個案總覽

Between 2015 and 2018, competitors in China's two-wheel e-vehicle industry were embroiled in a price war. Yadea Group Holdings decided to differentiate its brand from competitors and move away from further price reductions, opting instead to raise prices and adopt a distinctive high-end product strategy. It planned to offer its products to Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities in China, and to expand into the international market. With upgraded product and service offerings, the company was becoming a market leader in China's two-wheel e-vehicle industry. However, its founder was well aware that competitors would soon imitate the company’s high-end product strategy and could potentially overtake its market position. In the current Internet-based business environment, new sales and rental models were constantly emerging, which meant Yadea Group Holdings risked losing market share to both domestic competitors and international investors. Therefore, the founder decided that the company needed to choose between two potential five-year plan options for the future: take advantage of the existing market or take the lead in a new high-end market.

In July 2019, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of a one-year-old start-up in Los Angeles was reviewing the path forward with the company’s new technology platform. The product helped brand managers insert their brands virtually and in real time into television (TV) and movie scenes. With each placement customized to the individual habits and personal preferences of the viewer, virtual placement was a considerable improvement over physical placement of brands as permanent fixtures in TV plots and movie scenes. The technology represented a major disruption to the product placement industry. The company’s CEO needs to resolve three dilemmas to take Ryff forward. First, how should the company find its fit with large advertising agencies that operate in a traditional placement market? Second, how should the company convert traditional industry person-to-person interactions to interactions driven by software programs? Third, how should the company take its business global?

本個案首先敘述2019年在屏東舉辦的臺灣燈會之亮麗表現，接著簡單介紹臺灣燈會之由來。此次燈會讓人讚不絕口的關鍵因素之一為大鵬灣之特殊地景所創造出的前所未有燈會效果。因而個案中有一節特別簡單介紹大鵬灣之開發與困境。此次燈會地處偏遠，交通不便，若規劃不當，極有可能造成交通癱瘓，然而屏東臺灣燈會（簡稱屏東燈會）被譽為史上最美的燈會，且造訪人次超過1300萬，探究其關鍵成功因素，除了特殊地景與完善的交通規劃外，一組非典型公務員的執行團隊，創造出十個第一與十個創舉，是公務人員的驕傲。此次燈會共有6000名志工投入，都是在地人，燈會期間有屏東市民免費以機車運送遊客，也有開放自家庭院免費讓人停車等感人事件，展現了整個城市的凝聚力。

Located in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, RLS Logistics offered temperature-controlled logistics solutions. On a Tuesday morning in October 2019, RLS Logistics’ business development manager learned that a large baked goods manufacturer was seeking a logistics provider who could lower the bakery’s transport costs and alleviate problems with delivery delays. The delays, in particular, were blocking the bakery’s attempts to improve its relationship and scale up operations with big-box retailers such as Walmart Inc.. RLS Logistics’ business manager secured a meeting with the bakery for the following Monday. In the meantime, he and his team needed to analyze delivery data from the bakery and prepare a delivery model that would showcase RLS Logistics’ value and appeal to the bakery.

In 2018, Vince Wong, the founder and chief operating officer of Toronto-based artificial intelligence firm Dessa, faced the challenge of developing a diverse workforce and a culture supportive of diversity through his hiring practices at the rapidly growing start-up. Until now, Wong had handled all of the hiring at the 30-person firm himself. However, as he expected the firm to double in size within the next year, Wong had hired an internal recruiter and was considering how to formalize and transition hiring in a way that supported expanding diversity within the firm. Wong’s main focus was on determining how to support diversity through hiring and inclusion via the development of a staffing system that aligned with his desire to develop a more diverse and inclusive workforce.

The owner of All Women Recycling, a small manufacturing business in South Africa, is perplexed after the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic. She wonders how she should structure business operations to ensure the safety of her staff and meet business goals. She debates between a remote staffing model and a limited staffing model. There will be compensation changes in either approach. The entrepreneur wonders how she should manage employee concerns while continuing to run a profitable business.

In 2017, the chief executive officer of Rawayeti Foods, a Pakistani company dedicated to ensuring the purity and quality of its spices and pulses, was considering the future of his family-owned business. The company had experienced great success since its inception in 2011, but Rawayeti Foods was planning to expand its operations into other parts of the company. Formalized management practices, job descriptions, and performance management systems were not in place, but the chief executive officer and his sons knew expansion would be successful only if the company formalized its human resources management policies and practices for consistent country-wide implementation. Had the time come to shift focus from operational matters to management and human resources concerns? Could Rawayeti Foods gain buy-in from its employees and introduce a new performance management system that was seen as fair, equitable, and motivating?

