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In 2018, Changsheng Bio-technology Co., Ltd. (Changsheng), a leading biopharmaceutical company and one of the market leaders in vaccines, was found to have falsified its production and inspection data and to have sold substandard vaccines in the Chinese market. The unethical conduct triggered widespread public anger and immediate government intervention. What actions could Changsheng take to mitigate the effect of this scandal?

Rite Aid Corporation (Rite Aid) shareholders had turned down a US$3 million bonus proposed for the chief executive officer (CEO) and elected a new board chair. Under the CEO’s leadership, Rite Aid had paid off some debt and returned to modest profitability. However, two failed plans to sell the business had shaken the shareholders’ confidence. Having dealt with falling sales, shrinking profits, the sale of over half of its stores, and the news that Amazon.com Inc. had acquired an online pharmacy, Rite Aid was facing challenges from all sides. The drugstore industry was in turmoil, and without a buyer, the board chair needed to revisit the company’s strategy and its management’s capabilities. In the face of consolidation, vertical integration, and disruption from new entrants, survival was uncertain. Could Rite Aid survive on its own? Would it be feasible to attempt a third merger agreement, or were more radical options needed?

In mid-2017, faced with declining viewership and the loss of the associated advertising and affiliate fees from the pay-TV bundle, The Walt Disney Company needed to consider alternative ways to reach and engage viewers. One option was to move away from bundles and go direct to the consumer. Another option was to acquire more content and make it accessible across multiple platforms. But would these strategies be enough to stem subscriber losses? How did the push by technology disruptors into original content influence these decisions? Were there other strategies worth considering in light of changing tastes, technology, and competition?

With the acquisition of Rustan Supercenters Inc. (Rustan’s) in November 2018, Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc. (Robinsons) had become one of the top retailers in the Philippines, with over 1,800 stores. Although the acquisition brought Rustan’s network of more than 80 stores, located largely in Metropolitan Manila, under the Robinsons umbrella, the multiformat retail giant could not use the trademark and trade name “Rustan’s” without the Tantoco family’s approval. This case assesses the Robinsons brand and the retailer’s possible post-acquisition growth strategies. It also discusses the benefits and risks associated with this acquisition, the possible brand-transition options available to Robinsons, and whether this trend-reversal strategy will provide the retailer with a competitive edge.

After the former chief executive officer (CEO) of U.S.-based Starbucks started to voice his political opinions in September 2016, both Starbucks and the CEO faced backlash. As the CEO and former chairman of a large company, he may have felt entitled to voice his opinion as an individual voter. However, public backlash—from both sides of the U.S. political spectrum—suggested that commentators, looking to respond to him, were actually targeting Starbucks. In 2019, the challenge for Starbucks’ new CEO was to find a way to tactfully extricate Starbucks from political conversations.

In 2014, the Internet of things (IoT) was still considered in its infancy stage. Over the next two years, the IoT matured and represented a considerable amount of uncertainty for the entire electronics industry. In 2016, the industry was at an inflection point regarding the technology, and its largest competitors had to make a choice: risk investing in research and development for a potential return (or failure), or stay the course and let competitors assume the risk. The chief executive officer of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Samsung), Boo-Keun Yoon, was in a position to take a stand in regard to the IoT and invest US$1.2 billion, which could have a major impact on the company’s future. It was up to Yoon to decide.

The first Freshippo store opened in Shanghai, China in January 2016. It was not until nine months later that the second store was opened. However, from that point on, Freshippo stepped up its nationwide expansion by opening a new store every six days, on average. By June 2018, Freshippo owned 46 stores in 13 cities and had set a target of operating over 100 stores by the end of 2018. When entering a Freshippo store, customers not only saw an array of fresh produce that reminded them that they were in a supermarket, but they also saw food being prepared, people dining, and meals being packaged and sorted in bags for customers to pick up and take home to eat. Although the number of services were impressive, flaws had started to surface in the evolution of Freshippo’s business model, such as store management issues, poor service, and long wait times for food preparation. Freshippo had to make some decisions regarding expanding and exploring new business models, or instead resolving problems and making improvements. Which option was a higher priority?

