive market, even if this meant putting a dent in the company’s cash reserves. Cognizant had to determine how to build a better employee value proposition and develop initiatives to both retain and regain employees. Were the measures it had taken sufficient? Amid the scare of the pandemic and the war raging in India for talent, would Cognizant need a more robust human resources (HR) plan? Would it need to improve its measures for promoting the well-being of employees? Was the company too focused on performance and the bottom line?

Kia Motors India (Kia) had tasted success in India within a year of the launch of its product Seltos. Kia’s managing director and chief executive officer was quite happy with the sales figures for Seltos, the mid-sized sport utility vehicle (SUV) launched in August 2019, and was fairly confident that Kia’s compact SUV Sonet would follow the same path. Kia’s positioning strategies had worked very well thus far, and the company had been able to cultivate a brand image of a premium automaker whose products were considered aspirational.<br><br>However, Kia’s competitors seemed to have learned from Kia’s success in realizing what worked for Indian consumers and were starting to launch new variants of existing models. In the face of this competitive onslaught and slowing economic growth in India, the chief executive officer had to formulate strategies that would keep Kia’s growth trajectory on track. Could his understanding of the dynamics of the SUV segment in India enable him to frame effective positioning and growth strategies that would continue to work for Kia?

A dramatic dispute between two partners was about to push their long-time, successful international alliance to the verge of collapse. FamilyMart Co. Ltd. (FamilyMart) Japan and Taipei-based Ting Hsin International Group (Ting Hsin) had collaborated through a brand licensing arrangement to develop and operate FamilyMart convenience stores in mainland China for nearly 20 years. With FamilyMart stores topping the ranking of foreign convenience store brands, the collaboration appeared quite successful. However, on May 15, 2019, breaking news swept through the business media announcing that FamilyMart Japan had sued Ting Hsin in court and requested a compulsory dissolution of their partnership. A fierce feud between the two partners ensued, and an uncertain fate was closing in on the co-operation. With their 20-year brand licensing arrangement coming to an end in just a few months, both partners had to contemplate whether to extend the partnership and, if so, how to renegotiate the terms.

Emaan Modaraba, a Shariah compliant publicly traded modaraba based in Pakistan, made an investment in shares of Indus Motor Company Limited, a listed company assembling Toyota vehicles, in July 2020 – whose shares were designated to be Shariah Compliant and included in the Pakistan Stock Exchange’s KMI-All Share Islamic Index. In August 2020, Indus’ annual report disclosed that the company increased its short-term investments in interest-bearing instruments in order to be financially resilient in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ms. Khan, CEO of Emaan Modaraba, instructs Ms. Amina Ali, an investment manager, to provide her opinion on the annual report and whether Indus would remain Shariah Compliant and be included in the portfolio.

Maplebear Inc. – operating as Instacart – was a leader in the online grocery delivery service market. It was founded in 2012 by a former Amazon.com Inc. employee-turned entrepreneur Apoorva Mehta, who had realized that in order to succeed, he needed to create a simple, fast, and convenient approach to a growing problem at hand: online grocery delivery. Although the company was realizing year-over-year growth in a market that was experiencing rapid growth, it was unprepared for the pandemic of 2020, which generated astronomically high demand and led to dramatic changes in consumers’ shopping behaviour. Understanding that this market growth would likely continue, and in a world still reeling from the effects of COVID-19, Instacart needed to react quickly to maintain its leading position among the competition and solidify its competitive advantage in the grocery delivery market.

WeWork, a fast-growing but unprofitable real estate firm headquartered in New York, which leased shared office space around the world, announced in September 2019 that it was cancelling its plans for an initial public offering (IPO). In late 2020, as the company weathered the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, several special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) approached WeWork, offering an increasingly popular alternative method for the company’s shares to become publicly traded. In January 2021, WeWork’s new chief executive officer (CEO) was considering an offer from BowX Acquisition Corp., a “blank check” corporation. The CEO and the WeWork board needed to understand the benefits and disadvantages of a SPAC merger.

