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Denner AG is a leading food discount retailer in Switzerland. It has 591 of its own stores and 269 run as a franchise called Denner Partner; its revenues amount to about CHF 4 billion. Historically 25% of Denner's revenue has come from alcohol and tobacco sales. Although Denner is positioned in a highly competitive market, the foundations are changing rapidly. Food retail discounters have developed over the last years, and customer expectations of performance have risen, especially since the market entry of Lidl and Aldi. Therefore, Denner is in an environment where it needs to adapt quickly and continually. Denner was acquired by Migros - the biggest food retailer in Switzerland - in 2010 with the clear goal of enriching the offer within the whole group. A second reason for the acquisition was that Migros is not allowed to sell alcohol and tobacco, in accordance with its bylaws. Since the Covid pandemic, retail and food trends seem to have changed for good. In addition, the prospect of Migros starting to sell alcohol is forcing Denner to rethink its current strategy. COO Urs Kneubühler is charged with advising and convincing the board of the best strategic direction to ensure future growth and revenues, while taking into account the opportunities and threats arising from new food and retail trends.

This case describes how Tongwei Group, a China-based global leader in both aquafeeds and photovoltaics, created a fast-growing new market for green energy and a model for sustainable economic development by integrating high-yield aquacultural ponds with water-based PV plants in eastern and central China, regions where utilizable land resources were scarce and demand for electricity was high and ever increasing. The Chinese government's increasing restrictions on coal-fired power plants to achieve its carbon emission targets led to the urgent need for green energy development in the country, especially in eastern and central China, where population and industrial activities are concentrated. Yet most solar companies ignored the pressing demand for clean energy in these regions because of the shortage of utilizable land resources there. Tongwei rose to the challenge by combining high-yield fishponds with water-based solar farms and rolling them out in these regions, overcoming the regions' perceived unsuitability for solar energy development. This innovative approach created a burgeoning new green energy market, which not only increased clean energy production in eastern and central China, but also multiplied income for fish farmers and the regions' tax coffers, providing a sustainable socioeconomic development model that addresses green energy objectives and economic development goals simultaneously. This case provides an illustrative example of ""nondisruptive creation"", a new concept crafted by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne in their book Beyond Disruption (2023). By going into geographical areas other companies eschewed, Tongwei created a new market of profitable growth and a thriving new business without disrupting the existing solar energy industry.

In March 2022, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Auchan Retail Group (Auchan), a top French retailer, faced a serious dilemma. As head of a €30 billion, privately held company, the CEO had to choose between staying the course and leaving Russia, one of Auchan's top three markets, in the aftermath of the business turnaround and explosive geopolitical tensions that followed within two weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Public backlash had already forced more than 300 companies to exit or scale down their operations in this large emerging market. In this context, as he prepared for an interview with a popular French newspaper, the CEO had to decide how to best to address this dilemma: should Auchan follow the crowd or stay the course?

The case is about Birkenstock, the renowned German shoemaker, and two turning points in its 248-year history: the owner's decision to bring in a professional CEO in 2012, and the sale of a majority stake to a French-American investment firm in 2021. Founded by German cobbler Johann Adam Birkenstock in 1774, the company had always been 100% owned by the same family and managed by a single descendant, a tradition upended in 2002 when Carl Birkenstock, the CEO and owner, handed over his shares and job to his three sons. Ten years later, unable to agree on strategy and with tensions rising in the family, the brothers decided to bring in a professional CEO to put the struggling shoemaker back on its feet. Under the new manager, sales of Birkenstock sandals increased to such an extent that the company attracted the interest of investors. Meanwhile, one of the sons sold his shares to his two brothers, who then instructed the CEO to find a buyer. Offered the opportunity to become billionaires overnight, they sold the company to a private equity firm backed by the world's largest fortune and owner of LVMH, Bernard Arnault.

