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The case describes how the design thinking mentality and management process drives Asia Miles' leadership, innovation, organization structure and behaviour, and the enterprise planning process to enhance customer experience (members of the rewards programme) and new product & service development, as well as to improve value delivered to all other stakeholders and the branding of the company. The transformation of Asia Miles via a change management process aims to inculcate design thinking into their culture, systems and employees -becoming an insights-driven organization via a quantitative-qualitative continuum.

This case focuses on regulatory institutions in a fast-changing evolving policy domain of the telecom sector in developing countries, which are typically characterised by a weak institutional environment, making operationalisation of new instruments that may require regulation across sectors difficult. The case highlights the criticality of appropriate regulatory design for spectrum management since predominant access to voice and Internet in developing countries happens only on mobile phones. The case shows how the Competition Commission of India created a regulatory space for itself when a new instrument, Spectrum Trading, was announced by the Department of Telecom (DoT)/Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

Chicago-based CME Group is the world's largest futures and options marketplace, with annual trading volume of over 4.8 billion contracts in 2018. This case is set in late 2019, as heightened perceptions of risk stemming from the U.S.-China trade war are driving record trading volumes of agricultural futures. CME Group leads the agricultural futures market, but changing global dynamics are raising new questions about the security of its competitive position. With roots dating to the 1850s, CME Group became the market leader by developing liquid markets for reliable products tied to U.S. agricultural production. But the U.S. no longer dominates global grain and oilseed production and trade, raising questions about whether U.S.-domiciled futures and options will remain relevant globally. Other pressures on CME Group include the U.S. political environment-there is talk of taxing futures trades-and potential competition from Chinese futures exchanges. How should the management team adjust their strategy? While this case focuses on CME Group's agricultural products business, some of the questions at play-e.g., about the role of speculators, the usefulness of a financial transactions tax, and the positioning of price discovery in commodity source markets versus destination markets-apply to other lines of business such as foreign exchange or precious metals.

The Carroll Family, U.S. pig and grain farmers, needed to decide what to plant, whether to purchase land, emphasize pigs or grain, or other investments. Seven family members across three generations owned and operated Carroll Family Farms (CFF). In Illinois, CFF raised pigs as part of a commodity pork business, grew corn and soybeans to feed the pigs, and used the pig manure to fertilize its crops. CFF also owned a significant farming operation in Brazil that grew soybeans, cotton, and corn, and it provided farm services for other farmers in Brazil. They had low debt, and significant cash flow. CFF faced significant market uncertainties. The U.S. and China were in the midst of a trade war that was impacting the supply, demand, prices, and trade patterns of agricultural products. There was a growing African swine fever outbreak that could kill off a large portion of the world's pig population. The U.S. government paid large, but uncertain agricultural subsidies, and farmland was expensive and rarely available for purchase. How should the Carroll family farmers address these challenges?

Cameron Harding has just opened his own business, and needs to get health insurance for himself and his fiancée, Audra. They are looking for a plan that will best meet their needs, but Harding knows little about the world of health insurance. Luckily, Harding's uncle, a senior salesman at a large pharmaceutical firm, is happy to offer advice and talk Harding through the process of choosing insurance. This case set walks students through choosing a health insurance plan, and what questions to ask when receiving care.

On October 25, 1847, British prime minister John Russell met with his cabinet to review a deepening financial crisis and to weigh proposals for government response. Chief among these were two proposals. The first was to suspend the Bank Charter Act of 1844 in order to permit the Bank of England to discount more freely and to issue banknotes in greater volume than the Act allowed. In recent days, delegations of merchants, industrialists, and country bankers had approached Russell to plead for more currency. The second was to do nothing and allow the crisis to run its course. Some members of Parliament argued that the whole point of the Act was to impose discipline at times like this, so to suspend it would make a mockery of that discipline and create moral hazard. As leaders of the Whig Party, Russell and his cabinet would need to navigate carefully through the crisis, owing to the slim majority his government held in Parliament. The A case describes five shocks that promoted the financial crisis of 1847-agriculture, railways, demand, monetary, and fiscal-as well as the complicated political situation at this time of the Irish potato famine. The B case offers an epilogue.

