In January 2011, China-based Joyson Automotive Group (Joyson) acquired Preh GmbH (Preh), a German manufacturer of high-end automotive components. While Joyson had lower capabilities in areas such as management and engineering, it was able to ensure a successful acquisition of the more competent firm Preh after years of careful planning and relationship building. Joyson had grown over 14 years to become a US$10 billion manufacturing company by continuously .....more

In late May 2020, the two founding and managing partners at Redhill Capital, in the Pearl River New City district of Guangzhou, China, were considering various reasons why the year was developing far differently than they had expected. The two-year-old venture capital firm''s limited partners and investees were all shocked by the dire developments, as was the entire country and the whole world. Earlier that year, rapidly spreading outbreaks .....more

Despite their embrace of agile methods, many firms striving to innovate are struggling to produce breakthrough ideas. A key culprit, according to the authors, is an outdated, inefficient approach to decision-making. Today''s discovery-driven innovation processes involve an unprecedented number of choices, from which ideas to pursue to countless decisions about how to conduct experiments, what data to collect, and so on. But these choices are .....more

This case is the third installment in a series about the 10-year cultural and digital transformation of Pfizer''s Global Clinical Supply organization. In 2011, Michael Ku became Pfizer''s Vice President of Global Clinical Supply (GCS) after the company had undergone three large-scale mergers and acquisitions. Ku and his new leadership team set out to build a proactive, end-to-end, digital and physical clinical supply chain. It took .....more

Handout for Case SMU837

The co-founders of PhonePe, India''s leading digital payment platform are considering pursuing various growth opportunities in a huge country just entering the digital age. In a highly competitive industry, the founders are keenly aware that making the right choices is not only a matter of opportunity cost but critical to preserving the company''s market leadership. PhonePe began as an enabling platform between parties and, unlike .....more

The final case in the series of Janet Ames looks at the challenges of managing a nonprofit and what to do in the instance of suspected fraud.

Harambe was a non-profit organization whose mission was to build an ecosystem to identify promising young African entrepreneurs and provide them access to training, markets, capital, and support networks. From 2007 to 2021, Harambe had grown to a network of 367 entrepreneurs, known as "Harambeans". They had collectively raised over $800 million in capital, created more than 3,500 jobs, and claimed three of the six African startup unicorns .....more

In mid-2021, Maaz Sheikh, cofounder and CEO of STARZPLAY, a Dubai-based subscription video on demand (SVOD) provider that catered to the Middle East and North Africa region, was wrestling with how to find the right balance between continued subscriber growth and profitability. Founded in 2015, the company was the first major SVOD player in the region providing high quality and affordable Hollywood content. STARZPLAY rapidly grew its subscriber base .....more

When the author agreed to accept the top job at UPS, the global shipping service, in late winter of 2019, she expected to steer the company toward a brighter future. She had no idea that she would have to do it during a global pandemic that made her organization an essential service but kept most people at home and pushed demand for shipped goods to holiday levels year-round. When she officially took over, in June 2020, she gathered her top team .....more