Generative AI is promising to be the most disruptive technology since the internet. According to Accenture, 44 per cent of working hours in the United States fall within the scope of automation or augmentation with this technology. However, security is a major consideration impacting the adoption or implementation of generative AI, and CEOs are rightly concerned. While generative AI is democratizing access and driving productivity, it is also leading to insecure deployments, security breaches, and AI-powered threats such as deepfakes. To fully realize competitive gains, businesses must elevate their cybersecurity strategies to address gaps and vulnerabilities—both within and outside their organizations. As generative AI intensifies the competition for labour productivity, it is also opening new vulnerabilities that can be exploited by bad actors, including insecure deployment of generative AI, excessive accessibility, and lax experimentation. Companies can employ the following strategies to bolster their cyber-resilience: 1) modernize their security setup at the same pace as business innovation; 2) heighten employees’ awareness of the potential risks associated with generative AI; and 3) innovate from a trusted foundation by securing the underlying cloud foundation and implementing strict controls.
Monosha Biotech (MB), a social start-up in Baruipur, West Bengal, India, was founded in 2017 to tackle a significant public health issue: snakebites. India had the highest number of snakebite fatalities globally, and the efficacy of anti-snake venom (ASVs) varied significantly depending on the snake's location. As the prominent snake-venom manufacturer was headquartered in southern India, the existing ASVs had been customized to provide optimal effectiveness in the southern part of the country, and this left individuals in other regions across the country exposed and in danger when they suffered snake bites, consequently adding to the high fatality rate. MB started commercial snake-venom production in 2021, after getting all the necessary clearance and approval from the authorities. Despite the company's commercial success, in 2023, the company's founders had concerns about the future of their market expansion, particularly regarding the company's scalability and potential for continued growth. Their task was difficult, as they had to confront two significant challenges. First, how could they create an authentic brand with the company's vision, mission, and value proposition as a social enterprise in mind? Second, what alternative for expansion in the anti-snake-venom market would be suitable to ensure further growth?
CVS Health Corporation (CVS) had historically been one of the leading competitors in the retail pharmacy industry. Since its founding in 1963, the company had continued to grow across the United States, fuelled, in part, by its acquisitions of other drugstore chains. It had also diversified into insurance and pharmacy benefits management. The company remained one of the largest pharmacy retailers in the industry. In September 2024, CVS’s current chief executive officer and her top management team needed to carefully analyze growing political, economic, legal, and competitive threats in order to successfully navigate an increasingly challenging competitive landscape. Even with the company’s number-three competitor, Rite Aid Corp., in bankruptcy reorganization, the question that remained was whether the company could maintain its dominant competitive position in the face of changing macro-economic, industry-level, and competitive trends.
Despite Tims China already operating more than 800 stores, the coffee company was still at a disadvantage in terms of store numbers. An urgent issue that the chief executive officer and his management team needed to resolve was how to rapidly expand to achieve economies of scale: Should they stick to company-owned stores to maintain absolute control over quality, or open up to franchising to rapidly expand their footprint?
Established in 1986, Bikaji Foods International Ltd. (Bikaji) began making traditional Indian snacks and became a leading producer of ethnic namkeen and sweets, boasting over 300 diverse products. With a 9.5 per cent market share and INR 19.6 billion in revenue, it ranked third in India. Operating in 23 Indian states and 25 countries globally, its exports contributed 4 per cent of total sales. Since March 2024, Bikaji has aimed for a 12 per cent market share over three years, focusing on capacity optimization, rural market penetration, and profit margin improvement. Bikaji targeted untapped Indian regions, alongside exploring options like quick-service restaurants, healthy snacks, and export expansion. Expanding in India’s diverse culinary landscape demanded careful strategy to meet financial goals.
In 2023, Kaushik Roy, the managing director of PCBL (formerly, Phillips Carbon Black Limited), unveiled an ambitious plan to propel the company’s profit before tax to ₹20 billion in Indian rupees by 2029, a more-than-threefold level of growth. Emphasizing capacity-expansion and strategic-rebranding initiatives, PCBL aimed to fortify its status as a global industry leader and as India’s largest carbon black manufacturer. Despite global economic uncertainties, the company’s robust financial performance and strategic dividend declaration underscored its resilience and market dominance. Central to its strategy were innovative product development and enhanced customer engagement, which were crucial for penetrating new markets and sustaining its growth momentum. However, with the company’s focus on high-margin specialty chemicals, Roy pondered the alignment of this strategy with its broader branding efforts and the potential impact of the strategy on both domestic and international markets. As PCBL navigated these challenges, agility and strategic alignment were identified as pivotal for achieving its ambitious growth targets.
The founder of ChopValue Manufacturing Ltd. (ChopValue) was working to resolve his growth strategy. In 2016 his research had suggested 100,000 chopsticks were thrown out daily in the Metro Vancouver region. This moment of inspiration led him to develop an initiative to recycle and recircle these utensils and to create ChopValue. The company collected and cleaned used chopsticks, pressed them into tiles, used the tiles to create furniture and home décor products, and then sold the products. After launching ChopValue, the founder recognized a global need to reduce waste and developed a franchise system to grow his circular economy. He was now working to develop the best strategy for moving forward.
