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In early January 2019, Gillette, one of the world's leading razor brands, ignited controversy with a specific advertisement-the "We Believe" video. This short film tackled toxic masculinity and encouraged men to be #TheBestMenCanBe. While Gillette historically focused on portraying men as athletes or as career-oriented individuals, the brand's promotions since the late 2010s had turned to a more diverse conceptualization of manhood. When launched on YouTube, the "We Believe" video proved to be extremely polarizing: both consumers and the general public were strongly divided on it. How could Gillette support social change while remaining competitive in light of the changing industry and broader social awareness? Though sales did not change following the release of the ad, questions still remained about Gillette's new direction and whether this approach ultimately helped or hindered its brand. What should Gillette do next?

Tetra Bio-Pharma (Tetra) was a new firm operating in a murky but promising industry-cannabinoid-derived pharmaceutical products. But, the firm had been so involved in navigating drug development and approval processes that it had lost track of its identity. The firm did not define itself initially, and with its rapid growth, shifting strategies, evolving competencies, and plethora of alliances, Tetra needed a stronger focus. Adding to the turmoil, the firm was operating within the rapidly changing global marijuana industry-essentially, uncharted waters. Given that the firm's new drugs were about to receive government approval, the firm had to determine how to build its brand.

M.M.LaFleur, a clothing company founded in New York in 2013, specialized in office wear for professional women. Specifically, M.M.LaFleur targeted a difficult-to-serve group-working women who did not like shopping. Despite the challenging customer base, the company grew steadily since its inception. Customers could shop online through the company's website or attend showrooms, pop-up stores, or trunk shows, where sales associates provided attentive personal service. However, the most successful venue for the company's sales was a feature called the M.M.LaFleur "bento box," which was responsible for 80 per cent of the company's revenue. By June 2019, M.M.LaFleur had grown from a small start-up company into a thriving business with a loyal customer base. The founder was pleased with her company's results, but wondered what her next steps should be. What could M.M.LaFleur do to continue its strong growth and momentum?

By late 2018, a Singapore-based non-profit organization, billionBricks, had completed seven projects, rehabilitating more than a thousand homeless and disaster-stricken people in Asia. Its tent product was widely accepted and could, it was projected, meet the needs of millions of homeless people. Despite these achievements, the co-founder and chief executive officer felt that the company's performance had not met his expectations. A key challenge was communicating with those who needed homes: the company's traditional methods of communication were ineffective in reaching out to a marginalized population challenged by illiteracy and access to information. However, the prime minister of India had just announced his ambitious plan to end India's homelessness and sought entrepreneurs for idea generation and execution. Should billionBricks participate in the government housing project to grow its Indian customer base, even if doing so included the risk of potential failure? Or should the company focus instead on other projects and risk being locked out of future housing projects in India?

Mint Tax was founded in Vienna in 1960. By 2019, the company had approximately 80 employees and a broad client base in the areas of taxation, accounting, and payroll services. Over the previous decade, the company had experienced many successes and failures, including mergers, acquisitions, separations, firm structure changes, and financial losses. However, it had always managed to recover. Mint Tax was considering an expansion of its digital products, services, and internal processes and practices. The founder's daughter and current chief executive officer was motivated and had innovative ideas, but faced various challenges that prevented implementation of many of the company's ideas. To overcome these challenges, what steps should the chief executive officer and her team take to understand the company's strategic management patterns, identify and evaluate the company's capabilities, and develop solutions?

In January 2019, the sole proprietor and the general manager of Farm Electronics met to discuss critical options for the possible growth path of their company. Farm Electronics was a 42-year-old, small-scale electrical and electronic industrial equipment manufacturer based in Indore, India. The company's product portfolio consisted of various transformers, relay coils, power supplies, and direct-current motors, which were designed according to its customers' specifications. Farm Electronics' customers consisted of small-, medium-, and large-scale businesses from both the organized and unorganized sectors. Significant aspects of the company's value proposition included quality, timely delivery, and after-sales service. However, most of Farm Electronics' revenue came from only a few big accounts. The proprietor and the general manager wanted to expand their company's reach and were thus contemplating targeting a new set of customers.

This case series simulates the quintessential "American dream:" buying and financing your first house. For most people, buying a house is the largest purchase they will experience in their lifetime. The process has both legal and economic components, and often requires that the buyer rely heavily upon a realtor to navigate all the technicalities. Along the way, the buyer may experience an emotional roller coaster with both the excitement of becoming a homeowner and the worry that comes with making a large financial commitment. Much of the worry comes from a lack of understanding, particularly when we buy that first house without any experience with such a transaction. The primary objective of these cases is to provide the key information needed to understand what is involved with the purchase and financing of a house, and to simulate the process as the students experience the cases in sequence over several class periods.

