個案總覽

James Han, director of strategy and planning at CHINT Group, needed to select the new country manager for the group's branch in Saudi Arabia. The branch was expected to become CHINT's regional hub for the Middle Eastern market, but the incumbent country manager lacked the necessary leadership skills. Han was considering two candidates: Wendy Sun, the country manager in Turkey, and Jack Ma, the country manager in Egypt. Both branches had achieved outstanding business growth under the leadership of Sun and Ma, respectively. Han needed to evaluate their capabilities and decide who was a better fit for the target market and the local team in Saudi Arabia, while also taking into account the cost of replacing them at their respective branches.

網路產業的風口有著時間的效應，一旦建立起商業模式莫不積極往海外拓展。而國際風險投資基金也提供大量的資金作為軍後盾，於是網路業者快速複製成功模式進佔海外市場，過程中難免會有短兵相接的情況。本個案即講述一個直播平台在海外拓展中遇到的經理人帶隊叛變問題，做為業者在海外拓展之殷鑑。

Inter IKEA Systems B.V. (IKEA) entered Korea at a relatively late stage of its global expansion and encountered an overwhelmingly positive customer response, which emboldened it to open several additional stores at a relatively fast pace. However, IKEA encountered much stronger headwinds after the COVID-19 pandemic hit Korea. It had to shift to online sales channels, mitigate customer dissatisfaction, face aggressive Korean competitors, accommodate a major slump in furniture demand, and address employee dissatisfaction and strong demands from its labour union. What could the company do to address these challenges and renew its success?

A.P. Moller-Maersk (MAERSK), an integrated container logistics company based in Copenhagen, Denmark, has been on a decade long strategic transformation journey that was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. MAERSK’s ambitious strategic business transformation converted the organization from an unwieldy family-owned conglomerate to an integrated container and logistics company. This massive shift required new organizational capabilities, new leadership, and most importantly, a significant change in company culture. The transformation helped make MAERSK successful both from a business perspective (e.g., digital transformation, mergers, acquisitions) and from a culture transformation perspective. The company took appropriate steps to break away from a traditional culture without jeopardizing its core values. From a change management perspective, MAERSK’s 9,000 people managers evolved from “a victim mindset” within “a cycle of despair” to a “growth mindset” within “a cycle of hope.” However, the company faced several key questions about its future: “Why did it implement strategic change in the first place? What are the benefits of strategic transformation? Was the company’s transformation successful? What comes next? What challenges will it face in its consistent drive to be better?

<p align="justify">The Beijing Stars and Rain Education Institute for Autism (Stars and Rain) was established in 1993 as the first private non-profit organization to provide educational services for children with autism in China. As a social enterprise, Stars and Rain worked to connect with various partners, raise funds through multiple channels, and co-operate with social welfare organizations. In addition to providing better autism rehabilitation services, it was also dedicated to facilitating family intervention and pre-employment training for adolescents with autism through its professional service and social influence. Since 2020, the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic had led to a continued downturn in the global economy, which greatly affected Stars and Rain’s operations and funding. How could the organization obtain a more stable source of funding, achieve sustained viability, and execute on its mission, vision, and strategic priorities?

In June 2022, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Worn Again Technologies (Worn Again), a polymer recycling technology company based in London, United Kingdom, was examining the way forward with a new technology that the company had developed and fine-tuned. The technology had been tested successfully at the company’s demonstration plant in Switzerland and was capable of processing fifty thousand tons of material per year. The CEO now needed to find new markets where the technology could be set up and scaled for commercialization.

Autosalon Klokočka Holding s.r.o. (Autosalon Klokočka), a Czech Republic-based car dealership, needed to change its business ways. A family-owned car dealership, the company was founded in Prague in 1988 by Jan Klokočka. In the last thirty years, the company had grown into one of the largest authorized car dealers in the Czech Republic by providing a comprehensive range of services to car owners. But the automobile industry had been among the most severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. As automotive companies braced for a revival, they had to be prepared to undergo significant modifications to alter how they operated and generated value for consumers. Despite its continuous expansion over thirty years, Autosalon Klokočka had been experiencing substantial slowdown and financial losses. In 2020, the company recorded a significantly lower revenue than in the previous years. By early 2022, it was still unclear how long the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic would last and how changes in customer behaviour and capabilities, supply chains, channels, original equipment manufacturer strategic choices, and other crucial factors would affect Autosalon Klokočka. As the company found its financial position vulnerable, Jan Klokočka needed to determine how to mitigate negative consequences and create growth opportunities. How could the firm adapt its existing business model to improve profits in the next three to five years?