In December 2019, LUSTER LightTech Co., Ltd. was a company in the field of machine vision. As the business was rapidly developing, the founder, Yao Yi, realized that the company’s research and development directions were very scattered, and some projects with heavy investments might not be profitable. After reviewing the existing business, the chief financial officer, Gu Baoxing, proposed a "focus" plan, in which the company should concentrate on core customers in key industries or standardized core products, based on financial sustainability and profitability as the main criteria. In Case (A), students are required to use management accounting knowledge to assist the company in making business choices and strategic decisions.
April 2023: Case (B) primarily discusses LUSTER 's finance-business integration reform: upgrading digital management systems, building data analysis and financial forecasting systems, and strengthening performance evaluation. At the end of Case (B), CFO Gu Baoxing proposed an internal marketization plan: each division would be able to dismantle barriers and share customers, while each product line and sales team could collaborate across divisions to discover the most advantageous partnerships. However, employees were resistant to the reform plan. Students are expected to assess whether LUSTER has the foundation for internal marketization based on the information in Case (B), and to suggest corresponding financial tools if necessary. This is a supplement to LUSTER: The Strategy of Value First (A), product # W37053.
Wowing Coffee Beans Corporation Ltd. (Wowing Coffee) was established in 1997 in Yunnan Province, China. From the beginning it had embraced improvisation—in both its founding of a coffee plantation in China to its decision to produce specialty beans. In early 2020, just as Wowing Coffee explored the new and innovative idea of pairing its coffee estate with tourism opportunities, the outbreak of COVID-19 disrupted everything. With opportunities and challenges coexisting, where would Wowing Coffee go? Who would they sell their specialty coffee to during the lockdown period, and how should they sell it? Should they continue to invest in exploring new tourism opportunities within the plantation or return to supplying raw materials, like they had in the past, just to survive?
A 19-year-old student had just started university studies and was confronted by the financial challenges that many young adults faced as they embarked on their own life away from home. Her parents provided for her education and many basic living expenses, but there were still many unexpected costs and social life expenses to plan for. After an interesting conversation about personal finances with her friends, the student decided to start her own financial plan to resolve some important questions and to set some key financial objectives for her future.
A retail investor was interested in investing in XPEL Inc., a market leader in the paint protection film industry. The investor felt that the company’s stock was undervalued and wanted to conduct a company valuation. She started by reviewing the company’s annual report for 2023 and gathered relevant market information for her analysis. On March 14, 2024, XPEL Inc.’s stock was trading at US$48.56 per share, which the investor believed was undervalued. However, she would have to consider all financial and market information she had gathered before reaching a final investment decision.
The business model of Side Door Access Inc. (Side Door), a Canadian start-up co-founded in Halifax, Nova Scotia, was based on facilitating live music performances in intimate, non-traditional venues like living rooms, art galleries, and bookstores, enabling direct connections between artists and audiences. The platform provided artists with opportunities to perform in unconventional spaces and negotiate directly with hosts regarding performance fees, with Side Door taking a modest commission. As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020, Side Door had to adapt to achieve continued growth. The chief executive officer considered various adaptations, including partnering with platforms such as Zoom and Twitch to facilitate virtual concerts; exploring different revenue models like pay-what-you-can and subscriptions for exclusive content; and diversifying offerings with workshops, masterclasses, and panel discussions. Each option presented its own set of challenges and opportunities and required her to weigh the potential impacts on Side Door’s mission, artist relations, audience engagement, and long-term strategy.
KiranaKart Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (Zepto) was a quick-commerce start-up founded by two 19-year-old Stanford University dropouts and operating in the Indian e-commerce market, one of the fastest growing in the world. Using a quick hyperlocal e-grocery delivery model, the company faced challenges during its post-pandemic growth; these included the viability of its disruptive model, the competition it faced, and a long wait for profitability. While the quick-commerce grocery delivery model, initially supported by a steady flow of funding from venture capital firms, faced close scrutiny the world over as the flow of easy money started drying up, not everything was ominous for Zepto. As August 2023 was coming to an end, the start-up found itself on a stable funding runway. However, critics raised doubts about the feasibility of its 10-minute delivery service. Every reduction in customer wait time led to an increase in costs, and there was no broader e-commerce or food delivery platform to synergize with. Moreover, there were also social costs associated with delivery. To sustain the next phase of growth, Zepto’s founding team had to consider various strategic options. They could commit to grocery and focus on high-margin items to increase the frequency and basket size of online grocery customers. Alternatively, they could aggressively re-launch Zepto Café to expand their product range, attract more customers, and increase average order value. Diversifying the company’s product categories by adding e-pharmacy or even electronics could be another option to win over more customers.
After retiring from a long and successful career in financial auditing, Linda McGill looked forward to the prospect of joining a board. She felt the time was right to leverage the breadth of her experience while fulfilling one of her long-term goals. Though somewhat of a stretch, the thought of helping to guide a complex, multinational listed company was particularly exciting, given not only the scale of the responsibility, but also the potential prominence and financial upside it could bring her. At the same time, Linda also considered an invitation to join the board of a midsize, PE-backed family company she had worked closely with in the past. Though appreciative for the offer, she was aware that the company was facing ongoing challenges that might require a serious time commitment from her to address. How would Linda weigh the tradeoffs of her options?