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In late 2018, a social entrepreneur in Iceland realized he needed to make changes to his enterprise working with socially-isolated children and youth. His operating model was to host bicycle rides with children and youth, and to encourage them to engage fully as young people. Most of these children had not previously engaged in physical activity, and many experienced not only social difficulties, but also physical challenges as a result of being overweight or obese. The social entrepreneur was spending much of his time negotiating sponsorship and service agreements and as a result, he spent less time engaging with the focus of his initiative—at-risk children and youth. He was also funding some of the initiative himself, putting his personal financial circumstances at risk. How could this social entrepreneur develop a robust, sustainable business model that would enable him to develop financial independence, support the youths' involvement in an annual cycling ride that circumnavigated Iceland, and enable the business to expand so that it no longer relied totally on one person?

Guelph-based Intrigue Media (Intrigue), a marketing agency, has built a wholly-owned and operated network of 200 television screens in high-traffic consumer environments in Southwestern Ontario. The network reaches 1.5 million potential customers per month, and targets local small businesses wanting to expand their customer base. The business development manager at Intrigue has been tasked with developing a business plan to grow this video advertising network. She is reviewing several options, one of which includes the opportunity to seek outside investment.

In June 2019, a newly promoted branch manager of a bank in Davao City, Philippines, must recommend to the bank’s head office who among six loan applicants will obtain loans from the branch. She has received applications for ₱24 million in loans but can only grant ₱18 million. The branch manager needs to (a) decide how much to loan and to which customers, (b) find ways to retain valuable customers and acquire new ones, and (c) consider new avenues to accommodate the increasing number of applicants at her branch. The case encourages students to apply customer relationship management concepts in deciding which borrowers to recommend and it offers an opportunity to discuss the role of marketers as trusted advisers to their clients.

In June 2019, the chief executive officer of a Canadian menswear enterprise was examining his options mid-way through a five-year growth plan. The strategy involved a three-fold mandate: reinforce the company’s value proposition, rapidly scale up marketing, and transition to omnichannel retailing. What has worked well for the company and how does the strategy need to be refined so the company meets its goals?

In July 2018 Sherry Schaefer, the Director, Foundation & Community Engagement at the CapitalCare Foundation (the Foundation) was facing an organizational branding/positioning problem. The Foundation, based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, was responsible for raising donations to support equipment and enrichment programs in long-term care facilities that provide long-term housing and medical care for sick and elderly people. The Foundation was competing with many large and well-organized charities and was losing visibility in the crowded charity market. Schaefer had just found out that the Foundation would have to double annual donations, and she needed to decide how to overcome the market visibility problems to make that happen.

Asha Handicrafts Association (Asha) was a fair trade marketing organization, headquartered in Mumbai, India. The organization primarily marketed and sold handicrafts sourced from artisans across India to three main customer segments. The first segment consisted of fair trade importers outside of India, where Asha was a leading player. The second segment consisted of commercial importers who sold products through commercial retail stores abroad. Asha had done reasonably well in this segment in a pilot project. The third segment was the domestic retail market, where Asha ran its own retail store chain in India with the brand name of Karigar. In January 2017, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Asha deliberated the all-important decision of whether to continue with or shut down Asha’s retail business, Karigar. The CEO also examined how Asha could redefine its value proposition and determine which customer segment (or segments) to focus on while building its strategic road map for the future.

In June 2018, the co-founder and chief brand officer of HEXO Corp. (HEXO), a medical cannabis company in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, needed to prepare his company for the legalization of Canada’s recreational marijuana market. HEXO already provided a range of innovative, smoke-free, and traditional marijuana products to customers across Canada. The chief brand officer planned to analyze the inflows and outflows associated with two options for entering the recreational cannabis market: constructing a new greenhouse and acquiring one of the company's competitors in eastern Canada. Because HEXO could pursue only one option, he would need to assess each option carefully, both qualitatively and quantitatively; develop short-term and long-term action plans; and project an income statement and balance sheet for the next fiscal year. The chief brand officer wanted to ensure that HEXO was in the best position to achieve economies of scale by increasing production capabilities, establishing a widespread distribution network, and developing a strong brand through high-quality customer experiences.

