Super Bowl 50, the fiftieth annual championship game of the American National Football League played in February 2016, featured 52 commercials, and brands spent more than six million dollars each for a 30-second commercial slot. Surprisingly, the commercial that garnered the most popularity on YouTube was not one of the regular advertisers. It was an entertainment brand best known for its video games and characters—Pokémon. It reflected twenty years of faithful corporate efforts that had protected and nurtured the Pokémon brand ever since its debut on February 27, 1996, in the form of a video game for handheld devices. Even on this commemorable day, however, Tsunekazu Ishihara, president of The Pokémon Company, was asking his staff and himself a familiar question: “Is that really in the best interest of Pokémon?” This question came out of a sense of urgency that motivated him and his vision for the Pokémon brand, having seen firsthand how rapid growth and record-breaking sales had led countless other games to quick obsolescence. In fact, Pokémon itself had once run a real risk of becoming nothing more than a fad. As he looked to the future, Ishihara pondered threats and opportunities, such as the intensifying competition due to the accelerating development cycle of video games and the maturation of emerging economies. He asked himself how he could make the Pokémon brand one that could endure and continue to grow over the next 25 years.
In 2021, Kevin “Bud” Couch, a retired Navy captain who was now working as a civilian employee of the Navy Safety Center, was trying to determine how best to reduce the risk of Navy mishaps. The Navy had experienced a series of major mishaps in 2017 that had led to a closer examination of how it operated and what it could improve.
To address an aging population and sales declines, major Japanese homebuilder considers pivoting to provide and support an in-home health detection platform, in competition with tech companies. This case considers the point of view of major builders regarding how aggressively to adopt smart home technologies as the nature of demand changes and as they navigate the digitalization of a very traditional bricks and mortar industry. The company has to consider its core business of building and selling homes, which is now under pressure in Japan as the creation of new households is slowing and the population is aging. Should the company incorporate smart home components, particularly regarding health monitoring and early response to health crises, and establish an ongoing service relationship with the occupants? How will major building products manufacturers like Toto and Panasonic respond? Health insurance companies? Can the company's health detection service compete with voice recognition offerings like Alexa and Siri from Amazon and Apple? With respect to serving this aspect of an aging population, will expertise in the tangible real property aspects of homes be a stronger or weaker influence than digital services in this evolution of business and global society?
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