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Since its launch in 1998 as "the Amazon.com of DVDs," Netflix had evolved from a DVD rental company to a video streaming platform and producer of original films and television shows. As the company matured, it regularly increased prices and adjusted its product offerings while continuing to add new subscribers. However, between late 2019 and mid-2020, competition within the streaming industry intensified with the launch of new entrants such as Disney+, Apple TV+, and HBO Max, jeopardizing Netflix's position as the industry leader. In spite of the heightened competition in the streaming industry, some analysts and customer willingness-to-pay surveys suggested that Netflix had the opportunity to implement another rate hike in the near future. By May 2020, Netflix must decide whether to increase prices again, or whether it should consider a different pricing model altogether.

The case centers around LogiNext, a logistics technology company that provided organized logistics and field service management in real time to increase the operational efficiency of its clients. Founded in 2014 by Dhruvil Sanghvi and Manisha Raisinghani, the company had operations in India, the United States and Southeast Asia. In 2018, when the events of the case are set, its founders were planning to expand its reach within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. As a part of its scaling up activities, LogiNext wanted to make Agility, one of the largest logistics companies in the Middle East, its logistics software partner in the region. Sanghvi and Raisinghani were faced with a number of questions: What should be the way forward for the firm? How could LogiNext cater to the GCC region's logistics challenges and understand the changes required to improve product fitment in the new market? What change management strategy should LogiNext apply in the region so that new markets or targeted companies adopt the new technology?

With a focus on China's biggest internet companies, Alibaba and Tencent, the case study describes their respective histories, fintech subsidiaries and platform-based ecosystems. It illustrates the strategy issues that arise from an institutional void and market uncertainty: how to determine the business model, generate unprecedented value for customers, and ultimately compete with foreign as well as local rivals. It aims to help students understand the opportunities and challenges for firms in emerging markets, the evolutionary nature of strategy-making, the digital transformation, how new business models give rise to new regulatory challenges, and how firms respond to changes in the institutional environment. The case has four parts. The first two describe the growth of Alibaba and its fintech subsidiary Ant Financial, and of Tencent with its superapp WeChat and fintech subsidiary WeChat Pay - noting how each built its own ecosystem and their mutual attempts to squeeze the other's core business. Part 3 describes the pre-existing banking and finance industry in China. Part 4 explores their CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiatives in the face of increasing regulatory and institutional pressures.

In early 2020, during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, Google Trends data revealed a surge in the use of the search terms "Corona beer virus" and "beer virus" by users of the Google search engine. A survey conducted around that time also seemed to suggest that consumers were less likely to buy Corona beer, which led various major media outlets to misrepresent the accuracy of the findings regarding consumer beliefs about the association between Corona beer and coronavirus. However, the chief executive officer of Constellation Brands Inc., the Corona brand's distributor, was confident about the brand's performance and did not change the company's plans for a US spring 2020 launch of Corona hard seltzer. Consumers criticized both the poor timing of the planned launch, during the coronavirus pandemic, and various promotions for Corona beer that were considered inappropriate. Constellation Brands Inc. had to consider the effect, if any, on Corona beer sales in the United States. Should the launch of Corona hard seltzer go on as planned during the coronavirus pandemic? How should the company respond to misleading survey reports by some media outlets? Should bar owners in the United States be cautioned against launching promotional campaigns that link the Corona beer brand with the coronavirus?

By 2017, the comprehensive multi-brand Chinese clothing manufacturer Bosideng International Holdings Limited (Bosideng), founded in 1976, had become famous for its main business of down jackets. After almost 40 years of rapid development, Bosideng had become the top brand in the Chinese down apparel industry and had established strong brand equity. However, the company's performance had been in decline since 2013. Faced with increasingly fierce competition, Bosideng had gradually lost its appeal to younger customers, who were uninterested in its unfashionable designs. The reduced profit level threatened Bosideng's further development. In 2017, Bosideng's chairperson and president was considering how to overcome this dilemma by revitalizing the brand. He hoped to strengthen the position of the Bosideng brand in the Chinese down jacket market and even in the global market in the future. However, he was not sure which approach would be most effective: should he maintain Bosideng's existing brand values or invest in rebranding?

