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This case describes Ant Financial's pursuit of innovation and landmark achievements in the field of finance. These innovations not only made up for its shortcomings in traditional financial services by providing inclusive finance, but also created new segments such as credit leasing. These new services posed a great challenge to traditional financial institutions and, by doing so, helped these institutions become more competitive. However, despite all these achievements, Ant Financial also faced many challenges. As a trailblazer in uncharted territory, it faced great technical uncertainties and had to overcome numerous hurdles, including regulatory blind spots, pressure from competitors, and the need to define new boundaries in innovation. Ant Financial's senior management had always been aware of these challenges: in May 2019, they held a two-day meeting to discuss the sustainability and boundaries of innovation, seeking to answer questions about the meaning of sustainable innovation today, what legacy Ant Financial would leave for posterity, and why.

By creating shared value (CSV) for stakeholders, Xibei, a 31-year-old catering company, managed to hold on to the number one spot in the Chinese food and beverage market in 2019. Founder and Chairman Jia Guolong said that the company's creation of shared value for stakeholders was not a noble gesture, but a bid to generate higher business returns and rival other restaurant giants around the world. Over the past 31 years, this business model created a virtuous circle for Xibei, helping to continuously boost competitiveness. As of June 2019, Xibei ran 350 stores in 56 cities across China and had plans to expand into other markets. However, Jia recognized that it would be challenging to implement the CSV business model in the global market, which would test his and Xibei's ability to capture and deliver value. If Xibei shared value but did not reap the returns, then the model would not work. So, how would Jia adapt the CSV model for the international market?

This case recounts the story of Taiwan's electronic component distributors of the early 2000s, which innovatively pursued horizontal consolidation amid unprofitability and an ailing industry climate due to vicious competition. As a result, these companies had to address enormous challenges in effectively managing a post-merger organization. Specifically, it explains the background of the strategic marriage between WPI Group, Taiwan's leading electronic components distributor, and SAC, the third-largest player in the same industry. They joined hands under the umbrella of a holding company WPG Holdings through a share swap deal. The new firm was the result of an innovative industrial holding model formed from the alliance and set a precedent for the regional industry. For WPG's inaugural Chairman Simon Huang, managing such a complex organization would be one of the biggest challenges of his career.

This case describes the development of Natural Factory's social e-commerce model, the role of CSR in the founding of that model, as well as its successes and limitations. In 2018, Natural Factory boasted a turnover of more than ¥600 million, and by January 2019, it had accumulated nearly 6 million purchasing users and over 27 million followers. Despite the impressive growth, Natural Factory was struggling to acquire new users. Marketing products directly to end-consumers would allow the company to break through this bottleneck quickly but at the expense of the small-scale merchants to whom the company owed its success. Founding CEO Su Lujiang faced a serious dilemma: how could the company continue to acquire new users without alienating the old ones?

This case focuses on the actions of Beijing Baman Technology Co., Ltd. ("Baman") to improve supply chain performance to support its innovative "boundaryless dining" business model. These actions included defining supply chain strategies and roles, and driving upstream and downstream collaboration. As a start-up, Baman served authentic Hunan Changde beef rice noodles, earning its restaurant chain great popularity online through successful community marketing. It then innovated its business model by breaking time and space restrictions of traditional eateries and diversifying its portfolio to include dine-in, take-away and retail products. However, after expanding its retail SKUs, Baman suffered from a bloated inventory and faltering cash flow at the end of 2017. Company founder Zhang Tianyi then realized the importance of supply chain management and the different characteristics between restaurant and retail supply chains. Since 2018, Baman has made relentless efforts to build on supply chain management capabilities by clearly defining supply chain strategies, tactically segmenting the management of restaurant and retail supply chains, and improving supply chain efficiency while reducing costs through upstream and downstream collaboration. The case ends with an open discussion: how could Baman manage more complex supply chains to boost efficiency with lower costs? By depicting the story of a start-up, this case expands on how a company can improve its supply chain to facilitate business model innovation, which may serve as a reference for supply chain management of small and medium-sized enterprises in other sectors of the real economy.

