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A small Danish design company seeks to collaborate with its largest supplier in Thailand in order to improve health, safety and environmental conditions, as well as labour standards, as a core element of complying with the UN Global Compact principles. The company takes its corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda seriously and has developed a new standard for CSR in its supplier factories that is implemented and audited by a non-governmental organization. New challenges emerge as attention shifts to the certification of production inputs such as wood. Although Western small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face pressures to audit their suppliers in developing countries, these SMEs often lack the financial and political resources to change behaviours in supplier factories. The firm's quality manager must evaluate its sustainability approach. How much leverage can a small company expect to have with its suppliers? Furthermore, is the cost of auditing suppliers in a country such as Thailand too high?

By 2013, the Indian Metal Company, headquartered in Metconagar in eastern India, had been a leading metallurgical company in India for 100 years. While it had ambitious expansion plans, both at home and abroad, it was bedeviled by an increasing attrition of professionals and difficulty in attracting candidates from premier educational institutions. This shortage of talent could jeopardize the company's investments. The chief executive officer convened an urgent meeting of senior executives to discuss the problem and explore possible solutions. The meeting ended in a confusing barrage of views and counterviews. A committee was appointed to synthesize the competing views and prepare a master plan for talent management. It began its work by reviewing past data related to attrition and holding discussions with small groups of young professionals. The time had now come to prepare its report and recommendations.

In order to resolve severe water management problems in Metro Manila, the Government of Philippines began rolling out a privatisation scheme in 1995 with the objective to provide piped water to everyone in the city with regular 24-hour access. The scheme aimed to auction off service provision of Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewage System (MWSS), a government agency that handled all water and sewage services, through two 25-year concession agreements that divided Metro Manila into East and West. On August 1, 1997, Manila Water won the East Concession. By 2013, after 16 years of management and operations, Manila Water had more than doubled their customer base and achieved 24-hour access to safe and affordable piped water to 99 percent of its distribution network in the East Concession, whereas before just two-thirds had any access at all and only 26 percent had regular 24-hour access. Moreover, system leakage and pilferage were improved from 63 percent to 12 percent water loss. To come so far, Manila Water had to overcome both internal and external challenges. Internally, the company had to transform its highly centralised organisational structure and bureaucratic culture into a de-centralised one where actions could be undertaken through bottom-to-top directives. Human capital and leadership development, as well as putting in place the right incentives, were key to accomplishing this objective. Externally, Manila Water had to address environmental, socio-economic and political challenges. In this regard, tri-sector engagement between government, business and civil society was essential. Moreover, the company had to seek out new business and a means to sustainable growth if it were to stay relevant in the future.

Great Offshore Limited (GOL), a leading player in the Indian offshore oilfield services industry, was one of the largest customers of Bharati Shipyard Limited (BSL), the second-largest private-sector shipbuilding company in India. BSL had acquired an approximately 15 per cent stake in GOL (by invoking a share pledge) and made a public offer for a further 20 per cent stake in GOL. BSL's rival - ABG Shipyard Limited (ABG) - announced a counter-offer. By early August 2009, both BSL and ABG had made further counter-offers and the latest offer price by ABG was 51 per cent higher than the first offer made by BSL. Both players had also invested substantially in building up their equity holdings in GOL. BSL had to decide on how far it should go to make the acquisition.

This case is designed for MBA students in M&A or derivatives courses. In January 2011, Sanofi-Aventis was finalizing its offer terms for acquiring Genzyme. The M&A valuation disputes were about the market potential of alemtuzumab, a drug in Genzyme's pipeline, and how quickly Genzyme could resolve some of its manufacturing issues. To bridge the gap in their estimates, advisers had suggested an up-front cash payment and a contingent value right (CVR). Was a CVR the magical solution to bridging the valuation gap?

This case is designed to be part of an MBA corporate finance class. In October 2010, Henri Termeer, the chairman and CEO of Genzyme (a top-five biotechnology company), received a letter from the CEO of Sanofi-Aventis (a large French pharmaceutical company) announcing its intention to commence a tender offer for Genzyme. Termeer thought the offer undervalued Genzyme given the number of promising new drugs in the company's pipeline and the success of its current drug portfolio. To estimate Genzyme's fundamental value, Termeer and his finance team would need to conduct a discounted cash flow (DCF) and other valuation analyses. Termeer needed to be well prepared for the board meeting during which the response to the offer would be formulated.

