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CircusTrix Trampoline Parks (CircusTrix) was started in San Francisco, California, in 2011 after the founder first experienced an indoor trampoline park. Less than five years later, the business had grown to more than 28 facilities worldwide, grossing US$24.5 million in 2014 alone. The company had originally expanded internationally to maintain its first-mover status in the emerging extreme recreation industry, but was now facing a problem that could derail the company's international growth for years to come. A customer in the brand new CircusTrix park in Edinburgh, Scotland, had injured himself and blamed CircusTrix. As a result, city officials had shut down the facility, with another park scheduled to open in just over two weeks in Glasgow. The public relations issue was threatening to cost the founder not only his brand new operations in the United Kingdom, but likely also the additional upcoming locations in Germany, France, and Holland.

These exercises complement the WDI Publishing Case "Pink Tax: Gender and other Price Discrimination Factors". Diana Kelly is the brand manager for a company that has a new cream that gives consumers brighter, shinier nails. It will be sold in major retail outlets like Target, Walmart, CVS, and Walgreens. Kelly is given various segmentation schemes produced by consultancy teams to evaluate. Students are asked to evaluate the segmentation schemes and determine how the product should be versioned and priced.

Parsana Health Centre Private Limited, one of the pioneers of the organized fitness industry in the city, of Ahmedabad, had been actively engaged in inculcating, nurturing and promoting a healthy lifestyle to the general public through fitness regimes over the last two decades. The thirteen Parsana centres in the different parts of the city were reduced to eight centres facing stiff competition from the local players and the Parsana brothers had to set their priorities right, in order to discover the best strategy for growth. They thereby had to put together an appropriate promotional and positioning strategy in view of the long term objectives.

In 2009, brothers Patrick and John Collison began working on a start-up called Stripe that made it simple for companies to send and receive money around the world. By the end of 2016, Stripe had expanded far beyond an online payment mechanism. Fueled by a belief that the Internet and developers would drive rapid economic growth across the world, Stripe created tools for social commerce and online marketplaces, as well as products to facilitate the creation and management of new businesses. Having raised nearly $450 million, Stripe was sufficiently funded to take advantage of a variety of industry tailwinds, including growth in global e-commerce, the proliferation of smartphones and mobile applications, and a rise in social media usage, among others. "Stripe: Increasing the GDP of the Internet" explores the challenges and opportunities faced by Stripe as it expanded from a small start-up to a company valued at $9 billion. Specific obstacles addressed in the case include: evaluating business opportunities, prioritizing new customers and markets, and assessing competition in a rapidly changing market. In a world with seemingly endless opportunities, the Collison brothers would have to be ruthless in prioritizing Stripe's product pipeline, geographical expansion, and partnerships, while continuing to provide value for Stripe's existing customers.

The case describes the decision dilemma faced by an entrepreneur, Jack Sim, whose social initiative aims to establish an innovative platform in Singapore and South Asia to serve the base of the pyramid (BoP), which represents a majority of the population of the world (about 60%) who live in poverty. The primary objectives of Sim's initiative, BoP Hub, are to provide professional services to social entrepreneurs catering to the BoP market, and help them develop and scale their businesses. Social entrepreneurs who want to address the needs of this segment of the population face a plethora of challenges: most notably, the lack of affordability in the BoP, inadequate access to basic facilities, and the dearth of channels of access to the BoP market. However, in addition to the social objectives, the BoP also has economic incentives, as the potential volume in this segment is huge, and it has aspirations to move into the middle class. The challenges faced by Sim in creating a platform to catalyse innovative products and services for the BoP include lack of access to traditional fundraising methods, the need of a common organisational strategy for entrepreneurs serving the BoP leading to multiple services being required by them, and the requirement of a well-understood model for scaling their businesses.

In early 2016, after the success of its first two smartphones, the OnePlus One and OnePlus 2, China-based startup smartphone maker OnePlus was deciding how to build on its early success and grow into a global contender in the highly competitive smartphone market. Technology enthusiasts and geeks had flocked to purchase the first two generations of its smartphones and expectations were high for the company's next product. The company's founders, Pete Lau and Carl Pei, faced the challenge of broadening the appeal of OnePlus to address the mainstream market without alienating its core customer base. "Crossing the chasm" from the early adopters to the mainstream market involved addressing three interrelated questions: First, what segments should OnePlus target as it sought to grow beyond its loyal fan base? Second, what value proposition and positioning strategy should it adopt to appeal to these target customers? Finally, what distribution and marketing communications strategy should it employ to make best use of its limited financial resources? A key consideration in formulating its strategy was to stay true to the company's culture and mission of "Never Settle" by charting its own course and not emulating the strategies of much larger competitors like Apple, Samsung, LG, and HTC.

A global science and technology company's Canadian national manager of channel markets is evaluating a potential change to the company's distribution strategy for its innovative health care products to hospitals. The company currently relies on value-added resellers to distribute its products to Canadian hospitals. Recently, however, customers have been pressuring the company to ship products directly to hospitals, expecting that major cost savings could be achieved through a "direct distribution" model. The channel markets manager needs to assess the quantitative and qualitative issues related to direct distribution versus maintaining its current supply chain structure.