In 2016, US firm Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. (Aerojet) had been developing and manufacturing propulsion systems for rockets and armaments for long-range weapons systems for over 70 years. It also owned 4,634 hectares of land and an investment portfolio worth more than its stock’s market capitalization—but it had a large amount of debt and an underfunded pension plan. Aerojet’s stock had fallen over 30 per cent to US$16.30 under new executive leadership, and a hedge fund manager at Royal Capital Management LLC had to decide whether to wait for Aerojet to take off. After valuing the firm’s various assets, he concluded the stock was worth $35 based on the sum of the parts, but he needed to consider some of the parts, including its significant debt and a pension plan underfunded by $637 million, which were still cause for concern.

Cisco Systems Inc. (Cisco) was a modern technology company with a culturally diverse workforce. In 2008, it embarked on a plan to establish “a culture built on fairness, dignity and respect, free from bias, discrimination and negative behavior.” However, despite those efforts, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing brought a legal claim against Cisco in June 2020 alleging workplace discrimination, harassment, and retaliation based on caste hierarchy among Indian employees at the workplace. According to the claim, the employee had brought his grievance to Cisco’s notice, but Cisco failed to satisfactorily recognize and remedy the situation. What, if anything, had gone wrong at Cisco, and what could other firms learn from Cisco’s attempts to alleviate workplace harassment, hostility, and unequal outcomes stemming from casteism?

At the beginning of 2021, TikTok was facing multiple market threats and had to decide what strategies to implement to manage them. TikTok was the world’s largest short-video platform, with users in 155 countries. But along with great success in entering numerous geographic markets, TikTok faced various geopolitical pressures, mainly concerning the company’s origins in China. The company had to consider how it could survive emerging geopolitical pressures, manage competitive threats from global technology giants as well as platform envelopment threats, and capitalize on its creative and somewhat addictive platform to expand its reach into new promising markets such as the African continent.

Since its inception in 1994, Sterlite Copper (Sterlite), a subsidiary of UK-based mining and metals conglomerate Vedanta Resources plc, had encountered many controversies. Sterlite’s difficulties included accusations of manipulative compliance practices, legal issues arising out of land acquisition, gas leaks, and the depletion of the environment around its plant in Thoothukudi (also known as Tuticorin) in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Sterlite planned to expand and double its copper production, but various stakeholders raised concerns regarding alleged misconduct by the company and the adverse impact of its actions on the lives of the community surrounding the plant.<br><br>In May 2018, these agitations took a violent turn. The public protest led to the death of 13 citizens, and the events attracted negative media exposure. As Sterlite awaited Madras High Court’s ruling which was due in August 2020, the possibility of the plant’s permanent closure seemed likely.<br><br>While Sterlite Copper had been an organization of national importance, contributing to the GDP and creating employment, it suffered from adverse community opinion of allegedly being unethical while remaining in the realm of legality. The entire incident had Sterlite fighting more for its image than its environmental and legal positions. What had gone wrong for Sterlite by August 2020?

Moderna, Inc. (Moderna), a US biotech start-up, was a contender in the race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. On November 23, 2020, Moderna announced success in the third-stage clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine, soon after larger rival Pfizer Inc. (Pfizer), partnering with BioNTech SE, had reported the successful clinical trial results of its own vaccine. However, large-scale vaccine production was a challenge for Moderna, and its chief executive officer acknowledged that scaling production would not be easy. The two other leading vaccine developers, Pfizer and AstraZeneca plc (AstraZeneca), had fewer challenges with manufacturing capacity; however, Pfizer’s vaccine required extreme cold storage, and AstraZeneca’s vaccine faced issues with its third-stage clinical trial results. On the consumer front, many Americans were unwilling to be vaccinated for COVID-19, leading to anti-vaccination protests on social media and in public. In November 2020, Moderna was planning to apply to the US Food and Drug Administration for Emergency Use Authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccine manufacturers were racing to see whose vaccine was best. Could Moderna produce the most effective COVID-19 vaccine? Given the uncertainty in consumer demand for the vaccine, should Moderna plan its manufacturing capability based on end-consumer demand or focus instead on seeking government contracts?

