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Two leadership groups from Boston 2024 negotiate with government bodies, community leaders, and olympic officials in an effort to bring the 2024 Olympics to Boston.

The existing U.S. health care system is complex. Most individuals have health insurance coverage provided by various third-party payers. The payers include employers, health insurance carriers, and government-sponsored programs, such as nationally administered Medicare and Medicaid, which is offered by all 50 states with some support from the federal government. Each payer's program varies in terms of the health services covered as well as the amount of the cost of care allocated back to the individual in the form of visit copayments, individual deductibles, and other cost-sharing strategies. These offerings are administered by various health plans and many payers offer multiple administrative alternatives. For example, Medicare is administered nationally, but there are multiple "Medicare Advantage" alternatives available as well as the basic program offering. In addition, there are numerous Medicare supplemental plans available to increase the benefits for the individual recipient. Founded in 2014, DPC Concentric Health System's (DPC Concentric's) mission is to identify the people, strategies, and capital needed to help the U.S. health care system heal itself. Based on continuous improvement design driven by continuous learning, DPC Concentric's human capital/technology initiatives deploy the power of entrepreneurial physicians in a free market. This social entrepreneurial approach responds distinctly to the incumbent relationship infrastructure of "fee-for-service" third-party reimbursement at the provider and self-funded payer levels. The DPC Concentric continuous-improvement infrastructure becomes practical, achievable, and self-perpetuating as incumbent leadership commits to catalyzing outcome-based health care solutions. It is distinctly relationship based, providing incumbent advisers ample opportunity to lead as continuous-improvement consultants to physicians and employers.

Mackenzie Spencer, vice president of operations at Strategic Consulting Group, must determine a staffing (the "S" word) plan for the upcoming year. She must balance the costs of overstaffing with those of understaffing in the face of uncertain demand for future services. Students can either determine a staffing plan based on the expected demand or by taking into account the uncertainty by simulating demand. This case was awarded second place in the 2017 Decision Sciences Institute case-writing competition. It is used at Darden in the first-year operations course as well as in the service operations elective. This case would also be suitable for use in a first-year decision analysis course or in an elective or course module covering optimization.

Katie Hood, CEO of the One Love Foundation (One Love), a group dedicated to the prevention of relationship violence, had grown the organization's base of funding support to $6 million by 2017 and broadened its mandate to include relationships across many demographics. But questions about how best to deploy their funding loomed, as well as divergent views on the pace of growth the organization should target. One Love also needed to develop better metrics by which to measure its success. This case explores Hood's plan of action as she aims to bring One Love to greater scale.

The One Fund case was written to challenge students to think more deeply about the relationships between institutions, policies, and stakeholders. The case was designed to help students understand the complexities of planning, organizing, and executing a complex mission over a short period of time with cooperating and conflicting institutional interests, varying societal expectations, and embedded relationships developed over decades. Our intent is to deliver a modest contribution to exploring how the relations between institutions and policies are positively affected when combined with determined entrepreneurial actions. The case was written for use in a class on Institutions and Policies. It may also be used in an undergraduate strategy class to introduce students to strategy in the area of non-profits. In this context, we explore the relationship between non-profit and for-profit enterprises, comparing the mutual interests of the constituents they serve. Lastly, we introduce students to antecedents that help form the PEST factors that influence firm-level strategic choice.

