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The protagonist Jamie Brown had been working in the textile industry for 32 years. He was passionate about the industry and enthusiastic about improving Coats's operations, particularly in the Shenzhen, China, factory. At an operational level, Jamie was challenged by the conflict of business priorities. One of the key directives set by the board of directors was to maximize cash flow. Inventory was the significant contributor to cash constraints in this industry, and Coats began to reduce batch sizes for production, and to reduce inventory stockpiles. To meet customer requirements for short lead times, thread was produced in small lots, and after the order was filled, the remaining thread was placed in inventory. With his strong operational background in the textile industry, Jamie was aware that by following this procedure, Coats was sacrificing economies of scale that could hurt profitability which could also impact cash flows through the year. This sacrifice also raised the question of whether Coats should pursue a make-to-stock or make-to-order strategy, since a make-to-order strategy implied that lot sizes would be set in accordance with customer orders.

Stoker has a decision to make: he has been offered him a job in a 40-year-old successful barbershop that has retained its old-fashioned atmosphere, or with a small loan, he could open his own shop. Students are asked to prepare a projected annual income statement and answer some questions about what it would take to run a barbershop.

Established in 2013, Glints was an online job search service for new graduates, marketing itself as "LinkedIn for youth." The Singapore-based company was founded by three 21-year-olds who chose to put their university education on hold and forfeit their scholarships in order to pursue their entrepreneurial ambitions. Using the lean start-up approach, Glints pivoted its business model several times before finding a suitable position in a resegmented job-search market. As a young company, Glints' biggest challenge was growth. Having raised seed capital of SG$475,000 from its investors, Glints was expected to sustain its exponential growth in revenue base and the number of subscribers. Its young co-founders had to identify ways to make that growth happen.

This case (Parts A&B) takes students behind the scenes at the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) as it struggles to recognize and manage an unusual outbreak of HIV in a poor, rural community. As ISDH learns, illegal injection of prescription drugs, mainly opioids, is spreading the disease. Users are sharing needles and thus exposing the second, third, or subsequent users to infection with HIV from potentially contaminated blood residue. ISDH recognizes that "needle exchange" is one method generally found effective in other states in reducing infections among injection drug users. Drug users can bring used needles to a clinic or other exchange location and receive fresh ones without fearing that they will be subject to arrest or other sanctions. However, Indiana, with a conservative legislature and governor, has by law long banned needle exchanges because it perceives these to encourage drug use. In reading and discussing this case study, students will learn about how Indiana Governor Mike Pence, Indiana Health Commissioner Jerome Adams, and the legislature all sought to balance public health concerns against long-held beliefs about how best to fight the war against drugs.

In 2011, Mr. Kapil, Brand Manager, was reviewing the research brief prepared to review the performance of the launch plan of the refined vegetable cooking oil brand Freedom Refined Sunflower Oil of GEF, a new company in Andhra Pradesh. Specific focus was on assessing the overall performance, the brand strength and the TV Commercial. The results are expected to help in the preparation of a marketing plan for the next year. Participants need to critique the brief from the point of view of defining a managerial marketing research problem for assessing a launch plan.

Laura Behrens Wu, CEO of software start-up Shippo, prepares her pitch for a Series A funding round following a successful seed round. Customer adoption of Shippo's e-commerce dashboard application, which allows small and medium retailers to compare delivery rates between shipping providers and print package labels, has been steady in the nine months since it went live. But traction with the firm's developer friendly product, an API that allows large enterprise customers to automate their shipping needs, had initially been slow until one customer single handedly tripled the API label volume in late August. Now in November 2014, with nine months of runway remaining, Behrens Wu must decide where to direct the company's limited resources. Should Shippo stay focused on the app while raising the next round of funding, pivot to an API-focused strategy, or pursue both products?

The September 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers was the largest in U.S. history. In 2007, Lehman achieved record earnings. What happened? Who is to blame?

On July 2, 2016, Danaher Corporation completed the spinoff of Fortive Corporation. The previous day, Danaher's stock price had reached an all-time high. In 2015, Danaher had decided to split off its test and measurement, fuel and fleet management, and automation businesses, leaving the "new Danaher" focused on life sciences, diagnostics, dental, water quality, and product-identification businesses. It was hardly the first industrial conglomerate to spin off major divisions; Tyco International PLC, ITT Corporation, Illinois Tool Works, Johnson Controls, and Ingersoll-Rand PLC had made similar moves in recent memory. However, its peers had often experienced declining profitability or pressure from activist investors. Danaher, by contrast, had performed strongly in the years leading up to the spinoff. It had spent the previous decade strengthening its portfolio in sectors such as life sciences and dental products with acquisitions including Beckman Coulter in 2011, Nobel Biocare Holding AG in 2014, and Pall Corporation in 2015.

In 2016, Susan Cassidy, VP of Sales and Marketing for the packaged foods division at CPG firm Bertram Gilman International has to make a promotion decision. Should she choose the person she has been grooming for the position, or another candidate recommended by central HR based on the firm's promotions algorithm?

Kjell & Company was a Swedish retail electronics chain. The company's products consisted of home electronics and accessories. The company was noted for its excellent customer service and a fair "one-for-all" HR policy. Historically, the salespeople had been compensated by a fixed salary and a variable commission conditional on meeting a monthly sales quota. Anecdotal evidence suggested that the monthly-quota compensation scheme might have demotivated some salespeople toward the end of the month, as those who fell short early in a month simply gave up because they had no chance of meeting quota. Thus, to mitigate this problem, management proposed a shorter-temporal-horizon daily-quota scheme. The (A) case focuses on the decision faced by the CEO on whether to change the sales force compensation plan to a temporally shorter scheme and, if so, how to implement the change. The (B), (C), and (D) cases show the results of various metrics across different types of salespeople after the change in the compensation plan was implemented. The case series explores different ways to analyze data for inference about salespeople's behavior caused by a change in the compensation structure. Also, the case series shows ways to experiment with the compensation plan for causal inference.

