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In April 2012, Delta Airlines was evaluating the potential purchase of the Trainer Refinery in Philadelphia. Delta had been seriously negotiating and pursuing the purchase of Trainer, owned by Phillips 66, for nearly a year. Although Delta's management team believed that owning Trainer would allow Delta to manage its rising fuel costs, particularly in the Northeast Corridor of the United States, the analysts, markets, and press had categorically criticized the potential purchase. Delta needed to decide quickly.

Environmental issues increasingly influence many aspects of business including strategy, public relations, and supply chain operations. This case looks at how Jamba Juice, a publicly traded smoothie company, will respond to public outcry about its environmental footprint. Jamba Juice CEO James White must determine how to respond to an online petition started by a young California girl who collected over 100,000 signatures asking Jamba Juice to phase out its use of polystyrene foam cups, which she believes to be harmful to the environment. Jamba Juice must consider how phasing out foam cups would impact its core business, brand, and product delivery as well as if it would attract or deter new customers and how it might affect shareholder value. This case also challenges students to examine what makes one product more environmentally benign or harmful than another and how businesses should weigh this information in altering the way they do business amidst significant public scrutiny.

Arunachalam Muruganantham is a social entrepreneur dedicated to solving India's menstrual health problems. He developed an unprecedented product: a low-cost, locally produced sanitary pad. In a paragon effort of frugal innovation, he reverse-engineered the industrial processes used to make sanitary-pads. The result was a small-scale, low-cost machine that could manufacture quality pads sold at a retail price 20% lower than the cheapest mass-produced brands. However, no one bought his pads until his wife began to sell them. Soon the two were unable to keep up with demand. This helped Muruganantham realise the importance of including women as stakeholders in the operation. His next step is to figure out how to scale-up to increase availability and access to the pads.

State Bank of India: SMS Unhappy, is a deceptively simple but comprehensive case of a public sector company using a customer complaint management tool as a catalyst to improve overall service performance and overtaking even its private sector competitors in terms of both customer satisfaction and organizational performance. The case describes a novel, mobile phone-based complaint redressal system designed and implemented by Shiva Kumar, chief general manager (south) of the State Bank of India (SBI). The long-term impact of the simple system was the alignment of the entire organization, especially at the branch level, with customer-defined parameters of performance, driving it towards very high levels of customer-centricity. The SMS Unhappy initiative brought greater levels of transparency to all levels of branch performance, resulting in superior service operations with low variance, and ultimately, better customer response.

"State Bank of India: Kohinoor Banjara Branch is a case that documents the development and execution of a novel, high-end branch by a public sector bank in India whose original mandate was to be a "banker to every Indian." Specifically, it traces the development of the bank's Kohinoor branch to serve the Ultra High Net-Worth Individuals (UHNIs) in Hyderabad, the capital city of the state of Andhra Pradesh in India, and considers the question of whether a national rollout of the concept would be viable and successful. It describes the design and execution of the new branch from the twin perspectives of brand extension and new service operation, and raises questions related to the expansion of the idea on both dimensions, from a pilot level to a full-blown rollout. It also takes into account such factors as customer selection for the extension of a mass brand into the ultra-luxury end, the desired approach to serve such elite customers and the long-term prospects for a luxury extension of a mass service brand. Following the success of the branch in Hyderabad, SBI's associate bank, State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (SBBJ) planned to launch a Kohinoor-type branch in Jaipur. However, there were important concerns that had to be addressed. On the one hand, SBI had to break free of its legacy image of being an archaic organization, and on the other, it did not want to send out the signal that it was no longer a common man's bank. Given such challenges, SBI was faced with the question: Should it or should it not roll out Kohinoor-type branches across India? "

"The Tata group is among the largest diversified business groups in India. The group generated about US$100 billion in revenues in 2011-12 from 90 companies operating in diverse businesses in seven broad industry categories. The case describes in detail the various mechanisms by which the Tata group attempts to create a corporate or parenting advantage. The case first highlights the important difference in the way a business group like Tata is structured when compared to a typical conglomerate in the West. The case then describes in detail the various services offered to group companies by the corporate centre, such as access to the Tata brand, quality management services, common procurement, centralized HR, legal, finance, public affairs (lobbying), training and consulting services. The case also discusses the perspective of some of the group companies. Companies often found the group affiliation and services to be of value as it provided them with lower transactional costs, less friction and better contract enforcement within the group, superior access to the political power structure and significant financial backing. With the Tata group preparing to welcome its new chairman in December 2012, the case ends with questions on the sustainability of the prevalent structure, practices, group philosophy and culture. "

"This case study illustrates the principles of disruptive innovation in the context of the music industry in India. Widespread technological changes, including the spread of the Internet and mobile penetration, began to redefine the industry in terms of the way music was created, accessed and consumed. With these technological changes sweeping the industry in a relatively short time frame, the cost of music creation and consumption declined rapidly and incumbents began to find it difficult to sustain operations at current profit margins. The Indian music industry was the archetype of an industry disrupted by technological forces. In such a scenario, the case highlights the dilemma of Sony Music India, a large music recording company, which had been operating in the Indian music industry since 1998 and was now exploring the potential options available for growth and profitability in the evolving digital music space. The Indian subsidiary benefits from learning from its parent but operates under a different business model. The case is set in 2012, and places the student in the shoes of Vivek Paul, Head of Digital Media, who is pondering over what form Sony's digital platform offering should take. How different was the Indian music landscape from the West? What were the disruptive impacts? Should the response of the company mirror its parent corporation? What was the economic upside? Should the company sell exclusively through its own site? Should the company launch a separate organization to manage its digital business? "