By almost any measure, Charles Schwab Corp. appeared to be killing it in 2017. The wealth management, banking, custody and brokerage firm's stock was trading near its all-time high. It was posting unprecedented levels of new client accounts, net new client assets, revenues and profits and had a record $3.12 trillion in client assets under management. Schwab was taking customers and assets from old-line wire houses like Morgan Stanley, while fending off challenges from young Fintech upstarts by being a fast follower. Despite its relatively large size, Schwab saw itself as a disruptor. Schwab was attracting more net new assets than any other publicly traded full-service investment firm and its operating costs were lower than competitors like Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. Still, there was no doubt that challenges loomed on the horizon. For example, how could Schwab maintain or improve trust in an era of intense cyber-threats and increasingly sophisticated technology that some consumers found invasive or even creepy? Were its products elegant and simple enough? In the era of Uber and Amazon, customers' expectations were rising. And what if a big tech company like Google or Amazon started to move onto Schwab's turf? Key to staying ahead, CEO Walt Bettinger felt, was maintaining a laser focus on the customer, and being willing to cannibalize Schwab itself to find new growth. Schwab, he thought, had repeatedly proved its willingness to do so over the previous four decades, most recently by introducing a robo-advising product. "Disruption occurs when someone listens more carefully to customers, or better anticipates what customers might want before they even realize it themselves. Most companies are disrupted because they lack the will and courage to disrupt themselves first," Bettinger said. Could Schwab stay vigilant and keep up that courage? Or was it already being disrupted and didn't realize it?

From 2010 to 2017, General Electric pivoted from an industrial behemoth to a data-driven tech company by incorporating big data analytics across all of their subsidiaries. As the world's first "digital industrial" company, it named and the Industrial Internet - the "internet of things" for manufacturing - and is poised to win big in the future, as the current CEO, Jeff Immelt, hands over the reins to his predecessor, John Flannery.

A TV producer struggles to balance the demands of three hit shows--and dreams of a new one. This fictional case study features expert commentary by Sarah Barnett and Melissa James Gibson.

A TV producer struggles to balance the demands of three hit shows--and dreams of a new one. This fictional case study features expert commentary by Sarah Barnett and Melissa James Gibson.

A TV producer struggles to balance the demands of three hit shows--and dreams of a new one. This fictional case study features expert commentary by Sarah Barnett and Melissa James Gibson.

Yankuang Group Company (YGC), a Chinese provincial state-owned enterprise (SOE), had over two decades of experience operating in the international market since its overseas initial public offering (IPO) in 1997. In 2013, YGC suffered great losses from an oversupply of coal production and a sharp decline of coal prices. How has YGC adjusted its internationalization process? The case highlights the key steps in the process and the impact of internal and external environment factors on the adjustment. It also illuminate the reforms of Chinese SOEs and the solutions to tackle challenges for running multi-national businesses.

Uber China is a strategy pricing case that examines the role of customer acquisition tactics and brand positioning in entering the tantalizingly large Chinese market. The case adopts the perspective of an outside observer looking at Uber's efforts to compete in China from its entry in 2013 to its exit through its acquisition by Didi Chuxing, the highly dominant industry leader in China's ride-sharing market. After laying out the market opportunity, consumer and competitive landscape, and the various acquisition-related moves of Uber and the other major players, the case asks students to conduct a postmortem on Uber's failure in China. Specifically, they must consider what drew Uber to the opportunity in China and what it might have done differently in terms of positioning and customer acquisition to compete more effectively. First and foremost a pricing-related discussion, the case illustrates the relationship between pricing and acquisition tactics and brand positioning and the use of both in market entry and penetration.

This case puts students in the shoes of Mexican entrepreneur Rodolfo Corcuera of the tech startup Aliada, an online platform that matches maids with customers in Mexico City. With backing from one of Mexico City's newest venture capital firms, Corcuera's business now needs to scale, and he is considering how best to position his offering to those on whom his business model depends--maids and customers. To tackle this, students will learn about basic concepts from psychology that can inform marketers. More specifically, they will learn how basic human needs (nurturance, security) fuel self-regulatory goals (promotion and prevention goals, respectively), which in turn impact how people approach their consumption goals. Students will analyze Aliada's current Facebook ads, watch videos of some of Aliada's current maids and customers to assess whether they seem more motivated by promotion or prevention goals, and recommend optimal messaging for Facebook ads and subway banners in order for Corcuera to be most appealing to these two target audiences who may have different motivations.

