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This case is focused on the ongoing rejuvenation of Citibank's cornerstone product in Hong Kong, Citigold, first launched in 1982. Citibank strived to be the market leader in priority banking products offered to high net worth individuals (HNWIs). For HNWIs, Citibank followed a segment-led strategy based on the customer's account balance around which Citi Priority, Citigold and Citigold Private Client products were formulated. Out of the three, Citigold focused on the emerging-affluent segments and offered them exclusive services that were based on three tenets of the product: sophisticated financial planning products, dedicated relationship managers and unparalleled privilege that allowed a Citigold customer to enjoy elevated banking status with Citibank. As Citigold was one of the first products of its kind in the market, it contributed to the premium image of Citibank over other banks in Hong Kong. However, over the years competition had caught up and offered products very similar to Citigold, eroding their once unique value proposition. Combining the commoditization of their product and changing consumer preferences in Hong Kong, the market share of Citibank in Hong Kong was threatened. Citigold customers, which made up 30% of the entire Citibank consumer base, contributed to 80% of the bank's revenue. In 2017, the bank looked to protect its position in the market and to craft a strategy that would address the current challenging environment in priority banking products.

This case is based on Citibank's consumer banking business in Hong Kong which aims to capture the impact of emerging fintech technologies and its impact on consumer banking behavior. The case explains about fintech, its evolution, especially in China and Hong Kong, and dives deeper into the three areas where Citibank product delivery could be enhanced using technology: basic transactional services, value-added services and, lastly, being able to provide a fintech ecosystem that would allow greater engagement with customers.

Good morning Mr. Teichner, After having arrived well in China on May 9 and some intense experiences, observations, and conversations, I see the urgent requirement to talk to you about the situation and next steps. Andreas knew that he was expected to manage the turnaround and get the business unit out of the red. Aiming to describe his action plan to Max Teichner, his mind wandered back to his impressions of the first two and a half weeks as the new sales and marketing director of CWS-boco China.

By 2017, GoFundMe is the world's largest social fundraising platform. Gross donation volume is growing rapidly yet the number of monthly campaign starts is relatively flat. The CEO contemplates a variety of growth initiatives.

In August 2018, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market for $13.7 billion. Whole Foods was struggling with high costs and faced growing competition from traditional supermarkets offering more organic products. Prior to the acquisition, Whole Foods began rolling out a new order-to-shelf (OTS) inventory management system that many observers believed had led to shortages. For years, store team leaders at Whole Foods were empowered to make inventory decisions and tailor their stores to meet local needs, but OTS came with strict rules for purchasing and displaying goods which upset many employees. Should Amazon push Whole Foods to improve performance by emphasizing efficiency and standardization? Or should it aim to maintain a sense of empowerment among employees?

In 2016, a young South African left her secure office job to pursue her passion for social entrepreneurship in the youth development field. She had been volunteering with street children, but she wanted to do more by drawing on her entrepreneurial experience from high school and university. She followed her passion, and experienced a number of challenges, but also early successes over her first four years of social entrepreneurship, including the formation of her social business, Beyond the Lemonade Stand. Business was steady but she struggled with getting the commitment needed in poor township schools to make the program a success. She began to question the core purpose of her organization and wondered if she would be better off pursuing opportunities offered by middle-class and private schools that wanted her services.

In 2015, MobilityWorks, the largest mobility dealership and reformer of wheelchair accessible vehicles (WAVs) in the United States, found itself unable to cater to a large enough fraction of the population with limited mobility. With the baby boomers starting to retire, the gap was widening at a pace much faster than the growth of the WAV industry. How could MobilityWorks re-work its business strategy in order to grow across different market segments?

After Amazon.com announced it would acquire Whole Foods, shares of supermarkets in the United States were hit hard; the same was true for grocers in Europe, as investors there worried about the possibility of Amazon moving beyond US borders in the grocery space. Because little had been said regarding the motivation behind the acquisition, the CEO of a large organic-foods supermarket group in Europe decided that the potential impact of this acquisition might warrant some reflection. He wanted to start by looking at the implications of the acquisition on Amazon's consolidated financial statements.

In 1994, Chinese Vice-Premier Li Lanqing and then Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew signed the Agreement on the Joint Development of Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP). Within the next five years, SIP faced steep competition from the Suzhou New District (SND), a project developed and controlled by the local government. As a result, SIP reported an accumulated loss of US$90 million from 1994 to 2000. Both governments met and agreed for the Singapore consortium to reduce its shareholding from the original agreement of 65% to 35% and to transfer management control to the Chinese consortium by 2001.