Luckin Coffee Inc. (Luckin), an emerging growth firm that aimed to become the market leader in the coffee industry in China, had quickly grabbed market share by using freebies and discounts to entice cost-conscious Chinese consumers to try its products. Luckin sold its coffee and snacks through a proprietary mobile app, and customers either picked up their orders from strategically located stores or had them delivered. By the end of 2019, Luckin had served 40 million customers from its 4,500 stores. While the path to Luckin’s goal was clear, investigations revealed that key executives and board members had allegedly defrauded investors by distorting revenue and expense figures and engaging in related-party transactions that channeled resources out of the company. The accounting scandal led to further investigations, penalties from Chinese regulators, and a drop in the company’s share price and valuation, which went from $12 billion to below $1 billion within 11 months of listing. By August 2020, the company had been delisted from the Nasdaq exchange, its board composition had been changed, and it had been placed under the supervision of “light touch” provisional liquidators in the Cayman Islands. Was there a chance that Luckin could survive the scandal and its investors could recoup their funds? What could the company do to restore investor confidence and regain its path to becoming the market leader in the Chinese coffee industry? What were the implications of the accounting scandal to current and future listings on US stock exchanges?

Zoom, a popular video conferencing service based out of San Jose, California was built from scratch to be a business-segment focused, easy-to-use video conferencing service. The program was created by Zoom Video Communications Inc., which was founded by Eric Yuan in 2012. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the video conference market grew rapidly. Despite competing against much larger competitors, such as Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Webex, Zoom took an early lead, surmounted significant obstacles, and continued to grow. At the end of 2020, however, Zoom had to consider how to maintain its lead—not only during, but also after the pandemic.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google LLC (Google) purchased Fitbit Inc. (Fitbit) in November 2019 for US$2.1 billion, marking its foray into health care, and by January 2021, the US Department of Justice was conducting a probe into the Google–Fitbit merger amid Fitbit users’ skepticism and distrust of the deal with regard to data privacy. Although Google’s senior vice-president of devices and services assured users that the intent of the deal was to “spur innovation in wearables” and not to sell personal information or use Fitbit’s health and wellness data for Google Ads, Fitbit users remained concerned regarding Google’s access to incredible amounts of personal data. While the acquisition would help Google address its hardware failures of the past, gain an edge in software through an instant foothold in the growing smartwatch market, and integrate Fitbit’s smartwatches more deeply with Android, the larger goal was more likely maximizing Fitbit’s business-to-business (B2B) partnerships with “health insurance companies and direct corporate wellness programming.” What strategies should Google use to leverage Fitbit’s hardware strengths, B2B partnerships, and technical expertise? What steps should Google take to assuage data privacy concerns to become a serious contender in the smartwatch and health care markets and to realize its goal of revolutionizing digital health care? Did Fitbit stand to benefit from the deal?

The Sagrada Família was one of Barcelona’s most popular tourist attractions. Designed by famed architect Antoni Gaudí, the as-yet unfinished basilica was set to be completed in 2026. Initiated in 1882, the basilica was one of the longest-running architectural projects ever undertaken, and its construction had faced both opportunities and challenges over the years, with obstacles such as inadequate funding, a change in leading architects, and no firm deadline in place. The most recent obstacle to the completion of the basilica’s construction was the COVID-19 pandemic, which had cast uncertainty over when construction would resume. Despite the focus on the Sagrada Família’s completion, there was potential for tension between the artistic process and traditional project management practices. The current construction team had to determine how to proceed with the project to ensure its long-term recognition while also honouring Gaudí’s legacy.

