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In mid-January 2017, at the Vancouver head office of Clearly, Canada's leading online optical products company, the chief executive officer was reviewing plans for the company's participation in an upcoming international eyewear exhibition. The event provided more than 1,000 optical companies with an opportunity to showcase their latest offerings. The worldwide market for eyewear was growing, and customers were increasingly turning to online retailers for many products. However, the rate of annual growth in online sales of optical products was slow. Clearly's chief executive officer wondered how to approach this challenge: How could his company increase online sales beyond the current 4 per cent of industry sales? What role would Clearly's existing brick-and-mortar stores around the world play with respect to online sales?

On January 23, 2015, DXSD India received an opportunity to add a complex new line of business to the company's value chain. The head of DXSD India, a shared service division of a U.K. bank, was concerned about his company's ability to take on more complex work. Gaps had been identified in the existing process migration framework, so a new framework was proposed to fix the gaps. The new framework was not tested and did not yet have approval from the onshore project management office. DXSD India had two days to decide whether to use the existing way of working or pursue the proposed new framework. Would simple repairs of gaps within the current framework be sufficient to transform migrations or should a new framework be developed?

In May 2016, a business student from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was considering expanding his print advertising business, which he had been operating out of his home for the past five years. He was about to graduate from the School of Commerce at Addis Ababa University, and he needed to put together an action plan for his company's potential expansion. His options were: (1) continue operating his business as is; (2) invest in an office location and move the business out of his home; and (3) invest in new machines that would allow him to bring banner printing operations in-house. Now it was time to consider the pros and cons of these options and prepare an action plan, including how to obtain the financing for fixed asset investments.

Spencer Theodore Fung slowly closed the covers of the 2016 Analyst Presentation report he had just reviewed. The hazy Hong Kong skies of March 2017 reflected his mood. His third year as Chief Executive Officer of Li & Fung Limited (LF), Spencer wondered how to convince analysts used to 17% CAGR, that 2016 results were reasonable in light of the company's re-positioning. Opportunities abound, but would they believe and give him time? With a war chest of almost US$1 billion and gearing of only 27%, how should he roll out the next three-year plan? 2016, the 110th anniversary of Li & Fung's luminous existence, may mark the dawn of a new horizon...

The marketing director of Harmonie Mineral Water-the second-best selling bottled water in the world-is using findings from two project studies to assess how to establish a global brand identity for Harmonie via television advertising. He must decide what product attributes are sufficiently important across countries that they can be used for global brand communications. He also must determine the extent of local customization he should allow and the roles of headquarters and country managers in these communications. The case can be used in both introductory marketing classes and elective courses in Brand Management, Global Marketing, Integrated Marketing Communications, in a module on marketing communications in an Advertising class, or the global module of a Marketing Management class.

Magellan Boatworks is a midsize manufacturer of customized, power "cruising yachts." In the face of economic and political uncertainty in late 2016, Magellan's VP of sales and marketing, Walt Robinson, wonders whether he should request a budget increase for 2017. Important questions abound. Can Robinson's team increase sales even with a lower budget? Should the company reallocate its advertising and promotion budget? Should Robinson consider changing Magellan's marketing message and narrowing its target market? Why are Magellan's two best salespeople so significantly outperforming their colleagues? This case can be used in an introductory or executive course that covers integrated marketing communications (IMC), including sales. It is also suitable for elective courses in advertising strategy and sales force management. The case's focus on a luxury item that symbolizes success for many individuals should generate lively discussion.

In January 2016, Guillermo Jaime had just returned home to Mexico City after attending a Harvard Business School executive education program. Jaime was the founder and CEO of Mejoramiento Integral Asistido (MIA), a company providing affordable housing to low-income Mexicans living at the base of the pyramid (BOP), defined as those living on less than $10 per day. Since its launch in 2009, MIA had built nearly 25,000 homes-which provided safe shelter to more than 100,000 Mexicans-while generating an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) margin of over 8%. At the executive education program, Jaime had learned that entrepreneurs could build on their unique attributes and capabilities to expand and grow their businesses. Should he continue to expand the services MIA offered to BOP customers? Could he leverage what made MIA unique-offering affordable homes for its BOP customers in Mexico-to fulfill other critical needs at the BOP for water, clean energy, and health care services? Jaime was an expert in housing, but could he translate that expertise to such diverse sectors? If so, how should he begin?