Local Alike是一家位於泰國的社會企業，其導入「以社區為主體的旅遊 (Community- based Tourism)」的永續旅遊模式，這個概念是以社區居民為主體，一切旅遊的方案制訂與發展方向都是由居民做主。Local Alike扮演類似扶植者角色，藉由一連串了輔導流程，協助社區居民發展旅遊，目的在提升當地居民的生活水平，同時解決當地的社會問題。

In February 2020, an entrepreneur and his team in China created a mobile application called Tong Cheng Lian Kang (TCLK), which crowdsourced information on publicly known cases of COVID-19, enabling users to find out if they might have been exposed to an infected individual. The application leveraged blockchain technology to record and validate user submissions of COVID-19 cases to ensure that submission and validation data were immutable, transparent, and decentralized. Users could volunteer to submit publicly recorded cases of COVID-19 or to validate the submissions of others in exchange for digital tokens on the blockchain platform, which they could use to redeem small gifts. As the number of new COVID-19 cases decreased, the entrepreneur wondered how to expand the blockchain concept to build a more sustainable business model. He was considering three options: expanding internationally, which would require building trust with users who lacked familiarity with Chinese applications; diversifying within the healthcare industry by expanding to a business-to-business model, possibly by linking prospective patients to hospitals and health care; and applying the blockchain concept to address issues in industries outside of healthcare. How could he best ensure the sustainability of TCLK?

Based in India, Butterfly Edufields Pvt. Ltd. (BFF) designed, developed, assembled, and distributed educational activities and games for Grade 1–10 students to help them understand various science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts. After more than a decade of existence, BFF had grown significantly in terms of production capacity, human resources, product portfolio, and geographical reach. Between 2010 and 2019, its revenues had grown 15 times. In November 2019, the company's chief executive officer faced three challenges: (1) the firm's inability to meet orders for newly introduced products; (2) its limited ability to tap and serve the huge market of 1.5 million schools across India; and (3) its failure to capture the enormous potential of selling educational toys online—a $300 million market. The chief executive officer believed that the traditional cost structure of centralized design, production, and distribution might not support the non-linear growth he envisaged for the company, so he had collected the value-added details for one of BFF's products with the intention of evaluating alternate value chain configurations for the company.

Launched in 2010, CredEx Fintech Co. Ltd. (CredEx) operated until 2017 as a mobile credit platform, connecting lenders and borrowers in the Chinese small- and microcredit market. In 2017, the Chinese government introduced a regulation to address misconducts in the credit market. As a result, CredEx needed to transform by utilizing mobile credit technology to enable and support licensed financial institutions to explore mobile credit markets. In 2018, however, this change posed many challenges, such as how to add a new business model that served enterprise consumers as well as how to manage dual business models.

On May 2, 2019, So-Young International Inc. (So-Young) became the first Chinese Internet-based company in the cosmetic surgery sector to be listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market. With effective use of the Internet and mobile devices, So-Young provided a one-stop resource that allowed consumers to access information about cosmetic treatments, search for and purchase cosmetic surgery services, and benefit from peer and professional support during recovery. With its service, So-Young had positively transformed a fast-growing Chinese cosmetic surgery market that was lacking transparency and trustworthy information.<br><br>The company had used a process of enterprise business model innovation to build its brand image, expand its audience, and engage the cosmetic surgery industry value chain. While the process had been successful, So-Young faced competitive and internal challenges that it needed to overcome to maintain its leadership position and grow future prospects.

In June 2019, the cofounders of BharatAgri, an Indian agritech (agricultural technology)-focused entrepreneurial venture, were reviewing their strategy. BharatAgri leveraged information technology to provide crop-management related advisory services to Indian farmers and provided data analytics-driven decision dashboards to organizations that worked with farmers. They had onboarded nearly 6,000 Indian farmer-customers and had raised ₹40 million (INR) of venture capital funding to date. Their target was to onboard 20,000 farmers as paying customers by 2021. Could they also generate revenues by selling farm-management related data to agriculture-related organizations? In the next meeting, they were expected to present a comprehensive and cogent strategy to their financiers.