This case highlights the impact of currency rate fluctuations on the profitability of an export-oriented textile manufacturing firm, TT Textiles. Against the backdrop of the economic crisis of 2007-08, when the Indian rupee (INR) was expected to appreciate to an unprecedented high of 35 INR per U.S. dollar (US$), the company had entered into a swap deal based on the historical stability of the Swiss franc (CHF) against the US$. At the time of making it, the deal had looked relatively safe and very lucrative. But once the global financial crisis struck in 2008, it started making sizable mark-to-market losses. The unexpected behaviour of the supposedly steady exchange rate between the US$ and the CHF was perplexing. Fortunately, things turned around in 2009 and TT Textiles was no longer in the red. Yet, there was uncertainty about the future. In March 2009, with three months left on the contract, Sanjay Jain, the managing director, was faced with the dilemma of whether to quit then and there or hold the deal till maturity.

"This case focuses on production and inventory management at Synthite, an oleoresin manufacturer in Kerala, India. It discusses the problems the company faced in the production of pepper oleoresin, one of its flagship products, and traces the problems to Synthite's make-to-stock (MTS) production strategy, inventory management practices and several material flow practices at the plant. Synthite, established in 1972, had grown to become the largest exporter of spice oleoresins from India, with a 35% share in the global oleoresin business. Yet, the company faced several challenges in inventory management, production planning, and ultimately, in meeting customer expectations on order lead times. Driven by uncertain demand, their ad-hoc finished goods stocking strategy came to naught. Manual transfers of materials in the plant resulted in the waste of resources labour, plant capacity and materials. Extended quality tests on a single order blocked 30% to 50% of production capacity for extended periods. The case provides quantitative data to analyze Synthite's inventory management, material flow and order lead times, and outlines the company's approach to addressing the challenges it faced. Synthite eventually decided to invest in additional production capacity and automated material flow at the plant. It also put into practice the concept of a "motherbatch," the essence of which was to stock semi-finished goods (SFGs) instead of finished goods (FGs). "

Manish Bhardwaj, co-founder of Innovators in Health, is contemplating setting up Aahan, a community based tuberculosis (TB) control program in rural India. The case describes TB diagnosis and treatment in the public and private healthcare sectors in India and the attendant challenges. A number of candidate interventions aimed at improving the existing system of healthcare delivery are presented at the end of the case, each one of which could form the core of Aahan. Students are encouraged to use operations management principles to quantify the potential public health benefits and costs of these interventions and prioritize them accordingly. Key concepts include process flow mapping, flow balance, Little's Law and selection of appropriate process measures based on the strategic objective of the process.

Since early 2009, the information technology (IT) division of a leading manufacturer of semiconductor chips had noticed a growing trend among the company's 80,000 employees worldwide to bring their own smartphones and storage devices to their individual workstations. Recognizing that Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) was not a passing fad but a growing phenomenon, the company decided in January 2010 to formally implement this initiative. As the company's chief information security officer prepares for a full rollout of BYOD, he revisits the issue of ensuring security of corporate data stored on devices owned by individual employees. He also wonders how Intel should respond to the demand for e-Discovery, wherein a litigant could seek access to internal documents stored on devices not owned by the company. He also reflects on a more fundamental and strategic issue: How can Intel extract value from the BYOD initiative and turn this initiative into a new source of competitive advantage?

Senior managers at the LEGO Group are faced with a quandary: Should they patent inventions coming out of their manufacturing process development work, should they keep them as trade secrets, or should they publish them so that they would go into the public domain and nobody else could patent them? They wish to preserve their freedom to practice, but they are very concerned about competitors' ability to benefit from LEGO Group's R&D investments or alternately interfere with its freedom to operate.

The case is a series of four short, fictional vignettes. Each vignette shines a light on the case's macro-theme of ''motivating others in a management context," and discusses the considerations involved in getting subordinates to achieve specific company goals. The first vignette profiles Lydia Geller, a newly-promoted VP, as she publicly addresses her subordinates for the first time, each of whom had previously been part of her peer group. The second vignette profiles Jeremy Sawyer, the CEO of a software company, as he reviews the sales performance of the company and, in particular, its leading salesman, Victor Mason. Given Mason's disproportionate importance to the company, Jeremy debates the actions he can take to ensure Mason's continued satisfaction and motivation. The third vignette profiles Warren Soroka, the director of sales at a logistics service provider, as he is forced to have a conversation with a long-term employee who has just been "passed over" for a promotion in favor of a younger employee. He debates how best to communicate the decision to the "passed over" employee in a way that ensures his continued motivation and performance at the company. The fourth vignette profiles Rachel Murphy, the director of academics at Barrymore University, as she is forced to give a performance review that includes both positive and negative feedback. Given the mixed nature of the performance review, she debates how best to communicate such feedback in a way that ensures the employee's understanding and continued motivation.