Friday, June 16, 2017, began with a jolt to the US commercial real estate market when Amazon announced its acquisition of Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. Stock prices for Kroger, SuperValu, Publix, and discount stores like Costco and Target tumbled. Real estate equity experts jumped into action to analyze the deal. These experts considered what synergies the Amazon/Whole Foods Market combination would create and what impact the deal would have on consumer shopping habits, retail tenants, commercial real estate developers, and real estate investment trusts (REITs). How will this deal change the risk scenarios for all US retail investments? In this case, students are asked to consider the best course forward for real estate investors in the newly changed retail landscape.

In December 2014, Dr. Anthony Furlan, chair of the Department of Neurology at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center (UH), faced a mandate from the hospital's executive leadership team. Specifically, all UH departments were directed to take steps within six months to reduce the waiting time for outpatient appointments-measured as the time to first available outpatient appointment-to no more than 15 days. For Furlan and his colleagues in neurology, achieving this target was a significant challenge, as the department's current time to first available appointment was 93 days. The case considers several alternatives for reducing waiting time in outpatient neurology without increasing the total clinical staff. The case allows students to evaluate opportunities for expanding the effective capacity of a complex service operation and to understand the tradeoffs between customer service and labor utilization.

In August 2017, Google fired James Damore, a 28-year-old software engineer who had been employed by the company since 2013. The move came after Damore penned an internal company memo titled "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber," which posited that innate biological differences between men and women-as opposed to hiring biases, gender discrimination, or a hostile workforce-were at least partially responsible for the low numbers of women in tech. At the time, 20% of Google's tech workforce, and 31% of its overall staff, was female. Damore also admonished Google for silencing opinions that challenged what he viewed as the company's politically liberal belief system. Reactions to both the memo's content and Google's decision to fire Damore were swift and varied. Some praised the company for signaling intolerance of any marginalization of women. Others criticized Google for terminating an employee for a seemingly innocuous act of expression. Danielle Brown, Google's new vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, hired just a few weeks before the memo was leaked to the public, must now advise Google's top leadership team on dealing with the fallout.

In 2018, CEO Lowell McAdam led efforts to transform Verizon through digital innovation, media acquisitions and integration, and changes to the company culture. He sought to manage change at the company as growth in traditional areas slowed, and position it as a leader in a 5G world.

Zhejiang Semir E-Commerce Co. Ltd., the online subsidiary of Chinese casual clothing company Zhejiang Semir Group Co. Ltd. (Semir), grew continuously from its launch in 2012 to become a main contributor to Semir's success, contributing approximately 30 per cent of Semir's annual revenue by 2016. Semir entered the online market relatively late after many competing Chinese clothing manufacturers had already established their presence online. Yet it became the industry leader in terms of e-commerce revenue. It differed from other major clothing firms mainly in its implementation of the management philosophy of Kazuo Inamori, particularly his Amoeba Management method and his belief in altruism and a win-win approach to business. Semir worked to create supply chain relationships that were true partnerships, and it promoted the various brands in its multi-brand strategy through celebrity endorsements and online marketing. Like its major competitors, Semir was exploring online-to-offline (O2O) models in the clothing industry. In 2016, the company faced a rapidly changing online environment and increasing competition in the industry. It needed a strategy to maintain its early success in e-commerce. It also needed to determine what kind of O2O model to adopt and how to deal with competition from fast-fashion retailers in the online marketplace.

Glenda Crisp became the chief data officer of TD Bank Group in October 2015. The Office of the chief data officer had only been established in 2013; the scope of the department still needed to be fully defined, and the original enterprise data governance policies needed to be updated. Crisp saw issues in a variety of areas, such as organizational structure, the processes used to manage data governance practices, and technology, all of which needed to be identified and prioritized. An implementation plan then needed to be developed.

By October 2014, Kumar Sweets was a successful sweets company in Kurukshetra, Haryana, India, well-known for Indian sweets made using a Kumar family recipe that had been passed down for generations. The company's success was largely due to the continued efforts of its founder and head, but the founder's eldest son sensed that something was wrong with the firm's operations. Although revenue had increased over the years, the business had not been able to realize the expected profit. Since its last product expansion effort in 2011, Kumar Sweets' profitability was lower than it had been in previous years; the founder and his son wanted to find out why, because they had hoped to pursue geographic expansion. Kumar Sweets needed to implement appropriate actions that addressed its existing problems as soon as possible.