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The case describes the political, regulatory and stakeholder challenges confronting the founder of Porter Airlines, located in Toronto, Ontario, during the 2002/03 period when he was seeking formal permits to launch the airline from Toronto City Centre airport. The case also includes information on the market opportunity for a new airline, enabling students to assess a) the business case for new entry into a hyper-competitive industry, b) the appropriate competitive strategies for successful performance and c) the political or "non market" strategies for managing stakeholder and political opposition.

Nippon Steel Corporation, the largest Japanese steel producer and second largest in the world faces challenges in pursuing strategy to become a true global player. Nippon Steel had long been the top Japanese company, however the emergence of a global player, Arcelor-Mittal, prompted globalization of the steel industry. The company feels the urgent need to also globalize the company by not just increasing overseas production but also making necessary changes to the company structure.

The executive committee of SaskTel had recently approved a proposal to launch its LifeState health monitoring system to the Canadian marketplace. The company's senior director of marketing must develop a marketing plan, including distribution and promotion, for the proposed product launch in six months' time. She will have to make decisions quickly in order to present a proposal to the executive committee within two weeks.

Intermountain Healthcare is a 21-hospital integrated delivery system serving Utah and southern Idaho that is nationally recognized for its highly structured approach to managing the quality of clinical care. This case describes Intermountain's system for improving clinical performance that makes use of the organization's extensive set of standardized clinical protocols and associated clinical process and outcome measures. The measures underpin a sophisticated set of financial incentives that are applied to both administrative and clinical staff. The case allows students to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of financial incentives in clinical medicine.

An executive from pharmaceutical company GSK must choose how much to integrate a recently acquired biotechnology firm, Sirtris. Moncef Slaoui, GSK's Global head of R&D, championed the acquisition of Sirtris to gain access to its potentially revolutionary science. Slaoui must balance the need to recoup shareholder value after paying a two-times premium for Sirtris with his desire to retain Christoph Westphal, Sirtris's co-founder and CEO, and other key individuals at the company. His desire to protect Sirtris from GSK's size and bureaucracy occurs in a period when GSK has launched major changes in its R&D organization, which focus on decentralizing and externalizing R&D, as well as revamping the resource allocation process to parallel more of a venture capital-based model. The case also explores the views of Christoph Westphal on the early challenges of the integration and the impact GSK was having on Sirtris. Can be used in conjunction with a separate case that focuses on Sirtris's business model.

Peter Barge, CEO of the newly created Corporate Solutions Group of Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), is executing a restructuring of the U.S. corporate real estate services division that will enable the company to offer its clients integrated solutions. Barge has created an account management function to coordinate the activities of the three, product-based business units which, until now, have operated autonomously. As he is executing the restructuring, Bank of America, an important account of the firm, announces its intention to reduce its providers to the two or three who can offer forward-looking, integrated services. While Barge's new organization is not yet fully in place, he is determined to win the Bank of America business, and moves quickly to hire a senior account manager and establish an organizational architecture that will encourage collaboration within his group. The case examines the many tradeoffs Barge must make in balancing the benefits of the former organization with those of the new structure to achieve the firm's strategic goal of becoming more customer solutions oriented.

The Silk Soymilk brand evolves from a single homemade product to a regional then national brand, facing challenges such as investment influx, acquisition, and competition from new entrants into the market it created. Silk's marketing angles at various growth stages are discussed, and students consider whether the company should expand its presence or develop new categories and how its efforts could best realize growth targets. Which option carries the biggest risks, and which would best enhance its position as a market leader?

Can the return of its founding CEO turn a lagging Starbucks around? Howard Shultz must map a strategy that addresses the company's decreasing sales and perhaps too rapid growth. Had the previous CEO's efforts to streamline operations compromised the Starbucks experience or was a changing economy to blame? Schultz considers whether to close existing stores, slow U.S. growth while expanding overseas, and improve the customer experience, which he believed had eroded the company's value proposition.

Schneirocksie Electric is an asset-focused company that has been a successful manufacturer of high-quality electrical components that transmit, control, and monitor electrical power. Management has long considered sales and marketing's job as selling what the plants make. However, customer demand indicates that this approach will no longer work; lower-cost competitors are now capable of duplicating Schneirocksie's products and services. The company must transition to providing and selling solutions to its customers, but doing so will involve the creation of an effective strategic account sales position. The current company structure, compensation system, and culture are significant obstacles to this transition and must also be changed. Finally, the company's management must learn to focus first on the job its customers are hiring it to do and then redesign itself to do this job.

With the competitive 2007 holiday season approaching, Gary Hawkins (CEO of Green Hills Market, an independent grocery retailer in Syracuse, NY) was looking for a promotional program that would keep his best customers coming to Green Hills for all of their holiday meal shopping. Hawkins knew that his larger competitors (such as Price Chopper, Wegmans, and Wal-Mart) would use their size and buying power to procure products at the lowest possible cost, enabling them to offer rock bottom prices. Hawkins was looking for a program that would take advantage of Green Hills' proprietary systems for tracking customers' buying patterns and shopping preferences. The promotional program under consideration was a continuity program, in which shoppers earned points that could be redeemed for pieces of Arzberg porcelain. Hawkins and his team needed to establish their objectives for the holiday season and decide whether or not the Arzberg promotion was right for Green Hills Market. The case can be accompanied by a data set ("M318 Green Hills Data Set") that captures weekly expenditures by a sample of 1000 households shopping at Green Hills Market before, during, and after the Arzberg promotional program. The students can use these data (and other information available in the case) to examine how well the Arzberg promotion actually worked. "M318 Green Hills Data Set" can be obtained from [email protected].

