The choice of AI model
influences the decision.

A logistics company can automate warehouse planning and eliminate 14% of administrative roles within one year, saving EUR 28 million annually. A three-year transition would save EUR 18 million annually at first, allow retraining and natural attrition, but risks losing efficiency to competitors.

Question: Which implementation plan should management approve?

• Option A: Automate within one year, provide enhanced severance, and recruit selectively for new technical roles.
• Option B: Use a three-year transition centered on retraining, redeployment, and attrition.

A newspaper can use AI to produce commodity financial summaries. Full adoption preserves the investigative budget but removes 30 entry-level reporting positions. A hybrid model keeps 20 positions for training and verification but requires cutting two investigative projects.

Question: Which operating model should the publisher choose?

• Option A: Adopt full automation for commodity summaries and protect the investigative budget.
• Option B: Use the hybrid model to preserve an entry-level talent pipeline and human verification.

A customer-service organization can introduce an AI agent that resolves 60% of contacts. Immediate deployment would improve margins and waiting times but likely require layoffs. A worker agreement would delay full deployment for nine months and guarantee retraining interviews without guaranteeing jobs.

Question: Which approach should the company take?

• Option A: Negotiate the worker agreement before full deployment.
• Option B: Deploy immediately, then offer severance and voluntary training to affected staff.

A pharmaceutical company buys 80% of a critical precursor from one highly efficient overseas supplier. Dual sourcing in Europe would raise costs by 9% and require two years of volume commitments, but would protect against geopolitical interruption.

Question: Which supply strategy should the company adopt?

• Option A: Retain the single efficient supplier and increase inventory and contractual safeguards.
• Option B: Pay the premium for permanent European dual sourcing.

A cloud company must choose a data architecture for its European service. A global architecture is 14% cheaper and improves model performance through pooled operations. A regionally isolated architecture offers stronger sovereignty and outage containment but duplicates infrastructure.

Question: Which architecture should the company select?

• Option A: Use the global architecture with encryption, contractual controls, and regional failover.
• Option B: Build the regionally isolated architecture and accept higher cost and operational duplication.

A European industrial firm can place its next factory in a lower-cost non-EU location or in an EU region offering skilled labor and reliable infrastructure. The non-EU site has a 17% cost advantage but higher political and transport risk. The EU site strengthens local capacity and customer proximity.

Question: Where should the firm invest?

• Option A: Choose the EU location for resilience and strategic proximity.
• Option B: Choose the lower-cost non-EU location with political-risk insurance and diversified logistics.

You advise the board of a European insurer. An AI claims assistant passed internal accuracy tests and could reduce processing time by 35%, but an independent bias audit will take eight more weeks. Delaying costs about EUR 1.2 million and gives competitors time to respond. Existing staff can review every recommendation during a controlled launch.

Question: Which action should the board approve now?

• Option A: Launch to 10% of claims immediately with mandatory human review, daily monitoring, and a stop trigger.
• Option B: Delay all customer use until the independent bias audit is complete.

A medical-device company can use a generative model to draft clinician documentation. A pilot suggests 25% less administrative time. The model is not used for diagnosis, but occasional fabricated details could enter records if clinicians fail to check. A certified alternative is expected in six months at twice the price.

Question: Which procurement decision should management make?

• Option A: Deploy now to trained volunteers with explicit verification duties and continuous incident reporting.
• Option B: Wait for the certified alternative before any production deployment.

A bank has developed an AI tool that recommends credit limits. Back-testing shows higher predictive accuracy and lower default rates than the current scorecard, but regulators have not issued final guidance on explainability. The bank can provide adverse-action reasons, though not a complete account of every model interaction.

Question: Which path should the bank choose?

• Option A: Keep the existing scorecard until final regulatory guidance is available.
• Option B: Begin a capped production rollout with enhanced disclosures, appeals, and regulator notification.

An enterprise collaboration platform is used by 40,000 employees. Internal channels sometimes contain misleading health and political claims. Aggressive automated removal reduces harmful reach but produces false positives and employee distrust. Labels and reduced distribution preserve speech but allow more misinformation to remain visible.

Question: Which moderation policy should the company adopt?

• Option A: Remove disputed content proactively when automated systems estimate a high probability of material harm.
• Option B: Prefer labels, counterspeech, and reduced distribution; remove only illegal content or direct threats.

A research lab has trained a capable open-weight language model. Open release would accelerate independent research and local innovation. External reviewers warn that the weights could also lower the cost of scalable fraud and cyber misuse. A controlled API would permit monitoring but concentrate access in the lab.

Question: How should the lab release the model?

• Option A: Publish the weights with a responsible-use license, staged capability disclosure, and safety documentation.
• Option B: Offer only a monitored API until independent evidence shows that open release risks are manageable.

A company discovers that employees use public AI tools for routine work. A blanket ban would reduce leakage risk but push usage underground and forgo productivity gains. A broad approved-tools policy enables experimentation but cannot eliminate accidental disclosure.

Question: Which policy should the executive team choose?

• Option A: Permit approved public tools for non-sensitive work with training, logging, and sanctions for violations.
• Option B: Ban public AI tools and allow only centrally managed internal systems.

A company has suffered a serious cyberattack. Management must redesign access controls within six weeks. A small executive task force can meet the deadline. A process including works council, regional leaders, and user testing would take twelve weeks but likely improve adoption and identify operational problems.

Question: Which governance process should the CEO authorize?

• Option A: Use the executive task force now and conduct a formal review after deployment.
• Option B: Use the participatory twelve-week process and rely on interim controls.

A consumer company faces a fast-moving public controversy about an advertisement. Immediate withdrawal may stop reputational damage but concedes the criticism before facts are reviewed. A 48-hour independent review provides legitimacy but allows the controversy to continue.

Question: What should the company do?

• Option A: Pause the advertisement immediately under executive authority and review it afterward.
• Option B: Keep it running during a 48-hour independent review, then follow the review's recommendation.

A multinational wants a company-wide generative-AI policy. A central policy can launch in one month and create uniform controls. A co-design process with employees, compliance teams, and country offices takes four months but may produce better local fit and legitimacy.

Question: Which process should the board mandate?

• Option A: Adopt the central policy in one month and permit documented local exceptions.
• Option B: Run the four-month co-design process before adopting the company-wide policy.

A profitable manufacturer must close either a newer automated plant with 220 jobs or an older rural plant with 620 jobs. Closing the rural site improves annual operating profit by EUR 18 million more, but the town has few alternative employers. Keeping it requires three years of lower margins and modernization investment.

Question: Which plant should the company close?

• Option A: Close the rural plant and fund a substantial transition package for workers and the municipality.
• Option B: Close the newer plant and accept lower margins to preserve the larger vulnerable workforce.

A subscription software company can raise prices by 18%. Customer research predicts limited churn and EUR 24 million additional annual profit, but small nonprofit customers would be disproportionately affected. A segmented increase produces EUR 15 million while protecting nonprofits and very small firms.

Question: Which pricing policy should management adopt?

• Option A: Apply the uniform 18% increase and use part of the profit to improve the product.
• Option B: Use the segmented increase that protects nonprofits and very small firms.

A retailer can switch to a supplier offering 12% lower costs. The supplier meets local law but pays wages below the retailer's voluntary living-wage standard. Keeping the current supplier would require either a small consumer price increase or about EUR 9 million less annual profit.

Question: Which sourcing decision should the retailer make?

• Option A: Keep the current living-wage supplier and absorb or share the additional cost.
• Option B: Switch to the legally compliant lower-cost supplier and audit workplace safety.