E638
George Foster, Ryan Rissick
2018
Established in 2010, the endurance event start-up Tough Mudder experienced rapid international expansion in the years following the company’s inception. By 2013, the company had developed a cult-like following and an extremely powerful brand. However…
SM290
Robert Burgelman, Sheila Melvin
2018
Bahwan CyberTek (BCT) was an IP-enabled technology company founded in 1999 by Sheikah Hind Bahwan (Hind) and S. Durgaprasad (DP). Over the years, it had grown into a global provider of innovative software products and services and had become a $275…
P94
Ken Shotts, Sheila Melvin
2018
This case describes President Donald Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs of 2018. The case covers the recent history of U.S. trade protectionism in these industries, as well as the domestic and international politics surrounding the Trump tariffs. The…
SM314
Robert Siegel, Peter Seibert
2018
Headspace in 2018 examines the company as it charts a new trajectory. The case follows the point of view of Randhir Vieira, Head of Product at Headspace, and dives into several challenges and opportunities from a Product Manager’s perspective. Topics…
OB95
Jeffrey Pfeffer
2018
As a student at the Harvard Business School, Sadiq Gillani decided to focus his career on the airline industry. This case study explores Gillani’s strategic decisions to take positions with aviation consulting companies, start-up airlines, and budget…
E657
George Foster, Julie Makinen, Dominic Mirabile
2018
This case traces the journey of Juan Pablo Zorrilla and Javier Velasquez as they conceive the idea for a debt-settlement business in Mexico, develop the business, and expand it to Colombia, Argentina and Spain. Zorrilla and Velasquez modeled Resuelve…
M374
Jordan Raney, Wendy Reicher, Vanessa Lide, Naomi Bagdonas, Jennifer Aaker
2018
There was nothing humorous about an athlete’s dreams of Olympic gold, or the mission statement and values of USA Water Polo, a nonprofit that trained elite athletes to compete in the highest levels of competition worldwide. This case study looks at the…
M375
Paricha Duangtaweesub, Naomi Bagdonas, Jennifer Aaker
2018
Mary Roach established a name for herself with a series of humorous articles on the human body, then became a best-selling author of books like Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, and Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal. How did she choose…
M376
Scott Katalenich, Naomi Bagdonas, Jennifer Aaker
2018
Mike Nemeth was a sophomore at West Point on 9/11. The atmosphere in the weeks that followed was somber, but Nemeth soon launched an underground humor factory, taping his mildly subordinate newspaper to the inside of latrine stall doors. Nemeth and his…
RE141
Chris Mahowald, Hanna X. Tian, Melinda Ellis Evers
2018
Melinda Ellis Evers, a Bay Area native and Stanford GSB alumna, founded Ellis Partners (Ellis), a commercial real estate investment and development firm in 1993 together with her father and brother. One of Ellis’ projects was the redevelopment of an…
E656C
Charles O'Reilly, Lorraine Reid
2018
Brown Bag Films produced programming for Disney, Amazon, BBC, and Nickelodeon, reaching an audience of more than 100 million pre-school children around the world. This case examines the development of Brown Bag Films, which began in 1994 as a partnership…
E656A
Charles O'Reilly, Lorraine Reid
2018
Brown Bag Films produced programming for Disney, Amazon, BBC, and Nickelodeon, reaching an audience of more than 100 million pre-school children around the world. This case examines the development of Brown Bag Films, which began in 1994 as a partnership…
E656B
Charles O'Reilly, Lorraine Reid
2018
Brown Bag Films produced programming for Disney, Amazon, BBC, and Nickelodeon, reaching an audience of more than 100 million pre-school children around the world. This case examines the development of Brown Bag Films, which began in 1994 as a partnership…
A235
Ron Kasznik, Joseph Piotroski, Kweku Fleming, Corinne Augustine
2018
Havilah Merchants Nigeria Ltd. is Nigeria’s leading one-stop shop for outfitting libraries and archives. It serves three primary market segments: (i) public university libraries, (ii) multi-national companies in the oil and gas industry and (iii) banking…
OIT113
Michael Lepech, Erica Plambeck, Margot Sutherland
2018
This case describes the 2016 market entry in California of an innovative construction system for housing: BONE Structure, developed by the Canadian company of the same name. The choice of this structural system and construction method for a single family…
SM308
Robert Siegel, David Kingbo
2018
As retail shopping has changed with the rise of e-commerce, Target Corporate, one of the largest retail stores in the United States, made the strategic decision to invest in developing a core data science and technology team to remain competitive in its…
ETH15-A
Ken Shotts, Neil Malhotra, Sheila Melvin
2018
In April 2018, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was called to Capitol Hill to be the star witness at congressional hearings intended to examine Facebook’s “breaches of trust” with its users and “larger questions about the fundamental…
ETH15-B
Ken Shotts, Neil Malhotra, Sheila Melvin
2018
In April 2018, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was called to Capitol Hill to be the star witness at congressional hearings intended to examine Facebook’s “breaches of trust” with its users and “larger questions about the fundamental…
SM310
Robert E. Siegel, Robert A. Burgelman, Jeffrey Conn
2018
The purpose of this case is to look at Autodesk’s cultural, organizational and technological challenges as the company undergoes a recent leadership transition. The case examines the strategic agenda enacted under Autodesk CEO Andrew Anagnost: the…
SM313
Gang Zheng, Yanting Guo, Robert A. Burgelman
2018
The case describes Xiaomi’s IPO application in 2018, which sheds light on the company’s finances and indicates a rebound from declining sales two years ago to a period of strong international growth. It also reveals Xiaomi’s revenue and profits from…
E662
Peter Kelly, H. Irving Grousbeck, Austin Yoder, Sara Rosenthal
2018
Since 1996, the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Stanford Graduate School of Business has conducted a series of studies on the performance of search funds. These studies endeavor to gather data and gain insight into all known search funds. The…
SM301
Robert A. Burgelman, Julie Makinen
2018
Stephen Pratt and Raj Joshi – two veterans of Infosys Consulting – decided in 2016 to launch Noodle Analytics (Noodle.ai) to provide AI capabilities to Fortune 1000 type companies under a SaaS-type business model. The case traces Noodle Analytics from…
E652
Robert Siegel, Peter Seibert
2018
This case examines a series of challenges facing the Wikimedia Foundation as it sets its strategic course for the next decade. Topics include mission alignment, non-profit revenue models, technology evolution, regulation and the freedom of knowledge, and…
SM176D
Robert Siegel, Robert Burgelman, Cameron Lehman
2018
In July 2018, Google’s Android software platform was fined $5 billion by the EU’s Antitrust Commission. This case follows Hiroshi Lockheimer, SVP at Google responsible for Android, Google Play, Chrome and ChromeOS, as he and his team respond to the fine…