Four years into a five-year contract with General Motors to be the exclusive website vendor to its U.S. network of more than 4,000 dealers, CDK Digital faced a crucial contract renewal at the end of 2012. The case follows Melissa McCann, director of strategic marketing, and Chris Reed, CMO, as they prepared for a critical meeting in July 2011: a presentation to the customer relationship management (CRM) subcommittee of the Chevrolet dealer council. Although GM dealers, like all auto dealers in the United States, were independent franchisees, GM saw the renewal of CDK Digital's exclusive contract as a collaborative decision between dealers and GM. According to Ed Vogt, GM's executive in charge of the renewal, if the dealer councils said no, the contract would not be renewed. This case challenges students to use CDK's big data and analytics capabilities to address the inherent conflict between dealers and manufacturers: when marketing to potential customers, manufacturers wanted consistency across dealer websites to maximize sales of their targeted brands, while dealers wanted flexibility to sell what they had in inventory.

Mobileye was an Israeli company, officially headquartered in The Netherlands, which was a Tier 2 supplier to the global automobile industry. After 15 years of building a leading technology for autonomous driving systems, Mobileye emerged in 2014 as one of the most exciting companies in the race for the driverless car. After going public in August 2014, which made its founders-Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram-billionaires, the company looked set to become the de facto standard for vision-based autonomous and ultimately self-driving cars. This case explores the company's competitive position, the challenges of sustaining its advantages in a highly competitive industry, and how it should work with Google, the publicly perceived leader in the self-driving revolution.

"Driving Strategic Change at the Junior League (A)" describes a troubled organizational environment. Challenges included a dissatisfied membership, declining membership numbers, a large diversity among local leagues, and limited resources to meet the organization's overall objectives. The case describes a "participatory roadmap" approach, drawing on the insights of comprehensive research, and highlights a strategic-change approach that focuses on participation and local-level flexibility. The (B) case examines how the Association of Junior Leagues International (AJLI) took initial steps to implement the participatory roadmap. Through a purposeful messaging strategy that involved many targets and various modes of communication, AJLI leaders sought to influence and inform active members, sustainers, and their local leaders. Further, through the use of design teams, AJLI gained deep insight into the ways that implementation might vary across local leagues. Finally, these design teams enabled AJLI to make initial gains in membership and develop a cross-league learning community.

This case is used in Darden's first-year strategy course and is appropriate for MBA, Executive MBA, GEMBA, and executive education programs. The head of strategy for a well-known fashion retailer, Saks Fifth Avenue, and her general management colleagues face critical decisions required to address evolving buying patterns as online retailing becomes an important part of consumer behavior. How should a successful firm organize itself when market shifts require existing and emerging processes to coexist in one organizational structure?

Prince Pipes and Fittings (Prince) - a family managed enterprise in the Indian PVC pipe industry - had not only navigated the 2008 Global financial crisis, a period when more than 1000 Indian pipe companies had shut down within 90 days, it had in fact used the crisis as an opportunity to successfully transition from an small and medium enterprise (SME) to a large enterprise through acquisitions. In 2013, the company faced a bleak macroeconomic environment of declining GDP growth rates, tight monetary conditions, a pessimistic industrial outlook, a depreciating rupee and rising crude prices. It also faced growing domestic competition. Would Prince be able to reach its goals for 2013/14?

Narayana Hrudayalaya (NH), a leading cardiac hospital network with many firsts to its credit, has revolutionized heart care in India. It has a market share close to 15 per cent in the cardiac sector, has successfully completed 70,000 surgeries and has given insurance to over four million farmers through its microinsurance scheme. Its motto, "caring with compassion," is its guiding philosophy and the telemedicine network set up at NH has been able to provide treatment for over 50,000 cardiac patients free of charge. The case highlights the evolution of NH and the vision of its founder, and outlines his ambitions and struggles in seeking to increase the number of cardiac surgeries performed each day. How can he retain the top surgeons and fulfill his mission to offer affordable heart care while the compensation of doctors is rapidly increasing?

Driverless cars - once the stuff of science fiction - are fast becoming reality. Indeed, some automotive companies have said they expect to sell autonomous vehicles to the public by 2020. The advent of such self-driving vehicles raises numerous ethical and legal questions that will need to be addressed before such cars can hit the road in significant numbers. This case traces the history and evolution of auto safety in the United States, beginning with the very first automotive-related fatality on September 13, 1899 and ending with a coming era in which, some predict, humans will be banned from driving their own vehicles and machines will be obliged to have ethical systems.