Stephen Holbrook and Austin Pulsipher (both HBS '19) had been leading Nutrishare since acquiring the company six months earlier in mid-2021. The company, based in Sacramento CA, was a compounding pharmacy serving Total Parenteral Nutrition ("TPN") patients nationwide. Holbrook and Pulsipher generally believed it was best to not make big changes during the first year after an acquisition. However, two competitors had recently exited their TPN businesses, creating an opportunity for Nutrishare to add a significant number of new clients. This opportunity would grow the business by about a quarter which would immediately reverse the stagnant client count and have a substantial impact on value. However, it would also add stresses on the Company to serve the new clients.

Elon Musk proposes to offer verification status on Twitter to paying subscribers. Chaos ensues.

In May 2022, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Pfizer Inc. (Pfizer), Albert Bourla, announced an initiative called "An Accord for a Healthier World" to supply less-developed countries with the company's COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty and the oral antiviral drug Paxlovid. The program sought to reach 1.2 billion people in 45 countries with a focus on treating diseases that disproportionately affected low-income countries. The initiative was part of the company's goal to reduce the number of people around the world who could not afford their medicines by 50 per cent. Bourla's plan was to reach that goal by 2023. The move was in response to criticism that Pfizer was not doing enough to get vaccines to people in less-developed countries. The CEO acknowledged the challenges of distribution, such as poor infrastructure, misinformation, and corruption and stated that solutions should address these underlying problems, rather than focusing on the cost of vaccines. He also stated that a vaccine patent waiver would not be effective because other countries did not have the necessary infrastructure or knowledge to safely produce high-quality vaccines. The waiver would also set a precedent for future endeavours, potentially making manufacturers reluctant to develop new treatments. However, how could Pfizer effectively communicate its efforts to address global health inequities?

This case provides an overview of the venture debt industry with a focus on WTI, a leading venture debt provider. The case follows Maurice Werdegar, the Chairman of WTI, as he considers offering a new loan and amending an existing loan.

This case is about organizational change and technology. It follows the efforts of one physician as they try to move their department past using the pager, a device that persisted in American medicine despite having long been outdated by superior communication technology. The case reveals the complex organizational factors that have made this persistence possible, such as differing interdepartmental priorities, the perceived benefits of simple technology, and the potential drawbacks of applying typical continuous improvement approaches to technology change. Ultimately the physician in the case is not able to rid their department of the pager, despite pursuing a thorough continuous improvement effort and piloting a viable alternative; the case ends with the physician having an opportunity to try again and asks students to assess whether doing so is wise. The case can be used in class to help students apply the general concepts of organizational change to the particular context of technology, discuss the forces of stasis and change in medicine, and to familiarize students with the uses and limits of continuous improvement methods.

This case describes efforts to promote racial equity in healthcare financing from the perspective of one public health organization, Community Care Cooperative (C3). C3 is a Medicaid Accountable Care Organization-i.e., an organization set up to manage payment from Medicaid, a public health insurance option for low-income people. The case describes C3's approach to addressing racial equity from two vantage points: first, its programmatic efforts to channel financing into community health centers that serve large proportions of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), and second, its efforts to address racial equity within its own internal operations (e.g., through altering hiring and promotion processes). The case can be used to help students understand structural issues pertaining to race in healthcare delivery and financing, to introduce students to the basics of payment systems in healthcare, and/or to highlight how organizations can work internally to address racial equity.

Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah co-founded Zomato as a food discovery platform that listed menus from restaurants in the Delhi National Capital Region (Delhi-NCR). Zomato quickly gained popularity and expanded its services to multiple cities in India and abroad. In 2015, Zomato shifted its focus from providing only restaurant discovery services to exploring new business initiatives. One such initiative was Zomaland, which was conceptualised as a food carnival that combined three elements-fun activities, lip-smacking food and entertainment. Zomato organised two seasons of Zomaland in various cities and formats in 2019 and 2020. However, because of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company was forced to suspend Zomaland operations. As the economy gradually returned to normal in 2022, Zomato had to reappraise the future of Zomaland and its synergy with other services offered by Zomato.

