個案總覽

Operation Walk Canada (Operation Walks) was a private not-for-profit orthopaedic surgical mission organization based in London, Ontario. Its purpose was to provide total hip and knee replacement surgeries to patients in low- and middle-income countries, such as Guatemala. who had little or no access to orthopaedic care due to social, political, and economic factors. For two years, the COVID-19 pandemic had forced the mission to temporarily pause its work, leaving behind an ever-growing waiting list of patients who needed life-changing surgical care. However, the tremendous burden of the pandemic, coupled with existing gaps in the health care services in Canada, resulted in an overwhelming need for support that went beyond the organization's capacity. For the organization to meet this demand, the team members needed an effective and sustainable strategy that would maximize its ability to meet the orthopaedic health care needs of the population. Operation Walk must now consider key challenges before returning to Antigua, Guatemala, in the spring of 2022.

In 2021, the head of cold storage for North America at A. P. Moller-Maersk (Maersk) was assigned the challenging task of meeting cold-storage requirements for a key client. Increasing demand for frozen food, coupled with many consumers adopting "hoarding" behaviour after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, heightened pressure on already-strained cold-storage facilities across the United States. To show the value of adopting Maersk's end-to-end logistics services, the head of cold storage and his team had to develop a flexible operational plan for the client. The task was especially difficult in such a hot market, but gaining the trust of this client was critical for Maersk's goal of establishing a strong hold in the US cold-storage market.

This case presents the unique approach to philanthropy of the Ahlstrom family. A group of 25 fifth-generation female Ahlstrom family members founded the Eva Ahlstrom foundation in 2010, in the name of the family matriarch Eva Ahlstrom (1848-1920), who was a big contributor to society in her time. This led to the establishment of the Ahlstrom Collective Impact in 2020. The uniqueness of the Ahlstrom Collective Impact lies in the power that comes from bringing all entities together under one umbrella, and letting purpose and values be the guiding principles that unite the Ahlstrom network. The core mission is to inspire, engage and involve everyone - employees and shareholders alike - to create a better understanding of what rights children have, and why and how their realization affects our businesses, our societies and our future.

This case provides an overview of a sales transformation in the industrial automation division at Belden, a hardware manufacturer. While Belden historically sold products such as cables, wires, and other networking devices, EVP of Industrial Automation Ashish Chand recognized that IT vendors were threatening to enter the hardware market. Thus, Chand initiated Enhanced Solutions Delivery (ESD), which pivoted Belden from selling products to selling solutions to optimize customers' networks. ESD required Belden to change its sales cycle, its approach to hiring, pricing model, and compensation structure. The case explores how Belden's leadership team implemented these changes, and how Belden navigated its changing relationship with channel partners and distribution partners.

The case discusses the relatively low technology approach used by Russia to influence the U.S. Presidential Election in 2016. Although political parties manipulating the media was not a new phenomenon, the Russians ran a broad, well-financed, and sophisticated social media campaign that started in 2014 and grew each year. Russia's IRA (Internet Research Agency) managed messages, and posted links and content across Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Like any disciplined marketer, they tested content on a few sites and doubled down on messages that worked. Messages relied heavily on sharable memes tailored to the identity of each target group based on political affiliation, religion, ethnicity, and geography. The IRA initially focused on building trust and group identity by creating a sense of belonging. Over time, these morphed into messages that were external threats to the group identity with an aim to sway behavior. Russia's ability to meddle with the Presidential election was partly the result of systemic weaknesses in the U.S. governance of social media platforms. The leaders of social media platforms admitted that state actors had gamed their platforms to influence politics. However, underlining the misinformation campaign were opaque, influential algorithms that determined what content was viewed by billions of internet users. In a quest to capture attention and maximize engagement, these had fractured social norms necessary for a healthy democracy -- leaving populations vulnerable to online misinformation.