In January 2020, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Salt n Soap, an online retailer of food and groceries in Kolkata, India, was reviewing the company’s strategy and business model. Salt n Soap had been in operation for six years, and now offered nearly 15,000 food and grocery (F&G) products of 1,000 distinct brands through its online retailing website. However, the Indian online F&G retail industry was highly competitive. Salt n Soap had a limited business footprint, mainly concentrated in Kolkata, India and unlike its competitors, it had not raised external equity funding. The CEO had to quickly reassess the current business model and strategy and prepare for the oncoming challenges from an increasingly competitive business environment. The decision had to be made before the end of the month so that any strategic changes could be implemented within the current financial year.

The owner and founder of The Talking Hands, a socially responsible restaurant, in Nagpur, India, had launched his company to create job opportunities for persons with disabilities. He wanted to find a balance between customer experience and customer service, but he also wanted to open two new outlets in his city and seriously consider his friend’s proposal of opening franchisee outlets of The Talking Hands in two Indian cites—Mumbai and Pune. He wanted to consolidate and expand his business without denting the restaurant’s brand identity. Also, as demand for the restaurant grew, the increasing delays in order taking and delivery needed to be managed. Could he hire some non-disabled staff members to manage rush orders and deliveries and still keep operating expenses under control? Should he go through with his expansion plans with the franchise model at this time? He needed to make a decision while renovations to his restaurant were underway.

In 2017, Advaith Group was an Indian conglomerate with interests in various businesses including chemicals, infrastructure, and engineering. An advisor to the corporate communications group was employed on a contractual basis. Each year at the time of his contract extension, organizational politics were played out around the decision to renew the contract. The advisor was very good at what he did, but his behaviour with colleagues left room for improvement. The head of human resources had his reasons to stall the extension of the advisor’s contract and tried different means to have his way, including sidelining him within the organization. A new recruit in corporate communications came into the company with hope and the ambition to be successful in the corporate world. However, she was unsure if she could achieve this goal under the current circumstances. The managing director was asked by the chairman of the group to decide on the extension of the advisor’s contract, but he had to look at all possible angles before doing so.

The case details the challenges of running a small manufacturing enterprise in India. The current operations at Mini Iron & Alloys Private Limited (MIA), which produced springs for rail wagons, were stable, and business had grown. However, the demand for springs was expected to increase with the Indian government’s announcement, in early 2019, to establish a rail freight corridor. The proprietor of MIA mused on the firm’s readiness to undertake the surge in demand. He also ruminated on the prudence of relying on a single customer in a captive market.

In 2018, the chairman and managing director of Teckwah Industrial Corporation Ltd. (Teckwah), sat in his office, looking back on the company's journey. Starting in Singapore as a humble producer of plain packaging boxes, Teckwah had evolved to become a multinational company providing a full suite of supply chain management solutions for international clients. As the second-generation custodian, the chairman and managing director first joined in 1979 and had been steering the company through various stages of development, including diversifying its business offerings, undertaking an initial public offering, and eventually expanding overseas. However, Teckwah still faced growth challenges. The chairman and managing director was considering his retirement and the possibility of taking a lesser role in the company’s daily operations. With Teckwah's 50th anniversary near at hand, he pondered the dual challenges of business transformation and leadership succession.

The case highlights how global dynamics impact both regional economic development and the organizational growth of a market-leading pork producer with a promising yet uncertain future. A key Western Canadian pork production industry stakeholder was tasked with assessing existing environmental complexities as well as global supply and demand factors in an effort to address changing consumer preferences. After determining that global factors could either support or limit further industry investment, the aforementioned stakeholder had to evaluate company resources and firm risks to identify the qualitative and quantitative factors that would influence two specific expansion opportunities and the associated income projections within the local industry.

While the practice of eating insects was still in its infancy in North America, Aspire Food Group (Aspire), with its Aketta cricket-protein products, was positioned for success in this emerging market. In 2018, having recently acquired Exo, a maker of cricket-based protein bars, Aspire's co-founders faced an important decision regarding the Aketta brand. While Aspire had experienced some success in marketing cricket powder, whole roasted crickets in popular chip flavours, and granola bites under the Aketta brand, the acquisition of Exo would enable the company to enter the protein bar category and possibly launch other product and brand extensions. As the founders devised a comprehensive marketing plan for the newly acquired brand, they needed to identify which consumer segments would be most receptive to Exo protein bars and most profitable.