This case describes the strategies and business models of Alibaba and JD.com (JD). After more than ten years of development, two giants-Alibaba, the world's largest online marketplace operator, and JD.com (JD), China's largest online direct sales operator-towered over China's e-commerce industry. In 2014, Alibaba and JD were listed successively, and in the first half of 2015, they disclosed their first annual reports after listing. These two financial statements attracted the attention of Zhang Wei, a sell-side investment manager who has just graduated from his EMBA program. To prepare for questions from his clients, he has begun to think about the differences between the strategies and business models of Alibaba and JD. How would these differences affect their financial statements? What are the investment highlights of the two companies?

This case describes how Alibaba and JD built their business empires and delivered results using their respective business models after going public. Shortly after Alibaba and JD.com (JD) released their respective annual financial reports in the first half of 2019, Zhang Wei, who had been recently promoted to Investment Manager, got a call from an institutional investor. The investor intended to purchase shares of Alibaba or JD, and hoped to assess the two companies' investment value from a financial perspective. Alibaba and JD adopt different development strategies and business models, ranking the top two in China's e-commerce arena. Which company is of higher investment value: Alibaba or JD? As a business school graduate, Zhang Wei has decided to analyze the two companies' financial statements, and based on that, evaluate the two companies' investment value and investment risk.

This case examines a universal question: How can a tech startup (such as an AI or big data startup) address the pain points of traditional vertical industries through technological innovation and create value? Some tech startups set ambitious goals, which demand significant and sustained investments in R&D, but fail to plan for commercial development in order to remain viable: when funding runs out, they go bust. Others aim for low-hanging fruit in more easily accessible markets, at the expense of pursuing their original goal; once engaged on this path, it is extremely difficult to change course and build an iconic name. The issue, then, is how tech startups should strike a balance between "aiming too high" and "taking a faster route." The LinkDoc Technology (hereinafter "LinkDoc") case was compiled as one way to find answers to these questions. The case examines how LinkDoc, specializing in big data and serving the vertical healthcare industry, found its own answers to these issues and, more specifically, how it identified and entered its target market segment, and subsequently found a way to commercialize its technology and create a viable business.

In 2019, Eve Burton, Chairwoman of HearstLab and Chief Legal Officer at Hearst Corporation, knew that HearstLab was at a key inflection point for growth-with opportunities to take on additional capital and expand internationally. HearstLab is an incubator focused on early-stage, women-led start-ups innovating across media, business information, and technology, HearstLab provided capital, office space in New York City's Hearst Tower, and access to Hearst's resources, while taking an equity interest in the companies. The Lab was started in 2015 with the goals of increasing visibility and opportunity for women both inside and outside of Hearst, create value from investing in women-led start-ups, and continuing to bring innovation to Hearst.

In January 2018, President Donald Trump announced steep tariffs on solar imports, at once plunging the US solar industry into uncertainty and deeply angering vital trade partners such as China, South Korea, and the European Union. The tariffs were in response to a complaint made by two bankrupt solar companies seeking protection against cheap solar imports. The companies invoked a rarely used provision of the 1974 United States Trade Act, Section 201 (safeguards), and argued that antidumping and countervailing duties imposed on China in 2012 had done little to stem the flow of solar products because Chinese producers had simply moved production to countries such as Malaysia and South Korea, where the duties did not apply. Five years after enduring a series of bruising trade battles, the global solar industry was once again in the eye of a rapidly escalating trade storm. Amid an unprecedented number of trade disputes at the WTO, the role of safeguards had suddenly taken center stage. Yet, the application of safeguards in the global trading system had been historically rife with problems. This case is designed to be taught in follow up to HKS Case 1992.0: Shaping the Future of Solar Power: Climate Change, Industrial Policy and Free Trade.

In 2012, the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice-an NGO dedicated, in large part, to criminal justice reform-led a campaign to enact a new state law in New Jersey known colloquially as "Ban the Box," which barred employers from automatically screening out persons with a criminal record when filling a job opening. The Institute had tried to pass such a law four years earlier, but in the face of concerted opposition from the business lobby, the measure had failed. The Institute decided to try again-this time with a smarter, more effective strategy. The case provides brief background on mass incarceration, the barriers to reentry for people with a criminal record, the rationale for the Ban the Box movement, and then provides a behind-the-scenes look at NJISJ's strategic thinking and internal debates. This includes information about NJISJ itself-what strengths and weaknesses does it bring to the table? What considerations will likely sway the state legislature and incoming Republican Governor Chris Christie? What approach to take with respect to employers? Which interest groups to tap, and how? What tone should the messaging take? In negotiations over the language of the bill, how far to bend?