In June 2016, the founder and chief executive officer of Parentune.com, a rapidly growing online parents' community based in Gurgaon, India, was feeling the pressure of keeping his parenting support service relevant to the changing needs of millennial parents. Parentune.com supported parents at all stages of parenting by networking parents and experts. Since Parentune.com launched in November 2012, more than one million parents had become members of the community, with another 6,000 added every month. Parentune.com was trusted by parents for its personalized, validated, and state-of-the-art parenting resources. However, many similar platforms began entering the niche segment of digital parenting services, capitalizing on growing Internet reach and social media penetration. In the wake of evolving parenting needs and mounting competition from look-alike platforms, Parentune.com needed to evaluate its plan for continuous improvement in its service delivery.

In 2016, a personal threat was made against the managing director of Multistrada Agro International, an Indonesian industrial forestry firm. The permits for the firm's new rubber plantation overlapped with an existing palm oil plantation and the activities of local villagers, and also drew concern from outsiders who claimed to have rights over the land or wished to protect the environment. In sum, the venture altered the delicate balance of conflicting local interests. The managing director knew that unless she managed to work with local stakeholders, she would never be able to successfully operate large-scale rubber plantations. How should she handle this latest threat? What tactics could she use to deal with a variety of stakeholders with divergent interests?

In May 2013, iGATE Corporation suffered a major blow after terminating its president and chief executive officer, Phaneesh Murthy, as a result of allegations of sexual harassment. Murthy had previously been forced to step down from Infosys Limited for similar reasons. After Murthy's unceremonious exit, iGATE struggled to fill its top leadership position. Finally, in September 2013, a new chief executive took over and outlined a plan of action that differed completely from his predecessor's strategy. However, the company, which had been poised to achieve big ambitions, had lost momentum and appeared directionless. Had iGATE made a mistake by hiring Murthy as its top executive just 18 months after he had been fired from Infosys? Why did iGATE not conduct due diligence on its talent acquisition and management, especially for the critical position of chief executive officer? How could other organizations turn around a position of vulnerability to become resilient?

This case series focuses on the challenges faced by prestigious arts organizations when confronted with new cultural arts consumption modes, especially those created by the explosion of digital consumption opportunities. In 2012/13, the Wiener Staatsoper (the Vienna State Opera) enjoyed a 99 per cent occupancy rate but, apart from the national broadcasting network, lacked a presence in the digital arena. In contrast, performances by New York's Metropolitan Opera could be viewed in movie theatres around the world. The Staatsoper also faced financial challenges shared by opera houses around the world. Should the Staatsoper enter the digital arena? If so, what adaptations would be required in its business model?

The founder of the Access to Medicine Foundation, based in the Netherlands, had a goal to research and publish a biannual, global survey of pharmaceutical companies and their rankings, in terms of their effects in providing needed medicines to people in developing countries. When the first two iterations of the Access to Medicine Index (ATMI) were published in 2008 and 2010 (see case A), the most prominent challenges were engaging stakeholders-government, pharmaceutical firms, nonprofit organizations, investors, and others-and securing funding to support ongoing research and analyses. In 2016, the founder was preparing for the ATMI's fifth iteration (see case B, W17013), and he had a three-point focus: to improve engagement with pharmaceutical companies in an effort to increase the effect of the ATMI on companies' practices; to incorporate the views of patients into the ATMI; and to engage with governments and regulators in the developing countries, where citizens were in need of access to medicines.

In July 2016, the founder and chief executive officer of Tantan, a Chinese mobile dating application, considered the progress made by his firm since its launch less than a year earlier. Tantan had more than two million active users, yet significant challenges remained. The top management team needed to make several important decisions regarding Tantan's target audience, the positioning of the company, and how best to carve out a viable niche in China's fast-growing and increasingly competitive mobile dating market.

Chateau Qanafar was a small Lebanese winery, operating as a family business since its inception in 2005. By 2015, Chateau Qanafar had managed to produce one of the best wines of the Middle East and obtain international acclaim. However, despite this success, the company's founder understood that the general business environment in Lebanon was characterized by many uncertainties related to a weak institutional environment and high political and economic risk. Moreover, Lebanon represented a very small domestic market for wine producers. Chateau Qanafar's capability to produce well-crafted boutique wine would not be enough to ensure its success in the market. Its founder was also looking to transfer leadership to the next generation of the family. How could the business sustain and grow its operations in the future?

In April 2015, two years after launching Sattviko, a casual dining restaurant, the venture had three restaurants in Delhi. The two entrepreneurs who had established Sattviko wanted to continue growing but were feeling cash-constrained. Meanwhile, the online technology-based food industry in India was growing with an influx of venture funding. The entrepreneurs could take advantage of this wave and pursue venture capital, but they might have to shift their business focus to do so. Should they shift the Sattviko value proposition and brand positioning to grow their business?

Cembrit Holding A/S (Cembrit), the second-largest producer of fibre cement products in Europe, had experienced a period of restructuring, acquisitions, and consolidation as a result of having acquired fibre cement companies involved in production, sales, and distribution throughout Europe and closing down its own production in Denmark. After years of restructuring and struggling, growth had finally picked up, with turnover reaching an average of 11 per cent per year between 2003 and 2007. As of 2008, however, Cembrit faced numerous challenges: building and strengthening its new corporate identity; repositioning itself in the market; identifying opportunities for organic growth; transitioning to asbestos-free production; and determining its future within its parent company. How it addressed these challenges would affect Cembrit's future well beyond 2008, including whether it would be retained or divested by its parent company.