By 2016, the BMB Group (BMB) had become the biggest producer of gourmet chocolates and Middle Eastern confectionery in the United Arab Emirates. Making private-label, highly customized confectionery for other brands had proven to be a winning strategy for the company; however, BMB's leaders felt it was time to transition to a business-to-consumer model. Establishing BMB brands was essential to continued growth because management believed the private-label space would soon fill up with competitors. Which market should BMB enter? There were three possible options: (1) go where Middle Eastern sweets were already popular but compete with many producers; (2) target Middle Eastern expatriate populations that might embrace the products and partner with local distributors; or (3) focus on markets where the population showed a preference for sweets but had relatively limited exposure to, or preference for, Middle Eastern sweets, and use BMB brands to set the standard. Would BMB's own brands aid the company's ambitious plans for expansion, or was the firm biting off "more than it could chew?"

In early September 2016, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Samsung), a leading manufacturer of smartphones headquartered in South Korea, released the new generation of its flagship smartphone, the Galaxy Note 7. Despite initial positive reviews and a strong market reception, just eight days later, Samsung voluntarily recalled 2.5 million of the smartphones, after receiving reports of the devices overheating and catching on fire. The problems persisted even with the replacement device, and the company decided to cease all production and sales of the Galaxy Note 7 in October 2016. Samsung faced a highly commoditized market, decreasing global demand, and increasing competition, but the company now also needed to deal with one of the biggest recalls in the history of the industry. What had gone wrong, and how could the company move forward?

In 2017, the next generation of consumers that were poised to become engaged to be married-millennials-showed different preferences and consumption patterns than previous generations had shown. In response, the De Beers Group of Companies (De Beers), a leading company within the global diamond industry, was making moves to capture this important market. In partnership with the world's six other leading diamond companies, known collectively as the Diamond Producers Association, De Beers launched a campaign titled "Real is Rare" with the goal of persuading millennials into believing that diamonds were an important symbol of romantic commitment, even in 2017. Would these marketing endeavours be successful in changing the millennial mindset, or would the campaign fall flat? Would diamond engagement rings continue to be the ultimate symbol of commitment? What could De Beers do to encourage sales of diamonds in a changing world?

In 2017, PSA Peugeot Citroën (PSA), the French-based automaker known for its famous Peugeot and Citroën brands, announced its plans to re-enter the U.S. market after having exited North America in 1991. This was not the first time the company tried to re-enter the U.S. market. In an effort to reduce its reliance on declining European markets, PSA had attempted to re-enter the United States in 2003, again in 2014 with its premium automobile range, and most recently in 2016 in a partnership with a French-based ride-sharing operator. What are PSA's strategic options for its international growth by focusing particularly on U.S. re-entry? Would re-entering the U.S. market help PSA respond to growing competitive pressures in the global automotive industry?

In fall 2017, HTC CEO and Chairperson Cher Wang was driving the company to focus on virtual reality (VR). HTC's first VR product, VIVE, released in spring 2016, was applauded for its superior immersive room-scale capabilities. However, early adoption of VR beyond gamers and technology enthusiasts was off to a slower start in general to due high cost, lack of quality content, and some user discomfort while using the technology. Wang endeavors to be the leading VR company though competition from Sony, Facebook, and other technology leaders is mounting and several, like HTC, are already pursuing second generation tetherless VR technology. As Wang seeks to develop the ecosystem by partnering with developers, creating a content platform, investing in VR startups, and launching VR arcades, she must decide the appropriate balance of fostering innovation in hardware, software and services, or both.

In 2017, management at Shift, an online marketplace that uses a "high touch," concierge approach to buy and sell used cars, was formulating plans for the San Francisco-based startup's next phase of expansion. One option was to preserve Shift's current business model and grow through geographic expansion. Another option was to decentralize more tasks to sellers and/or buyers, for example, management of inspections and repairs. While decentralizing tasks would reduce Shift's labor per transaction and thereby improve the venture's unit economics and its scalability, Shift might risk undermining users' trust by handing off responsibility for critical tasks.