個案總覽

In 2020, the chief executive officer of Abelana Game Reserve in South Africa was considering the arrangement between the game reserve and the Mashishimale community, who owned the land. He had promised to provide added value to the land by highlighting four pillars of focus: land, community, business, and investors. Two lodges were formally opened to guests in March 2020, but the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic stopped all business activities—until September 2020, when the government began easing lockdown restrictions and the shareholders met to discuss tourist bookings and expansion plans. The management team had an ambitious and exciting overall vision for the game reserve, but there were more pressing challenges to consider, including a collaborative cross-sector partnership, training and developing workers, creating jobs in the community, and supporting local businesses. Were there other shared value ideas to consider for more employment opportunities and growth within the community?

擬定策略是件非常挑戰的事，在實務界，不同的公司有不同的做法，與教科書所描繪的過程也不同。本個案所描述的是真實的情境，反映代工業者的作法(與品牌業者不同)，讓習者更有貼近實務的感覺。本個案主軸在描述一位在筆記型電腦代工廠新任職的事業部總經理，他在上任後打算形成事業部策略的前置作業過程，及為推動事業部策略所採取的功能政策。本個案對策略決策相關的資訊蒐集和分析過程有詳細的描述。

Kalahut: The House of Arts (Kalahut) was an Indian e-commerce site that connected instructors specialized in traditional Indian arts and cultural forms with customers interested in these services. Since its launch in July 2020, it had mainly served customers in India; however, it had also seen modest engagement on social media platforms and its website from individuals outside of the current customer pool. As the COVID-19 pandemic had resulted in both increased web traffic to e-commerce sites and an increase in the number of people looking for new activities while in lockdown, Kalahut hoped to take this opportunity to expand into a new market. In late 2020, Kalahut’s co-founder needed to decide which of three potential market countries to enter. Which would be the most suitable avenue for expansion?

In late June 2019, the president of Wellington Brewery, a medium-size craft brewery located in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, wanted to determine the best growth strategy for his company. He also hoped to recover recent expenses incurred for a major expansion of the company's operations. Although the business's growth across the province was the main objective, he also needed to consider various potential options and other factors. Wellington Brewery faced the challenges of an unpredictable and oversaturated market. Ontario's craft brewery industry was characterized by unexpected growth, shifting consumer preferences, and intense competition for shelf space at limited retail outlets. The president urgently needed a plan for continuing Wellington Brewery’s expansion, and to ensure it remained relevant and financially strong during challenging times.

Atrae Inc. was a Japanese software firm providing platform matching services for job recruitment in the software engineering industry. As compared to traditional Japanese firms, Atrae adopted a unique approach to managing its employees. Instead of the rigid hierarchy and top-down management approach that typified a Japanese firm, Atrae had a flat organizational structure and heavily relied on decentralized decision-making and individual motivation. The company’s unique culture was viewed as a key driver of its business success—success that the company’s founder and chief executive officer wanted to advance with a public listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. However, while the public listing would allow Atrae to grow substantially, it would also necessitate formal organizational checks and balances that could harm the company’s organizational culture. Would a public listing propel Atrae to greater heights or would it result in the company’s demise?

In May 2020, amid the lockdown in India brought about by COVID-19, P. C. Musthafa, chief executive officer of iD Fresh Food (iD), a food company located in Bengaluru, India, was preparing for a virtual meeting with his co-founders. The company offered customers the value proposition of “freshness” and operated in the ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat segments. iD’s flagship product was batter for preparing idlis and dosas, which were popular Indian breakfast dishes. The co-founders had to decide how to address the challenges arising on both the demand and the supply side of the business brought about by the pandemic, including production and logistics challenges on the supply side, a dip in demand, and the growth of competitors in the segments. How should iD plan its production amid the disruption to the supply chains and logistics sector brought on by the pandemic and ensure that its products maintain the promised value proposition of freshness? How could it ensure that customers continued to trust iD? Could iD script a fresh story and reach its vision of becoming a ₹10-billion company by 2023, despite an economy ravaged by the pandemic?

Ecobank Ghana had branches in every region of Ghana and wanted to expand its client base to include more small and medium enterprises. At the end of 2011, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, Ecobank Ghana’s parent company, acquired the Trust Bank Ghana Limited, a bank that primarily serviced small businesses, which it planned to merge with Ecobank Ghana through a share swap. Integrating the two banks would involve merging different organizational cultures and operational technologies. The employee appointed as the manager responsible for ensuring a seamless integration of the two banks needed a plan to integrate the staff, standardize the operational systems, and establish a converged culture. How should he prioritize the changes, and what challenges should he anticipate from the merger?