In August 2018, MoviePass, a New York City–based movie ticket subscription service, faced an acute cash crisis that threatened its ability to continue in business. The company had disrupted the movie exhibition industry by offering movie tickets at a discounted monthly subscription price. Despite having quickly grown its subscription base to 3.2 million, it faced several challenges. The company had cash to survive for only the next two months, and a competitor was pushing its own subscription service. As a disruptor in the newly emerging subscription economy, MoviePass faced an existential crisis. How could the chief executive officer and his team increase MoviePass's subscription base and turn the company’s first-mover and wider-network advantages into greater profitability—before the company ran out of capital?

As recently as 2017, General Electric (GE) had been touted as an example of how established companies could pre-emptively transform their businesses digitally, without waiting to be forced to do so by their competition. But in 2018, the wheels appeared to fall off GE's transformation, amid a crisis that included leadership changes, dividend cuts, credit downgrades, and a stock price crash. The company announced that it would sell GE Digital, the newly built-up organization at the heart of its celebrated transformation. This case examines the digital transformation that GE had been attempting and the challenges it encountered. Students will develop ideas about what happened and what GE’s experience means for digital transformation initiatives within other established firms.

As one of China’s top three major state-owned air transportation companies, China Eastern Airlines Corporation Limited (China Eastern) had built an international brand image with a global influence. With the airline’s unique Shanghai-based globalization, China Eastern’s strategy remained focused on expanding its global footprint. In the face of growing competition from domestic and international rivals, China Eastern strove to carry out cross-border business, strengthen its co-operation with partners in the aviation industry, and accelerate its globalization process. Over the past three years, China Eastern had introduced its “Pacific Plan” and made concerted efforts in expanding its route network and optimizing transit opportunities in the North American market. With the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (a global development strategy adopted by the Chinese government), what strategy should China Eastern use to continue to expand its Shanghai-based globalization?

In October 2018, Tesla, Inc. (Tesla), an American automotive and energy company, received an approval from Shanghai’s mayor to acquire a plot of land to build a new electric-vehicle (EV) factory, which was expected to produce its first cars in three years, and to have initial capacity of about 250,000 vehicles a year. This move was in response to a significant rise in the Chinese EV market and the additional tariffs imposed by the Chinese government during its 2018 trade war with the United States. Since 2013, Tesla had partnered with Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic)—the consumer electronics company and a world leader in battery technology—to build Gigafactory 1 and Gigafactory 2 in the United States for manufacturing Tesla’s batteries. The Chinese automotive market was a business environment much different from any that the Tesla–Panasonic partnership had previously experienced. Given the Chinese government’s regulations, requirements, and incentives, what should be Tesla’s growth strategy in the world’s largest automotive market—China. Should Tesla continue its partnership with Panasonic in China or should it look to derive more potential benefits from other suppliers?

In 2017, the new chairman of A. P. Møller-Maersk confronted one of the worst cyberattacks in history, which crippled the company's vast global shipping network that accounted for nearly 20 per cent of global container shipping. NotPetya was a particularly virulent strain of ransomware that, within seconds, destroyed Maersks’s servers and personal computers around the world. Maersk's senior system administrators had warned the company that its network was vulnerable, but the necessary upgrades were never completed. How can the company recover from this devastating event? And how can it protect itself from cyberattacks in the future?

Future Retail Limited (Future Retail) had a unique business model and an aggressive growth strategy that helped to make it India's largest retailing organization. In 2017, Future Retail was expanding its network of stores, but a new retail landscape was emerging, as customers were shifting to e-commerce for large purchases, due to changing lifestyles and customer preferences, while continuing to shop at small mom-and-pop stores for smaller, quick purchases. Amid such changes, how would Future Retail be able to maintain its leadership position? As it sought a larger share of the retail pie, how would it deal with an increasing customer preference toward the convenience of online ordering? How would it handle the competition from omnipresent neighbourhood stores and cart vendors?

Mary Chia Holdings Limited (MCH) was a provider of lifestyle and wellness services for women and men in Singapore and Malaysia. Listed on the Singapore Catalist, the company had experienced a decline in financial performance and share price. On August 24, 2017, MCH announced that its founder would sell her 60.98 per cent stake to Suki Sushi Private Ltd., an unlisted company tightly controlled by the daughter and son-in-law of MCH’s founder. Suki Sushi’s offer was at SG$0.111 per share, which was almost double the closing price. Should current MCH shareholders accept Suki Sushi’s offer and sell their shares, and does Suki Sushi’s offer constitute an investment opportunity for investors not currently holding MCH shares?