This case has been written to illustrate the pros and cons of asset-light and asset-heavy strategies. China has seen a rise in the use of asset-heavy strategies over the last few years, particularly with heavy asset users. By using financial tools such as sale and leaseback, fund management business models, and capital recycling, users can build asset-heavy real estate and capture lucrative real estate development profits. The users can then lighten the balance sheet by employing various financial techniques, thus achieving the economic benefit of the asset-heavy strategy while eventually enjoying the lower financial burden and higher flexibility of the asset-light strategy. This real industry case focuses on cold chain logistics real estate (refrigerated warehouses), which is developing in a similar manner to that of the ambient logistics real estate sector over the last 20 years. The company's name has been disguised for confidentiality purposes and the shipment data has been randomly re-generated, but it retains its overall statistics profile for greater realism. The case is written primarily for corporate strategy discussions, but the strong quantitative element also allows it to be used as an operations management network optimisation case as well.

A sports car manufacturer commits to carbon neutrality and to electrifying a large part of its car fleet.

On 7 October 2020, the employees of Raya, an Egyptian holding company, received an email that sent shockwaves across the entire firm. The board had just announced that Medhat Khalil, Raya's co-founder, primary shareholder and long-serving CEO, would be stepping down after 21 years, leaving the position to his son Ahmed Khalil, who was just under 40 years old. Every one of Raya Holding's 13,000 employees was trying to guess how this would impact the company's operations and shape its future. On that day, Ahmed was in his Cairo office, and there was little time to celebrate. He had joined Raya back in 2013, and this moment was the zenith of his career. Ahmed had watched his father develop the company into a successfully diversified conglomerate and the leadership bar was set very high. Reflecting on the milestones achieved under his father's leadership, Ahmed wondered whether the company needed to transform itself to sustain the growth it had demonstrated in the past. Specifically, he questioned whether the holding's current structure was still the best way to sustain growth. If that was not the case, what changes were required? Ahmed was going to spend the next few months finding an answer to this critical question. He was fully aware he had one chance to gain an in-depth understanding of what was really required to future-proof Raya, and - if change proved necessary - to get the transformation right.

Case A explores Goldman's corporate strategy and growth, charting its history from when Marcus Goldman moved to the US and launched a commercial paper business in 1869. It follows the firm's expansion in terms of its products/services, and its growth via acquisitions and alliances. Throughout the 20th century it built a reputation for innovation as a leader in M&A advisory, but remained firmly focused on investment and wholesale banking (the B2B side). Subsequently, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and a period of underperforming on the stock market, Goldman pivoted to retail banking in search of new growth and more stable sources of income. How effective its strategy would be remained to be seen. Case B explores how Goldman Sachs built the capabilities to enter consumer finance - a whole new market. Whereas others entered the market through acquisitions, alliances, or internal development, Goldman began by recruiting talent and gradually building a consumer business internally, then adding a combination of bolt-on acquisitions, partnerships, and further internal initiatives. The case ends in 2022 with the question: Did Goldman Sachs choose the right strategy?

In a little over a year, more than 6,500 workers at over 250 corporate-owned Starbucks stores had voted to unionize with Workers United. The former CEO, Kevin Johnson, retired unexpectedly in April 2022 after weeks of increasing pressure from investors as the unionization effort grew. Starbucks Founder Howard Schultz was then named interim CEO and he went on to make numerous statements against unionization and visited many Starbucks locations in an effort to curb unionization efforts. The next CEO, Laxman Narasimhan, was taking charge in April 2023, and Schultz would be his advisor through the rest of the year and remain on Starbucks' Board of Directors. How Narasimhan managed the unionization efforts would be critical to his future at Starbucks. The case's fictional protagonist, the employee relations advisor, is assigned to counsel the corporation's new CEO on how to respond. The protagonist, who started at Starbucks as a barista, can see many sides of the situation and is well aware that corporate leadership has resisted unionization, and knows that what comes next could be critical for Starbucks' future.