Angaza's story is not a typical solar light story, but the story of a female social entrepreneur with a for-profit Silicon Valley mindset, transforming a social enterprise from a hardware to a software business model. It is about pivots, changing value propositions, new products and business models as Angaza evolves to escalate social impact while still making money. Angaza began as a solar-light company founded in 2010 by Stanford graduate Lesley Silverthorn Marincola to address energy poverty in rural off-grid communities. In her quest to address affordability, Lesley realized that the main problem confronting rural off-grid communities was not the price of solar lights per se, but finding a way to spread payments over time. In 2012, Angaza pivoted from being a solar-light producer to a software provider offering pay-as-you-go (PAYG) metering and monitoring technology to players in the solar-light ecosystem - manufacturers, distributors and mobile network operators. The PAYG technology allowed end consumers to buy solar-light products by paying small amounts over time, eventually owning them outright. At the end of the case, students are confronted with a very real dilemma facing the founder and leadership team of many start-ups, including Angaza - what are the next opportunities for the company? Is it further scaling (if so, scaling up or deep), a pivot (into data), or an exit (sell the business)?

In March 2020, direct-to-consumer (DTC) company Pattern Brands needed to decide how to allocate resources across its different brands. Pattern Co-Founders Nick Ling and Emmett Shine hoped to avoid the pitfalls faced by some DTC companies-such as inability to scale and lack of competitive differentiation-by relying on their previous experience running a successful branding and marketing agency. Rather than focusing on a single brand, they conceived Pattern as a "DTC 2.0" model-a portfolio of 5 to 10 brands that shared a common theme of activities related to the home and a common mission of helping millennials enjoy daily life. Since its founding in August 2019, Pattern had launched cookware brand Equal Parts and home organization brand Open Spaces. Although Pattern's team still believed strongly in the benefits of a multi-brand strategy, Open Spaces' sales and unit economics had significantly outperformed Equal Parts' to date. Pattern's leadership wanted to build on Open Spaces' early momentum with new product colors and product lines, but they debated whether to act on the results of a recent customer survey indicating a positive response to an Equal Parts product redesign. Ling and Shine now had several decisions to consider. How should they allocate resources between repositioning Equal Parts and continuing to grow Open Spaces? How and when should they continue building Pattern's portfolio by developing a third brand? How much should they invest in marketing parent brand Pattern? More broadly, did Pattern's model represent the future of DTC brands?

The co-founders (Black HBS alumnae) of an e-commerce beauty startup explore the unmet needs within the beauty industry. This case study examines the entrepreneurial opportunities that come from identifying an underserved market, specifically within the Black community and the best startup financing approach to pursue those opportunities. Students learn approaches to product ideation/innovation, marketing strategies for the social media age and launching a startup for a targeted audience. Students learn to analyze macro and micro economic data of an industry, synthesize consumer demographics and purchase behavior data, and create projected unit economics as well as pro forma financial documents to determine the potential economic opportunity that is unmet in a market and the requisite fundraising to launch a new business. At the time of the case, Mented co-founders went on to become the 15th and 16th African-American women to raise over $1 million in startup funding.

Eko India Financial Services Pvt. Ltd. started in 2007 as a business correspondent (BC) for banks, providing account-opening and cash-in/cash-out (CICO) services for non/underbanked Indian customers. Brothers Abhishek and Abhinav Sinha co-founded Eko. Over the years, responding to multiple opportunities that presented themselves and changing regulations, Eko developed a domestic money transfer solution through its prepaid payment instrument (PPI) licence (acquired in 2015) and BC partnerships. Eko targeted low- and middle-income (LMI) customers, who entirely operated in the cash economy and offered them its network of small retail outlets to help them remit cash digitally over its mobile platform. In 2016, Eko monetised its technology assets and opened its platform for entrepreneurs in the domestic money transfer business. At the end of the FY18, Eko had 63 employees and a topline of over INR 400 million. This case highlights the journey of a startup operating in a changing Indian business and regulatory environment. The co-founders naturally effectuate to successfully overcome these challenges of an uncertain environment to create a stable and growing organisation. Innovations in technology, people processes, and the ability to adapt and learn are some of the highlights of Eko's journey. The future steps on a growth path for the organisation are chiefly the dilemmas facing the co-founders.