Supply chain management impacts the delivery of both products and services for public and private sectors. Road salt for winterization illustrates the challenges associated with supply chain management from snowfall variability to product availability, sourcing, ordering, lead time, storage, and application aspects. Decisions involving service levels associated with road salt that public entities make directly impact the safety and lives of their citizens as well as public sector budgets and the local economy. Ultimately, the goal is to develop a justified strategy for road salt that create public value.

In December 1938, US president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) contemplated recent setbacks that challenged the viability of his program of economic recovery, popularly called the "New Deal." Various achievements and defeats in the first three years of his administration energized his supporters and galvanized a diverse opposition of conservatives, populists, and extremists-who believed FDR had gone too far or not far enough. Critics accused him of overreach of powers beyond his constitutional authority, of inconsistency, of inciting class warfare, and of creating conditions that actually retarded recovery. Would the record of the New Deal sustain the level of popular support that he won in the election of 1936? Had his policies and programs promoted economic recovery? What lessons should he learn from his defeats? What changes should he make in his programs and politics as he entered the election year? Should he double down on his progressive agenda or change course?

After a major setback in the fall of 2018, Dr. David Jacobs, a radiologist and physician leader in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was frustrated in his attempts to reform the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), the professional association which represented all physicians in the province. He must decide whether to keep trying to reform the OMA or to launch a new association, the Ontario Specialists Association (OSA), which would be devoted to addressing the minority interests of the province's high-billing specialists. After years of trying to make progress on the key issues for specialist physicians within the OMA, the minority specialist group felt poorly represented by the OMA and unfairly treated in contract negotiations for physician services with the province's Ministry of Health, the sole payer of insured physician services in Ontario. Jacobs must decide whether it was in the best interests of the high-billing specialists to continue being represented by the OMA - whose membership was dominated by primary care physicians with divergent interests from those of the specialists - or to establish the OSA to represent the unique interests of specialists in contract negotiations with the Ministry. The central issue dividing the minority specialists and the majority primary care physicians was a fair resolution to the issue of "relativity" - or relative physician compensation between areas of clinical practice. The minority high-billing specialists were facing another round of fee cuts in order to redirect money to the lower billing majority including primary care. Consequently, the high-billing specialists were contemplating leaving from the OMA - their representative that had sanctioned the proposed deal that benefited the majority at their expense.

Negotiating the initial equity split among founders is not as straight-forward as it might first appear. In this case, five Belgians launch Novosanis, a university spinoff, to commercialize two promising medical devices: VAX-ID and Colli-Pee. VAX-ID is an injection device suited for highly accurate and painless drug delivery effective at low volumes. Colli-Pee provides a non-invasive method of detecting Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) and other infectious diseases. The Novosanis founding team includes two scientists who proposed the original ideas, two project coordinators who managed the R&D process at the university, and an industrial partner who provided technical support. The team's first inclination is to split the equity evenly, to reflect their relatively equal contributions prior to the spinoff. It becomes clear however, that if future contributions are included in the decision, an equal split might actually be unfair and counterproductive. One founder agrees to be the spin-off's full-time CEO and another consents to be part-time CTO. The remaining founders choose not to take active roles post start-up. The team has an important decision to make: How should they divide the shares of Novosanis to compensate prior contributions, while also supporting the venture going forward? Would equal be fair?

This case addresses the challenges faced by the Neuroscience Outpatient Center (NOC) at the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) and unfolds the Evidence Based Management Approach adopted to Optimize Efficiency and respond to the rising obstacles. After briefly describing the healthcare industry, the changes in ambulatory care model and the vision of AUBMC, authors dive into the challenges encountered by patients, physicians, and management at the NOC. The NOC is the first of several multidisciplinary centers launched at AUBMC to centralize services and facilitate patient care in an optimal manner. Such centers foster collaboration among faculty and ensure integration of care. This case focuses on the operational challenges faced by the NOC that ultimately impact the level of service and patients' experiences. The center was struggling to maintain patient satisfaction and optimal operations in place. The evidence-based healthcare management unit at AUBMC assisted the center's management in collecting the needed quantitative and qualitative data that can serve as a tool to provide effective recommendations to the center and improve patient experience.