In 2018, the acknowledged saviour of Nissan and the creator of the 19-year-old cross-shareholding Renault-Nissan alliance was accused by the Tokyo Prosecutors Office of understating his compensation and of using company resources for personal gain. The arrest of the former chairperson of Groupe Renault, Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., and Mitsubishi Motors brought to light weak governance practices at Nissan and challenged the state of the tripartite alliance. How could Nissan restore investor trust and prevent the recurrence of another scandal? What would happen to the alliance? Convicted or not, could the saviour himself ever recover from this scandal? Was he indeed a hero or a villain?

On June 22, 2018, Stephanie Wilkinson, co-founder of the Red Hen, a small farm-to-table restaurant in rural Virginia, was caught off guard when a frantic call from her chef told her that the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, had just sat down to eat at Wilkinson's restaurant. Staff at the Red Hen were tense because they fundamentally disagreed with Sanders's support of the Trump administration on issues such as immigration and transgender rights. Wilkinson was equally concerned because she had kept politics off the menu at the Red Hen for over 10 years in a politically charged city. Now, Wilkinson had to decide whether to side with her employees and her own moral values and ask Sanders to leave, or permit Sanders to stay at the restaurant. Either way, Wilkinson knew that there would be consequences and that the media would be knocking at her door.

This case focuses on the supply chain strategy of Walmart. Set in 2019, it provides a detailed description of the company’s supply chain network and capabilities. Data in the case allows students to compare Walmart’s source of competitiveness with those of other retailers—both online including Amazon.com and traditional brick–and-mortar retailers, such as Target—to develop insights into the management of a large, complex, global supply chain network. As competition between Walmart and its online and offline competitors heated up, a key challenge for the company’s president and chief executive officer was deciding what changes made to Walmart’s expanding supply chain would best support its strategic objectives. What supply chain capabilities would Walmart need as its business model continued to evolve?

In the summer of 2016, the unprecedented growth of Pokémon GO introduced augmented reality into mainstream gaming. Pokémon GO was developed by San Francisco-based Niantic, Inc. (Niantic), a highly successful spinoff from Google Inc., which partnered with the Japanese video game company Nintendo Co., Ltd. to bring the popular video game franchise into the mobile gaming sphere. Niantic's version included the innovative use of augmented reality, a technology that merged artificial reality with the real world. Although this strategy was a fresh approach, it also presented risks. Niantic was determined to shut down cheating apps and websites that were overloading the company's servers and giving some players unfair advantages. Some players were dismayed by Niantic’s actions and by the apps and websites themselves, while others predicted that the game's popularity would disappear as quickly as it had grown. By late 2016, Niantic needed to decide how to move forward. Should Pokémon GO continue to evolve as an augmented-reality game, with teams and live events, or should Niantic create a new gaming experience focused on features from the original Pokémon games? Alternatively, should the company partner with third-party developers, including those that had developed popular cheating apps and websites? Finally, how should Niantic fund its unexpected growth?

In 2018, President of the United States, Donald Trump, criticized the company Pfizer Inc. (Pfizer) for increasing drug prices—which had been a strategic move by Pfizer in response to industry-wide challenges. This announcement highlighted the complex dynamics of the pharmaceutical industry and the big challenges that innovative research and development (R&D)–intensive pharmaceutical companies faced. The entire pharmaceutical industry was being challenged by issues such as decreasing global average returns on investment and increased R&D costs. In addition, the company faced increased competition from companies from other industries and from emerging-market companies. Pfizer’s chief executive officer needed to determine whether or not these changes marked a turning point for the whole industry.

The case discusses the rapid success and competitive challenges of Guangzhou Chimelong Group Co. Ltd.’s (Chimelong's) marine-based recreational theme park, Chimelong Ocean Kingdom. The theme park was one of the biggest in China and had won several awards for its size and programs, but Western players such as the Walt Disney Company were expanding into China, and several smaller marine-based theme park players were entering the market, posing the threat of imitation to Ocean Kingdom. How should the theme park compete against leading multinationals and burgeoning Chinese domestic players? Could Ocean Kingdom sustain its competitive advantage against these players?