In early 2019, the senior executive partners of Mosaic Home Services Ltd. (Mosaic), a home improvement and commercial property management company in Edmonton, Alberta, needed to choose from among several potential new partnership deals. When the senior executive partners had exited a family-owned commercial construction business in 2015 to start Mosaic, their major objective had been to help improve the living spaces of homeowners and the work spaces of property managers. The new business involved partnering with entrepreneurs who were keen to develop and grow their businesses beyond the initial founders. Now, Mosaic needed to develop ongoing strategies for attracting and selecting small business owners based on the personal attributes and proposed partnership deals of the entrepreneurs. They needed to determine how to assess potential partners’ strategic and organizational fit with Mosaic and to decide what marketing methods would effectively attract local entrepreneurs with potentially saleable businesses.

CLS Landscape Supply was an established firm facing flat sales growth and declining profitability. Founded as a student-run business by a young couple in 2009 in Cochrane, Alberta, the company had grown to 33 seasonal employees, with sales exceeding $4 million annually. It operated two locations that supplied landscape products and materials to both retail and commercial customers, as well as a landscape construction division that provided both landscape design and installation services. The local economy was highly reliant on the oil and gas sector and had been struggling for several years. Price cutting was also common in the company’s highly competitive industry. How could the co-founders address the issues of flat sales growth, declining profit margins, and the competing time commitments of running the business while starting a family? They wanted to best position the company for long-term success. How could they focus on developing a more formal human resource plan for staffing and scheduling work in addition to developing budgets and policies for managing expenses?

Before 2013, Shandong Four Seasons Minghu Hotel Co. Ltd. was a high-end restaurant and food service company. In December 2012, the Chinese government implemented the Eight-Point Regulation that prohibited government officials from indulging in luxury banquets and high-end meals. The new government policy had a negative effect on many companies across the high-end food service industry, whose customer base consisted mainly of government officials. In response to the new government policy, Shandong Four Seasons Minghu Hotel Co. Ltd. made some strategic changes that eventually led the company to recover and survive. However, fierce competition created many challenges. The company had to determine whether to explore other markets and how to better satisfy the needs of consumers.

On June 21, 2019, the human resources director at Renaissance Packaging and Manufacturing Ltd., in Nagpur, India, was feeling a considerable amount of stress. As the presiding officer of the company’s internal complaints committee, she was tasked with handling a sexual harassment complaint filed by the company’s chief engineer at the plant. In her complaint, the chief engineer accused the production manager, her superior, of sexual harassment. The internal complaints committee had to make an unbiased decision based on the specific details provided in the complaint. However, the human resources director worried that the situation raised underlying cultural issues at the plant, including a lack of awareness and sensitivity regarding interactions among male and female employees. How could the internal complaints committee resolve the complaint without creating hostility between the two co-workers and other employees? What kinds of organizational changes could help the company address sexual harassment in the workplace? What could the human resources director do to promote a positive and welcoming attitude toward female employees at the plant, especially women in leadership positions?

In August 2018, Excelco Equipment Pte. Ltd. (Excelco), based in Singapore, was facing challenges in recruiting talented young workers. The company’s senior staff would retire soon, and the majority of its workers were above the age of 40. Excelco had enjoyed a stable workforce flow for several decades, but now its employees were aging, and it needed to attract young workers. Excelco’s executive director was proud of the company’s family culture and attractive work environment, but prospective young workers seemed to have different wish lists for their dream jobs. Based on the feedback he received from young talent on what Excelco had to offer, he needed to make some important decisions on issues including how to improve the company’s current recruitment process and how to raise its employer brand awareness. Excelco’s resource constraints, as a small company in a traditional industry, meant that tackling its employment challenges would not be easy. The executive director needed to address several issues, including countering the poor image of construction jobs, promoting Excelco’s unique selling points, and finding the right recruitment channels. Ultimately, he had to recruit the right young talent into the right positions. Could he do it?

The director of diversity and inclusion at a community agency is trying to decide whether to update her business email signature to express her gender identity by providing preferred pronouns. The director must decide whether the benefits of adding the information exceed the potential costs.<br><br><br><br>Subsequently, in a second and third situation—each situation presented as a separate addition to the main case—the director must decide the extent to which she will formally influence her workers to update their email signatures with gender pronoun, and then whether to update her LinkedIn profile. Much of her decision rests on the cultural operating norms of the organization and the director’s role in the organization.

