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Charity fundraising in the UK was a deep red ocean when Comic Relief started. Costs were up and donations were down. To stand out from the crowd, organizations had to work harder at fundraising and marketing. Yet Comic Relief rapidly achieved 96 percent national brand awareness and has now raised over £1 billion without spending anything on marketing. Its flagship event, held once every two years, is almost a national holiday in the UK. The case reveals how Comic Relief redefined the problem of the charity-giving industry - from how to get the wealthy to give out of guilt, to how to get everyone 'to do something funny for money' - thus reconstructing the market boundaries. It understood how to create new demand by looking to nondonors and what turned them off (the blocks to giving). In so doing, it erected formidable barriers to imitation - cognitive, organisational, economic and legal. Its enduring success relies on the alignment of its value, profit and people propositions. It can be used to teach the following Blue Ocean concepts: (1) the Buyer Utility Map; (2) the Three Tiers of Noncustomers; (3) Barriers to Imitation; and (4) Disruptive versus nondisruptive creation.

At the end of 2017, Disney announced it would acquire the majority of 21st Century Fox's assets including its movie studio, TV production company, cable channels and regional sports networks. If approved, the deal would give Disney the scale and content to develop its own streaming service by 2019, when its contract with Netflix expired. The rise of streaming had contributed to the steady decline of cable-TV, DVD sales and cinema attendance in the US. The case discusses the transformation of the media landscape with the growth of digital. Was Disney's apparent move away from "content is king" - its strategy since 1923 - recognition of the importance of distribution channels in the digital age?

The case starts by describing the transformation of ING Netherlands from a traditional bank with functional hierarchies to an organization that embraces digitalization and 'Agile' principles. Then it illustrates how the bank is re-organized around self-managed teams without traditional managers. Finally, the narrative recounts how employees are empowered to make decisions.

In 2016, Michael Rubin's Fanatics was the U.S.' largest sports e-commerce company, and operator of the official online store for all the major American sports leagues. That year, Fanatics began to dabble in manufacturing licensed sports merchandise, securing limited permissions from leagues to manufacture apparel in response to 'micro-moments,' sudden surges of interest in a team or player that were too abrupt for the league's usual licensees to react to. The success of these efforts raised the possibility that Fanatics might make a play to displace a major athletic wear manufacturer as the official merchandise licensee of a major sports league. For a company with little manufacturing infrastructure and experience however, it was unclear whether this was an advisable step for Fanatics, or how they would go about it.

The Eastman Kodak Company (Kodak) was a name familiar to most Americans. The company had dominated the film and photography industry through most of the 20th Century and was known for making affordable cameras (and the "Kodak Moment") and supplying the movie industry with film. At its peak in 1997, Kodak had a market value of $30 billion. Despite inventing the first digital camera, Kodak stumbled to capitalize on the new technology and by 2011 the company was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In September 2013, Kodak emerged from bankruptcy as a smaller business-to-business (B2B) digital imaging company. The following March, Jeff Clarke took over as Kodak's new CEO. The company continued to produce and sell film to moviemakers, but Clarke, who needed to reinvent Kodak, wondered if keeping that business line made sense. To some inside the company, film was a "sacred cow" and fundamental to Kodak's identity. In January 2016, Clarke and his executive team traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada, for the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) where the company unveiled a prototype of its new Super 8 camera-an analog motion picture camera initially launched in 1965 to shoot home movies-with updated features. Over the course of the four-day event, media and other industry players had overwhelmed the Kodak booth, excited to catch a glimpse of the camera, asking when they could expect to see the Super 8 on shelves. While the business-to-business (B2B) side of the company appeared to be growing, the new Super 8 reflected the culture and identity of a firm originally rooted in film and consumer products. Sentiment aside, Clarke needed to decide if the new Super 8 fit into the company's overall strategy and whether Kodak was focused on the right markets for growth. What was the optimal path to reinvention?

