On Wednesday, March 1, 2017, Jean-Louis Chaussade, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Suez SA (Suez), a French utility company that primarily operated in water and waste management, had to decide whether or not to acquire General Electric Water & Process Technologies. During the negotiations between Chaussade and the CEO of General Electric Company (GE), there had been many drastic changes, including the January 2017 inauguration of a US president with no political experience and an agenda that did not favour international co-operation. The deal represented a significant investment of US$2-$3 billion, and Suez would have to rely on an external partner to have even a chance of winning the bid GE had launched only a few weeks earlier. The complex negotiations were also fraught with risks due to increasing political interference from the new US president. What should Chaussade do?

Naledo Foods and Beverages Inc. (Naledo) was a small start-up headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, that operated as a social enterprise in the Toledo District of Belize. In 2018, Naledo's operation in Belize produced about 500 jars a day of wildcrafted turmeric paste. With large orders sometimes taking up to six weeks to fill, it was imperative for Naledo to find a way to increase production, and for that, the company needed capital. Naledo's chief operating officer was thus considering ways to raise the necessary capital.

Tourism has been an important economic pillar for Singapore for decades, contributing 4% to Singapore's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While Singapore is a well-known destination with Asians and Europeans, the country has yet to become a popular choice for US travellers who lived outside the gateway cities on the eastern and western coasts. Being the second largest economy in the world, the US presents huge potential for tourism in Asia, and specifically Singapore. Under the premise of the 'Passion Made Possible' brand for Singapore, jointly launched by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) in 2017, STB collaborated with Warner Bros. in promoting the film Crazy Rich Asians, a Hollywood romantic comedy based on a book by the same title. The film's huge success has helped raise the profile of Singapore in the US market. However, there were some misalignments in the interplay of STB's city branding vision, the cultural connection to Singaporeans and the image that US travellers had of Singapore.

It was January 2018. Nora Abd Manaf, Group Chief Human Capital Officer, Maybank, the largest bank by market capitalisation in Malaysia, is contemplating future challenges that the bank has to address in terms of artificial intelligence, the gig economy and a new generation of millennial employees. Since her joining the Bank in 2008, she and Dato' Sri Wahid, the then Group CEO of Maybank, have spearheaded a transformation strategy to grow Maybank from a strong local bank to a regional player. Her efforts have led to a revamping of the organisational structure of Maybank to facilitate its regional aspirations. The Talent Management Framework was renewed to drive a high-performance culture, and actions aligned with the Bank's objectives needed to be fairly recognised and rewarded. On the back of stellar results achieved in the implementation of the Maybank transformation strategy, Nora set her sights on maintaining the bank's lead against the new headwinds of digitisation and automation in the industry.

This case, set in June 2018, chronicles the challenges that Jack Sim, self-made millionaire and founder of the World Toilet Organisation (WTO), encountered in his decades-long quest to clean up dirty public toilets in Singapore's coffeeshops and hawker centres. A key obstacle he faced was the lack of quantitative data on toilet cleanliness, and the means to obtain it. Moreover, the majority of coffeeshop operators were resistant to investing in toilet cleaning. In November 2015, Sim visited Rosie Ching, a senior statistics lecturer at Singapore Management University (SMU), and after lengthy discussions, Ching developed a rigorous toilet cleanliness survey and a Toilet Cleanliness Index (TCI). TCI received great attention from the media and the public, but now in early 2018, Sim was doubtful: Could Singapore's dirty public toilets be cleaned up in the foreseeable future? Would the TCI effect a change for good and convince stakeholders of the necessity to act on the matter?

June 20, 2016. It was the day Magic Pony Technology galloped to fame after Twitter announced its acquisition of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) start-up for a reported US$150 million. Co-founded by Rob Bishop and Zehan Wang in London in 2014, Magic Pony specialised in using machine learning, a branch of AI, to optimise image-processing technology that greatly enhanced the quality of video streaming over the Internet on mobile devices. Along with a team of highly-skilled computer and neuro-scientists, Magic Pony brought critical technology in video compression to Twitter which would strengthen the microblogging service's live streaming capabilities. To battle against stagnant subscriber growth, one of Twitter's best bets perhaps was to rely on high-quality live video streaming in an attempt to draw a larger user base from a broader cross-section of the society. On the other side of the deal, the successful exit of the 18-month-old start-up was engineered by its founders based on a mix of strategies which included securing investment from venture capitalists and resisting acquisition offers from smaller players while perfecting the technology until a sizeable offer (i.e., Twitter) came along. Looking back, was there a better time to sell? Why was Twitter successful in acquiring Magic Pony while others failed? What made Magic Pony a favourite acquisition target?