In mid-2020, the co-founder of online and brick-and-mortar womenswear boutique Shop Thursdays in Toronto, was considering how to best position her business for growth when the COVID-19 global pandemic was resolved. The boutique, which had two brick-and-mortar locations in addition to its online presence, provided its customers with the latest and trendiest styles. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced all non-essential business to close their doors, the co-founder pivoted to sell all merchandise through the shop’s online platform. The success realized during this time led her to wonder how to continue to boost this segment of the business. The co-founder had tried influencer marketing in the past and was aware of its potential to grow online sales; however, to devote her time and resources to influencer marketing, she would need to close the store’s second location. Given the uncertainty surrounding consumer shopping behaviour after COVID-19 was resolved, which strategy would be beneficial moving forward?

Nima Gohil, head of the new digital and creative consumer research department at L’Oréal USA (L’Oréal), was preparing for the upcoming January 2016 board meeting at L’Oréal’s research and innovation headquarters in Clark, New Jersey. L’Oréal’s competitors were using new digital media to highlight beauty products to current and new users, and L’Oréal was under pressure to develop a better way to connect with consumers to maintain—if not grow—market share. Top management had also urged Gohil’s department to reduce time and costs when collecting insights from consumers. Gohil focused on the hair care consumer segments, where she thought it was critical for L’Oréal to address and fully commit to the digital transformation that was being adopted by many other industries. She had only a few weeks to complete her assessments of L’Oréal’s digital strategy and assets and to prepare a functional recommendation to upper management.

本個案主要探討由台灣早餐業頭「美而美餐飲集團」所創立的手搖飲品牌 - 「康青龍人文茶飲」所面臨的加盟店管理問題及解決之道。康青龍於創立之初加盟拓展相當迅速，品牌開放加盟後的5年內店家數成長率為同業之前三名，於2020年全省的店家數達到80家。可是店家數快速成長的背後，加盟店的管理議題也一一浮現，而這些問題如果未獲得解決，恐怕會影響到未來的企業及品牌成長之路。其實在20年前，集團的母品牌「美而美」也曾面臨過相同的加盟店管理問題。不過此次所面臨的問題卻增加了兩大變數 - 「數位潮流（外送平台、行動支付）」以及「2020年的新冠肺炎」，讓此決策變得困難萬分。此時，康青龍的品牌創辦又該如何抉擇，其中的考量為何？將在此個案中進一步剖析。

In late May 2020, the two founding and managing partners at Redhill Capital, in the Pearl River New City district of Guangzhou, China, were considering various reasons why the year was developing far differently than they had expected. The two-year-old venture capital firm’s limited partners and investees were all shocked by the dire developments, as was the entire country and the whole world. Earlier that year, rapidly spreading outbreaks of COVID-19, which had started in Wuhan, in China’s Hubei province, had led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, and many countries were closing down their borders. With the world seemingly plunging into a deep depression, the two founders of Redhill Capital were wondering about the future of their venture capital firm, which normally invested in medical technology and biotechnology. How should the company’s strategy be adjusted to survive the crisis and take advantage of new opportunities in the rapidly changing world?

In 2016, Peter Keith and his cofounders started Meuwly’s Ltd. (Meuwly's) as a subscription food-box service, and in 2018, they established a physical presence in one of the liveliest locations in downtown Edmonton, Alberta. The expansion diversified the company’s revenue streams, including retail, wholesale, special events, and subscription sales. The company strove to be sustainable, but faced a number of challenges. First, customers valued the sustainable, “eat-local” ethos of Meuwly’s locally sourced products but not its single-use product packaging, which failed to reflect the company's sustainability goals; Meuwly’s experimented with alternatives, but these compromised the product quality customers expected. Second, the company’s commitment to paying employees above minimum wage affected its profit margins and financial resources and constrained its availability to pursue sustainability initiatives. Third, misleading industry marketing pervaded the delicatessen market, compromising growth and pricing strategies. Finally, the local delicatessen market was saturated and very competitive. In November 2019, Keith faced important questions regarding the future direction of the company’s sustainability strategy: how could he design an appropriate stage-two sustainability strategy for Meuwly’s while retaining the company’s loyal customer base?