Shanghai Jiujia Information Technology Co., Ltd. (CaiHong) was founded in April 2015 by entrepreneur Junyuan Huang. The company has transitioned from an e-commerce platform to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform to better compete in China’s Legal Service Plus Internet (LSPI) industry. While exploring some key concepts about CaiHong, such as market positioning, business model innovation, SaaS, and growth strategies, several questions are raised about the company’s growth in the LSPI industry and the company’s application of SaaS. First, what factors facilitated CaiHong’s transition from the business-to-consumer (B2C) market to the business-to-business (B2B) market? Second, what is CaiHong’s approach to business model innovation based on the SaaS platform? Third, how can it build on the success of the SaaS model through continuous innovation and further disruption of the LSPI industry?

The chief executive officer of Ambhar Global Spirits LLC joined the company in 2003, when its Tequila Ambhar brand was immersed in financial and image problems. He dedicated himself to reconfiguring the positioning of Tequila Ambhar, establishing it as a product of high quality and sophistication for knowledgeable consumers. With this conviction, he worked closely with a tequila industry consultant to modify product and marketing components and perfect the production process, to create a fully Mexican, 100 per cent agave, handmade tequila with a high-end premium positioning. By 2017, the chief executive officer believed the time was right to raise the bar on Ambhar’s positioning and distribution in the US market. With great expectations for the product, and with the support of the board of directors, he intended to develop a commercial plan to increase market share by 30 per cent. However, he and the expert consultant were at odds on the next logical step for the brand: strengthen strategic alliances to reinforce the distribution network and increase points-of-sale in the United States, or improve branding to make the tequila more authentic and bring it closer to the consumer?

In 2019, the co-founders of Praxis—a toothpaste that aimed to improve the health and wellness of its users by incorporating vitamins, minerals, and supplements into the toothpaste—were contemplating whether to launch their business. The mission of Praxis was to facilitate a health-conscious lifestyle and empower individuals to improve their productivity and well-being. The duo wanted to assess the business environment, evaluate their product and marketing strategy, project the venture’s financial performance for the first three years of operations, and ultimately determine whether they should pursue the idea. They had specific goals in mind since they had won a case competition at their university, been approached by many investors, and been shortlisted to star on Dragons’ Den. Could they successfully launch Praxis, differentiate Praxis from other industry players, and continue managing their existing workload in their studies at Western University?

Jia Yuan Company was a small Chinese business founded by two brothers in 2005. The more ambitious of the brothers worked at the front of the business, successfully transforming it from a local sales agent for foreign branded products to a contractor for government-financed construction projects. He saw new opportunities for the business and wanted to make further investment in a related company that his friend worked at. However, the conservative brother, in charge of internal management, was not convinced of the project’s potential and did not approve of making drastic changes to their company’s overall strategy. The brothers had a history of disagreement and suppressing resolution of the problems. Can the brothers manage their conflict, or should they go their separate ways?

Noora Health, an India-based non-profit, through its Care Compassion Program (CCP), which was based on human-centred design principles, aimed to reduce readmission rates and complications after patients were discharged from the hospital. While implementing the program in several hospitals across India, the chief executive officer of Noora Health faced several challenges. These challenges included convincing nurses to train patients’ family members in caregiving and increasing the scope and scale of the CCP. By early 2019, Noora Health had successfully implemented the program across 110 hospitals in India. What should the company further undertake to prove the program’s effectiveness and enhance its scope and scale?

In 2019, Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Limited, one of Hong Kong’s most popular jewellery chains, had recently adopted blockchain, under the leadership of managing director, to address some of the challenges in the diamond industry. In particular, the company had moved from paper certificates to digital certificates; blockchain also allowed the firm to trace the origin of diamonds, eliminating the problem of blood diamonds. In order to continue as a leader in transforming the diamond industry for the digital age, what other changes should the managing director implement? Should the company emphasize its use of blockchain technology in marketing to end consumers?

Ronds Science & Technology Incorporated Company (Ronds) was a leading smart solutions provider in China’s machine condition monitoring market. Since its establishment, 10 years earlier, the high-tech company’s monitoring and diagnostic solutions have been implemented across various industries, with the strongest foothold in the wind energy industry. However, the co-founder and chairman of Ronds observed that most Chinese industrial enterprises were slow in adopting technology in the area of maintenance and repair, and long sales cycles had led to Ronds missing its 2016 sales target. News of the Chinese central government’s plans to redistribute wind energy projects across China to new provinces also followed. Given Ronds’s weak profitability performance and the recent change in government policies, the company had to consider whether it should focus on further penetrating the wind energy market or expand to other industries. As either approach had its own challenges, the cofounder and his senior management looked to identify the best growth strategy for Ronds to remain competitive in the industry 4.0 era.