This case is set in October 2019. Masami Komatsu, CEO of Music Securities (MS), had received a request from Toyomi Electric Co. Ltd. Toyomi Electric had suffered damages to its factory and workforce in the 2011 earthquake that had struck Japan, and needed urgent financing to rebuild its production capacity. It sought help from MS to raise funds on its online crowdfunding platform, Securite. Securite was an investment crowdfunding platform with a focus on empathy-based financial inclusion. Among the several hundred funds it managed, Securite had previously set up disaster relief funds aimed at providing financial aid to businesses destroyed by natural disasters. As a victim of the 2011 earthquake, Toyomi Electric would qualify as a potential recipient of this financial aid. However, Toyomi Electric had a reputation for generating negative social impact by releasing pollutants into the air and water, harming the well-being of neighbouring populations and environment. Investment decisions in Securite were guided by three criteria: social returns, strength of the business model and expected investment returns. Before deciding to raise funds for Toyomi Electric, MS must evaluate the potential impact of its decision and the alignment with the MS' objectives.

The international demand for rhinoceros (rhino) horns was driving the species to near extinction. But an international ban on trading the horns made it lucrative to illegally kill rhinos for their horns, which were traded on the black market. One hotly debated idea to curb rhino poaching was to legalize the trade of farmed rhino horns, which could be sustainably obtained without killing the animal.<br><br>The founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of a non-governmental organization (NGO), Helping Rhinos, opposed legalizing the trade of rhino horns, as had other NGOs. He wondered, though, whether he and his organization should reconsider that position. Legalizing the sale of sustainable rhino horns could counter the black-market demand and protect the remaining, endangered rhinos. At the next board meeting, the founder and CEO needed to recommend whether the organization should continue to oppose legalization or change its approach and advocate for multi-nation legalization. But first he needed to consider the perspectives of the various stakeholders and which decision would be in the best interest of the rhinos. How should he and the NGO proceed?

Preparing for a potential interview, an MBA graduate reads extensively about Daimler AG. She learns about company's longtime presence in China manufacturing luxury automobiles and its continued investment in manufacturing and R&D capacity in that country. She also learns that the company financed part of its operations and growth in China by issuing bonds in both China and Hong Kong and wonders whether the company would return to those bond markets.

An MBA graduate prepares for a possible interview with Caterpillar Inc. by reading about the company's longtime presence in China manufacturing heavy equipment and its continued optimism about the heavy equipment market in that country. He also learns that the company financed part of its operations and growth in China by issuing bonds in Hong Kong and wonders whether the company would return to that bond market in Hong Kong.

In 2007, global building products company Lafarge purchased a dilapidated factory in northern Syria and invested $680 million to build and operationalize a cement plant, thus establishing a Middle East presence. But Lafarge did not foresee the political instability caused by the escalation of the Syrian civil war between President Bashar al-Assad's military and Syrian rebel groups. Additionally, the terrorist group known as Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) entered the region, utilizing brutal tactics such as capture, torture, and beheadings, to spread fear and gain territorial control. By 2012, Lafarge had a difficult decision to make: close the plant or keep it operational? Closing the plant would result in a lost investment and could put local Syrian workers and their families into dire financial situations. Conversely, keeping the plant operational could risk the safety of employees and raise critical questions about Lafarge's ethical responsibilities amid the crisis.

The case follows the evolution of EnerGaia, a technology firm pioneering rooftop production of spirulina (blue-green algae) in developing markets. The narrative and discussion questions focus on the strategic choices of CEO Saumil Shah. Core questions regard Saumil's options for positioning his company within the value chain and the trade-offs he faces in pursuing a mid-end market in Europe for dry spirulina powder versus lower cost spirulina in the developing markets of Asia. The case describes how Saumil leverages reputation to obtain resources. EnerGaia wins various awards from development organisations (Blue Ocean, USAID) that love its mission to help the poor with a new farming system. A social mission also helps attract quality interns and biologists. A challenge of these financial and reputational influxes is that they enable the firm to continue without necessarily becoming profitable and that they may risk pushing the firm in a specific direction that may not be sustainable in the long-run. Now the firm may appear to be "going corporate", deviating from its roots and "springboarding" on the reputational advantages of a socially-oriented start-up model to become a profit-seeking biotech firm. In identifying and realising an emergent strategy, Saumil and his staff must wrestle with sustaining a consistent identity, allocating scarce resources, and building scalable processes. The case concludes by asking which direction its CEO should take for 2018: should he continue working towards developing markets in multiple countries while chasing development grant money as a social enterprise, or should he focus on commercial partnerships? Also, while working with his scientists, should the CEO continue his pursuit of an Eternal Ocean breakthrough to empower scaling of the EnerGaia solution across rural landscapes, or should he focus on pioneering farm-scale organics to supply high-priced spirulina (and the tech to produce it) to a rapidly growing European market?

