In mid-2018, the U.S. auto industry was in the early stages of what many believed would be a significant evolution in how people thought about and used cars. The future would be dominated by electric and autonomous vehicles. Car ownership in which people paid for a hard asset with all its bells and ...

Corning’s Growth and Strategy Council—a centralized team that included the CEO, COO, and CTO who were heavily involved in managing the company’s innovation strategy—had enabled the company to continually re-create itself with new technologies and products. Set in 2008, the case highlights the inner ...

In June 2007, Mexico-based CEMEX became one of the world’s largest suppliers of building materials after attaining a majority stake in Australia’s Rinker Group. Just 24 months earlier, the company had acquired U.K.-based RMC. While CEMEX’s successful growth strategy could be attributed to its unique...

In November 2006, with the launch of the Sony PlayStation 3 a mere weeks away, Sony Corporation’s CEO Sir Howard Stringer reflected on the past 30-year history of the video game industry, while crossing his fingers that the PS3 would have a successful launch in an increasingly cut-throat industry.

The synthetic diamond industry was on the radar of diamond giant DeBeers as a potential disruptive technology. In 2009, after years of concerted efforts to improve its tarnished reputation as the industry monopolist, DeBeers was wondering how it should respond to the threat.

The performance of the luxury performance car segment closely mirrored trends in the broader luxury goods sector, and both were buoyed by rising global wealth and demand for high-end products in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. During the global recession of 2008-2009, however, demand ...

Active Surfaces, an MIT start-up that developed low-cost, ultra-lightweight, flexible solar panels designed to be applied to practically any surface, serves as the setting for a simple bookkeeping exercise that has students utilize the balance sheet equation to record a series of business transactio...

On May 15, 2017, Amazon.com celebrated the 20th anniversary of its initial public offering (IPO). The company’s first twenty years was a period of remarkable growth but with very little to show in terms of accounting earnings. This reflected Amazon’s strategy of investing in expansion and research a...

The 2007-09 Great Recession took a huge bite out of the U.S. restaurant industry as consumers ate out less often. Even during the subsequent economic recovery, ongoing financial concerns continued to depress the appetite for eating out. The casual dining sector, situated in the middle ground between...

Throughout 2017 and into 2018, Tesla was burning through cash as the company sought to ramp up production of its Model 3 all-electric vehicle (EV). Investors were questioning whether Tesla would need to raise additional capital. While the company had been successful in the past at issuing both equit...