In 2021, Robert, a highly qualified immigrant from the United Kingdom, had recently joined PLT Consulting (PLT), a multinational management consulting company, as a junior consultant in the Tallinn, Estonia, office. This professional services firm had a strong international brand. However, Robert soon realized that the organization catered both internally and externally to more local demands. In particular, his lack of local language proficiency made the organization a challenging work environment for him, both professionally and socially. Robert raised the issue with his boss, who invited him to a meeting with representatives from PLT’s human resources department and his work team. What concrete steps could they suggest that would help resolve the situation?

<p align="justify">The case describes how Zhuiyi, a leading conversational artificial intelligence (AI) start-up in China, developed its growth strategy and made transitions in the face of product commercialization challenges. The crux lies in the low customer satisfaction rate of AI products, which could be endogenously attributed to mismatched expectations among customers and the founding team in the product development process as well as to the lack of vertical industry knowledge among executives and employees. Zhuiyi needs to make a strategic choice between: a) developing new AI products by making large and risky research-and-development investments or b) devoting more resources to product customization and expanding the market through client diversification.

Child Rights and You (CRY) was a non-governmental organization (NGO) started in 1979 in India. The organization experienced pan-Indian growth and later expanded to international locations. While CRY was partnering with state governments to increase its impact and reach, the global environment was shifting toward sustainable development. At the same time, the Indian government statutorily mandated companies with a specific turnover or net worth to spend 2 per cent of their profits on corporate social responsibility activities. In 2022, CRY’s chief executive officer, Puja Marwaha, had four focus areas: education, health and nutrition, child safety and protection, and children’s participation in improving their lives. She was looking at scaling up the organization and faced four major challenges: funding, regulatory compliance, employee retention, and technology infrastructure. Marwaha was in a dilemma about how to obtain more support from corporates as well as increase the impact of funding.

By 2015, HCF, Australia’s largest not-for-profit health fund, had become a tired brand that did not appeal to younger consumers despite eighty years of success. The market was changing and the combined pressure of competitors and consumer market dynamics meant that HCF was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain its position. Yasmina Pinto, the company’s head of brand, had been given the responsibility of revitalizing its tired brand so that it would once again become fresh and appealing to consumers. What was the best way forward for HCF as a brand and as a provider of high quality health care services for Australians?

Neeraj Bakshi, who bought a vodka distillery in 2019 in Mississauga, Ontario, had big dreams for the distillery and purchased a 2.5-hectare property in Welland, Ontario, to increase its production capacity. Bakshi had invested significantly in NB Distillers, which now produced three types of vodka, two types of whisky, and one type of gin, and he wanted to see nothing but success. He had advertised on billboards, bus shelters, and radio, but he wanted to spend his communication budget more strategically and was open to trying new ideas. Now, in May 2021, he needed answers to several important questions: What audience segment should NB Distillers target? How should Bakshi position the distillery? What other promotional tools might help him achieve greater brand awareness?

VDart Inc (VDart) was founded by Sidd Ahmed in December 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, as a digital talent management and services firm, which grew at a steady rate to reach US$160 million in annual revenue and more than 2,550 employees in 2019. The same year, the company was classified as the 138th largest and fifty-sixth fastest-growing staffing firm in the United States. VDart’s global servicing hub was based in Tiruchirappalli, India, with about 380 employees who served clients from seven geographic locations. VDart differentiated itself from its competitors through its core values of appreciation, recognition, and encouragement (ARE) and through unique cultural practices including shout-outs during Monday conference calls, Friday Lunch & Learn sessions, and annual reward and recognition (R&R) events. Growing rapidly, VDart had set itself an ambitious goal of becoming a $500 million revenue firm by December 2022. However, the rapid growth was putting a strain on the existing culture, making it challenging to sustain and nurture it. Ahmed and the top management were finding it increasingly difficult to instill the VDart culture in new employees, realizing that the values which had propelled VDart’s success thus far would not take it to the next level. The case describes the company’s twelve-year growth journey, its unique cultural practices, and the growing pains, inviting students to think about options to manage culture during rapid growth.

James Waite, the manager at Western Film, must decide which film to screen at his cinema in the upcoming week. He must evaluate whether to continue showing Spider-Man: Far From Home (Spider-Man), or replace it with one of three other films available for him to screen. Western Film, a second-run theatre, has the advantage of having domestic box office information available, and Waite must analyze whether this information is helpful to him in making this decision.