The case tells the story of a strategic change and cultural shift at Innolume a start-up focused on unique laser production. George Gogolev, who represents the company's investors, is attempting to move the company away from customized productions for niche applications to mass production for the datacom market. Innolume won the Prism award - the "Oscar" of the photonics industry - for a laser dedicated to data transmission. However, the company lacked clear market vision, financing, production methods, quality controls and product readiness level. Although George convinced the investors to support the turnaround, it became apparent that the company's main challenge were cultural in nature. The Germany-based Innolume team consisted mainly of Russian scientists who were highly focused on R&D and technological excellence. At the same time, they lacked business development and were not customer-centric. The team was not supportive of the investors' initiative and sabotaged the changes, triggering open conflict between the staff and the new management. It took a comprehensive change management process to bring the new strategy and the company culture into alignment, and get the team on board. Finally, the company got on the right track for mass production. However, there were still some challenges related to product readiness. The issue of time becomes critical, and Innolume needs to speed up to benefit from the window of opportunity for entering the datacom market.

Webtoon Entertainment, a subsidiary of Korea's dominant search engine, Naver, with over 60% of the market share, is a prime example of how a company creates and captures new market opportunities in the era of digital transformation. With its humble beginning as a free service to increase user traffic to the portal site by providing digitized comics for web surfers, Webtoon Entertainment reinvented the comic book industry by changing the way comics are created, distributed, and consumed. Briefly, Webtoon Entertainment is a platform that connects creators and users of digital comic content in the form of a vertical layout that is optimized for PC and mobile browsing. The company now boasts 82 million monthly active users on its digital comic platform across the globe. The case explores the key milestones of Webtoon Entertainment to show how the company transformed the comic industry and became the largest storytelling platform in the world. More specifically, it describes how the company unlocked new creative talents and built an ecosystem for webtoon business based on a platform economy, monetized the once-free content into a billion-dollar business, and then rolled it out globally despite cultural and language barriers. Finally, the case describes the challenges ahead that Webtoon Entertainment faces in the lucrative yet competitive comics industry. Interestingly, the case has multimedia materials, including first-hand interviews and infographics, directly embedded between the written content. Students are able to access these materials via QR codes and are visually stimulated while elevating their comprehension of the case. This will be a whole new reading experience for students that immerses them in the evolution of Webtoon Entertainment at a different level, ensuring an active and rich class discussion. The case is suitable for teaching innovation, entrepreneurship, digital transformation, platform strategy, and globalization strategy.

Benny Chung-Ying Zee was a professor at a prestigious university in Hong Kong and founder of Health View Bioanalytic Limited (Health View). Health View offered fast, inexpensive, non-invasive assessments of the risk of stroke and Alzheimer's disease by using artificial intelligence and automatic retinal image analysis (ARIA) of pictures of patients' retinas using fundus cameras. While Health View was breaking even, Zee realized that it was not yet a success. Thus, Zee was considering how to scale up the company to realize the impact of its technology. Zee had to assess the current business model-its value proposition, target market, sales channels, and strategic partners-and determine how he could scale up and redirect Health View.

In May 2019, ByteIQ Analytics was formed in India, with the idea to revolutionize finance through the potential of data. In the beginning, ByteIQ offered data science and analytics capabilities in the form of various services. But the founders aspired to make ByteIQ a product company so they created their first product, BankStorii, in December 2021. BankStorii was designed to aid financial customers to select the best banking products. ByteIQ's chief executive officer had two choices in selecting a suitable business model for BankStorii: make BankStorii available to the country's masses free of charge through a website platform or make BankStorii a proprietary software and license it to banks.

Founded in 1998 in Fribourg, Switzerland, Dartfish developed a video technology able to track movement and trajectory. Its user-friendly analysis tools, known as the SimulCam and StroMotion, set it apart from the competition, allowing it to conquer three market segments: broadcasting and media; sports training and education, physiotherapy, and healthcare; and online video sharing. Being first in a market it had created and the recipient of extensive media coverage, Dartfish quickly expanded its international network to serve a wide spectrum of customers. Over time, however, the market became saturated with competitors popping up everywhere, and, rather than focusing on understanding and serving its clients' needs, the firm worked to develop new technologies. Despite its apparent success, it eventually realized that it was spreading itself too thin and needed to rethink its value proposition. The case provides a platform to explore the internationalization strategies adopted by Dartfish, a born-global firm, and the dos and don'ts of market expansion.