In September 2019, the newly appointed manager of the procurement department at Jiangxi Hengda High-Tech Company Ltd., located in China, was wondering how to make his department more efficient. He took some time to understand the working relationships of his department with other internal departments and with external suppliers. During his research, he uncovered sources of conflict between the procurement department and other functional departments, including the marketing, manufacturing, warehousing, and finance departments, as well as the company’s suppliers. The manager took his findings to the company’s chairman and reported that the low efficiency of the procurement department was caused by the company’s lack of synergy across departments. The chairman acknowledged the issue and agreed that some reform of the company’s departments was necessary. However, he also pointed out that this would be a complex, costly, and difficult task. The manager of the procurement department was adamant that the company would have to resolve this systemic issue at some point and decided to prepare a proposal for his next meeting with the chairman.

In early 2019, just a year after opening a gallery in Sydney, Australia, the elders of the APY Art Centre Collective proposed opening a second gallery in Adelaide, a much smaller city. The first year in Sydney had been profitable, in part due to an aggressive digital presence. The Collective had some seed money, an offer of a small gallery space, and the draw of serving a large number of the APY community who were residents in Adelaide. But the Adelaide art market was tiny compared to Sydney’s, staff was stretched thin, and budgets were tight. The board’s vision was certainly compelling, but was it practical? Could a digital strategy help Adelaide’s success without cannibalizing the Collective’s success in Sydney? What would such a strategy look like?

The general director of Northern Canada Evangelical Mission (NCEM) wanted to make some changes to the organization’s accounting system to coincide with the calendar year-end. The changes involved consolidating the financial records for 20 separate ministries operating across the country to reduce the number of redundant, time-wasting, manual entries needed and to align the general ledger accounts with the charitable activities report required by the government. As well, the process for tracking and reporting taxes needed to be improved. Finally, NCEM’s board of directors wanted an increased level of professionalism and timeliness in the organization’s financial statements. The chief financial officer and accounting staff would need a carefully planned schedule to carry out the changes, which would involve bookkeepers, ministry leaders, and the executive team, all while minimizing the interruption to NCEM’s operations. How could the general director make the changes without causing additional problems along the way?

In 2019, the development officer at Rowing South Africa was contemplating how to continue the growth of the sport of rowing in a challenging environment. More funding was needed to attain her mandate of extending the sport to previously unexposed communities. Rowing South Africa operated in a complex setting, but the sport had much to contribute to participants. The benefits of rowing were physical and psychological, personal and professional, and often leading to success in many aspects of life. How could she articulate these benefits to increase participation in the sport and attract more funding to support?

Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM) is a global mining company that has made its first foray into the Canadian far north with its Meadowbank gold mining site. The case describes how AEM has worked with the local government to gain its support, signing an Inuit Impact and Benefit Agreement (IIBA). This IIBA outlines a number of commitments that AEM must meet in order to ensure equal representation of Inuit people within the mine. The case follows the superintendent of human resources (HR). Facing a turnover rate of 83 per cent and high levels of absenteeism among AEM’s Inuit workforce, AEM is dealing with a talent management crisis of unprecedented proportions. The superintendent of HR must remedy the situation while operating within an environment characterized by resource constraints and a diverse workforce.

Founded in 2015, GreedyGame Media Pvt. Ltd. (GreedyGame) had a mission to develop culturally relevant gaming content into which ads could be seamlessly integrated so as not to compromise the user experience. Through this approach, organizations would also be able to target their users more sharply. The market looked promising, and the opportunity was ample, but gaming as an industry was still new to India, especially for its inclusion in business. There were many challenges from both the gaming side and the advertising side. GreedyGame had to find the right business model to create an ecosystem with cost-sharing between multiple stakeholders and to expand revenue streams beyond advertisers. In 2017, the company’s co-founders wondered what their go-to-market strategy should be. Should they raise funds and continue on the same path they had been on, or should they look to find new collaborators and partners?

In May 2020, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the liquor delivery company LiqHub was happy with his company’s initial success. The company’s first steps in the Indian market had been propitious, and the founders were happy with the government’s validation of their business model. Now, they needed to determine how to replicate their success on a larger scale across India. The CEO needed to evaluate various growth options and make a decision about which operational strategy would most effectively grow the business during the COVID-19 pandemic and into the future. Should the company focus on diversification, product development, market penetration, or market development?

Founded in 2000, Dalian Xinhe Leather Clothing Co. Ltd. (Dalian Xinhe) mainly produced men’s and women’s leather clothing; it had become the largest leather garment manufacturer in northeast China. At the beginning of 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dalian Xinhe began to produce medical protective clothing, which brought the company through the business challenges created by the pandemic and earned it wide recognition from the government and society. As the pandemic situation evolved, two opinions emerged within the company with regard to Dalian Xinhe’s further development. Chun He, the chairman of Dalian Xinhe, needed to determine whether the company should continue to expand production of medical protective clothing or whether it should concentrate on returning to original garment manufacturing and developing the company’s own brands.