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In January 2017, Canada-based Saputo Inc. was preparing an offer to acquire the remaining shares of an Australian dairy firm, Warrnambool Cheese & Butter Factory Co. Hold. Ltd. (WCB). Saputo Inc. had previously acquired a majority of the equity, but minority shareholders prevented Saputo Inc. from delisting WCB from the Australian Securities Exchange. Although WCB was a publicly traded company, the current share price might not reflect its intrinsic value because its shares were very thinly traded, with most shares being owned by Saputo Inc. and a few minority shareholders. Saputo Inc. had to determine an appropriate offer price for the acquisition.

PVR Limited (PVR), the largest premium film exhibition company in India, with more than 750 screens, launched its Accessible Cinema Program in December 2018. Supported by its top management, PVR developed a culture of social responsibility that went beyond compliance. The program aimed to make PVR’s cinemas accessible to people with disabilities and focused especially on providing content for people with hearing impairment, and visual impairment. PVR rolled out the program to 50 cinemas in the first phase, and the response from patrons was encouraging. However, rolling out the program to the entire chain would involve redesigning existing cinemas to make them accessible and would be operationally and financially challenging. Additionally, the success of the program was dependent upon the willingness of film producers to provide content suitable for visually- and hearing-impaired audiences. Although laws mandated the production of suitable content for people with disabilities, these laws were not consistently enforced. Making movie producers provide suitable content was not going to be easy. In 2019, now that the first phase of the accessibility program was launched, how could the company meet these continuing challenges going forward?

In March 2017, the American fast food giant McDonald’s Corporation (McDonald's) launched an ambitious strategic plan, named the Velocity Growth Plan, with the intention of maintaining its dominance over competitors. As part of this strategy, McDonald’s wanted to retain its current customers, regain lost customers, and convert casual customers into more committed customers. To help accomplish these objectives, McDonald’s introduced delivery and mobile ordering services. The company also announced that it would remodel its stores, as part the Velocity Growth Plan. Two years later, in March 2019, McDonald’s acquired Dynamic Yield, a digital personalization platform that could be integrated into McDonald’s drive-through service, in-store kiosks, and mobile application. By early 2019, McDonald’s was the largest fast food company in the world, with approximately 37,855 restaurants across 120 countries, largely seen as the premiere fast food company in the industry. However, Dynamic Yield’s software provided McDonald’s with the ability to offer customers immediate recommendations, one-to-one messaging, and customer data management. How could McDonald’s best use Dynamic Yield to meet its ambitious growth objectives?

This case explores Ontario's Fair Hydro Plan, a 2017 policy of the Government of Ontario that aimed to reduce consumer electricity rates by borrowing to provide subsidies. This borrowing was to be repaid through increased rates levied on future consumers in the province. This policy was accounted for using the principles of rate-regulated accounting. The impetus for these changes was the rapidly rising electricity rates.

In 2015, Airbnb, Inc. began to explore entry into the Chinese market. In August of that year, it announced a partnership with two of its China-based investors to help it navigate the expansion. By January 2016, the company was facing a number of fundamental questions. First, how should it best position itself in China to ensure a successful expansion? Should it work with a local competitor and, if so, who? If it chose to instead continue expanding alone, should it replicate its established global formula or should it localize? If it pursued a localization strategy, what were the different ways it could localize its operations? And which of these should it prioritize?

The UK daily newspaper the <i>Guardian</i> undertook turnaround initiatives between January 2016 and April 2019 under the leadership of Katherine Viner, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief. Viner leveraged a new reader-funded contribution model to generate revenues, whereas newspapers such as the <i>New York Times</i> and the <i>Wall Street Journal</i> used paywalls and subscription-based models for revenue generation. Viner also undertook several cost-cutting initiatives, such as replacing the Berliner newspaper format with a tabloid format and outsourcing the printing of the <i>Guardian</i>. The impact of the contribution-based revenue model was substantial, leading the newspaper’s digital revenues to surpass revenues from advertising. The newspaper’s reach also increased substantially, with international subscribers, especially those in the United States and Australia, contributing more than <i>Guardian</i> readers in the United Kingdom. Although the <i>Guardian</i> reported its first profit in the past two decades in May 2019, several challenges remained for Viner, such as increasing the number of financial contributors to 2 million by 2022 and making the turnaround sustainable.

At a time when the wellness industry was experiencing a dynamic renaissance, Weight Watchers International Inc. was stuck with an aging demographic. In 2018, in an effort to stay relevant, the company rebranded itself as WW International Inc. (WW). The goal was to make wellness accessible to all, and to transform from a diet brand to a global wellness juggernaut. However, despite the rebrand and support from celebrity spokesperson Oprah Winfrey, WW’s stock price declined sharply. The results led to a number of questions about the soundness of WW’s marketing strategy. What should WW do to prevent a meltdown in brand equity, retain its loyal customers, and realize its ambitious goals in the wellness space?

