In May 2019, the founder of SaladStop!, a Singapore-headquartered healthy salad chain with locations across Asia, was looking for innovative ways to improve the customer experience at SaladStop! stores worldwide. In six months, the founder was planning to renovate one of his branches in Singapore. This renovation would set a precedent for future outlets in terms of layout and design. The founder was aware of rising customer dissatisfaction caused by some service quality issues. As such, there was an urgent need to find a way to maintain customer interactions at SaladStop! while paying attention to customers’ expectations. Should SaladStop! embrace new technologies in the restaurant business, or should it continue to focus on offering a truly authentic customer experience by relying on traditional human touchpoints?

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SATS Ltd., an airline service provider headquartered in Singapore, was the largest air cargo terminal operator at Singapore’s Changi Airport. As a key player in the Asia-Pacific region, it had built its reputation as one of the top air cargo terminal operators in the world. With meticulous strategic planning, it had developed technological capabilities to navigate through many challenges and stay ahead of its competitors. In 2019, multiple challenges were arising from the external factors that had transformed the nature of the global air cargo value chain. An impending labour crisis, coupled with changing customer expectations and the threat of substitutes, meant that the company faced a fresh set of challenges. To fight these challenges, it had to decide whether to further develop its automation capabilities or to focus on driving digitalization within its operations to improve its operational efficiency.

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Atrae Inc. was a Japanese software firm providing platform matching services for job recruitment in the software engineering industry. As compared to traditional Japanese firms, Atrae adopted a unique approach to managing its employees. Instead of the rigid hierarchy and top-down management approach that typified a Japanese firm, Atrae had a flat organizational structure and heavily relied on decentralized decision-making and individual motivation. The company’s unique culture was viewed as a key driver of its business success—success that the company’s founder and chief executive officer wanted to advance with a public listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. However, while the public listing would allow Atrae to grow substantially, it would also necessitate formal organizational checks and balances that could harm the company’s organizational culture. Would a public listing propel Atrae to greater heights or would it result in the company’s demise?

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In September 2020, Moovaz, a startup in the tech-enabled relocation space, was at a critical juncture in its evolution. In the three years since its founding, the company had established its business model, shown impressive growth in revenues, raised S$7 million in Series A funding and acquired a portfolio of established magazines in the form of The Finder. Junxian Lee, co-founder and CEO of Moovaz was optimistic about the prospects of the company going forward, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there were a number of caveats to his optimism. Specifically, possible decline in demand if the world economy continues to struggle and challenges in raising the next round of funding in the face of uncertainty.

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In May 2020, Usha Martin Limited (Usha Martin), a diversified engineering group based in India, was debating strategies for continued future growth. In April 2019, the company had divested its steelmaking and related operations to reduce its debt load. Though the divestment meant a large decline in the company’s sales for the year ended March 2020, the company managed to reverse the trend of losses incurred in several recent quarters and years to earn positive profits. However, attaining future growth remained a challenge for the smaller, focused company, especially given the economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 crisis. It was critical that Usha Martin’s management made the correct strategic choices so that the company could achieve good, long-term, profitable growth.

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In 2020, the Indonesian bank PT Bank Tabungan Pensiunan Nasional Tbk (BTPN) had to make a decision regarding a digital transformation strategy for its future. BTPN had started as a small bank that focused on pensioners, but became known for its innovation after a private equity partner bought a stake in 2008. Initially innovating successfully in microfinance, BTPN decided to go digital by creating an in-house start-up in 2015 called Jenius, thereby leapfrogging to become one of the forerunners in Indonesian digital consumer banking. The COVID-19 pandemic had accelerated digital financial services, and BTPN had to decide how to scale Jenius to transform the company. Was the in-house start-up model the best choice after all, or would the large incumbent banks digitalize faster?

In 2012, one of Singapore’s richest megachurches, City Harvest Church, took the country by storm when six of its leaders were arrested and charged with criminal breach of trust and falsifying accounts. An inquiry conducted by the Commissioner of Charities and the Commercial Affairs Department revealed several questionable practices involving concealment and misrepresentation of the church’s transactions and activities. At the heart of the scandal was the mismanagement of over SGD 50 million of the church’s funds, funneled through sham bonds. About SGD 24 million was allegedly used to further the music career of Sun Ho, co-founder of City Harvest Church and wife of founder and senior pastor Kong Hee. After a long-drawn-out trial, the six accused were found guilty, and sentenced to imprisonment. Despite the guilty verdict, City Harvest Church’s members stood by the pastor and his team, arguing that everything they did was in good faith. The case highlighted the tension between faith and good governance.

In May 2020, Benjamin Chua, the founder of Spic & Span, a cleaning company with a stated social mission to employ marginalized Singaporeans, was reviewing the company’s strategic goals. Since its founding in 2017, the start-up had become an award-winning company, and with the introduction of its new cleaning technology, Speco, in September 2019, new job opportunities had been brought to the table for cleaners and management staff alike. The company’s workforce had effectively doubled in size in less than a year. Spic & Span was expanding its services from condominiums and offices to schools, restaurants, hotels, transportations, hospitals, and homes. While the new technology had opened up new job opportunities for marginalized Singaporeans, it had also increased the level of job complexity. As a consequence, the turnover rate of newly employed staff had increased. Why were the cleaners not motivated by the new job opportunities? How could Chua motivate cleaners to stay with the company?

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Since early 2015, Uber had been investing heavily in research and development for its autonomous vehicles to revolutionize the ride-hailing industry and provide better ways of competing and fulfilling its promise of profitability to investors. Constant innovation was crucial to stay ahead of its competitors. While this strategy was groundbreaking for the ride-hailing industry, concerns were sparked when one of Uber’s autonomous vehicles was involved in a fatal accident involving a pedestrian in 2018. This accident brought safety lapses in autonomous vehicles into the public eye and was deeply controversial. Consequently, Uber was forced to examine its corporate strategy pertaining to its innovation portfolio. Should Uber continue its current investment in autonomous vehicles? If so, what business models and strategies could Uber adopt with autonomous vehicles to move the company towards profitability?

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On November 3, 2016, Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE) launched a bid for Singapore-based food and beverage company Super Group Ltd. (Super). JDE had already acquired 60 per cent of the shares but needed another 30 per cent in order to delist the company and take it private. The minority shareholders of Super faced the task of evaluating whether the offer from JDE was reasonable and whether they should tender or hold on to their shares. Their decisions would depend on the valuation of Super’s shares, based on financial and other relevant and available market information.

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