In 2017, a strategic analyst with the Ontario Ministry of Energy, was asked to evaluate the potential for decommissioning the Ontario Power Generation's Pickering Nuclear Generating Station (Pickering) in Pickering, Ontario, at the scheduled end of the plant's operations in 2024, instead of waiting until 2054. Decommissioning Pickering would require $5.264 billion in 2016 terms. Storing the spent fuel would cost another $4.3 billion, for a total of $9.564 billion. Ontario Power Generation had set aside $2.75 billion for decommissioning Pickering and for long-term storage of its spent fuel. To bridge the gap between what it had contributed and what was required, Ontario Power Generation was investing in a decommissioning fund and assuming that its investment would increase in real terms by 3.25 per cent a year. The strategic analyst had to examine what it would cost to decommission Pickering in 2024 versus what it would cost in 2054.

In late 2015, the chief people officer at IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company, a joint venture with two public sector banks in India, faced a new challenge. The company's managing director and chief executive officer communicated the company's goal to become India's largest insurance provider and to be among India's top five insurance companies by 2020. The chief people officer was tasked with ensuring the company had the organizational capabilities in place to achieve this goal. Although the chief people officer was confident he could complete the task, he needed to devise a plan, roll it out, and deliver it promptly to meet the pressing expectations of achieving the new vision.

In 2011, Alexis Horowitz Burdick founded Luxola, an e-commerce platform selling branded cosmetics online in Singapore. By 2015, Burdick was able to expand her venture across 12 markets in Asia Pacific region and was acquired by Louis Vuitton Moet Hennesey (LVMH) under its cosmetics arm of Sephora. However, the initial years of Luxola had been fraught with several challenges. The primary challenge for Luxola had been attracting funding from venture capitalists. Luxola had been established by a solo woman founder, and typically venture capitalists avoided investing in start-ups established by women. Another unexpected challenge for the company was the 'lack of trust' reputed cosmetic brands had on e-commerce platforms. Burdick used a lean business model and customer centric strategies to cope with these challenges. After the acquisition, Sephora retained the senior staff including its founder. Burdick now focussed her attention on more sophisticated channels of marketing and implemented digital analytic tools and behavioural messaging to drive customer conversion ratios. These strategies had begun to produce results, and Burdick was hopeful that she could further grow the company in the region fairly quickly. Luxola had tapped on an unmet user need of women in Southeast Asia - sourcing branded cosmetics from an online platform. The unmet user need had stemmed from a demographic transformation wherein the young women in the region were becoming increasingly independent and liked to splurge on themselves. Other than demographics, what other sources of innovative opportunity had Luxola satisfied? Was exiting through acquisition the right strategy for Luxola?

This case describes President Donald Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs of 2018. The case covers the recent history of U.S. trade protectionism in these industries, as well as the domestic and international politics surrounding the Trump tariffs. The case discusses industry reaction to the tariffs, as well as their implementation by the Department of Commerce, and retaliation by other countries.

Dai Wei and his co-founders grew Beijing-based ofo from a school-based startup to a bike-share behemoth in a matter of months, topped an all-out market-share battle fueled with almost $1 billion in venture capital, provided 2 billion bicycle rides, soaked up the majority of the bike manufacturing capacity in all of China, and then, in July of 2017, hit pause. The proximate reason for halting their purchase of new bicycles was a supply imbalance: ofo had many more bikes on their way than they did the smart-locks that allowed their customers to unlock them with their cell-phones. But the breather would also give ofo's leaders a chance to re-assess their plans for the rest of the year. For how long, to what end, and at what cost, to wage their market-share battle with main rival, Mobike? How aggressively to pursue their international expansion and what adjustments, if any, to make from their model in dozens of Chinese cities? And what to do about the concerns from government officials that ofo's dockless bikes and those of dozens of competitors were creating hazards on city streets? Wei and four schoolmates at Peking University had launched ofo on their campus with 1000 bikes in fall 2015. Since then, they had deployed 6.5 million. The question now was how many more?

