Amazon.com Inc. (Amazon), the Seattle-based e-commerce giant, leaped into China with a buyout of Joyo.com Limited, China's largest online book, music, and video retailer, in 2004. Amazon had the ambition of becoming the dominant online retailer in China by capitalizing on its globally recognized brand, cutting-edge technologies, and advanced business model and philosophy. In the following years, China's e-commerce industry experienced exponential growth, representing a golden opportunity for technology firms. For Amazon, however, many challenges started to surface, including intense competition from Alibaba Group Holding Limited and JD.com Inc., which limited Amazon's growth. In 2018, as China's e-commerce industry quickly became one of the world's largest, Amazon had to determine what its next steps should be.
Concentrix Corporation (CNX), a technology enabled global business services organization, supported a transport solutions company with its customer management services. In June 2019, CNX's global customer services operation manager carried out an assessment and found irregularities in the credit claim process for CNX's client. The manager needed to reduce the number of irregularities so that CNX's agents did not create a negative experience for the client. Random samples for audit revealed that existing guidelines and control procedures were ineffective in capturing irregularities. What strategy did the manager need to select a sample for audit that could capture the maximum number of irregularities within the allowable audit cost?
In January 2016, the founder and chief executive officer of Polycorp Ltd., near Toronto, Ontario, needed to decide whether to cut prices for products produced by the largest of the company's three divisions, the mining division. Polycorp had become a global leader in providing protective rubber liners for mining mills. The liners were consumable products, thus generating a constant stream of revenue. The company's mining division accounted for almost half of the firm's sales, generated the highest margins for the company, and had the greatest potential for growth. It was also the costliest division to run. But the mining sector was in a downturn, with falling prices for various ores. With excess capacity in the industry, customers demanding price concessions, and competitors pricing aggressively, the founder wondered if Polycorp should alter its current premium pricing strategy for mill liners. Lowering prices would reduce the company's margins, and lower margins would, in turn, limit the firm's planned capital investments, which were needed for the company to sustain its growth and profitability. Could Polycorp sustain its premium pricing tactic in a marketplace that was becoming increasingly challenging?
Ashish Interbuild Private Limited (AIPL) was a mid-sized founder-driven turnkey fit-out firm based in India. The firm executed prestigious fit-out projects across the country, and it had been making steady progress every year since its founding. Faced with an increasing workload, Ashish Thakkar, the founder and managing director, had decided to change the firm's operating model from an owner-led model to one that was people- and process-driven. To manage the transition smoothly, he had to decide on the most appropriate management control model for the firm. The two management control models proposed to Thakkar stood in stark contrast to each other, each with its own strengths. It was crucial for Thakkar to select the appropriate control fit for AIPL neither too tight nor too loose. An inappropriate model could lead to chaos, employee dissatisfaction, financial loss, a damaged firm reputation, and even potential bankruptcy. Although there were good reasons to pursue either of the two proposed alternatives, it was vital to determine which control system was best suited to the firm.
In May 2019, a retail investor in the Philippines had to decide whether or not to immediately sell his shares in Holcim Philippines, Inc (HPI). The San Miguel Corporation had just announced the acquisition of around 86 per cent controlling interest in HPI. The price of HPI had increased considerably in the months leading up to the acquisition announcement, and this investor was anticipating a large gain. Now, he needed to run a fair value estimate of HPI's price using both the capital-asset-pricing-model-based discounted cash flow method and the comparable multiples method in order to decide what to do: Should he sell his shares at the prevailing market price, wait until the future potential tender offer, or hold his shares indefinitely?
Founded in 1984 in Vancouver, Aritzia has been a massive success story, expanding across Canada and into the United States with no signs of slowing down. In March 2020, however, with the COVID-19 pandemic spreading rapidly through North America, the women's fashion retailer was forced to shutter all its 97 boutique stores and shift sales to the e-commerce channel, while making other key financial and operating decisions to respond to the pandemic. In May 2020, with Aritzia given the green light to begin slowly and cautiously opening its locations, the CEO and the executive team needed to decide how to move forward in a time of crisis and continue its growth plans.
