Vodafone Japan (A), (B) and (C) , Teaching Note

The series of three cases is used in Harvard Business School's (HBS) elective course "Competing Globally" as the second case in the first module (Why?: Strategies to create value globally) (See "Competing Globally: Course Note for Instructors", HBS 713-422). The module identifies three general strategies that create value through global operations: deploying, developing, and deepening. The Vodafone Japan cases illustrate the second strategy type: developing a new source of competitive advantage through arbitrage of technological and market conditions between Japan and the rest of the world. Specifically, the cases allow instructors to illustrate how developing strategies can create value globally and therefore motivate global expansion, emphasize the tension that exists when firms try deploy and develop strategies simultaneously, illustrate that a global strategy based on developing competitive advantages relies on differences across countries and explore under what circumstances firms can benefit from arbitrage opportunities.