In 2021, the chair of the admissions committee at The School of Management in Gandhinagar, India, had only three months to prepare for the start of the school's next master of business administration program. During these three months, prospective students who had received admission offers could decide to decline offers, even though some had already paid relevant fees. Understanding the uncertainty of those decisions was critical to estimate the number of additional offers to send out to other candidates. If the final number of prospective students joining the program was lower than the school's available capacity, The School of Management would lose contributions toward its fixed business costs and potential profit. It would also mean that the school's resources would be underused. On the other hand, denying admission to students who had received offers to join the program, due to a lack of space, could adversely affect the school's brand image and future admissions. Understanding the decision-making process of prospective students was critical over the long term to develop appropriate retention strategies and encourage all candidates to accept their admission offers.

Copenhagen Airports A/S (CPH) has been severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with flight activity at levels not seen since the 1970s. Although the virus overshadows everything, three senior managers discuss a more long-term trend: the steadily declining revenues of the airport's shopping mall. Over the past number of years, consumer interest in food, beverages, and tax-free items has continuously decreased, posing considerable challenges to CPH's business model. About 80 per cent of the airport's profits are generated by the non-aeronautical business, of which the shopping mall is the biggest part, and CPH needs that income to continue investing into the airport's status as an important hub for airlines. What could CPH do to deliver better existing services, and what new services would merit serious consideration? Could CPH launch new products or services that would be attractive to both passengers and shopping mall tenants, or would it need to redevelop its entire business model? Since the commercial business was key to driving the airport's further development, the managers knew that finding answers to these questions was important to sustaining CPH's position as a leading hub in Northern Europe. The case is not about the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications for the aviation industry. This is a case about the long-term trend of declining revenues in the airport's shopping mall.

Fuyao Glass America (FGA) is an auto glass manufacturing facility in Moraine, Ohio. This case builds upon the story presented in the documentary film American Factory, which outlines how the Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co., Ltd. purchased a closed General Motors plant to launch a US facility that leveraged the Group's Chinese manufacturing expertise. Students are asked to propose a change-management plan for the executive management team to create an inclusive, engaging workplace that bridges cultural differences and attracts and retains the skilled workers necessary to make this facility successful. The case picks up where the American Factory documentary ends, asking students to consider how they might address the challenges faced by FGA's management team as they attempt to expand their manufacturing techniques in the US. In particular, FGA's leadership wrestles with the following: (1) creating an inclusive, engaging workplace that bridges cultural differences; (2) overcoming the talent management challenges revealed during the unionizing effort by the United Auto Workers; and (3) attracting and retaining skilled workers. This case shares FGA's management challenges from the perspectives of the president and CEO of FGA from 2016 to 2022, and the director of HR/employment management at FGA during most of that time. The two executives share information about FGA's talent management practices and the initiatives implemented between 2017 and 2020 to address issues related to the management challenges and employee concerns raised in the documentary and in media accounts.

Ten-year-old, Palo Alto-based Ribbit Capital is best-known for its global investments in fintech. The firm was also an early advocate of crypto and blockchain, having invested in more than two dozen startups in the space in the past decade. In the Spring of 2022, Partner Nick Shalek contemplates an investment into Gauntlet, a Brooklyn-based crypto startup. He weighs not only the pros and cons of the Gauntlet investment in the context of the fund's overall portfolio, but also the deal structure. While investing in crypto startups played to many of the strengths that the Ribbit Capital team had built investing in fintech startups, there were a variety of aspects of crypto startup investing that were new and different. Sourcing deals, performing diligence, providing guidance to entrepreneurs, understanding governance, and negotiating deal terms were similar in principle, but presented new opportunities and challenges to navigate.

This case describes the regional restructuring story of Bank of China (BOC) Liaoning Branch, a provincial branch. In January 2016, BOC's Beijing head office decided to make a crucial strategic adjustment to its institutional setup in Liaoning Province. Tianbing Jia, the newly appointed president of Liaoning Branch, was tasked with splitting up the branch and relocating it from the city of Dalian to the city of Shenyang in just three months. Jia and his executive team made meticulous preparations for the separation and relocation to ensure everything went smoothly while safeguarding employees' well-being. Thanks to the effective work of Jia and his team, the relocation was completed on time. However, this was just the first step in a complicated restructuring process. Following the move, Jia and his team had to start a new organization from the ground up in an unfamiliar city. This presented another significant challenge: integrating Liaoning Branch from Dalian and Shenyang Branch into a new provincial branch.