Stella Artois, an AB InBev brand, is the world's best-selling Belgian beer. In early 2017, Ricardo Tadeu, AB InBev Zone President for Africa, is planning the brand's entry into its next export market: South Africa. The case explores Stella's introduction strategies into three of its export markets---the UK (1976), the US (2000), and Mexico (2016)---examining the drivers of the brand's success as well as its failures. Students will analyze the brand's previous launches to determine what made it successful in some markets and not in others. They will apply these learnings to develop a strategy for the brand's introduction to the South African market. Beyond the central discussion of growth through international expansion, the case addresses issues of brand positioning for premium products, changing consumer perceptions, the use of cause marketing, category development and maturity, and competitive strategy.

In mid-2018 Sri Sri Tattva (SST), an Indian fast-moving consumer goods company (FMCG) company was planning to launch 1,000 exclusive stores across the country. Some 600 of these stores were expected to be operational by March 2019. The company had also announced its intention to enter 30 new countries, with a particular focus on Latin America, including Brazil and Argentina. The company leveraged, to a certain extent, the popularity and mass influence of its founder Sri Sri. With its wide range of ayurvedic and organic product categories, SST was poised to challenge established players such as Patanjali, Dabur, Hindustan Unilever, Emami and Himalaya in the FMCG market.

This case describes the first investment decision of Tyson Ventures, the venture capital arm of Tyson Foods-the largest protein producer in the United States and one of the largest in the world. Throughout its history, Tyson shifted from producing raw protein to processing protein products and grew significantly, both organically as well as through acquisitions. Tyson Ventures aimed to invest in promising food startups related to sustainability and the case explores four possible investment strategies: plant-based proteins, lab-grown proteins, edible insect proteins, and traditional agriculture investments. Each option has implications for Tyson's operations and profitability, stakeholder perceptions, and sustainability goals. Students will analyze how established corporations in traditional industries, like food, are being disrupted by technology and innovations.

Yuser Inc. (Yuser) was a new social networking start-up based in London, Ontario. Well-established social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube had begun to restrict social media influencers’ monetization of their user base, and this had opened an opportunity for a new social media network to make three-way interactions among users, social media influencers (SMIs), and corporate sponsors completely stable and transparent. Yuser granted SMIs freedom in terms of the content they posted, allowing companies to identify influencers who helped their marketing efforts and to financially reward them using Yuser’s cryptocurrency. Rather than facilitating two-way relationships, as most platforms did, Yuser would help build triangular relationships among companies, target markets, and SMIs. However, Yuser’s business concept was complex, making it difficult for the company’s chief operations officer to pitch Yuser’s value proposition to external investors. In June 2018, she needed to find a delicate balance that would allow her to inform investors of the venture’s potential without overwhelming them in a sea of confusing details.

In the summer of 2012, the president of the leisure sector of John Keells Hotels needed to discuss marketing strategies with his senior management team. The company was a well-known brand that operated Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts and Chaaya Hotels and Resorts in Sri Lanka and Maldives. Each of the two hotel brands catered to a different set of customers and offered different value propositions. After the terrorist conflict that had plagued Sri Lanka for 26 years had come to a dramatic close in May 2009, an influx of tourists was expected from both Western and Asian countries. The company had a great opportunity to strengthen its two hotel brands and capitalize on the growing global tourism market. Of the two hotel chains, Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts was the portfolio's luxury brand, whereas Chaaya Hotels and Resorts was the economy brand. The senior management team needed to design a brand architecture for the company that would offer a sound business solution and help the company's hotel sector find its rightful place in the global arena.

A group of Canadian parents wanted the Canadian government to create a redress system related to Canada’s no-fly list, which affected some of their young children whenever they flew. The parents formed an advocacy group called the No Fly List Kids group in 2016, and the group undertook various campaigns—including innovative guerrilla marketing campaigns and uses of both digital and traditional marketing—to highlight the issue of Canadian children being identified as potential security risks before they boarded flights within Canada. Over a three-year period, the group worked to raise awareness of the issue and to pressure the Canadian government to create a redress system similar to that in the United States. Its efforts eventually resulted in the allocation in 2018 of CA$81.4 million dollars for a redress system. In November 2018, the group was scheduled to meet members of the Senate, and it had to decide what short-term and long-term activities to undertake to achieve its stated goal of having a functioning redress system that would help all those affected by the no-fly list—not only children of group members, but all people, young and old, from various backgrounds.

In 2018, Volkswagen Group’s newly appointed chief executive officer renewed the company’s commitment to Strategy 2025, an ongoing plan intended to radically transform the German automaker. Volkswagen was being challenged by tectonic changes in the automotive industry, including the phasing out of the long-standing internal combustion engine, ongoing digitization, the entry of new competition from technology companies, the introduction of electric vehicles, and the launch of ride-sharing applications. Strategy 2025 was designed to reshuffle the company’s existing formal and informal structures and restructure the automaker into a nimble, agile, and innovative corporation ready to face the realities of mobility in the digital age. The new chief executive officer faced huge expectations concerning the effectiveness and sustainability of Strategy 2025. Was the automaker doing enough to transform into a competitive mobility company?

Spreadsheet supplement for case KEL553.