This case is an abridged version (part 1 of 2) of "Walmart's Omnichannel Strategy: Revolution or Miscalculation?" HBS Case 720-370. The (A) case discusses Walmart's early forays into online retail, as well as improvements made under Doug McMillon beginning in 2014. The case describes Walmart's physical stores, delivery options, grocery business, online marketplace, and distribution system. It also discusses the ecommerce startup Jet.com, which Walmart was considering purchasing in 2015. The case poses the question: How could Walmart best use its existing resources to compete against major ecommerce players like Amazon? Should it focus on its in-store business, build up its web-to-store capabilities, or compete head-on with pure ecommerce players in web-to-home sales? Alternatively, should it consider an omnichannel strategy, attempting to grow all these aspects of the business at once?

This case is an abridged version (part 2 of 2) of "Walmart's Omnichannel Strategy: Revolution or Miscalculation?", HBS Case 720-370. The (B) case describes Walmart's omnichannel strategy in 2018 as it battled Amazon for online retail market share. Walmart aimed to integrate its enormous brick and mortar footprint with its growing ecommerce business, e.g., through merchandise and grocery delivery and order online, pickup in store options. It also followed a two-part acquisition strategy that included specialty retailers such as Shoes.com and digitally native vertical brands that developed their own products and sold them directly to consumers, such as ModCloth and Bonobos. In 2016, it acquired the ecommerce retailer Jet.com. In addition to building its online marketplace, Walmart hoped to leverage its existing assets, such as its massive network of retail stores and thriving grocery business, in the fight against Amazon. The case poses the question: Could Walmart successfully compete against Amazon and other online retailers in areas such as grocery delivery, product selection, shipping costs, and delivery times?

Fresh out of a public social media debacle, Gary Vaynerchuk needs to reconsider the approach he takes in leading his digital media agency, VaynerMedia. Founded in 2009 by Gary and his brother AJ, VaynerMedia has grown into an unconventional creative marketing agency. With notable clients and a savvy and personable approach to maintaining attention arbitrage, the future looks bright with Gary at the helm of VaynerMedia. Or does it? This case explores Vaynerchuk's strengths and weaknesses, VaynerMedia's successes and challenges, and the overall command of the marketing firm as it continues to grow and evolve in an ever-changing digital media landscape. Ultimately, the case highlights a tension many ventures face as they mature from initial founding to growth sustainability: should the visionary CEO continue leading the charge forward, or should he consider stepping aside and allowing his firm to lead its own way forward?

The case begins in January 2014, when Brad Parsons, CEO of the NEA Baptist Health System, decided to take advantage of the inauguration of a new hospital to begin a profound organizational transformation. The deployment of a new management system called the Baptist Management System (BMS) to lay the foundations for a patient-centred culture of continuous improvement was launched. A few years earlier, the Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation (hereinafter, Baptist Corporation) had hired Skip Steward as chief improvement officer. Together Parsons and Steward spearheaded the transformation at NEA Baptist, designated the model site for the entire corporation. The development of the new management system was based partly on systems seen elsewhere (such as at Denver Health) but also, and more importantly, on the reflections of its leaders and their own learning experiences. As Steward said, "Everything is an experiment!" This case explores three major questions: 1) What are the key success factors for the successful deployment of a management system? 2) What skills do the organization's leaders need to guide the transformation and introduce the new management system? 3) How can they ensure the sustainability of that new management system?

The Academy, a local CrossFit gym in Kitchener, Ontario, was determining how best to expand its business in order to continue its growth trajectory in a highly competitive industry. The gym's co-owner and head coach needed to decide whether to invest in upgrading The Academy's existing facility or open a second location. He wanted to complete a qualitative industry size-up, competitive analysis, consumer analysis, and corporate capabilities size-up, in addition to a quantitative size-up, including statement of cash flows and ratios analyses. He required the chosen growth strategy to meet a hurdle rate of 20 per cent.

The case covers the two-year, on-again off-again negotiation between the Government of Uganda and the fearsome rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) led by Joseph Kony. The negotiations marked a historic moment for many reasons. After decades of failing to root out Kony and his rebel army capable of horrific acts of violence, and faced with millions of internally displaced people, the Ugandan government embarked on peace talks with the LRA. But neither party had come to the negotiating table willingly. Kony faced arrest by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity and the Ugandan government faced pressure from international donors and the pan-African leadership to find a peaceful solution to a long-simmering conflict. In the end, the negotiations didn't result in a peace agreement and Kony remained at-large, but these historic talks provide much fodder for analysis for students of negotiation and raise many critical questions, including on whether to pursue peace or justice. The case package includes a 16-minute video featuring an interview with Ruhakana Rugunda, the Government of Uganda's chief negotiator, and a 3:11-minute video where Luis Moreno Ocampo, former Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, talks about the Court's role. Rugunda's video consists of 11 clips that can be played separately during the class session to frame specific discussions, such as Kony and the ICC and what success would have looked like for the government.