In 2020, The Honor Foundation (THF), a nonprofit dedicated to helping U.S. military special operators to transition into civilian careers, was facing a series of strategic challenges. THF had been founded in 2013 by former Navy SEAL trainee Joe Musselman, who observed a disturbing pattern: once special operators left the military in their mid-30s or 40s, they tended to end up in jobs in which they were overqualified, underpaid, and unfulfilled. Musselman attributed this to fundamental disconnects between the world of special operations, whose members had unique and deep skill sets but little experience articulating them in the civilian world, and the world of business. THF's programs gave transitioning special operators space to reflect on what they wanted out of their transition, and hard skills for interviewing, resume writing, and networking. Over seven years, its three month program had grown to serve over 200 transitioners per year on three campuses plus a virtual campus. But in early 2020, THF was not yet serving America's largest contingent of special operators: the U.S. Army Special Forces. As the COVID-19 pandemic raged, THF CEO Matt Stevens was evaluating how best to incorporate Army special operators and fulfill THF's mission of serving all the U.S. special ops community. Should THF build another physical campus? Should it use its virtual campus to incorporate Army special operators instead? Or should it take on government funding to scale quickly? Students who read this case will evaluate this strategic problem while becoming familiar with the unique skills of the Special Operations Forces community.

This public-sourced case uses Facebook, the legendary social media platform, to unfold circumstances that allow an analysis of the firm's privacy risk around its marketing tools and use of collected consumer data. Although Facebook had made progress on providing users more transparency around how it operated, how policies were enforced, and how shared data has been collected since 2018, challenges persisted-most notably over how to deal with misinformation on Facebook's platform and what to do with efforts to regain public trust. Facebook needed access to user data in order to ensure its advertising revenue source remained profitable. The scandal around user data and Cambridge Analytica leaves the case open to exploring privacy policies, data use, and factors driving consumer concerns regarding their data. The case provides an overview of Facebook's platform and policies that can be used to discuss the responsibility future general managers have to consider privacy and transparency when using consumer data. Had Facebook crossed the line with users over data collection? And what, if anything, should be done about regulators' increasing interest in how the firm conducted business? Although this case was written and taught before the global COVID-19 pandemic struck, it provides an interesting contrast to consumers' attitudes toward trust and legitimacy issues before and after COVID-19.

In November 2019, Jean Matthews had to decide how to allocate CA$300,000 toward neighbourhood improvement ideas submitted by city residents. Each of the four neighbourhoods in the city could receive up to CA$75,000 in funding, and Matthews had to consider the number of votes for each idea in her analysis. How should she identify which community projects to pursue?

In September 2015, the owner of Jayman BUILT, a homebuilder and developer in Alberta, was fine-tuning his vision for a resort-style residential community in the outer suburbs of Calgary, Alberta. The development, Westman Village, would be a legacy project and the first of its kind in Calgary-a high-density, walkable, and amenity-rich community. Work on the development was planned for September 2016, and the owner was eager to showcase the innovative community; however, the economy was in a recession and a tough housing market was likely. How could the company develop a unique marketing strategy to convince prospective customers to buy into the one-of-a-kind project?

Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook had begun to wonder whether it might be time to rethink their opportunistic approach to the expansion of their small restaurant empire in Philadelphia, CooknSolo. The pandemic, however, caused an abrupt and intense change of focus-the goal was no longer expansion, but survival. Solomonov had overcome much in his life, including addiction and the death of his younger brother; these experiences had given him the perspective to take on great challenges in his career, the COVID-19 pandemic being the greatest challenge yet. As the economy cautiously started to reopen in June 2020, how should Solomonov and Cook proceed? How should they think about their business in terms of survival through the duration of the pandemic and set themselves up to come back even stronger in the post-pandemic world?

Leaders from The Second City, the legendary Improv comedy company, reflect on its broad portfolio of activities through the lens of future opportunities and growth. In particular, they discuss ways in which Second City can further invest in its professional arm, Second City Works, and help workplaces embrace some of the main ideas of improv comedy to improve conversations, presence and collaboration.