Italy's March 2018 elections led to a populist government which included the right-wing League and the anti-establishment 5 Star Movement. To respect their electoral promises, the two parties came up with a budget plan which provided for a public deficit at 2.4%, a figure higher than what the previous administration had promised the EU Commission. On October 23, 2018, the EU Commission rejected such plan asking Italy to revise downwards the public deficit. The same day, Italian bond yields spoke to 4-year highs, up to 3.7% as investors questioned Italy's capacity to repay its public long-term debt, the second highest in the EU. Would the Italian government be able to implement its plan?

Code2040 is a not-for-profit organization founded by two Stanford MBA classmates to build pathways for black and LatinX college students to gain experience with technology companies and successfully launch careers after graduation. This case continues an earlier case about the founding and early years of Code2040. It picks up with the 2016 election of US President Donald Trump. His election led to dramatic changes in the environment and support for diversity initiatives in which Code2040 operates. As a result of this singular external factor, in 2017, Code2040 faced unprecedented and unanticipated challenges in securing industry support for programs. This case presents the acute personal and professional questions and issues that faced founder CEO Laura Weidman-Powers at this critical juncture in Code2040's existence. Key questions included: • What shifts in strategy are required to ensure continued organizational survival and effectiveness in a vastly changed landscape? How should she manage the change? • How can a founder CEO devise and implement a successor plan that meets both personal and organizational priorities? • What can a board do to devise and implement a successor plan that meets an organization's priorities and will enable future growth and success in accomplishing its mission? The case is presented in two parts. Part A leads up to the founder CEO's decision to step down. Part B asks students to consider how to execute the CEO transition. Detailed teaching notes provide insights from key stakeholders, including board members, founder and new CEO, and member of the Code2040 staff regarding what actually occurred. Importantly, the case includes each person's recommendations for how to plan for and implement CEO transitions.

Controlling about a third of global kiwifruit exports by volume and nearly half by value in 2018, Zespri was a grower-owned "corporatized cooperative" with the exclusive right to export New Zealand-grown kiwifruit (except to Australia). Zespri did not grow fruit, but rather managed an integrated marketing system across the value chain. This coordinated structure enabled Zespri to control quality, build a brand, and command premium prices in export markets. In 2018, Zespri had a strategic goal of marketing the world's leading portfolio of kiwifruit year round, with a target of nearly doubling sales, to NZ$4.5 billion, by 2025. This would require Zespri to vastly increase its kiwifruit supply in New Zealand, as well as from overseas suppliers, who currently accounted for a relatively small portion of its volume. Rapid growth presented several challenges, including the need to preserve product quality and consistency while working with new growers, prioritizing customers and markets as demand outpaced supply, considering Zespri's position vis-à-vis the crucial China market, and developing new capabilities as Zespri transformed from New Zealand-centric into a global organization. At the same time, the Zespri team aspired to launch new products that met consumer demand for sweeter taste and convenience-an increasingly urgent priority as global competition in kiwifruit intensified. Zespri had been the first to introduce a high-quality proprietary gold kiwifruit to the global market, and it continued to dominate the gold segment. Could it do the same in the emerging red-flesh category? As with many questions facing Zespri in 2018, there are risks of moving too fast as well as too slow.

The case takes students through the creation and evolution of Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program - a public and private partnership to provide education, a network of support and capital to small businesses across the U.S.

Danone SA (Danone), a multinational food company based in Paris, had a history of social and environmental consciousness and a corporate strategy that focused on economic and social objectives. In 2013, the company was trying to ensure that this social and environmental focus was part of its decision-making process, and wanted to communicate its industry-leading efforts to internal and external stakeholders alike. The company had learned that it was not enough just to have internal systems and data prove its environmental consciousness. The company's carbon accounting initiative, for example, demonstrated the firm's progress in reducing its carbon footprint; however, because it did not make use of widely accepted carbon accounting standards, Danone's sustainability efforts were largely discounted or ignored. Now the company had to decide how to report to its various stakeholders going forward. The A case focuses on Danone's reporting activity in 2013, when it worked with the International Integrated Reporting Council to pilot that organization's integrated reporting standard. The B case brings the situation forward to 2018 and discusses Danone's work to launch its own integrated report, its efforts to become certified as a B Corporation, and its support of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.