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?

Metro Cash and Carry India Private Limited (Metro C&C) was a chain of wholesale stores owned by the German retailer Metro Group, which opened its first store in India in the southern city of Bangalore in 2003. By 2018, the company led the cash-and-carry segment of the Indian wholesale market, but was still not profitable. It faced challenges related to high real estate costs, competition from domestic and international wholesale firms, and competition from a strengthening e-commerce sector. Its most important customer segment—small, unorganized retailers, or kiranas—faced similar challenges. With considerable investments in the country, Metro C&C needed to develop a strategy to become profitable in the country after 15 years of operations. How could it build active engagements with different customer segments to improve its performance and turn a profit?

By May 2014, the bakery of French pastry chef Dominique Ansel had successfully been in operation for two and a half years. During this time, the bakery had gained numerous accolades for its most viral invention—the Cronut, a hybrid between a donut and a croissant. Moving forward, there were opportunities for Ansel’s company to expand beyond its current size and location in New York City. Ansel’s first option was to raise prices. Because the Cronut sold out every day before noon, the bakery was severely undersupplying the market, which had a huge demand. Ansel’s second option was to commercialize the Cronut. Perhaps it would be better to license the recipe to a major coffee chain, which could bring his invention to millions of people. Lastly, Ansel could expand his brand internationally to Asia or Europe. Could Ansel achieve any of these changes without compromising quality over quantity?

California-based Vivos Group (Vivos) built and sold luxury bunkers designed to withstand catastrophes. The founder himself had acknowledged that the majority of US residents could not afford them: while competitors offered bunkers with down payments as low as a US$1,300 —which middle-income consumers could afford—Vivos’s $35,000+ bunkers were for the rich. By May 2020, several of Vivos’s bunker properties were sold out, but it was uncertain whether this indicated some permanent change in consumers’ buying behaviour or an effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Vivos’s founder now faced several challenges: should he focus on constructing more luxury apartment-based bunkers or low-cost, community-sharing bunkers to provide consumers with protection from COVID-19? What aspects of bunker management should he improve, given the criticism that bunker companies had made false claims about the air filtration systems in the bunkers? How could he help Vivos achieve growth in the long run?

On March 21, 2017, Downer EDI Limited, a leading provider of engineering, construction, and infrastructure management services in the Australasia region, announced an unsolicited offer for Spotless Group Holdings at A$1.15 per share, to be funded largely by a fully underwritten renounceable two-for-five rights issue at A$5.95 per share. Although an offer for Spotless Group Holdings was not unexpected, the market was surprised at the considerable premium of 58 per cent above the previous day’s closing price of A$0.725. With the institutional portion of the rights offering due to close the following day, an equity analyst with a large institutional fund that was a major shareholder of Downer EDI Limited, had little time to complete a thorough valuation analysis of Spotless Group Holdings. If the analyst determined that Downer EDI Limited was overpaying for Spotless Group Holdings, she would recommend that the fund turn down the rights offering and sell its stake in Downer EDI Limited.

In October 2015, the investment management firm Trian Partners disclosed a US$2.5 billion investment in one of the largest industrial enterprises in the world, General Electric Company. The investment was the largest in the firm’s 10-year history. At the time, General Electric Company was the longest-standing member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the 18th-largest company by market capitalization in the entire S&P 500 Index, and featured regularly on Fortune’s list of the world’s most admired companies. General Electric Company’s reputation as an enviable employer and world-class company had largely been cemented under Jack Welch’s tenure (1981–2001), when the company’s share price had reached its all-time high. Understanding what drove its performance during that period was therefore an essential part of any effort to determine whether General Electric Company had a sustainable competitive advantage to carry that performance into the future.

On October 8, 2019, Blizzard Entertainment Inc. (Blizzard), a subsidiary of one of the world’s largest video game companies, banned a popular player from participating in future video game tournaments for one year and stripped him of his winnings—a response to a dramatic political statement that the player had made during a post-game interview at a Blizzard event. The immediate response was a flurry of angry fans who used social media to protest Blizzard’s actions and call for a boycott of its products. Some of Blizzard’s employees had staged a walkout and US politicians were accusing the company of censorship. For six days, the company said nothing. Blizzard had an upcoming product launch in days and a massive eSports convention in just two weeks, and the CEO needed to do something. He needed a crisis communications plan for the short-term to address a number of stakeholders.