St. Luke’s Hospital (SLH) started out as a community hospital (CH) to help rehabilitate patients who had undergone or were undergoing treatment at acute-care hospitals. By 2016, SLH’s range of services had increased manifold, making SLH one of the few CHs with a comprehensive suite of services, such as rehabilitative, wound, and dementia care. Beyond inpatient care, SLH also offered outpatient and support services such as day-patient rehabilitation, diagnostics and laboratory services, and home-care services. To meet the growing health-care needs of an aging population, Singapore adopted the CH concept for its national health-care master plan, which projected a tripling in the number of CH beds over the next 10–15 years. As more new public CHs were established, especially in the western region of Singapore—where SLH used to operate as the only CH—SLH had to review its role and future direction. To sustain its competitive advantage, should the organization invest its resources into strengthening its existing capabilities, or diversify into new areas of growth? Tan had to provide his recommendation at the next quarterly board meeting.

Nirbhay Lumde, head of corporate social responsibility (CSR) at CGI Inc. (CGI), along with his efficient team, implemented certain novel CSR initiatives to address two critical societal issues: COVID-19 infrastructure and women’s safety in the context of India. CGI had to form partnerships with health care, law enforcement, and government to achieve greater impact from its CSR initiatives and to empower CGI’s employer branding. How could Lumde assess the effectiveness of CGI’s CSR initiatives? Which metrics were likely to help in this regard? Should Lumde consider expanding CGI’s CSR initiatives? Were there any potential benefits to CGI of doing so? If yes, what potential CSR opportunities could Lumde explore?

RideAlly, a ride-hailing platform headquartered in Bangalore, India, catered to the business-to-consumer and business-to-business segments. It operated in Bangalore and Hyderabad. Hariprakash Agrawal, the chief executive officer and founder, needed to devise a plan to sustain the business in India’s highly competitive ride-hailing market. It was time to think about scaling up the business, which needed significant investment and the right strategy to gain a solid foothold in the industry. Agrawal’s team needed to prepare a pitch for investors and present a strategy for penetrating the market and expanding the business.

<p align="justify">Acen Haitao Jiang, founder and chief executive officer of Aomi, faced a dilemma. Founded in 2016, Aomi was an online food delivery platform in Macao with a local market share of over 90 per cent. Nevertheless, Macao was a small market with a population of about 680,000 and an area of 32.9 square kilometres, which was becoming a bottleneck for Aomi’s growth. Jiang was considering a Y-strategy, composed of three business development strands: food delivery (i.e., maintaining the core business); business diversification (e.g., livestream commerce and online supermarket services); and international expansion to new, larger markets (e.g., Hong Kong). With limited resources and potential risks, however, Jiang was struggling to choose between diversification and market expansion. June 1, 2022, would mark Aomi’s sixth anniversary and Jiang had to decide on a growth strategy before then.

Dabba Chetty Shop was a small unique retail shop in Chennai, India that had been in operation for four generations. For more than a century, the shop had sold natural and processed materials to customers who used alternative medicines for well-being. The shop’s strong reputation was based on the quality of the materials sold. Key factors for success included the ability to identify and reliably procure materials, having an intimate knowledge of various natural ingredients and processed goods, providing appropriate quality, and maintaining strong customer relationships. The continued success of Dabba Chetty Shop over four generations was primarily attributable to the family’s emphasis on customer service and wellness, rather than on increasing profits. During the pandemic, Koonala Badrinath, the shop’s current owner, used the Indian postal service to fulfill customer orders. With the growing demand for his shop’s products from consumers outside the region and across the world, he was considering expanding the shop’s services to customers in different locations, especially the numerous Indian diaspora consumers residing abroad.

On December 15, 2020, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Australian event-staging company Stagekings Pty. Ltd. (Stagekings) was honoured with a SmartCompany Resilience award. Speaking at the event, he reflected on the dreadful day of Friday March 13, 2020, when a lockdown was announced due to COVID-19. In the 48 hours following this announcement, Stagekings lost all its live-event jobs. Sick to the core, the CEO decided to post an open letter asking Australians what they needed the most. Addressing many requests from people working from home, Stagekings rapidly launched a new brand, IsoKings, with a single product: a flat-pack desk. In just 15 months after its launch, IsoKing reported revenue of AU$1.5 million. As lockdowns lifted and people returned to offices, the CEO was worried: Should IsoKings be further developed, or should the company get back to its core business of making stages?