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In October 2021, Todd Tucker, senior vice-president of Market Development and general counsel for Arrive Mobility Inc. (Arrive), a Chicago-based provider of last-mile mobility solutions, met with Beth Diaz, innovation director for Sapphire Parking (Sapphire). Sapphire, a parking company based in Seattle, Washington, was struggling to remain in business due to the changing needs of modern society and a shift to a work-from-home culture. While Tucker believed he could generate better business opportunities for garage owners like Sapphire through technology, after his meeting with Diaz, he realized that gaining buy-in from Sapphire’s operational leaders would be an uphill battle. Technology could be confusing, and technological inertia existed. Tucker’s challenge was to convince Diaz’s field team to try new methods for monetizing Sapphire’s parking spaces while bringing the business into a more modern mindset.

Shanghai Forest Cabin Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (Forest Cabin) was a skin care product manufacturer and retailer that had focused on developing offline stores. At the beginning of 2020, however, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic stagnated offline sales activities. Half of Forest Cabin’s offline stores closed at that time, and the existing stores had few customers, slowing the offline sales business. Forest Cabin rapidly initiated live streaming sales based on the digital foundation the company had built in its earlier stages. In this way, the company successfully responded to pandemic-related challenges and gained user traffic to realize revenue growth. However, with COVID-19 slowing down, people were resuming offline activities. Forest Cabin’s offline stores had provided a competitive advantage to the company. But the company had been able to leverage online live streaming, bringing explosive growth and enabling the company to survive a crisis. Should Forest Cabin focus on online development or offline development going forward?

Founded in 2017, Simply Good Jars (SGJ) was launched with the introduction of a unique salad-in-a-jar line of products. The founder, owner, and chief executive officer of SGJ was looking to build a ready-to-eat salad business with a mission of “making better-quality delicious food more attainable.” The SGJ brand promoted healthy, quality ingredients and sustainability. Initially, the product was tested in various locations, including vending machines in airports and businesses, and coolers in grocery stores. After achieving early success, SGJ’s founder quickly found pressure to balance growth opportunities with limited financial resources. In 2022, five years after starting the business, he had to decide whether to scale up and mass market SGJ’s products or continue to serve a niche segment through the company’s salad-in-a-jar business.

In March 2020, Canadian-based venture Braze Mobility was experiencing growth challenges. The company had commercialized an anti-collision system to enable safe wheelchair navigation, which had been well received by the US market following a fruitful collaboration with the US Department of Veterans Affairs. The chief executive officer of Braze Mobility was now facing some big decisions. Should the company continue to expand its current export model, diversify into the Canadian market, or tap into growing online demand directly from consumers? Compounding the complexity of the problem was the departure of a key member of the team and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Braze Mobility was well positioned for growth, but its next steps would be crucial to its success or failure.<br><br>Related case: Academic Entrepreneurship: Navigating Commercialization Challenges, product number W28370.

In April 2021, the chair and managing director of India’s JSW Steel Limited (JSW Steel) was facing questions about how to encourage sustainability in an expanding company. JSW Steel was the flagship company of the JSW Group, which started with a small steel plant in 1982 and grew into a conglomerate with interests in steel, cement, infrastructure, energy, paints, and sports. Steelmaking had numerous impacts on the environment. To offset the impact on the environment, JSW Steel had decided to use its by-product, slag, to manufacture cement. The managing director was acutely aware of sustainability concerns and was focused on making his sustainability vision a reality. JSW Steel was at the cusp of a large capacity expansion that would come from existing projects as well as inorganic growth through acquisitions, and both modes of expansion posed challenges for sustainability at JSW Steel.

<p align="justify">VaccineOnWheels (VOW), a social enterprise providing doorstep vaccination to India’s low-income and marginalized communities, was founded in December 2019. After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and arrival of COVID-19 vaccines, VOW was perfectly positioned to contribute to the government’s immunization drive. In 2021, the company entered into a public-private partnership with some of India’s largest municipal corporations as their on-the-ground COVID-19 vaccination partner, then made forays into the business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets. VOW set out to vaccinate one million people by the end of the fiscal year 2021, but faced with shortages of funds and resources; its founder needed to decide on the target market and business model to allow him to achieve his goal and make the enterprise scalable.<br><br>This case was the second winner of the 2021 Fox International Business Case Writing Competition.</p>