Guillermo Jaime was the founder and CEO of Mejoramiento Integral Asistido (MIA), a for-profit company providing affordable housing to low-income Mexicans living at the base of the pyramid (BOP). This case tells the story of Jaime and Endeavor, a non-profit dedicated to leading the high impact entrepreneurship movement as a tool for economic development in countries around the world. In 2010, Jaime was named an Endeavor Entrepreneur. This case can accompany HBS Case Study "MIA: Profit at the Base of the Pyramid," No. 817073.

How do you get more out of existing sales resources? This common sales management problem is one that Follett Carter must solve as executive vice president of sales and marketing for New Science, a firm operating in the intensely competitive IT research and analytics industry. He must develop a strategy to meet his company's aggressive revenue growth targets and also maintain an ever-growing number of current client accounts. Students must assess New Science's current sales model and develop a less expensive sales force strategy.

This three-part case provides the opportunity to engage students in an examination of how cross-cultural considerations can affect managerial, legal, operational, and corporate social responsibility decision-making. The cases present two, non-profit organizations -- one in the U.S. and one in India. Both organizations are focused on food redistribution but each faces different challenges based on cultural, legal, and logistical issues. Cases A, B, and C are rolled out in a single class session. Students are given Cases A and B to read before class (including watching the video that accompanies Case B). Case C is handed out in class.

The customer relationship manager at JSW Steel Ltd., a large steel manufacturer in India, needed to analyze his available transportation and logistics options to meet an urgent order for a long-time and valued client. The manager needed to decide whether to send the shipment through the customary rail route or, instead, to use the new sea route that his company had recently developed. His dual objective was to meet the customer's requirements in time, while also delivering some financial benefit to boost his company's quarterly results.

Indian start-up firm ColoredCow achieved impressive growth in its first three years. In 2016, the company earned ₹725 million in net revenue, an increase of 140 per cent over the previous year. In early 2017, the company's target for 2020 was very ambitious: its founder hoped to reach ₹2.5 billion in total revenues by that year-an extremely challenging goal for a company with only 16 employees and a multi-directional focus. ColoredCow's founder wanted to build a direct sales channel to help achieve this target. With rapid changes taking place across the information technology industry, the firm faced some serious questions: What technical and digital capabilities would ColoredCow need to implement to achieve success in the future? What scalability issues would the company likely face? What should ColoredCow's strategic plan for growth be? What marketing strategies should ColoredCow devise to increase its customer base and achieve its ambitious objective of ₹2.5 billion in revenue by 2020?

In October 2013, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Canada's largest bank, hired a new head of Enterprise Fraud Strategy, a department tasked with protecting RBC's global customers from fraud. The department head's immediate priority was to prevent fraudulent transactions by RBC's own customers-a phenomenon called first-party fraud-by implementing a bourgeoning technology called social network analysis (SNA). The technology used predictive analytics and big data to forecast the occurrence of first-party fraud. The head of Enterprise Fraud Strategy had three primary questions: First, how should SNA be used to bring down the ratio of fraud alerts to actual fraud at RBC? Second, how should the cost of maintaining SNA protocols be reduced? Finally, how should the issues around systemic performance of SNA be resolved?

In August 2015, the managing director of the Tamil Nadu Handloom Weavers' Co-operative Society Ltd. (Co-optex), an Indian state handloom co-operative, was preparing to receive an award for one of the organization's products during the first National Handloom Day celebrations in India. While the award was a validation of the managing director's efforts to revive Co-optex, which had accumulated significant losses for 13 years, his worries were far from over. Co-optex faced a host of challenges, both on the demand and supply sides. The public-sector organization had experienced a 77 per cent decline in profits over the past year. The director wondered what constituted failure for a public-sector organization. How should Co-optex reinvent itself in a changing competitive landscape to stay ahead of competition and remain relevant in the context of the changing profile of Indian customers?

Late in 2016, the owner of a lingerie business in Düsseldorf, Germany, faced a series of questions regarding the health of her business in a changing environment. The German retail environment had traditionally consisted of many specialized (often family-owned) small- to medium-sized retailers, and many of these stores had not kept pace with globalization and the digital revolution; market changes and increasing competition forced them to close. Other main street retailers managed to grow in these challenging environments, overcoming and moving in front of their previous competitors. HKS Wäsche & Dessous was one of those independent retailers. How could the owner of such a business continue to cope with the changing business environment? How could she deal with the digital revolution or even turn it to her advantage? What can entrepreneurs do to maintain and even develop their businesses?