By 2016, Count Anton-Wolfgang von Faber-Castell had led the 255-year-old pencil manufacturer Faber-Castell through waves of technological change. The pocket calculator decimated Faber-Castell's slide rule business in the 1970s, and computer aided design technology undermined the company's manual drafting tools in the 1980s. With each new threat the Count had to decide whether to adapt to new technologies, or maintain focus on the company's core products and identity. Analysts continued to ask Count Anton-Wolfgang the same question they had posed to his grandfather: could the company strategy endure in the modern era?

Saint Elizabeth, a leading Canadian health-care enterprise, had been managing innovation through what it called the Innovation Tripod. This had three components-Ideas (which involved generating innovative ideas from among employees), Solutions (involving outside ventures in innovation), and Impact (consisting of ways in which results were measured). The chief executive officer (CEO) was facing a dilemma with each element of the tripod. How could staff engagement be improved? What was a better way of managing external partners? How could the prevailing metrics of innovation be fine-tuned? What was the way forward for the CEO?

India-based firm, Jain Irrigation Systems (Jain Irrigation), and its acquisition of NaanDan Irrigation Systems (NaanDan) offers an opportunity to explore supply chain sourcing and coordination as well as shupply chain management and global innovation. At the time of the case, Jain Irrigation's supply chain focus was mainly in India and the United States. While Jain Irrigation had deep knowledge of and production capabilities in the agriculture industry, Jain Irrigation believed that it would benefit from an Israel-based drip-irrigation company's technology and supply chain, so it arranged a meeting to talk about a joint venture. From its humble beginnings on a kibbutz in 1930, NaanDan had become a major manufacturer of micro irrigation with a global presence. NaanDan had manufacturing facilities in Israel, the United States, Chile, Brazil, Spain, and Australia. With its vast supply chain, NaanDan could get its product anywhere in the world. What the company leaders wanted was to create a competitive advantage through an investment in technology. In early 2007, NaanDan announced on its website that it was looking for a partner. The question was, should it sell the company to a large global firm such as John Deere, which had formed its own micro- and drip-irrigation business in 2006, seek private equity firms that had industry-specific knowledge and global networks, or pursue opportunities with competitors?

In 2016, Muñoz Group, a multifaceted agribusiness company that developed, produced, packed, imported and exported citrus, flowers, grapes, juice, and ice cream, faced an unexpected new challenge in the British public's vote for the United Kingdom to exit the European Union. The outcome of the vote led to uncertainty around investment conditions, instability in the pound, growth in anti-immigrant sentiment, and other changes. This created unusual business conditions for Muñoz Group's CEO, Alvaro Muñoz, who had to decide how to adjust his strategy for the coming years, given that his company was headquartered in the UK - but did business all over the world.

In 2016, Kurt Summers, the Chicago City Treasurer, faced a decision with potential personal and political ramifications: whether or not to ask the city's Mayor to join a class action anti-trust suit against the city's creditors for actions they took during the Global Financial Crisis. Summers reflects on his time growing up in gang-controlled neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago, and career experiences in both the public and private sector. These include stints at Harvard Business School, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, the Chicago Olympics bid, and in local government. He tries to assess what he should do in this situation and what the best next steps would be in terms of his career. The case also discusses his work and leaderships styles, his personal life, including his relationship with his wife, and how he has adjusted to the new role of being a politician.

Alibaba Group (Alibaba) had grown from its founding in 1999, in an effort to help Chinese manufacturers and exporters reach global markets, to become a global leader in e-commerce, big data, and cloud technology. The company's 2014 initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange had been the largest to date. The company's founder and chairman, Jack Ma, had used the funds to globally expand Alibaba's operations and its hold on diverse markets. Ma's aim was to have Alibaba exist in three centuries and to not only generate profits but also improve lives and societies in China and beyond. How could Ma ensure long-term success for shareholders and prosperity for China and the world?

In June 2001, after winning the UK general elections by a landslide, which gave him a second term, Tony Blair invited Michael Barber (case protagonist) to establish and lead the Prime Minister Delivery Unit (PMDU): a small, dedicated performance management structure charged with driving improvements of a few, well-specified service delivery outcomes. Having become keenly aware of the chasm between policy ideas and outcomes on the ground during his first term, Blair wanted to strengthen the British government's ability to deliver results that mattered to citizens. This case provides background on the delivery approach, developed by Barber and his team, designed to improve government performance. It tracks Barber's experience as the Head of the PMDU during Blair's second mandate. The case focuses on the processes involved in establishing foundations, planning, implementing and monitoring delivery, as well as the outcomes achieved during the PMDU's first four years of operation. The goal of reducing accident and emergency wait times in the National Health System is investigated as an exemplar of how the delivery approach worked in practice. This case is designed to enable discussions on the challenges of implementing an innovative performance management system in the public sector, designed to achieve demonstrable results to citizens and embed a cultural change in government.

The High-Impact Wealth Management case series is a portfolio of cases that are built around the high-impact theme. Each case in the series can stand on its own to deliver a unique learning objective; but, taken together, the cases are designed to cover all seven topics covered in the list of "common-cents" strategies. Also refer to W16520.

In November 2005, World Peace Industrial Group was at an important milestone as it prepared to join two other major electronics components distributors to form the WPG Holdings and become a dominant player in its industry. As its chief executive officer prepared for the merger, it became apparent that the company's financial position was threatened by inventory management and forecasting problems. Although sales and market share were increasing, profit margins were dropping as a result of increasing inventory costs. The chief executive officer asked the director of the Business Effective Promotion Group to resolve the worsening problem. How would the director identify the sources of weakness and recommend a plan of action as soon as possible?