Yukimi Daifuku was an ice cream that had been sold exclusively during the winter season in Japan for almost four decades. Lotte Co., Ltd. (Lotte) entered the ice cream market thirty years after its major competitors, so the company strategically targeted the ice cream off-season, when other producers were not promoting their products. Lotte successfully grew the product's sales, and Yukimi Daifuku became an iconic winter ice cream in Japan. However, the external environment surrounding Yukimi Daifuku had undergone significant changes, and in 2018, Lotte decided to sell the product year-round in order to boost availability and sales. Yukimi Daifuku saw sales momentum in 2019, but growth stalled in 2020. Without the benefits of its historical (and iconic) off-season position, Yukimi Daifuku faced the challenge of thriving in the competitive Japanese ice cream market. In addition, the patent on the product development process of Yukimi Daifuku was set to expire in March 2021. Without the iconic winter ice cream positioning and patent-the two key factors for their forty-year success-what were the next steps needed for the Yukimi Daifuku Branding Division for the product?

In Case (A), ZUIG attempted to acquire a controlling stake in Zhenxing Biochem through a tender offer but faced opposition from both its board of directors and its largest stakeholder, Zhenxing Group. The opposition parties used various tactics to fend off the tender offer, such as halting trading, filing real-name reports, and pursuing lawsuits. Zhenxing Group even transferred all of its shares to its white knights, KAISA Group Holdings Ltd. (KAISA) and Cinda Securities Shenzhen Office (Cinda Securities), but its efforts proved unsuccessful. Ultimately, ZUIG replaced Zhenxing Group as the largest shareholder in Zhenxing Biochem. In Case (B), a fierce battle broke out between ZUIG and KAISA for control of Zhenxing Biochem after the successful tender offer. Eventually, an agreement was reached, and ZUIG gained control of the company. Under ZUIG's governance, Zhenxing Biochem embarked on a new phase of development through strategic partnerships, asset restructuring, and other initiatives. This case study provides a comprehensive overview of the target company's development before the tender offer, the complex tender offer and anti-takeover measures, and the challenging integration process that followed. The entire process was characterized by ups and downs, making it a classic example of a hostile takeover that provides valuable lessons for all market participants.

This case unfolds around the first-ever approved personalized cancer treatment, how Novartis wrapped it into a new business model design, and how Novartis scaled it. Novartis - one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world - is, among other ventures, discovering, developing, and marketing patent-protected prescription medicines, as well as addressing unmet medical needs and diseases for which no effective treatments or cures exist. In late 2011, Novartis executives became aware of a revolutionary treatment technology developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn). This technology was designed as a one-time, personalized drug to cure certain types of cancers such as lymphomas and leukemia. Section Chief of Cellular Therapy and Transplant at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Stephan A. Grupp, MD, Ph.D. commented on the innovation as follows: "I've been an oncologist for 20 years, and I have never, ever seen anything like this." After approaching UPenn scientists, Novartis decided to develop and commercialize this technology as the company possessed the relevant capabilities. This case series then explores the introduction and scaling of this new treatment over three parts. Case A describes the various challenges Joe Jimenez, the then CEO of Novartis, faced during the launch of the new treatment in 2016. Case B (separate) focuses on the persistent problems with drug manufacturing and scaling this part of the business model design after its launch in 2017. Lastly, case C (separate) examines how Novartis solved the persistent problems and envisioned the future in this new, inspiring area of medicine.

Launched in May 2013, Patreon was the leading subscription-based platform in the online crowdfunding market. For over five years, the company operated successfully and expanded its large base of artists and content providers (known as "creators" on Patreon) and their fans and contributors (known as "patrons" on the platform). Patreon charged its content creators a standard 5 per cent fee, plus transaction costs, offering the artists over 90 per cent of the crowdfunded amounts. However, the founder and chief executive officer of Patreon realized that the company could not survive by maintaining the current uniform pricing and services structure. Patreon had to develop a set of more advanced tools to attract new content creators to the platform and enhance the experience of the contributing patrons. Patreon had to revise its pricing strategy to pay for the development of new services, grow its customer base, and improve the company's profitability.