The case describes the process of Intel promoting an intrapreneurship program in China. The intrapreneurship platform called Ideas2Realty (later rebranded as GrowthX) was founded in 2015. After five years' development, GrowthX was improved step by step by introducing established entrepreneurship methodologies (e.g., the Lean Startup framework), partnering with an innovation accelerator, and inviting external startups. By the end of 2020, GrowthX had explored more than 400 business ideas, bringing Intel millions of dollars in incremental revenue. Why do companies like Intel need intrapreneurship? What challenges did Intel China overcome during the process? Going forward, for project leader Kapil Kane, several challenges remained. For example, how to leverage internal teams and external startups? How to achieve better synergies between different innovation programs? How to convince managers and employees that the program is of high long-term value and ask for more resources to develop?
In response to the uncontrollable second wave of COVID-19 in the south Indian state of Telangana in April 2021, a few like-minded social activists in the capital city of Hyderabad came together to establish a 100-bed medical care center to treat COVID-19 patients. The project was named Ashray. Dr. Chinnababu Sunkavalli (popularly known as Chinna) was the project manager of Project Ashray. In addition to the inherent inadequacy of hospital beds to accommodate the growing number of COVID- 19 patients till March 2021, the city faced a sudden spike of infections in April that worsened the situation. Consequently, the occupancy in government and private hospitals in Hyderabad increased by 485% and 311%, respectively, from March to April. According to a prediction model, Chinna knew that hospital beds would be exhausted in several parts of the city in the next few days. The Project Ashray team was concerned about the situation. The team met on April 26, 2021, to schedule the project to establish the medical care center within the next 10 days. The case is suitable for teaching students how to approach the scheduling problem of a time- constrained project systematically. It helps as a pedagogical aid in teaching management concepts such as project visualization, estimating project duration, float, and project laddering or activity splitting, and tools such as network diagrams, critical path method, and crashing. The case exposes students to a real-time problem-solving approach under uncertainty and crises and the critical role of NGOs in supporting the governments. Alongside the Project Management and Operations Management courses, other courses like Managerial decision-making in nonprofit organizations, Health care delivery, and healthcare operations could also find support from this case.
Agricola Himalaya was a family-owned Colombian company, the national leader in the tea industry, and the owner of the only tea plantation in the country, located in the middle of a mist forest. In Colombia, owing to the labour costs involved in tea production, importing tea was less expensive than producing it locally, but if Agricola Himalaya decided to import the tea, what would be the environmental and social impact of closing the plant and plantation? Agricola Himalaya attempted to resolve this dilemma by entering the specialty tea market, launching a new product that was sustainable and organic, with a range of innovative blends and a premium price. However, after eight years, its Bitaco specialty tea line had not reached break even, and in March 2021 the chief executive officer faced a new dilemma: whether or not to continue with the specialty tea initiative.
By October 2021, the US social media giant Facebook Inc. had been dominating the social media market globally with the highest number of active users. It owned four of the biggest social media platforms-Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. However, the company's history was marked by controversies ranging from ethical matters to social issues. The various crises it had faced to date included thousands of internal documents leaked by whistle-blower Frances Haugen, public criticism by former director Tim Kandell, and data breaches by Cambridge Analytica. These crises were symbolic of the anguish that various stakeholders were feeling. In the aftermath of these events, Facebook Inc. had to contemplate various key questions. Were the controversies destructive to the company, or were they adding value to its growth? Had the company taken the right actions to address its issues, or could it do more to make amends? How could the company prevent the recurrence of such situations in the future?
On February 16, 2021, Slave Free Chocolate removed Tony's Chocolonely (Tony's), a chocolate company based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from its "Ethical Chocolate Companies" list due to Tony's association with Barry Callebaut, a cocoa processor associated with child slavery in West Africa. Tony's, a B Corp-certified company whose founding mission was to eradicate child slavery from the cocoa supply chain, had to address its public removal from the list immediately to maintain the company's credibility. How should the chief executive officer of Tony's respond to the removal?
On March 26, 2020, Singapore Airlines was reeling from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. To raise badly needed capital, it announced that its shareholders would be offered S$5.3 billion worth of rights shares and S$3.5 billion of rights mandatory convertible bonds, both of which would be reflected as equity on its balance sheet. Should shareholders take advantage of this offer or not? To make this decision, investors had to analyze the airline's reasons for choosing this form of equity financing, the impact of this capital-raising exercise, Singapore Airline's valuation, and the role of sovereign wealth funds in equity financing. Investors would have to decide the appropriate response to the rights issuances.