Amazon.com Inc. (Amazon), the Seattle-based e-commerce giant, leaped into China with a buyout of Joyo.com Limited, China’s largest online book, music, and video retailer, in 2004. Amazon had the ambition of becoming the dominant online retailer in China by capitalizing on its globally recognized brand, cutting-edge technologies, and advanced business model and philosophy. In the following years, China’s e-commerce industry experienced exponential growth, representing a golden opportunity for technology firms. For Amazon, however, many challenges started to surface, including intense competition from Alibaba Group Holding Limited and JD.com Inc., which limited Amazon’s growth. In 2018, as China’s e-commerce industry quickly became one of the world’s largest, Amazon had to determine what its next steps should be.

In November 2016, the chief executive officer of CanniMed Therapeutics Inc. was considering the company’s options for raising capital through an initial public offering. The decision was critical for the Saskatchewan-based medical cannabis company, which had been an early leader in this fast-growing sector and was seeking to take advantage of growth opportunities. The company’s history in the space dated back to 2000, when it was awarded a sole source five-year contract from Health Canada to supply Canadians with medical marijuana. Since then, the demand for medical cannabis had grown exponentially, and policy liberalization had opened up prospects for the recreational market. CanniMed Therapeutics Inc. had positioned itself as a leader with extensive experience in research, development, and commercialization. The decision for it to go public was clouded by many burning issues and risks, which led to intense speculation among investors as to whether the firm should be going public at this time and, if so, at what price.

Founded in 1885, Crayola has since established itself as US-based iconic brand with a wide array of quality products and deep connections with consumers, retailers, and licensing and business partners. By March 2020, Crayola had achieved category leadership and was outselling the majority of its competitors. It was on trend with new products and online content for educators, parents, and children—all with the goal of inspiring creativity among children. Crayola had also created strong relationships with and earned the respect of retailers, who had come to value the role Crayola played in their business, especially during the two most important retail seasons: back-to-school and Christmas. At the beginning of the second quarter of 2020, Crayola had to make some critical decisions. The rapid spread of the COVID-19 virus across the United States had led to business and school closures across the country (and the world), as well as personal physical restrictions. Crayola needed to immediately focus on three key areas: maintaining company culture, collaborating with partners to preserve the volume of back-to-school revenue, and ensuring a strong supply chain to meet consumers’ needs. These three actions would ensure that Crayola could take advantage of key opportunities and continue creating strong and sustainable relationships with educators, parents, and children.

Xiaomi India Private Limited (Xiaomi India), a subsidiary of the Chinese smart phone company Xiaomi Corporation, controlled a major share in the Indian market. However, its dominance was threatened by geopolitical tensions between India and China. The two countries shared a 4,000 kilometre border and a history of dispute over the border’s actual demarcation. Tensions brewing over the international border during early 2020 precipitated an armed clash between Indian and Chinese troops at one border post that resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers. In response, the Indian government issued orders for companies to declare the identity of products made in China, with a preference for products made in India. A consumer boycott of Chinese products was also posing a threat to the Xiaomi brand’s market leadership position, while competitors saw an opportunity to expand their market share. How could Xiaomi India overcome the current negative environment and prepare for similar potential conflicts in the future?

In mid-2020, Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber) acquired Latin American-based mobile application Cornershop, which delivered online grocery purchases to the consumer’s home. The operation involved technology firms based on multisided platforms. Uber, which focused on the intermediation of passenger transport, had expanded to businesses such Uber Eats for the delivery of restaurant meals, while Cornershop’s focus was the purchase and delivery of supermarket products. Recently, Walmart had attempted to acquire Cornershop, but Mexico’s antitrust authorities would not authorize the acquisition. Uber’s acquisition of Cornershop involved important managerial challenges. What were the main sources of value? Should the two companies be managed separately or as joint units? Would Walmart have been a better fit for Cornershop? What was the best strategy to grow in this multisided business space?