On January 1, 2017, the head of sustainability initiatives at Lemon Tree Hotels (Lemon Tree) in India was reflecting on the future of the company's inclusion and diversity initiative. Since the inception of the initiative in 2007, Lemon Tree had become the largest employer of persons with disabilities in the Indian hospitality industry. In 2014, Lemon Tree set an ambitious target of increasing the share of opportunity-deprived individuals, which included persons with disabilities, to 45 per cent of its workforce by 2025. To remain on course to achieve this goal, the head of sustainability initiatives needed to consider key areas of concern in expanding the initiative beyond its current level. For example, where would the company source and recruit persons with disabilities, what costs would be involved, and what specific types of disability would the initiative be open to? Most importantly, while expanding the initiative, how would Lemon Tree preserve its sustainability framework, which was based on the three pillars of the triple bottom line: profit, planet, and people? Should the company instead pursue deeper integration and more gradual growth, which would allow it to consolidate its learning thus far, but would require deeper analysis of training needs and delivery? The head of sustainability issues needed to discuss these options with the senior leadership team and plan the company's approach to best integrating, operationally and culturally, persons with disabilities and other opportunity-deprived individuals into its workforce.

"Our goal is to be the kind of start-up that would terrify Nike-if Nike didn't already own us." Ron Faris, general manager of S23NYC, a Manhattan-based digital studio owned by sports apparel giant Nike, is on the phone with Adam Sussman, Nike's chief digital officer. It is June 1, 2018. Two years earlier, Sussman was behind Nike's push to acquire Virgin Mega, a startup comprised of Faris and his small team, which has since morphed into a studio that plays a pivotal role in Nike's digital strategy. With the studio's mobile app, SNKRS (pronounced 'sneakers'), specifically, Nike seeks to strengthen its connection with the most fanatical of its fans-the sneakerheads-and "bring back the fun and emotion of buying," as Sussman put it. Is Nike on the right path with its digital strategy and, in particular, with how it seeks to change the sneakers game and compete with rivals such as Adidas and Puma? Does it make sense for the company to pursue the kinds of innovations featured in the SNKRS app? And what kind of campaigns and activations should it prioritize in the future?

In 2015, the chief executive officer of Natco Pharma Limited, a commercial manufacturer of pharmaceutical drugs in India, needed to raise funds either through debt or equity to meet the company's capital expenditure and working capital requirements of ₹3.41 billion. The company could finance a loan at an interest rate of 12 per cent or raise funds through public deposits at an interest rate of 13 per cent. The company could also use equity to raise the requisite funds through either a rights offering or a seasoned equity offering. The chief executive officer needed to present his recommendation to the board of directors the following week. Which option should the company adopt?

As a pioneer and leading competitor among China's online travel-service providers, Ctrip.com International, Ltd. (Ctrip) had successfully integrated technology into China's rapidly growing travel industry by 2017. The company's platform provided a comprehensive set of travel services including hotel reservations, flight and train ticketing, vacation packages, business-travel management, and dining reservations. Praised in the industry as the exemplary combination of traditional tourism and e-commerce, Ctrip had experienced significant success. However, the company still had to adapt to an ever-changing and increasingly complex internal and external business environment. How would the company evolve its business model to sustainably compete in the global online travel market?

The owner and sole shareholder of a Vanderbilt Financial Services brokerage in London, Ontario, must decide on the best course of action to grow his business. In 2018, the owner was concerned that he had not accomplished as much as he could with his current business strategy. He was a financial adviser specializing in life insurance and mutual fund products, and he was looking to find new ways to grow. The owner had come up with two options to help achieve growth within his brokerage: enter the real estate market by building business office space to use and to rent to prospective tenants, or build a larger team of life insurance and mutual fund representatives to help manage his growing client base.