In late August 2019, Dr. Manuel del Castillo, CEO of the SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital, was wrapping up a three-month stay in Washington, D.C. and preparing to present his hospital's new innovation strategy to the Management Committee upon his return. Along with Dr. Jaume Pérez-Payarols, the Director of Innovation and Research, he had defined a number of strategic innovation priorities for the next phase of HSJD's innovation journey. However, they still needed to decide how best to approach implementation and whether to adopt a more centralized or decentralized approach. As part of this decision, questions regarding the management of budgets, performance metrics, and speed also had to be considered. During the previous ten years, the two doctors had introduced innovation slowly, using minimal resources and fostering the voluntary contributions of the hospital professionals. Over time, the focus evolved from isolated projects that solved problems for specific groups of patients to cross-departmental projects that affected the core business, such as digital health and new business models. During the same time period, the hospital had sought new revenue via internationalization in order to sustain financially the complex level of care it offered. Given the hospital's evolution, the two doctors debated how to strengthen and accelerate the change effort, and each favored a different approach. They agreed to take time to think through their options and to make a decision when they reunited in the office in Barcelona a few days later.

Staff.AI is a start-up technology company featuring a new resource-sharing application for hospitals and health care professionals. Developed by neurosurgeon Dr. Carl Einarsson, the application addresses the substantial cost of staffing personnel for temporary requirements of acute care hospitals. Utilizing familiar mobile technology of Airbnb, TaskRabbit, Uber, and other resource-sharing companies, Staff.AI matches hospital staffing needs with available professionals, streamlining the recruiting process, reducing staffing agency costs, and correlating data of medical teams and clinical efficacy. Having conducted a successful beta-test with a major academic medical center and recruited capital, Dr. Einarsson must determine a reasonable pricing model to bring the company's namesake product to market.

In late December 2019 the members of the Systemwide Emergency and Urgent Care Council (SWEUCC), the council for emergency services at Baptist Health South Florida (BHSF), pored over the emergency department (ED) data usage reports for four of its urban hospitals (Urban 4) for fiscal years 2016-2019. The overuse problem was not getting better. In fact, it was getting worse. The data showed that an increasing number of patients used the Urban 4 hospital EDs for non-urgent care and for medical conditions that could have been treated in a primary care setting Non-urgent care patients were overcrowding the ED resulting in long waits to be seen by a provider, and in some cases, patients left the ED after many hours without having been seen. The overcrowding added stress on ED hospital resources thereby jeopardizing the quality of the delivery of care. If a patient had private commercial insurance, the hospital received payments for the ED visit. Private commercial insurers, however had begun to deny payment for unnecessary ED visits to disincentivize this behavior. The burden shifted to patients to pay the expenses of the ED visit out-of-pocket. Not surprisingly, many patients could not pay the high cost of these medical bills given high policy deductibles or being underinsured. Consequently, the hospitals were sometimes left without reimbursement. SWEUCC convened to evaluate BHSF's options. Their overarching goal was to help standardize care across the organization to increase efficiency and lower costs. "Carevenience" was one of the programs implemented by BHSF in 2017 to solve the patient overutilization problem in the ED. The idea was to provide patients with non-urgent care alternatives including geographically convenient treatment facilities and time-saving appointment options. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid also provided its own best practices recommendations to hospitals to address patient overutilization including broadening access to primary care

In April of 2018, Mike Horsfield, CEO of Rock Valley Physical Therapy (RVPT), was scheduled to meet with shareholders to discuss the future ownership of the company. All RVPT shareholders and key executives were licensed physical therapists. Most of the shareholders and a large number of important, long-term employees expected to retire in the coming years, with retirements starting in 2020. RVPT's line of credit was tied up in their growth strategy, leaving them unable to cash out those seeking retirement. Horsfield had a lucrative offer from a Private Equity (PE) firm to buy into the business, which would provide the funding for those planning to retire, but he was concerned about how a profit-focused PE investor might change RVPT's culture and its patient-focused medical practice. The offer was tempting, but he was unsure how to present the offer to the shareholders and whether he should argue for or against accepting the PE firm's offer. As the only MBA among the shareholders, Horsfield's opinion carried weight and could sway the decision.