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Saks Fifth Avenue, a luxury department store chain, has been hard hit by the 2008 financial crisis and stock market crash. Speculation about impending bankruptcy is rampant in the press. The CEO, Stephen Sadove, must decide how to respond.

This case illustrates a CEO-led organizational transformation driven by stretch goals, performance measurement, and accountability. When Kasper Rorsted became CEO of Henkel, a Germany-based producer of personal care, laundry, and adhesives products, in 2008, he was determined to transform a corporate culture of "good enough" into one singularly focused on winning in a competitive marketplace. Historically, Henkel was a comfortable, stable place to work. Many employees never received negative performance feedback. Seeking to overturn a pervasive attitude of complacency, Rorsted implemented a multi-step change initiative aimed at building a "winning culture." First, in November 2008, he announced a set of ambitious financial targets for 2012. As financial turmoil roiled the global economy, he reaffirmed his commitment to these targets, sending a clear signal to Henkel employees and external stakeholders that excuses were no longer acceptable. Rorsted next introduced a new set of five company values-replacing the previous list of 10 values, which few employees could recite by memory-the first of which emphasized a focus on customers. He also instituted a new, simplified performance management system, which rated managers' performance and advancement potential on a four-point scale. The system also included a forced ranking requirement, mandating that a defined percentage of employees (in each business unit and company-wide) be ranked as top, strong, moderate, or low performers. These ratings significantly impacted managers' bonus compensation. In late 2011-the time in which the case takes place-Henkel is well on its way to achieving its 2012 targets. Having shed nearly half its top management team, along with numerous product sites and brands, Henkel appears to be a leaner, more competitive, "winning" organization.

The Web 2.0 era is nourished by the emergence of collaboration-conducive web applications, such as blogs, social networks, and wikis. Among these, Wiki has particularly revolutionized the way information is created and shared within a wide variety of organizations, such as educational institutions, research centers, and business enterprises. The technically undemanding nature of Wiki alleviates the burden of mastering cumbersome or complicated technologies, thereby encouraging personnel to share and archive valuable tacit knowledge with other members of the organization. As a result, Wiki helps mitigate the reluctance of members to share knowledge, resolving one of the most pronounced challenges in managerial efforts to capture, transfer, and store knowledge for the firm. This case study presents the inception of a wiki by the NBC Universal Software Engineering and Delivery Team and the expansion of the wiki to other departments in the firm, in particular to Peacock Productions, which specializes in programming of documentary TV programs. The Peacock Productions case demonstrates that Wiki can be a powerful tool for managing knowledge in business corporations, which must adapt quickly to changing market demands.

Thoroughbred horse racing was in decline at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century. Nearly all metrics, from number of horses and races, to attendance, and amount wagered, was falling. Studies indicated this was likely to continue. Horse race tracks made their money from wagering-where once racing had a monopoly on gambling in the U.S., now there were a wide range of options for gamblers. Del Mar racetrack in California was suffering the same fate as other tracks. In 2001, it embarked on a radical new marketing strategy, appealing to a young, hip demographic, families, and couples, rather than older, male gamblers. The case describes the situation facing the racing industry and track management, the rebranding strategy, and results. It challenges students to determine whether the strategy used by Del Mar is applicable to other tracks, or if it is limited due to unique circumstances at Del Mar. This case focuses on horse racing from the perspective of tracks. A companion case, SPM-50: Stonestreet Farms: Making a Business in the "Sport of Kings," focuses on the industry from the perspective of race horse owners and breeders.

Movie-industry analyst David Fitzhugh must estimate the value of the sequel rights associated with Chance Encounters (CE), a soon-to-be-produced movie. The producers of CE intend to use the cash from the sale of the sequel rights to help fund production of the original movie. With the purchase of the sequel rights to CE, the client intends to produce a sequel to CE--should the original movie prove successful.

Canada Goose is a Canadian maker of high-end winter outdoor clothing. Currently available in 40 countries, the company's chief executive officer (CEO) is considering entering the South Korean market. Were Canada Goose to enter South Korea, the CEO knew that there were several issues that had to be resolved. There were complicated distributor issues, and the CEO was also uncertain about which style of jacket to sell to the new customer groups. Finally, deciding how to position Canada Goose in order to reach the two target groups for Canada Goose in South Korea was something that had bothered him ever since he had first received the market research. Those issues aside, the CEO also had to consider how the current state of the company, both in North America and Western Europe, would impact the success of a full-scale foray into South Korea. The CEO was excited for the opportunity for Canada Goose in South Korea, but yet he was stymied on how to maximize growth while positioning the brand as strongly as possible.

Facebook's director of policy communications was faced with a situation caused by a YouTube video posted by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Greenpeace. This video publicly critiqued the environmental sustainability of Facebook's decision to build a new data center, its main objection being the fact that the new facility would be connected to a local utility provider that supplied electricity mainly from the burning of coal, one of the largest sources of global warming. This video was only the latest of a series of actions, commenced by Greenpeace eight months earlier, immediately following Facebook's decision to build the new facility. Greenpeace had dubbed these actions the "Unfriend Coal Campaign," which now had 500,000 followers and had generated numerous media stories. Greenpeace's goal was to pressure Facebook into adopting cleaner energy policies by leveraging Facebook's own social media against the company. As Facebook had no plans to stop building the facility, the director needed to figure out the best course of action for Facebook to take in response to the mounting pressure from Greenpeace in order to alleviate the increasingly negative attention from media and consumers.