In May 2019, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) had paused rapid expansion of its massive agile organizational transformation, trying to make the existing program work better. ANZ announced the decision to take the bank agile in May 2017, moving from the traditional command-and-control, risk-based, and process-driven hierarchy to collaborative teamwork. Such decisions came after not only competitive pressures from the disruptive entry of financial technology companies but also a series of internal scandals. Would the agile transformation be a solution for ANZ to respond to these external and internal challenges? How could ANZ be successfully transformed, given its corporate culture that had been deeply rooted for over 180 years?

Saankhya Labs Private Limited (Saankhya), was a fabless semiconductor company formed in 2006 in Bengaluru, India. It provided innovative products and solutions used in consumer electronics, wireless communication, and broadcasting applications. Similar to other domestic telecommunications manufacturing companies in India, Saankhya found it difficult to penetrate the domestic equipment market. While its fluctuating fortunes had stabilized to some degree after 2016, the company continued to struggle in the face of regulatory uncertainty and competition from multinational giants, and the expected advantages of government initiatives intended to support the domestic industry had not yet materialized. In 2018, Saankhya's chief executive officer and co-founder wondered how long the company could survive under such competitive circumstances. Should it compete or collaborate with other stakeholders in the industry?

The chief human resources (HR) officer at National Pharmaceuticals (National), established in 1937 in Bihar, India, had been with the organization since 2007. The organization had been facing high employee attrition rates since 2013. Although the organization had reduced its employee attrition rate from 44 per cent in financial year (FY) 2014-15 to 25 per cent in FY 2017-18, the organization was yet to reach the industry benchmark rate of 12-13 per cent. This issue needed to be urgently resolved, as the organization would soon launch a new product range for which it required additional employees. A meeting was called with all the functional heads within HR. As the group discussed what had gone wrong and what had helped National in the past, they identified several factors that had led to the company's high employee attrition rate and noted various human linked HR policies. The group had two weeks to create an effective action plan to meet the benchmark attrition rate of 12 per cent. This plan would be presented to the board of directors. Should the company change its recruitment, selection, performance management, and training policies to create the organizational culture the leaders aspire to? Should it invest in more training and development?

In April 2019, Carl's Jr. Restaurants LLC (Carl's Jr.), an American fast-food restaurant chain, faced an important decision. The company was up against strong competition from both traditional players in the fast-food market and newer competitors in the fast-casual dining market. In 2017, Carl's Jr. had stopped using the provocative ads it had become known for, and in 2018, the company ended a long co-branding relationship with Hardee's Restaurants LLC. Due in part to these changes, the company was struggling to form its own identity. Carl's Jr.'s chief executive officer needed to develop a sustainable competitive advantage in order to make the company relevant again in the minds of consumers.

SK Group was one of the largest companies South Korea. A family-run conglomerate consisting of around 120 subsidiaries and employing more than 100,000, SK was tightly knit into the fabric of Korean society. SK viewed their future success as contingent upon the strength of the societal ecosystem in which they operated. As such, the company had a long history of philanthropic giving. However, SK questioned if their donations were producing the desired impact, as many of the societal issues they, and the rest of Korean society, sought to address were not improving. In order to create a new system of generating social value, SK established the Social Progress Credit (SPC) initiative. The SPC initiative designed a measurement methodology that was used to measure the social value created by social enterprises - firms whose mission was to generate social value in conjunction with generating sustainable financial returns. Additionally, the SPC initiative provided monetary incentives to social enterprises in proportion to the social value generated by participating social enterprises. Looking to the future, SK envisioned a marketplace in which SPC's were traded among investors and credits were priced by the market. Initial results of the SPC initiative were positive, showing positive growth in social value created and financial stability of social enterprises. How then could SK convince other public and private organizations to adopt the SPC model and promote social value? Moreover, how could SK convince mainstream capital markets to make investments into society enterprises on the basis of the social value creation? More importantly, was this attempt to enrich and grow the ecosystem of social value creation making a difference?

As this case opens in 2019, CEO Daniel Skjeldam and his team have successfully reinvigorated Hurtigruten, a storied but struggling Norwegian ferry and cruise operator, and have established it as the leading provider of polar expedition cruises. They now face a critical decision: should they expand beyond the polar regions and begin operating expedition cruises extensively in warm waters? The case introduces students to relative cost analysis; illustrates how a market can be structurally unattractive despite a current boom; and explores the logic of expanding from one segment of a market into other segments.