This case discusses the evolution and role of India's nuclear regulator - the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB). It examines the need for a regulator in the context of India's nuclear energy programme, its roles and responsibilities, and issues / concerns pertaining to its independence and transparent decision making. The case focusses on key questions such as: What is a regulator or a regulatory agency? Why are regulators important, specifically within the nuclear sector? What is meant by the independence of a regulator? What are the types of regulator independence? How are these ascertained?

Rosalind Fox, the factory manager at John Deere's Des Moines, Iowa plant, has improved the financial standing of the factory in the three years she's been at its helm. But employee engagement scores-which measured employees' satisfaction with working conditions and enthusiasm about their work- have remained lackluster. As the first Black female factory manager to lead the plant, Fox considers how to build stronger bonds with her staff, who are mostly white men. The case describes how Fox took charge and established her credibility while building and nurturing a diverse leadership team. In addition to discussing Fox's current role, this leadership case chronicles Fox's career trajectory from her college years in Missouri through her time at Ford Motor Company and later, rising up the ranks at Deere & Company. The case discusses the pressure Fox has felt to assimilate into the dominant white male cultures and figure out how much of her authentic self to bring to work.

In 2005, Vineet Nayar, the former CEO and Vice Chairman of HCL Technologies, and his wife, Anupama Nayar, committed $100 million of their personal wealth to found Sampark Foundation - a grant-making philanthropy with a mission to transform learning outcomes for 20 million children in rural government schools by 2025. By 2013, it was clear that Sampark was never going to reach 20 million children by writing grants. Vineet stepped out of the corporate world and over the next six years, applied the lessons he learned about leading change at HCL to transform Sampark into a "disruptive design shop" that leveraged frugal innovation and a "Teachers First" model of change to revolutionize India's primary education system. By 2019, at $1 per child per annum, Sampark's 130 employees had touched the lives of over 7 million students and 200,000 teachers across 90,000 public schools - unprecedented scale in the Indian education context and evidence that their "Teachers First" strategy was working. Demand for Sampark's program was growing rapidly and Vineet now had the opportunity to reach 50 million children. Vineet had always believed in the transformative power of technology and had to determine whether Sampark could transition to a "Digital First" model.

In 2005, Vineet Nayar, the former CEO and Vice Chairman of HCL Technologies, and his wife, Anupama Nayar, committed $100 million of their personal wealth to found Sampark Foundation-a grant-making philanthropy with a mission to transform learning outcomes for 20 million children in rural government schools by 2025. By 2013, it was clear that Sampark was never going to reach 20 million children by writing grants. Vineet stepped out of the corporate world and over the next six years, applied the lessons he learned about leading change at HCL to transform Sampark into a "disruptive design shop" that leveraged frugal innovation and a "Teachers First" model of change to revolutionize India's primary education system. By 2019, at $1 per child per annum, Sampark's 130 employees had touched the lives of over 7 million students and 200,000 teachers across 90,000 public schools-unprecedented scale in the Indian education context and evidence that their "Teachers First" strategy was working. Demand for Sampark's program was growing rapidly and Vineet now had the opportunity to reach 50 million children. Vineet had always believed in the transformative power of technology and had to determine whether Sampark could transition to a "Digital First" model.

On June 16, 2017, PerkinElmer, Inc., announced that it would acquire EUROIMMUN Medizinische Labordiagnostika AG (EUROIMMUN), thus making EUROIMMUN an official subsidiary of PerkinElmer. Students are expected to consider strategic motivations behind the acquisition, from the perspectives of both parties, as well as the risks associated with such an acquisition. In addition, they should be able to prepare a pro forma post-acquisition consolidated balance sheet for the combined company. This case is intended for use in a financial accounting course to demonstrate the accounting for acquisitions, specifically where intangible assets could be motivating factors for purchase. Students are expected to prepare two post-acquisition consolidated balance sheets for PerkinElmer (with and without the use of short-term debt facilities), and must consider justifications and risks behind each financing option. Students are asked to consider potential motivations for the acquisition, risks to both parties in entering into this agreement, and market advantages resulting from PerkinElmer's acquisition of EUROIMMUN. In addition, students will also be exposed to and explore the rationale behind the goodwill and intangible asset fair values and purchase price allocations as assessed by PerkinElmer.