In late September 2009, nine months after he took office, President Barack Obama appointed Shelley Metzenbaum to the position of associate director for performance and personnel management at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. Metzenbaum's charge was to lead government-wide efforts to improve the performance of federal agencies: in short, to make government work better. To improve performance and public confidence in government, the Obama administration wanted agencies to set ambitious goals focused on improving outcomes. Metzenbaum was the administration's choice for advancing this agenda. Metzenbaum realized she had many options from which to choose, but few resources with which to carry out her charge: she had a tiny staff, strained budget and very little direct influence over the agencies tasked with improving their performance. This case focuses on the challenge facing Metzenbaum as she contemplates each of her choices in her approach to indirect management. Case number 1980.0

As the commercial real estate market began to crash in early 1990, heavily exposed banks like Citibank and Chase Manhattan were left largely undercapitalized. John Reed, Citibank Chairman and CEO, was caught off guard by the sudden market plunge. While Reed struggled to maintain the capital reserve of us his bank further weaknesses within Citi began to emerge. In addition, to missing the coming of the real estate crisis Citi had had poorly managed internal operations, overvalued acquisitions and grown heavy from organizational excess. The poor management left Citi in the care of Federal Regulators, worried about the banks solvency. The case examines the roots of these problems and the steps taken by Reed to return the bank to a well-managed and stable institution.

Some of China's most successful entrepreneurs and founders of private enterprises naturally came together to share the insights and tactics that helped them and their businesses survive and thrive in China's rapidly changing business environment. Soon, the group's mandate expanded to include improving the environment for private business in China and conducting outreach to help spread the word about the important role entrepreneurs played in a modern market economy. How has the China Entrepreneurs Forum been an innovative business and social organization in modern China? What lies in the future for them?

Sarah McIvor, CA, a junior partner with Price Waterhouse Coopers, has been selected to conduct a financial review of Gemini Electronics Ltd. Gemini is an "up-start" American electronics company who recently went public and now wants to expand its business to rival the major Korean and Japanese producers. Before the company finalizes any expansion plans, Dr. Wang, the founder, feels it is prudent to conduct an independent evaluation of Gemini's financial condition.

The CEO received the draft 2008 financial statements for Strong Tie, a manufacturer of structural connectors used in the building industry. He began to question the company's performance when he compared them to previous years. How were profits holding up given the intense price competition in the industry? Were attempts to lower costs through more automation paying off? Where the current problems in the U.S. housing market going to continue to reduce demand for connectors? How would lenders react to this poor performance? Was the company's financing in danger? After discussing the matter extensively with Strong Tie's CFO, it was decided that an outside consultant should be hired to provide an independent analysis of the company's recent performance and to provide suggestions for future action.

Since its founding in 1980, Ashoka: Innovators for the Public had supported the work of over 3,000 of the world's most visionary social entrepreneurs; men and women who, in Ashoka founder Bill Drayton's words, are tireless pioneers of "system-changing solutions that advance the world's most urgent social problems." Through these efforts, Ashoka was also widely credited with building the larger field of social entrepreneurship. And yet, just at the moment when Ashoka's dynamism had propelled social entrepreneurship into the mainstream, Drayton and his colleagues embraced an even more expansive view of social change. According to this new vision, everyone in society, not only the most path-breaking social entrepreneurs, could and should be "changemakers" (the EACH vision). Drayton believed that this shift was such a "fundamental change, that it affects everything;" the revolution went far beyond Ashoka, to include not only the basic architecture of organizations -a move from walled hierarchies to teams of teams- but also the generative sources of knowledge and information which could be open sourced and widely shared. This case traces the evolution of Ashoka's mission and vision for social change, and the programmatic and organizational changes required to accommodate the EACH worldview.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems introduce changes on a larger scale than most other systems. They link various components of the organization and modify its structure by deploying standardized processes and data models, which can lead to higher efficiency and significant cost savings. This case shows the adjustment dynamic between an ERP system and the other components of the organization. The project is a very large one, involving an investment of several hundred million dollars. The results are impressive. Bombardier implemented new processes through the use of the system, changed the roles of its employees, created a different way of looking at the organization and its activities and established new value indicators that helped crystallize the new behaviours.

Appirio, a Cloud Computing services and consulting business, is experiencing explosive growth buoyed by its successful strategic partnerships with Google and Salesforce.com. The company practices what it preaches -- choosing to keep all of its systems in the cloud. Appirio's senior leadership team is convinced that building its venture on the cloud offers extreme competitive advantages in terms of agility, ability to scale and employee empowerment to drive rapid innovation. Will Appirio ascend to rocket heights or are the skies darkening with challenges that will hurt a cloud pure-play such as Appirio? What lessons, if any, are there for other entrepreneurs hoping to turn their IT systems into an entrepreneurial growth engine?

The subject of the case is a socially-responsible hedge fund. The options valued are written on two firms AstraZeneca plc and Medco Health Solutions, Inc. with documented and recognized social responsibility practices.

With China shifting toward a consumer-led growth model, non-bank lending has a critical role to play, but how easy is it to do business in this sector? What are the promises and pitfalls of the industry, and how well is Zane Wang, the case protagonist, navigating them?

In 2009, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, the organization tasked with building a Mass Transit System for India's capital city Delhi, witnessed the biggest crisis in its history. A bridge under construction collapsed killing six people and injuring 15 more. Despite its history of meeting deadlines and working with allocated costs, the Corporation came under a lot of public censure. There was immense pressure on the Corporation to suspend its engineers and fire the construction contractor. On the other hand, it had to meet the deadline of operationalizing the second phase of the Metro Network by October 2010 in time for the XIXth Commonwealth Games. The case focuses on the challenges that the Managing Director Dr. E. Sreedharan faced as the crisis unfolded. It examines the Corporation's unique structure and management ethic that had so far enabled it to function within timeline and costs.