Decisions Under Uncertainty
Season 1
Amazon Robotics at BWI4
Peloton's Ride
Floating Mountains at Disney Imagineering
by Ignacio Vazquez
Scheiber, N. (2019) Inside an Amazon Warehouse, Robots’ Ways Rub Off on Humans. The New York Times. Weise, K. (2025) The Robots Fueling Amazon’s Automation. The New York Times. Weise, K. (2025) Amazon Plans to Replace More Than Half a Million Jobs With Robots. The New York Times. Katsenelson, V. (2025) The Robots That Handle Your Amazon Orders. The Wall Street Journal. Herrera, S. (2025) Amazon is on the Cusp of Using More Robots Than Humans in its Warehouses. The Wall Street Journal. McLain, S. (2025) Amazon Testing New Warehouse Robots and AI Tools for Workers. The Wall Street Journal.
Peloton rose by positioning itself as a tech-driven subscription platform rather than a hardware company, enabling massive valuation growth. It successfully expanded from a luxury niche to a broader market through financing and lifestyle branding. The pandemic drove explosive demand, but leadership misread it as permanent, overinvesting in growth and compromising quality. This led to operational failures, reputational damage, and financial collapse. Activist investors forced leadership change, and new management shifted focus toward sustainable, subscription-based digital growth. Do you want to know more? Bruell, A. (2017) How Peloton is Marketing a $2,000 Bike Beyond the Rich. The New York Times. Trentmann, N. (2020) How Peloton Plans to Keep Growing After the Pandemic Ends. The New York Times. Edgecliffe-Johnson, A., McGee, P. (2022) Inside Peloton's Epic Run of Bungled Calls and Bad Luck. The Financial Times. Fontanella-Khan, J., McGee, P. (2022) Activist Investor Urges Peloton to Fire Chief and Explore Sale. The Financial Times.
Marcus, a senior project manager at Disney Imagineering, oversees the ambitious Pandora expansion, balancing creative excellence, budget, and schedule. Facing corporate pressure and an $850 million cap, he clashes with creative demands for advanced features like interactive bioluminescent forests. To secure approval, he considers “progressive seduction”—pitching a scaled-down version and adding features later. However, this risks cost overruns, schedule delays, and credibility. Marcus must choose between transparency, which may jeopardize the project, or a strategic compromise to deliver innovation within corporate constraints. Do you want to know more? Addeman, F. (1999). Managing the magic. PM Network, 13(7), 31–36. Fritz, B. (2026) The 3,000-Person Team Working in Secret to Create Disney Magic. The Wall Street Journal. Barnes, B. (2021) Are You Ready for Sentient Disney Robots? The New York Times. Barnes, B. (2018) Disney is Spending More on Theme Parks Than It Did on Pixar, Marvel and LucasFilm Combined. The New York Times. Fritz, B. (2026) Disney’s Future Now Depends on the Ultimate Theme Park Insider. The Wall Street Journal. Ackerman, E. (2021) How Disney Imagineering Crammed a Humanoid Robot Into a Groot Suit. IEEE Spectrum.
This case was first used at Universidad Panamericana (Mexico City) for the DOP.535 (Project Planning and Management) course. Nike explores a bold shift from Asian manufacturing to a partially automated factory in Mexico to improve speed, flexibility, and proximity to North American customers. Early promise is undermined by technical challenges, rising labor demands, and misaligned operations, leaving leadership confronting significant strategic, operational, and investment uncertainties amid market pressures. Do you want to know more? Jon Emont. (April 21, 2025) “Why It’s So Difficult for Robots to Make Your Nike Sneakers”. The Wall Street Journal. Tabassum, J., Reid, H. (June 26, 2025) "Nike plans to reduce reliance on China production for US market to soften tariff blow". Reuters. Bissell-Linsk, J. (November 30, 2017) "Nike a paso de robots". Milenio.