In August 2018, the founder and chief executive officer of JD.com, one of China’s largest e-commerce sites, was accused of sexual assault and was arrested. He denied wrongdoing and was released less than a day later. One week after his return to China, JD.com’s share value hit a 19-month low. In November 2018, the company announced that its customer base had shrunk for the first time since 2014. The impact from the investigation into the alleged assault was unclear. However, the incident took place against the backdrop of the Me Too movement, a time when both traditional and social media were used to publicly launch accusations of sexual harassment and abuse, often against powerful celebrities. The sexual assault accusation complicated the almost singular level of power the founder had over his organization. According to JD.com’s corporate bylaws, no board meetings could take place without his presence. What options did the company have to regain market confidence? What strategies could JD.com adopt to minimize impact from the incident? With the founder at the centre of an international scandal, who was responsible to oversee crisis management at JD.com?

On August 11, 2016, the chairman of Aditya Birla Group (ABG) announced that ABG would merge Aditya Birla Nuvo Limited (ABNL) with Grasim Industries Limited (Grasim). ABG’s board also proposed to demerge Aditya Birla Financial Services Limited, a subsidiary of ABNL, from the newly merged Grasim. Financial analysts speculated that the merger was planned to fund ABNL’s telecommunication business before an upcoming spectrum sale and the launch of a strong, competing telecommunication company. The investor community, particularly minority shareholders, were concerned about the merger and felt that ABG’s main motive for the merger was to increase its stake in Grasim. What were the rationales for the merger? Would the promoter’s holding increase after the merger, as the shareholders perceived? Was the share swap ratio between ABNL and Grasim justified? Would there be a post-merger synergy creation, and which of the two companies would transfer wealth to the other? Should the shareholders vote in favour of the merger?

In late 2016, it had been three years since Blackstone Group Inc. (Blackstone) had completed its last public-to-private leveraged buyout (LBO), and it had US$45 billion of capital available for investment, called “dry powder.” Blackstone’s head of private equity (PE) blamed this public LBO drought on “historically high multiples of cash flow.” Blackstone submitted a preliminary offer to acquire a firm they had previously acquired 11 years earlier and exited in 2009. The banks committed to provide a senior credit facility, consisting of a seven-year Term Loan B, a revolver, and junk bonds; management provided forecasts of revenue and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization. The four-week exclusivity period was set to expire, and previous bidders in a recent takeover battle could re-emerge. Blackstone had to determine a final offer based on their LBO model.

In September 2018, WaterEquity, a US-based investment vehicle for both financial and social returns, had to raise US$50 million in total funding capital. The sales team had to propose sales pitches for alternative investments for three types of investors. From a financial perspective, the investment was essentially a risk-free asset with an annual return of 3.5 per cent. However, this investment could also positively affect four developing countries—India, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Cambodia—by providing clean water solutions for billions of people. Through the lending facilities of the local microfinance institutions of these four countries, WaterEquity could offer support to the poor and empower more women, generating both financial and social returns. Different groups of investors might be attracted by different levels of these social returns as well as the financial returns. The sales team planned to use a simple extension of the standard Markowitz portfolio theory framework to incorporate social returns and account for two distinct types of returns, customizing the sales pitches for each of three groups of investors.

Since 2009, Bilibili Inc.'s Bilibili.com (the B-site) had been an online video site providing services to fans of anime, comics, and games culture. After several years of effort, it had become a popular Chinese site for danmaku content and commenting technology. The B-site had a good reputation because of its excellent user experience: users did not need to watch endless pre-roll ads before enjoying video content because, in 2014, the B-site had promised that it would never use pre-roll ads as part of its profit model. However, in spring 2016, an important content provider, TV Tokyo Corporation, renewed its copyright contract and added terms requiring the B-site to add pre-video ads on anime series from TV Tokyo, which contradicted the B-site's promise to its users. How should the B-site address this public relations crisis and retain the trust of its users?

SenseTime Group Limited was founded in Hong Kong in 2014 to commercialize artificial intelligence for digital recognition of images, particularly human faces. After only three years in business, the company was profitable, with annual sales revenue of about US$100 million. In 2018, it employed over 2,000 workers and was referred to as the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence start-up, with a valuation of US$7.6 billion. China had become the largest market in the world for facial recognition technologies, with its share of global sales expected to grow from 29 per cent in 2017 to 45 per cent in 2023. And the global facial recognition market was forecast to be worth US$6.5 billion by 2021. SenseTime Group Limited aimed to empower more industries throughout the world with its artificial intelligence platform. A key question in early 2019 for the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer was how to adapt its strategy to achieve that mission in an increasingly fraught global environment.