This case describes the growth of the Asian ports industry between 2015 and 2020 and the impact of escalating US-China trade tensions and rising Chinese direct investments on regional port competition. Throughout the 2000s, the volume of Asian shipping steadily increased on the back of an expanding Chinese economy. The case focuses on how the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative and new Chinese-funded mega-ports like the Malacca Gateway Port would affect the competitive dynamic between the Port of Singapore (PSA) and regional competitors such as Malaysia's Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP). The PSA has been the dominant transshipment hub in the region but has been ceding market share and has lost its position as the busiest port in the world to the Port of Shanghai. In planning for the future, the PSA has to work within Singapore's diplomatic framework of balancing Eastern and Western interests on the geopolitical chessboard of the South China Sea region. The case provides an example of how national interests and international relations have to be considered when making business decisions.
In November 2018, Sarah Robb O'Hagan is reeling from an unceremonious exit as CEO of Flywheel, a chain of indoor cycling studios. In the past, Robb O'Hagan had led transformational change across companies throughout the sports and fitness industry, including as President at Gatorade and Equinox. As a highly passionate fitness enthusiast, stepping into the CEO role at Flywheel felt like the pinnacle of her career, one that she would be extremely passionate about. But somewhere along the way, something went wrong, though Robb O'Hagan couldn't quite put her finger on it. Her tough experience left her questioning: She was 20 years into her career, had seemingly reached the pinnacle-only to find that this isn't what she wanted. Thinking about the next 20 years of her career was dizzying, and her ideal dream job wasn't revealing herself. What should Robb O'Hagan be looking for? What should the next step in her career and life look like?
The case is about a decision problem facing a young analyst on identifying the relative mispricing in bonds issued by RCom in Indian Rupees (INR) and US Dollars (USD) and its stock price. As RCom's debt troubles had increased over time, with lawsuits filed by some of its largest lenders, its stock price and credit rating had been falling consistently. On the other hand, the yields on its INR bonds had hardly moved in the meantime. After giving a brief background on RCom's difficulties in establishing itself as one of the largest telecommunications operators in India, the case describes the behaviour of yields on RCom's INR and USD bonds over time. It provides additional relevant financial information about RCom, including its stock price, credit rating and balance sheet variables.
The case describes the development of artificial intelligence (AI) enabled recruitment automation software Talkpush and how it leveraged the technology of open application programming interface (API) to address changes in consumer's communication preferences, and create a software as a service (SaaS) business. In 2021, Talkpush was handling 12 million hiring conversations per annum, forming one of the largest conversational databases in recruitment. It applied speech recognition to convert audio to text, and recognized over 45,000 "intents" through natural language processing (NLP). Recognizing the vast amount of data-voice, text, and images-that could be mined for business insights or used as training data for machine learning, Talkpush's founder Max Ambruster was eager to look for a strategy to extract value from the company's growing data assets.
This case explains how a researcher, Javier Marcipar, became an entrepreneur by developing a business idea on the outcome of a research project and founded BuildAir, a company of inflatable structures. However, after 7 years of selling magnificent structure to clients of the event sector, BuildAir was still not economically viable. So, Marcipar needed to look for a way to make his startup profitable. Initially, the case focuses on analyzing different alternatives for making BuildAir's business in the event sector viable. Afterwards, the case centers the attention on analyzing the opportunity of selling inflatable hangars in the aeronautical sector and on the development of a suitable business model to make this new business viable. Furthermore, the case delves into the future growth options of BuildAir.
Dare2Compete was a global platform connecting students, professionals, educators, colleges, and companies through innovative challenges, events, and gamified hiring assessments. It catered to two markets—students and companies. For students, it provided information on competitions, and listed internships, scholarships, and hackathons. For companies, it was an employer branding consultant and recruitment service provider. Dare2Compete was one of the largest networks of college students in India. Prospective employers could discover, engage, and hire students through the platform, facilitated by competitions, quizzes, hackathons, business simulations, and case studies.<br><br>In 2020, after five successful years of operations, Dare2Compete’s founder, Ankit Aggarwal, believed it was time to grow and was deciding on a growth strategy to pursue for achieving his objective of doubled growth for Dare2Compete in the coming year. He was considering three directions for growth: penetrate further into the market, expand globally into new markets, or develop a new product for the existing market.