In January 2008, Márcio Luiz Simões Utsch, president & CEO of Sâo Paulo Alpargatas S.A., and his management team are looking at how to turn Havaianas, a leading brand in rubber flip flops, into a major global brand. Learning objectives: The case looks at how a Brazilian footwear company is trying to build a global brand in a highly competitive industry.

This two-class case series allows students to stand in the shoes of CEO Ray Gilmartin during the unfolding stages of a reputational crisis. Merck's mission statement claims to "put patients first," but the company is widely criticized for putting profit before patient safety. The (A) case describes the discovery of Vioxx, a new arthritis drug, and asks students to calculate the drug's lifetime expected value. Supplements are handed out in class as the story unfolds: (B) evidence of life-threatening side effects, (C) decision options, (D) announcement to withdraw Vioxx, (E) reaction by patients, shareholders, media, and regulators, (F) Merck fights back, and (G) wrap-up. At the end of the case series, students may conclude that doing the right thing sometimes requires very hard choices.

In June 2008, the chief executive officer of Talisman Energy Inc. (Talisman) and his senior executive team met with the company's board of directors. The purpose of this meeting was to debate Talisman's proposed entry into the oil-rich Kurdistan region of Iraq. This move was potentially very lucrative for Talisman but was fraught with risks. These risks were exacerbated by Talisman's previous foray into Sudan; during that expansion Talisman had been accused of complicity in human-rights abuses, stemming from industry-accepted royalties and fees it had paid to the government. This payment of fees was held as an example by public interest groups to allege that Talisman was indirectly funding the Sudanese civil war. Talisman's reputation had suffered to the point where the ire of investors and U.S. and Canadian governments was sufficient for Talisman to exit Sudan in 2003. There were many questions about the proposed move to Iraq, including the political situation, the views of the U.S. and Canadian government, and especially the US$220 million fee payable to the Kurdistan Regional Government. Should Talisman enter Iraq, and if so, could they avoid experiencing the same outcome as Sudan?

LAB International (LAB) has two divisions that have vastly different strategies. The research and development division has a continuing need for funding and a high degree of risk, while the contract research division is a cash generator and is less risky. LAB is attempting to raise additional capital but believes that the shares of the company are undervalued in the market. It is contemplating a spinoff of one of the divisions to raise the funds and to make each company more of a pure play and therefore to achieve a more appropriate market valuation. Students must assess the merits of this strategy and place a value on the spinoff.

The case follows Andrew Housser and Brad Stroh, two recent graduates from the Stanford GSB, as they search for a business opportunity and ultimately start a company in the consumer finance industry. It covers their inspiration for the business idea and their decision to initially bootstrap the company. The case then highlights some of the complexities involved in managing a rapidly growing business. Specifically, Housser and Stroh are faced with challenging decisions regarding expansion/opening a second call center and with hiring/firing and the resulting difficult conversations with employees. Finally, the case concludes with an overview of a lawsuit currently filed against the company and the founders trying to decide the best course of action for Freedom Financial Network.

bracNet, a for-profit/nonprofit partnership, aims to establish Internet connectivity throughout Bangladesh. Venture capitalist Patrik Brummer invested in a first round of funding to connect major cities. Should he invest again, this time in a rural roll-out, which may have lower financial returns but greater social returns?

Dexter Nelson recently accepted a summer analyst position at PPC Consulting (PPC) in Toronto, and was excited to take on the challenge in a high-performance organization. It had only been a few days since he had started his internship when the rest of Dexter Nelson's team left to conduct primary research at a client site. Left alone to work on his first real project, he began to feel overwhelmed. Having recognized the project as a new product launch, Nelson wanted to identify key elements to address in the financial model. He also wanted to identify a series of actions to make a significant contribution not only to the client, but his team. He began to approach his task by identifying his problem and decision to be made, using an importance-urgency matrix and developing and analyzing appropriate alternatives.

The case explores the entrepreneurial journey of Oprah Winfrey, examining how she built an audience for one of the most successful television shows in history; how she created the company, Harpo Productions, that produces that show as well as other media offerings; how she leads and manages her organization; and how she has chosen to use the authority and other fruits of success to make a significant social as well as business contribution. The case uses interviews with Winfrey and her team to analyze how the business model and strategy of the company has changed-in the context of a dynamic marketplace, rapid technological innovation and Winfrey's own evolving conception of her purpose and path.

In early 2008, managers at Linden Lab, creator of the virtual world Second Life, faced decisions about the company's growth strategy. Despite profound initial skepticism about demand for a user-generated virtual world that was not a traditional game, Second Life had achieved profitability and strong growth. However, sustaining growth would prove challenging. Growth had strained Linden Lab's technical infrastructure. Also, although Second Life had attracted a large, loyal base of early adopters, it was unclear whether their preferences were similar to those of mainstream consumers. In this context, management faced choices about platform strategy and target markets. Should Linden Lab continue to offer an open platform or build its own solutions for customers? Should it target adult consumers, teens, enterprise customers, or the education market?