港商迪揚貿易公司早期利用資訊不對等的優勢將市場開發及產品生產串成完整價值鏈。全球化策略讓迪揚公司選擇低勞力成本的中國工廠擴大生產線。在面臨產品競爭之下，順勢改變品項由廚房餐刀為美耐皿餐具，後又因為需要做差異化而衍生出服務性的附加價值。迪揚公司一路的調整策略對於企業全球化或是去全球化都具備因應之道。

The chief executive officer (CEO)of NorthCan Packaging and Logistics (NorthCan) was considering options for NorthCan’s planned expansion into the United States. He had to decide whether NorthCan should (1) construct or purchase a facility in the United States; (2) develop a strategic partnership with an established, complementary US-based packaging solutions company; (3) franchise sales and service in the United States; or (4) expand into the United States, while keeping core operations in Canada. The CEO had to ensure that, with any option, the full-service and value-added aspects of NorthCan remained central. He had to also consider the social and economic costs and benefits of each option, including potential for international growth and competitive advantage, sustainability, regulations, and stakeholder preferences.

In September 2019, Mircom Technologies Limited faced a serious crisis after sustaining a ransomware attack. The medium-sized manufacturer based in Toronto, Canada had been offering smart building solutions for almost two decades. The attackers encrypted all of the company’s data, halting all business systems and processes that relied on information technology, including email, voice-over-Internet phones, manufacturing, billing, shipping, and receiving. The company was suddenly unable to conduct basic business operations. The attackers demanded a large payment in bitcoin in exchange for a decryption key that would allow the company to access its data. Over the next several weeks, Mircom Technologies Limited faced unforeseen challenges in its attempt to recover its data, negotiate with the attackers, and eventually find a way to successfully restore normal operations.

In October 2019, the regional chief data and analytics officer at Allianz AG, Belgium, attended a two-hour strategy meeting with the Allianz Benelux chief executive officer, who had expressed concerns about the company’s digitalization strategy. A few days earlier, the marketing department had found that online sales channel results had fallen unexpectedly. The chief executive officer was worried that the company could lose market share if it did not react accordingly, which would damage the company’s competitive position in the market. Therefore, the regional chief data and analytics officer was asked to gather a team to investigate why online sales were low and to design an effective customer acquisition strategy. In addition to his data office staff, the regional chief data and analytics officer asked for the business transformation unit to provide assistance. He had to consider how best to approach this challenging task.

Founded in 2014 in Guangdong, China, Guangdong Haiqixing Marine Technology Co. Ltd. (Haiqixing) was a total solution service provider for marine big data applications. In the early stage of its development, Haiqixing achieved growth through a business development strategy. Unfortunately, since 2019, it had been affected by such factors as the reorganization of national government agencies and the impact of COVID-19, which had caused its business to suffer inevitable shocks. In 2020, to enhance the company’s ability to cope with environmental changes and ensure continuous growth of the business, Haiqixing’s chair carried out a strategic transformation, changing the company’s business development strategy to one oriented toward product development. Consequently, the company achieved a rapid increase in operating income. However, the company’s existing technical capabilities could not meet customers’ needs. The chair needed to determine Haiqixing’s next steps. Should Haiqixing continue to pursue its product development strategy, or should it adopt a technology exploration strategy to improve its technical capabilities?

Founded in 1950, King’s Hawaiian, a Los Angeles–based bakery, operated in the competitive bread industry with an expansive list of rolls and bread, as well as a selection of other baked goods, which varied by region. As the business grew over the years, it had added production facilities and increased marketing. For decades, King’s Hawaiian had focused on its core bread products, using occasion-based marketing to target consumers. However, in April 2021, with an ever-increasing market, the company had to decide whether to scale up into a mass-market company or continue to service a niche occasion-based segment by offering its unique sweet bread through in-store bakery and deli departments.

On July 24, 2021, Chinese authorities issued the Double Reduction Policy to ease the burden of excessive homework and off-campus tutoring for students undergoing compulsory education in China. Off-campus English tutoring became strictly regulated, and hiring foreign teachers abroad to carry out training activities was strictly prohibited. 51Talk had achieved great success in the K–12 English online tutoring market, and this business accounted for more than 95 per cent of the company’s total revenue. However, the company would not be able to continue its K–12 student English online tutoring business in the Chinese market under the Double Reduction Policy. Jack Huang, 51Talk’s founder and chief executive officer, had to consider how to transform the company in order to survive.

In June 2022, Kelvin Van Rijn, owner of The Fritter Shop in London, Ontario, is considering multiple options for the future success of his business. The Fritter Shop had experienced significant growth over its first years in business and had recently relocated to a new production facility. This facility provided approximately 1,500 square feet of unused production space and Van Rijn is wondering how to make the best use of it. Van Rijn’s options include maintaining the status quo, seeking additional franchisees, wholesaling his fritters, selling the business, and exploring co-tenancy.