This case explores the accounting treatment for embedded derivatives of China Evergrande Group (HKEx: 3333). It had been the second-largest property developer in China by property sales and largest by land reserves and borrowing size. On 24 September 2020, a suspicious "letter" was widely circulated on the Internet. The stock price plunged. The "letter" was purportedly sent by Evergrande to the Chinese government, urging the approval of a "listing plan" which was crucial in the "reorganization plan" of the Group. Back in December 2016, Evergrande used this plan to attract new "strategic investors" (SIs) to inject capital. To attract SIs, Evergrande and the SIs had agreed that if the reorganization could not be executed by 31 January 2021, the SIs could exercise either one of the two rights. One right was to demand Evergrande to repurchase their shares. Another right was to demand Evergrande to compensate 50% of their shares. Later the SIs invested RMB130,000mn in total, instantly enabling Evergrande to alleviate liquidity strains and continued to expand aggressively by leverage. Was the RMB130,000mn properly accounted for in financial statements, despite RMB2,500mn of "financial derivative liability" throughout 2017 to 2020? Should the two "rights" be treated as "options" in accounting?
Jasmine Crowe founded Goodr to redirect food waste to people in need. Now a profitable enterprise, she's searching for Series A funding and encountering pushback. Scaling and contract concerns are also at the forefront of her mind, but so are her values. Feeding hungry people is at the core of her mission, but potential backers tell her the company is better off without doing so. She thinks, too, about how her race may be holding her back from funding opportunities.
In May 2022, streaming entertainment company Netflix lost customers for the first time in more than 10 years. Once a first mover in the streaming landscape, Netflix was facing competition from Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, and others. A key component of Netflix's prior success was its unique "freedom and responsibility" culture, in which the company eschewed hierarchical decision-making, performance reviews, and vacation and expense policies. Employees were expected to maintain high performance or else get cut from the "dream team." While some employees reported appreciation for Netflix's culture, others described it as "cutthroat." Given the company's performance in spring 2022, was Netflix's "no rules rules" culture still an asset or was it now a liability?
This case study applies data envelopment analysis (DEA), a well-known performance measurement methodology, to assess and compare individual store's efficiency of Saint Honore Cake Shop. Students will learn the major concepts of benchmarking store-level performance and how to proceed with DEA to identify the most efficient retail stores (benchmarks) and less efficient ones. For the less efficient stores, students will also have the opportunity to perform sensitivity analysis to explore different ways to improve their performance.
The case is set in May 2021 and talks about a Singapore-based small-medium enterprise decision science company called Blackbox (BB) and how it used conversational AI, human-centered design, and a technology innovation partner to design and develop a chatbot that helped its clients understand data insights with the language of everyday conversations. BB generated vast data through opinion surveys and complex market analyses for its clients. While dashboards and reports provided a glimpse into that data, these tools did not necessarily help clients make immediate data-driven business decisions. Analysts would spend time on the phone answering simple and often repetitive questions to explain the key findings. BB decided to build a chatbot that could handle natural language queries independently to reduce the time of live support calls and allow even non-specialized users to access data insights directly. The CEO, David Black, and his team, led by Chief Operating Officer, Saurabh Sardana, embarked on designing a conversational data platform to provide improved services to clients at scale. However, how could BB execute this idea efficiently without an internal technical team specializing in building chatbots? How could the company avoid the pitfalls of typical commercial chatbots that fail to engage users? How could Black and his team design a conversational data platform that efficiently imitated human-to-human conversations, which clients could use independently? Could this new platform help the company become a differentiator in the market?
Health care was one of the largest sectors of the U.S. economy, but administration costs accounted for a growing share of health care spending. The administrative burden for health care in the United States was far higher than in other countries-was this an area ripe for transformation, and greater efficiency? While a typical credit card transaction might process immediately, health insurance payments could take many weeks to process. A primary care physician in the United States, for instance, might have to spend $20 or more to submit a single bill and collect payment, far more than the comparable cost in other countries. This case study explores the structural factors that contribute to high administrative costs in health care, from regulatory compliance costs, to the large number of unique contracts between insurance companies and providers, to the complex contractual requirements-and multiple provider manuals and updates. For this sector, what was holding back the innovation and efficiency that had evolved within the traditional finance ecosystem? Would health care billing emerge as the next big disruption target-and what pathway would offer innovators the best chance of success?
In 2019, an entrepreneur and Ivey Business School graduate was facing a critical decision regarding how best to maximize the growth of his new product, The Chosen One card game. The entrepreneur had recently created and launched his Jewish-themed satirical card game in Los Angeles, California, after playing the adult-themed and highly popular Cards Against Humanity. Buoyed by initial small-batch sales, he secured deals to sell his product through various online and traditional retailers, but he had to decide how to grow sales and revenue. He had a limited marketing budget and was facing uncertainty regarding production quantities. There were various potential digital and physical distribution options for his product to maximize growth and long-term profitability. Each option had both benefits and drawbacks in terms of profitability, required marketing support, alignment with the target segment, access to consumer data, and production demands. The entrepreneur had to evaluate all options and choose the most suitable channels to distribute The Chosen One card game.