The case traces the development of Lululemon Athletica (Lulu) from founder Chip Wilson's first post-yoga euphoria in 1997 through the sale of all his shares in 2015. Officially founded in 1998, Lulu was built on the foundation of its "miracle" figure-enhancing yoga pants made from a proprietary stretch fiber. The case outlines Wilson's early experience in technical performance wear, which gave him the expertise needed to launch the Lululemon brand with its premium-priced, fashion-designed product line targeted at upscale women. The case also highlights the retailing and promotion approach that drove Lulu's first decade of success. The snapshot of how the Lulu brand cult was born and diffused provides the backdrop for assessing whether the brand has already hit its peak or whether it can sustain the explosive growth that effectively created the athleisure category. To aid in this determination, the case presents two competitors as comparative foils (Under Armour and Athleta) to contextualize Lulu's growth prospects. The Lululemon case highlights the importance of the competitive frame of reference when positioning a brand and describes how this may differ for the three competitors. The case also allows for a discussion of the challenges of maintaining the congruence of a retail brand with a diverse product line. This struggle is unique to retailers who must fit ever-varied product assortments (not just a single product line) under the umbrella of a single brand proposition, and is particularly relevant to vertically integrated brands such as Lululemon.

Set in late 2016, this case recounts the remarkable performance record of Blue Chip Growth Fund (BCGF), a mutual fund managed by Larry Puglia at T. Rowe Price, Inc. The case describes the investment style of Puglia, whose record with BCGF had on average outperformed the S&P 500 since the inception of the fund in 1993. The tasks for the student are to assess the performance of the fund, consider the sources of its success, and decide on the sustainability of Puglia's performance. Consistent with the introductory nature of the case, the analysis requires no numerical calculations. The instructor should not be deceived, however: the absorption of capital-market background and the implications of financial concepts in the case will fully occupy the novice. This case updates and replaces "Bill Miller and Value Trust" (UVA-F-1481) and "Peter Lynch and the Fidelity Magellan Fund" (UVA-F-0777). The case is intended for use in the opening stages of a finance course. It provides a nontechnical introduction to the U.S. equity markets and lays the foundation for some basic concepts in finance.

At the beginning of 2017, India was among the top 10 markets for Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning India Limited, accounting for around 10 per cent of its revenue. The company was trying to increase its room air conditioner (RAC) market from 11 per cent to 20 per cent by 2020. It was positioned in the premium segment of the RAC market but wanted to enter the popular segment, which was crowded with established players. The company's focus had been on the inverter air conditioner (AC) segment, which accounted for 40 per cent of its RAC revenue; however, because of this segment's market potential and growth, competition from key competitors was stiff. Under these circumstances, the company faced the dual challenge of finding the right strategy to establish itself in the popular RAC market and deciding how to defend its position in the inverter AC segment.

Sushma Industries Private Limited (SIPL) wanted to accelerate its growth after two decades as a small enterprise. Enabling growth required having the right talent in place, by first attracting these employees, and then evaluating and appropriately rewarding their performance. The new chief executive officer hired a human resources specialist to design and implement a compensation structure to recognize the changing competitive environment and to align SIPL's human capital strategy with the organization's strategic goals. The human resources specialist faced the challenges of establishing a new compensation structure in a growing organization, timing the change appropriately in the organization's growth journey, and aligning and positioning it to fit within the current organizational and industry context.

Di-Ann Eisnor, Director of Growth at Waze, founded the company's Connected Citizens Program (CCP), a data-sharing partnership that provided officials with traffic incident and congestion data in exchange for data on anticipated road closures, re-routing, etc. Since 2015, her program had enabled officials in Kentucky and elsewhere to share more reliable traffic information more quickly with drivers. Amidst limited resources, her free program had become a key tool in their transit management arsenal. But now, facing ever-rising expectations and perhaps record crowds, the program that Eisnor and CCP's 3-person team had built, was short the analytical tools Kentucky officials felt they needed to prepare for the Kentucky Derby, their biggest event of the year. What would she do about that? Eisnor had a challenge on her hands in Kentucky. And also in Jakarta. And Los Angeles. From its launch in October 2014 through spring 2016, one-on-one contact by her small CCP team had spurred growth from 10 to more than 50 partners, including city, state and country government agencies, nonprofits and first responders. CCP's early successes had won numerous accolades in the international press. This high-profile media attention had, in turn, earned Eisnor and Paige Fitzgerald, CCP's Program Manager, kudos from their Waze colleagues and caught the attention of Waze's now-parent company, Google. But the successes came with high expectations, too. Waze was intensely focused on user-growth and Google's culture was to build things and then build those things "10x" bigger. How would Eisnor's team take a free program supported by three people to 500 partners, or more?