In July 2015, Managed by Q co-founder and CEO Dan Teran was trying to decide how best to grow the 15-month old on-demand office cleaning and maintenance company. As Teran saw it, Q, which differentiated itself from the competition by leveraging people and technology, could grow by acquiring customer...

This case describes how leaders at Mud Bay, a chain of pet products based in Pacific Northwest, changed the way they operated their business from 2014 to 2017. They adopted a framework that included heavy investment in people with operational choices that leverage that investment by increasing produ...