This case discusses the alternative social media site Steemit, including the principles it was founded on in 2016 and the challenges it faced in 2019. Steemit was a blockchain-based platform that aimed to differentiate itself from other social media companies by returning power to its users, rather than centralizing control among company executives. Steemit rewarded its users with cryptocurrency for posting, commenting on, and upvoting content on the site. Although it championed itself as a bastion of free speech, in January 2019, it banned a user for soliciting funds in exchange for the release of conspiracy-theory-related documents. This ban called into question the degree to which Steemit was willing to exert control over the content posted to its site. In addition to these censorship issues, Steemit's developers had to weigh a number of strategic considerations about the future of the site. Questions they faced included how to avoid alienating potential users with Steemit's complex features (such as its intricate payment system) and how to prevent certain users (e.g., those who had been kicked off of other sites) from becoming overly dominant on its platform.

In 2018, the owner of Northwest Fitness, a fitness business in London, Ontario, Canada, was analyzing the business's past year of operations and planning for the future. The company focused on "functional fitness" training to help clients improve aspects of their everyday life. The owner had launched the fitness studio with the help of a bank loan and a line of credit; after three years of success, he wondered if the company was finally in a financial position that would allow him to expand operations. He needed to analyze the past financial performance and project a statement of earnings and a statement of position assuming an expansion was pursued.

Foxconn, well known as the iPhone maker, was the largest electronic manufacturing service provider in the world. Foxconn was founded in Taiwan in 1974. It grew enormously since mid 1980s after setting up manufacturing in mainland China. It benefited from the low labour cost in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as China's open-market policies. But China experienced significant demographic changes: the working-age population peaked in 2010 and the education level of workers overall increased steadily since 1980s. Both changes put pressure on Foxconn to increase wages. On the demand side, Apple started to diversify its supplier base by supporting a rival Taiwanese EMS provider, Pegatron, to assemble its products. Foxconn's profit margin dropped significantly after 2000s despite its effort to lower costs through automation and product diversification. Faced with challenges from both labour cost and customers, Foxconn had to adjust its market position in the new era. The case covers the history of Foxconn, the changing macroeconomic environment and actions taken by Foxconn trying to increase its profitability. The case details the challenges faced by Foxconn and Foxconn's efforts to reposition, especially though acquisition attempts. Keeping in mind the core competencies of Foxconn, students need to explore the strategies Foxconn has employed and suggest future strategies for Foxconn.

In November 2017, John Fruehwirth, managing partner of Rotunda Capital Partners (RCP), was considering the final terms of a Series B offer to StreetShares, Inc. (StreetShares), a fintech platform lending company whose principal business was lending to veteran-owned businesses. StreetShares was cofounded by Mark L. Rockefeller and Mickey Konson-both veterans themselves-in 2013, with the mission to provide better access to credit for veteran-run businesses. Since the financial crisis in 2008, banks had been reducing small-business lending, and the founders believed there were over a million veteran-run businesses that could benefit from better access to small loans and other forms of credit. When Fruehwirth first met the two founders in the spring of 2017, initially he thought the company was too early in its development to satisfy his investment criteria-but he was impressed with the company's management and mission. His view changed in October 2017, when StreetShares beat out Kabbage and several other online lenders to pilot a program for MILBANK, Inc., a large military affinity-focused bank, to offer small-business loans to its members. If successful, the pilot would significantly accelerate loan growth. But if the pilot failed, it would leave the firm with more expensive channels for growth and raise doubts about its small-loan business. Fruehwirth was contemplating a Series B-round investment of $20 million for 40% of the company's equity, but needed to determine whether the returns would satisfy his investors, knowing they were highly dependent on the success of the pilot. The case contains RCP's offering memorandum summarizing the merits of the StreetShares investment and Fruehwirth's proposed deal terms. Students are asked to qualitatively evaluate the potential benefits and risks of the investment from the perspective of RCP's investors, and to quantitatively calculate the investment's returns.

Kira Allen has moved to a new city, started a new job, and is ready to get herself a new cell phone and a phone plan as well. As she researches her options, Allen thinks about trade-offs and differentiating her wants from her needs in the purchasing process. This case is most useful in a financial-literacy or financial-capability course for non-MBA learners. Students will think about their own requirements in a cell phone, what terms in the mobile-phone sphere actually mean, how to decide on a device and a provider, and the total costs of phone ownership.