A123 Systems successfully went to market with new technologies that had the potential to revolutionize both the energy storage and electric battery industries. After opening the largest hybrid vehicle battery manufacturing facility in North America, CEO David Vieau needs to evaluate the road forward. Should he try to gain a foothold in established commercial battery markets or pursue the company's current mission of being the top supplier for grid storage and hybrid vehicles? Was he expanding too fast or not fast enough? Was Asia a potential avenue for future growth, a source of menacing competition, or both?

Ford Motor Company's Social Sustainability Manager, David Berdish, faces the challenge of positioning Ford on the forefront of the new global transportation industry in a sustainable way while leveraging Ford's leadership in the automotive industry. This case takes a holistic look at the global transportation industry but places emphasis on mega-cities in bustling emerging markets and their increasingly congested transportation systems. With the company's strategic mobility initiative in place and Ford's Blueprint for Mobility launched as of February 2012, the question of resource and technology allocation and strategic positioning among traditional and new (car-sharing, traffic data management) competitors becomes critical to success. Students must decide how to balance innovation, market positioning, and long-term vision with near-term strategy to better serve the next generation of customers on multiple levels - access, community, and environmental.

Tata Consultancy Services' (TCS) Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) division faces the challenge of retaining their Generation-Y employees, with seven out of a thirteen-person team quitting within a month. Workforce dynamics in the BPO industry in India are a high growth area and employees often have offers from several respected competing firms. In particular, the thriving industry has a great impact on Generation-Y in India, which makes up an increasingly large share of the workforce. To this end, TCS has made significant efforts towards both engaging their Generation-X employees and retaining their Generation-Y employees - leaving the human resource head, Jagdish Chaudhari wondering what more needed to be done after this latest episode.

In late 2012 Adeline Herzog Memorial Hospital in Castle Rock, Colorado, was facing a problem with patient satisfaction. The Press-Ganey scores for the third-floor nursing unit-the primary destination (70 percent) for patients admitted through the emergency department-were at the 15th percentile, and the key HCAHPS score for inpatients was well below the Colorado average. Over the past six months Jeri Tinsley, director of medical, surgical, and intensive care services, had made various changes to try to improve the patient satisfaction scores for her 32-bed unit, but the scores seemed stuck at an unacceptably low level. Tinsley worried that if improvements were not made soon, patients would start "voting with their feet" and take their business to competing hospitals. As a registered nurse, Tinsley's expertise was helping people heal; it was not analyzing data. In particular, she was overwhelmed by the patient comments included in the surveys; she had no idea how to analyze them and could not decide which issues to address first.

In 1984, Trung Dung fled political persecution in Vietnam, the country of his birth, to arrive in the United States as a refugee with only $2 in his pocket. Over the next two decades, he proved his mettle as one of the most astute and successful Vietnamese-American entrepreneurs. Although Dung had never thought that he would return to Vietnam, the instinctive entrepreneur inside him recognized the opportunities presented by country's rapidly developing and modernizing economy. Dung returned in 2007 to found MobiVi, an Electronic Financial Transactions (EFT) firm. This case explores the intersection of mobile network operators, the ETF industry, and social entrepreneurs to pursue an innovative approach to providing financial services to the approximately 2 billion people worldwide who lacked access. The focus is on three of MobiVi's areas: the Nationwide Distribution System (NDS) unit, MobiVi's innovative offerings around financial services (MFS), and MobiVi Foundation. In 2012, Dung was looking at how to address market inefficiencies, help MobiVi's investors and business partners create and capture more value, and make credit more accessible to the middle and lower income classes in Vietnam. Dung was optimistic given the positive state of the Vietnamese economy, the patented MobiVi payments processing technology, and the most recent developments in telecommunication technologies.

Julia and Nate Burstein were living their dream running their own business and balancing the demands between their work and family obligations while creating a company that was responsive to their employees' and their customers' needs. The Bursteins had joined a large multinational manufacturing company after receiving their MBAs from HBS, but soon left to join Julia's family plastics business. After the business was sold, they struck out on their own to search for a similar business. They purchased Elasto Therm, with $8 million in revenue from manufactured rubber and urethane components, with their own cash, bank financing, and the seller, partly in the form of an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). Initially, Nate ran the business and after a few years changed roles with Julia to stay at home with their young children for three years. The two were in charge as co-CEOs before Julia relinquished her responsibilities to be at home again. The couple significantly strengthened the organization's talent, focused on innovation, growth, and provided a learning environment for their employees. Through cost efficiencies and pricing strategies, Elasto Therm was able to achieve higher margins than their competitors and focused on low-volume, short-run orders as they continued to expand the business. The 2008 recession forced them to reexamine all aspects of the business, and it retained profitability after painful cutbacks in the organization. To continue their growth into the next decade, they are faced with the choice of acquiring other businesses or growing more organically by adding to their sales organization to achieve geographic expansion.