In December 2018, US-based Virgin Galactic LLC (Virgin Galactic), a commercial space tourism company founded by Sir Richard Branson, launched its first successful crewed test spacecraft. The company's goal was to launch suborbital space tourism in 2019. However, experts and critics voiced concerns that Virgin Galactic's space tourism program could have adverse environmental and health effects. A prominent astronaut also considered Branson's space program to be a marketing gimmick aimed at ultra-rich consumers. Branson believed that Virgin Galactic caused less environmental pollution than conventional air travel and with time would become affordable. Could Branson make space tourism a feasible reality in the long term? Was Branson right to claim that space tourism would become affordable over time? Should he pursue multiple business opportunities, such as intercontinental space travel and supporting research and development projects, along with space tourism?

HCL Technologies Ltd. (HCL) was one of the big four information technology (IT) companies in India. The infrastructure services division (the company's flagship revenue generator), had phenomenal growth over the years. However, by fiscal year 2015-16, the division was facing growth challenges. Market dynamics, including competition size and capability, client expectations, and the technology landscape, were all changing. The company was trying to build its corporate entrepreneurship function to prepare itself for adapting to these emerging challenges. The HCL enterprise technology office (ETO) exploration team had been chartered by the company to bring new technologies and breakthrough solutions into the organization. The company was looking forward to shifting away from its dependence on its traditional IT infrastructure outsourcing business and toward new technology domains.

Tata Motors Limited, an Indian automobile manufacturer, had been struggling with decreasing market share and profitability, which was affecting the company's share price. After the appointment of a new chief executive officer in 2016, the company undertook several reorganization programs to revive its financial health and improve its market share. However, it still registered heavy losses in the first nine months of fiscal year 2018-19. Was there more that the company could do to improve the company's position and regain lost investor confidence?

Takata Corporation was a business-to-business firm based in Japan, whose logo once symbolized safety. In 2013, however, the company mishandled its airbag recall crisis, which was Japan's largest automotive safety recall. The crisis led to the largest corporate bankruptcy filing of a Japanese firm and impacted Japanese banks involved in a collateral-free syndicated loan. How could the company have better managed the crisis?

Carla Thomas, the owner of Boulevard Sandwiches, is preparing to meet with Alan Philips, the new manager of Boulevard Sandwiches, Inc., Unit No. 2, in mid-December 2017. The primary purpose of this meeting is to finalize the 2018 operating plan for the location, as well as to conduct sensitivity analysis related to the assumptions included in the budget. Thomas has decided that, due to the growth of her business, she can no longer continue to manage the operation as she did when there were only a couple of locations, so she is in the process of implementing a more formal and extensive planning and budgeting process. This case may be used as a stand-alone case on budgeting, or it may be paired with "Boulevard Sandwiches, Inc. (B)" (UV7971) in a module on budgeting and strategic profitability analysis or flexible budgeting.

After reading and analyzing the case, students will be able to: understand how to identify customer pain points by using customer experience mapping and the Jobs to Be Done framework; identify hypotheses to measure and improve the customer experience; articulate the logic for creating a quantitative metric for the quality of the customer experience; understand how business executives can lead the development of machine learning analytics models.

On March 15, 1848, the governor of the Bank of France, Antoine d'Argout, faced the potential collapse of his institution. A cascade of agricultural and industrial shocks, rising food prices, spikes in unemployment, and currency outflows struck at the heart of the French economy. At the same time, France, and Europe more broadly, had dissolved into armed revolution. The French king's abdication in February, alongside the already teetering financial system, resulted in massive bank runs that toppled a substantial part of the Paris banking system. Dramatic monetary contraction and the collapse of credit markets choked off sources of economic growth. Across Europe, proposals for action polarized three broad coalitions-liberals, radicals, and conservatives-each of which differed about the pace and extent of democratization. With the provisional French government lacking legitimacy and even facing bankruptcy, a state bailout seemed unlikely. Faced with the threat of financial collapse and anarchy in the streets, d'Argout contemplated the situation. What had caused the crisis at the Bank of France and in the French economy? What was the connection between financial and societal distress, and could they be treated separately? How would conservative, liberal, and radical advisers interpret the crisis and suggest remedies? Given this analysis, how should d'Argout try to save his bank? Would tactical reforms save the Bank, or should d'Argout make wholesale changes? The tasks for students are to plot the causes and course of the crisis and to consider the difficult policy tradeoffs.