This two-part case focuses on how to identify and manage strategic uncertainties in an innovative, entrepreneurial start-up company. In the (A) case, students learn about Quiet Logistics, an e-commerce fulfillment company working with high-end apparel retailers such as Bonobos, Gilt Groupe, and Zara. What distinguishes the company from its rivals is its use of Kiva robots which collect customer items within the warehouse and bring them to the appropriate work station for employees to package and prepare for shipment. Processing up to 8,000 orders per day, the robots help make Quiet Logistics a highly-efficient firm and free its workers to complete additional value-added services such as handwritten thank-you notes. The company has also developed proprietary software to collect data on productivity measures, resulting in 99.99% accuracy in its inventory system and completing orders on-time. At the end of the (A) case, students are asked to list the strategic uncertainties that should be keeping the two co-founders awake at night as they consider growth opportunities for their company. The one-page (B) case reveals a surprising strategic twist that throws their plans into disarray. Students are asked to figure out how to respond.

HandsOn Bay Area, an organization devoted to the performance of (and development of leaders for) community service, is undergoing a significant (and internally controversial) shift in its business model from "retail" projects involving individual volunteers to "wholesale" projects with for-profit partners from the San Francisco Bay Area. Its CEO has to decide whether and how to respond to a request from Google to engage 5,500 Google employees in community service activities during a one-week period. It's a far larger project than the organization has ever undertaken and one requiring many added resources. Among the risks is the possible damage to the HandsOn reputation among Silicon Valley partners if the effort does not succeed.

On July 30, 2015, Procter & Gamble (P&G) announced headline double digit earnings per share growth for the year ended June 30. A closer look at the numbers suggested a less healthy picture. Sales, volumes, and operating profits were down. Investors were not impressed; shareholders were becoming increasingly impatient with the results of Chairman and CEO A.G. Lafley's attempted turnaround. Five-year shareholder returns were well below those of the S&P 500 and the S&P 500 Consumer Staples index. After returning to the company in 2013 in the face of stalling growth, Lafley had announced that P&G would focus on 10 high-growth categories and divest 100 smaller brands in the portfolio. As of September 2015, Lafley had negotiated the sale of 93 brands. Shareholders were left wondering whether this would be enough.<br/> Two days before the results were published, P&G announced that 35-year P&G veteran David Taylor would become CEO on November 1, 2015. Lafley would remain Chairman. At the time, Taylor respectfully declined to be interviewed by the press. He had a lot to think about.

The vice-president and general manager for Michigan Plastic Inc.'s Shelby Division (Shelby) is faced with various options. Shelby specializes in thermoforming plastic gasoline tanks for global automotive companies such as General Motors, Ford and Toyota. The vice-president is looking at ways to restart growth at Shelby, a division that has been the subject of a turnaround effort from 2007 to 2010. In fact, the vice-president has committed to his chief executive officer to double sales in the next five years. This case looks at the competitive environment - competitors and the state of technology - and the vice-president's challenge in selecting the growth option.

By the spring of 2014, the founder of EarthWear Face & Body is in desperate need of part-time employees to help run her successful skin care retail business, which she runs out of her home in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. After eight years of hard work, she has turned her part-time hobby making all-natural skin care products into a thriving business. She sells her products online, through retail stores, at craft and trade shows and at the Saskatoon Farmers' Market. But her successful business has become too much work for her to manage on her own. A failed attempt to bring on a part-time employee made it clear that she needs to develop a targeted recruitment strategy. How can she effectively communicate her corporate culture to attract the best candidates?

In July 2009, C&F Consulting, Inc., based in Toronto, sends a team of five brand strategists to work with a client in China on marketing and advertising for a car brand specific to the North American market. The team, consisting of four men and one woman, often meet for dinner after their day's work, which consists of conducting a crash course in North American-style marketing for the Chinese client's cohort of new recruits. The woman feels that one of the men on the team treats her with great disrespect, bordering on sexual assault. If she brings up the issue, will all four of her male colleagues take offence? Will they gossip about her at the office and isolate her at work? What might be the impact on her career if she is perceived as anti-social or thin-skinned? How will her superiors react to her accusations? What is the definition of sexual assault in Canadian law, and can she pursue a civil case against her alleged assailant although the acts happened in a foreign country?