The case highlights the challenges encountered by Laura Williams, founder and owner of Williams HR Law, a firm based in Toronto, Ontario, providing a full range of legal services on labour, employment law, and human resources (HR) matters. Demand for the firm’s services grew exponentially in 2020 following the tragic death of George Floyd and due to the ongoing workplace challenges encountered during the global pandemic. Williams faced decisions regarding the best and most sustainable ways to address increasing demand. She had solidified her reputation in the marketplace as an “advocate-of-choice” and was mindful of ensuring that her growth decisions did not negatively affect her brand or impact the organizational culture she had proudly developed. She was committed to ensuring that her growth aligned with her purpose—to provide best-in-class legal support that enabled clients to make informed decision-making and diffuse workplace issues before they escalated.
A recent master of business administration degree graduate, had discovered a problem with inventory management in her family's business. Agrawal Kitchenware Distributors (Agrawal), a wholesaler and distributor of kitchenware items, appeared to be well-off according to its financials, but when she had toured the company's warehouse, she discovered several problems with the inventory, and there was no management system that could identify, track, or resolve the inventory problems. Because Agrawal was a family business, the changes needed to be acceptable to both brothers who owned and managed the business, and the changes needed to be fairly simple to implement and maintain. What inventory management technique would be suitable in these circumstances?
An investor in NIO Inc. (NIO), an electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer based in China, contemplated the role NIO played in the EV market in China and the world, as well as the differences between NIO's business model and the business models of other EV makers. Specifically, NIO had built and operated a network of battery-swapping stations and often included complimentary swaps with vehicle purchases. Also, NIO was able to sell a car without a battery pack as long as the customer paid for a subscription service. Further, to fund the venture, NIO and other entities had established Wuhan Weineng Battery Asset Co. Ltd., which owned the batteries that were leased out under the battery-as-a-service (BaaS) model. The investor realized that it was important to understand the implications of these streams of revenue and how they affected NIO's stock valuation.
Carlsberg Breweries A/S (Carlsberg) had developed from a local to a global player in the brewing industry, having focused on growth in emerging economies in Europe and Asia. This growth path was against the background of economic transition and political change in Russia-from optimism about opportunities in the new market economy in the 1990s, to increasing regulatory obstacles, political authoritarianism, and increasing local competition in the 2010s. In 2022, Carlsberg, more than other West European consumer goods companies, was exposed to Russia when Russian military forces invaded Ukraine in February. This created complex operational and ethical challenges the company had to address with urgency. The company's annual general meeting was coming up, on March 14, and by then the executive board had to communicate to shareholders concerned with both the company's financial performance and its international reputation-as well as to Carlsberg employees across Europe (including both Russia and Ukraine) and the increasingly impatient Danish media-what steps the board would take to address the crisis.
The case highlights the challenges encountered by Laura Williams, founder and owner of Williams HR Law, a firm based in Toronto, Ontario, providing a full range of legal services on labour, employment law, and human resources (HR) matters. Demand for the firm's services grew exponentially in 2020 following the tragic death of George Floyd and due to the ongoing workplace challenges encountered during the global pandemic. Williams faced decisions regarding the best and most sustainable ways to address increasing demand. She had solidified her reputation in the marketplace as an "advocate-of-choice" and was mindful of ensuring that her growth decisions did not negatively affect her brand or impact the organizational culture she had proudly developed. She was committed to ensuring that her growth aligned with her purpose-to provide best-in-class legal support that enabled clients to make informed decision-making and diffuse workplace issues before they escalated.
In 2019, an entrepreneur and Ivey Business School graduate was facing a critical decision regarding how best to maximize the growth of his new product, The Chosen One card game. The entrepreneur had recently created and launched his Jewish-themed satirical card game in Los Angeles, California, after playing the adult-themed and highly popular Cards Against Humanity. Buoyed by initial small-batch sales, he secured deals to sell his product through various online and traditional retailers, but he had to decide how to grow sales and revenue. He had a limited marketing budget and was facing uncertainty regarding production quantities. There were various potential digital and physical distribution options for his product to maximize growth and long-term profitability. Each option had both benefits and drawbacks in terms of profitability, required marketing support, alignment with the target segment, access to consumer data, and production demands. The entrepreneur had to evaluate all options and choose the most suitable channels to distribute The Chosen One card game.