Presans was founded in Paris, France in 2008 as an an open innovation intermediary, often referred to as an “innomediary.” Using a specific business model that combined open innovation services with state-of-the-art data-mining technology, Presans leveraged a network of over six million experts worldwide to solve problems for its corporate clients. In February 2017, the chief executive officer of Presans had to make some strategic decisions. Based on interviews with clients, he was considering diversifying the portfolio of products. In addition to the company’s classic approach of Call for Excellence, he was considering launching a new approach called Synergy Factory, where different companies could jointly tackle technical topics with experts, and another approach called La Conciergerie, which was a simplification of the Call for Expertise and required a platform-based, rather than a service-based, go-to-market strategy.

Founded in 2013 by sisters Shelby, Jackie, and Amy Zitelman, Philadelphia-based Soom Foods (Soom) aimed to educate US consumers on tahini and make the product a staple in US pantries. By 2021, the business had grown into a multimillion-dollar revenue company and had achieved national distribution through an omni-channel sales effort. However, Soom’s reliance on the single-source Ethiopian Humera sesame seed to prepare its high-quality tahini had begun to pose challenges. When Ethiopia’s inter-ethnic conflicts emerged in 2020, the Zitelman sisters foresaw possible disruptions and uncertainties in their business, especially when those challenges were combined with the supply-chain logistics issues that emerged as a result of the global pandemic in 2021. Soom was forced to reconsider its long-term business strategy: Given the threat of a potentially insufficient future sesame seed supply, should Soom use diversification in its supply chain? If so, how should diversification be applied across the supply chain while still maintaining a good return on investment? Furthermore, how could all of this be done before the next harvesting cycle?

Beginning with an ambitious, lean start-up effort in the highly competitive restaurant industry in Auckland, New Zealand, a husband-and-wife team built a small empire of successful fine dining Indian restaurants. Then came the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed their extreme vulnerability to external forces and the subsequent volatility of the restaurant industry. Their quick pivot to launching a line of Indian sauces for home cooks, Cassia at Home, was an instant success. As the couple contemplated different paths to recovery from the pandemic disruption, they wondered how they should expand their newest business into a sustaining brand and what the future of the existing restaurants would look like. Should they continue to expand the new retail business, abandon the move into manufacturing and broader distribution, or even focus on reviving their existing restaurant businesses?<br><br\><br><br\>An earlier version of the case was awarded Second Place in the 2021 John Molson Business Ownership Case Writing Competition sponsored by the Bob & Raye Briscoe Centre in Business Ownership Studies, John Molson School of Business, Concordia University.

In January 2020, Philippe Isler, director of the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation (Alliance), was preparing for the Alliance’s steering group meeting that spring. He needed to set forth a plan on how to scale Alliance operations to deliver on current and proposed projects. The Alliance had only three years left in its current funding cycle, and a long list of projects to complete. Isler knew that meeting the funding governments’ expectations with the current structure would be a challenge for the Alliance. He thus faced a complex organizational design challenge and had to reflect how to develop the efficiency of the Alliance. Isler considered three options to scale Alliance operations: growing organically, adding several arms-length implementing partners, and adding a new implementing partner into the Alliance secretariat. Alternatively, he could dial back the Alliance’s current growth plans.

In early March 2020, CoinOrb needed additional capital to build the minimum viable product for their cryptocurrency futures trading platform. Rather than raise additional equity, the company founders created an initial coin offering (ICO), a token sale that blockchain start-ups use to raise funds. CoinOrb planned to launch their ICO shortly after launching their platform in late 2020, but they first needed to prepare their white paper. How would the CoinOrb founders market their offering to investors? What terms would the ICO have? And what value would they assign to the tokens?

Agricola Himalaya was a family-owned Colombian company, the national leader in the tea industry, and the owner of the only tea plantation in the country, located in the middle of a mist forest. In Colombia, owing to the labour costs involved in tea production, importing tea was less expensive than producing it locally, but if Agricola Himalaya decided to import the tea, what would be the environmental and social impact of closing the plant and plantation? Agricola Himalaya attempted to resolve this dilemma by entering the specialty tea market, launching a new product that was sustainable and organic, with a range of innovative blends and a premium price. However, after eight years, its Bitaco specialty tea line had not reached break even, and in March 2021 the chief executive officer faced a new dilemma: whether or not to continue with the specialty tea initiative.