When Yonyou's founder Wang Wenjing was considering the pros and cons of fully embracing the cloud-based SaaS (software as a service) model, the company was on the road to becoming China's leading ERP software provider. It took years for Yonyou to entirely change its business model from selling software licenses to collecting services fee. Industry-wide, the trend was more than clear that providing cloud-based service would become a predominant business model, but it was still a difficult decision for individual competitors because it would mean a series of changes, including reshaping executives' mindset, reorganizing teams, cutting staff, redefining key performance indicators and incentive plan, to support its shift from the traditional cash cow business to an emerging one. Some actions were painful but necessary. Additionally, Yonyou's management needed to keep a close eye on its financials just in case that investors might not be satisfied with the results. The new business model that Yonyou adopted was a cloud platform that provided a base and a set of uniform standards for partners such as independent developers and service providers to join and prosper. The biggest challenge ahead was to take every opportunity to educate the market and grow its subscription-based revenue so that it was able to stand fast in terms of domestic market share.

Teld was one of China's largest EV charging pile network operators. It was a young company founded by a serial entrepreneur, Yu Dexiang. His first company, TGood, designed and manufactured box-type substations, which represented a relatively small and saturated market. Yu started Teld based on rational analysis of China's EV industry. His strong vision made him an early starter. He adopted high financial leverage to invest in building a nation-wide infrastructure and new technology development. Teld's business did not take off quickly enough, which almost put TGood on the verge of bankruptcy. Deeply influenced by Yu's passion and charisma, no one in the management team, including key scientists, chose to leave even though they had not seen the pay check for three months. Fortunately, after two years of turmoil, favorable government policies came one after another. Teld spared no effort in building joint ventures with China's local governments. Yu needed to find roughly a thousand qualified city managers to oversee local businesses and handle government relations discreetly and wisely.

In January 2021, the chief data and analytics officer (CDAO) at Allianz Benelux SA (Allianz) spotted a possible opportunity to optimize cash flow with direct debit. Direct debit was a pre-authorized financial transaction between two parties where the amount due was directly and automatically collected from the payer's bank account. Direct debit would allow Allianz to shorten payment processes, reduce risks by anticipating payments, and improve customer loyalty. Despite the clear advantages of direct debit for both clients and insurers, only a few of Allianz's clients were currently making use of direct debit. It was not clear what drove Allianz's customers or brokers to implement direct debit. This was where the CDAO and his data office team came in. The data office possessed a large amount of data on Allianz's property and casualty insurance contracts and customers. Now the team needed to investigate how this data could be leveraged to determine the value drivers and develop a strategy to convert more clients to direct debit payments.

One of India's leading stainless steel conglomerates, Jindal Stainless Limited (JSL) specialized in manufacturing flat sheets and coils, specific sections, pipes, and tubes. Abhyudaya Jindal, the managing director of JSL, was recently informed about the growing number of counterfeit products on the market that were adversely impacting JSL's brand reputation and sales, as well as goodwill towards the company. This case explores the challenges faced by Abhyudaya Jindal as he tried to address the issue of counterfeiting in the stainless steel pipes and tubes market. The case discusses various ways a company can battle counterfeit goods and how co-branding can be used as a market strategy. The case also examines how strengthening relationships with channel members can help a brand fight counterfeiting.

By January 2022, approximately 100 employees from Microsoft Corporation's (Microsoft) HoloLens division, which had pioneered augmented reality (AR), quit. Most joined Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly Facebook), despite the company's recent controversies. Meta was seeking talent for metaverse technology that required AR and virtual reality (VR) expertise. Metaverse talent was scant industry wide. Meta offered double salaries to poach talent from Microsoft, its partner for different projects. The executives leaving Microsoft were key employees of the HoloLens division. Microsoft's choice to not hire more engineers after the US Army contract led employees to question Microsoft's commitment toward HoloLens, a part of metaverse technology. However, Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft, confirmed Microsoft's commitment toward metaverse technology, though some employees disagreed. What could Nadella do to retain HoloLens employees? With an increasing demand for metaverse-related skills, how could Nadella attract more talent? Was Meta's employee poaching likely to bring any good news for Microsoft?