In early June 2020, the owner of BYKlyn, an exercise bike fitness studio in New York, was considering her response to the business disruption that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic had caused the health and fitness industry. BYKlyn had recorded consistent annual growth since its launch in 2014. The fitness studio owner had been confirming her business expansion plans by moving into a larger space in the city when the pandemic struck in early 2019. Consequently, she was forced to shut down the business in mid-March 2019, in compliance with COVID-19 regulations. After a two-month lockdown, the New York state government announced phased-in reopening plans, and the fitness studio owner was considering three options for restarting her business: reopen at the existing premises; move to a virtual environment with a new business model; or set up an outdoor fitness club, which would offer fitness club members a completely new workout format.
The Hill & Levene Schools of Business (HLSB) Paul J. Hill Business School at the University of Regina, were considering widely divergent strategic alternatives, in what was expected to be a new and permanently altered post Covid-19 competitive environment, for business schools and higher education learning. The case considers three alternatives: 1. a return to the classic business model, with a new state-of-the-art building; 2. specialize as a virtual business school, for maximum national and international student access; or 3. Take advantage of the learning during the Covid-19 crisis and excel as an adaptive hybrid business school. Each alternative has strategic, marketing, operational and financial implications.
In November 2016, the chief executive officer of CanniMed Therapeutics Inc. was considering the company’s options for raising capital through an initial public offering. The decision was critical for the Saskatchewan-based medical cannabis company, which had been an early leader in this fast-growing sector and was seeking to take advantage of growth opportunities. The company’s history in the space dated back to 2000, when it was awarded a sole source five-year contract from Health Canada to supply Canadians with medical marijuana. Since then, the demand for medical cannabis had grown exponentially, and policy liberalization had opened up prospects for the recreational market. CanniMed Therapeutics Inc. had positioned itself as a leader with extensive experience in research, development, and commercialization. The decision for it to go public was clouded by many burning issues and risks, which led to intense speculation among investors as to whether the firm should be going public at this time and, if so, at what price.
In February 2020, companies around the world contemplated their next moves as the pandemic news grew more grim each day. For Savannah Informatics, one of the first information services firms in Africa's health care sector, the uncertainties and immediate supply chain challenges prompted nimble moves to make sure the technology continued to perform, but also served as a call to innovate further, and add new digital offerings. This case study addresses the challenges of new product development in the health care sector, and the complexities of meeting the needs of medical providers, insurance companies, and individual customers. How would the company prioritize its next moves, and expand its technology platform? How could Savannah use its existing data on health care spending in Kenya to map out new products, including health information, telehealth and prescription services, and disease care management? And how could it distinguish its services from new competitors who also saw new demands for innovative health care solutions arising as the COVID-19 pandemic continued.
Cataracts robbed an estimated 65 million people around the world of their vision. In the Himalayas, where hundreds of thousands of people went needlessly blind from cataracts, doctors Sanduk Ruit and Fred Hollows began to tackle this health crisis in 1995 with the Himalayan Cataract Project, believing they could adopt new techniques and lens technology to scale high-quality, high-volume, and low-cost cataract operations in remote communities. This case study details the development of the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology (TIO) in Kathmandu, Nepal, including efforts to establish cost-effective cataract treatment centers and ophthalmic education programs to train current eye care technicians and specialists, as well as the next generation of eye care leaders. Students will also understand the time-driven activity-based costing analysis process, as TIO needed to calculate resource needs as the institute expanded services into rural areas, where eyecare needs were high but patient resources were limited. What would this analysis reveal about ways to ensure safe, effective cataract surgery in other low-income countries-and were there also takeaways that might inform cataract surgery practices in the United States and other high-income countries?