In 2022, Doja Cat walked the red carpet for the sixty-fourth annual Grammy Awards in Las Vegas, Nevada, wearing a blinged-out JBL speaker as her only accessory. Chris Epple, vice president of marketing in the lifestyle division of JBL’s parent company, Harman International Industries Inc. (Harman), had realized a huge win with the Doja Cat collaboration. A year after the Grammy Awards, in March 2023, Epple contemplated what was next. He knew this had been the right partnership at the right time, but his greatest concern now was maintaining the social media buzz and continuing to build community around the brand. He wondered how JBL should manage future partnerships and collaborations to keep its target Generation Z consumers engaged and the brand story relevant.
This exercise explores the operational and strategic challenges faced by Philanthropy Insight (PI), a Canadian non-profit organization founded by Emily Hayes, which aims to provide donors with information to make informed giving decisions. Despite significant growth in website traffic, PI struggles with chronic underfunding, leading Hayes to continually finance the deficit from her personal savings. The case delves into PI’s data management issues, including its use of disorganized and error-prone Excel spreadsheets, and looks at the potential value of structuring its data into a centralized database to better analyze donor behaviour and content effectiveness. Students are tasked with analyzing PI’s current data practices, understanding the implications of data structuring, and recommending strategies to improve operational efficiency and financial sustainability through better data management and analytics.
The exercise offers students an intriguing learning scenario, involving analysis of the financial statements of 13 anonymized but well-known companies from diverse industries and sectors using financial ratios to eventually identify them. All 13 companies in the exercise are listed on the National Stock Exchange of India and were selected using National Industrial Classification codes. Moreover, the selected companies are taken from the top three firms in terms of market capitalization within each industry sector. The exercise provides financial data from the balance sheets and income statements of the 13 anonymized companies. Students are required to first categorize the anonymized companies into broad sectors and then identify their specific industry. Last, students are asked to identify the names of the anonymized companies. The sample has been divided into two categories: a training set and a testing set. Students should use the training set to develop a blueprint (a set of procedures) to identify the companies based on the sectoral and industrial characteristics reflected in their financial statements. They should then validate the blueprint by applying it to determine the identity of the companies in the testing set.
Velmenni, founded in 2014, was India’s first start-up company to venture into the realm of light communication and carry out research and development for commercializing light fidelity (LiFi) technology. After overcoming various technological and market hurdles, Velmenni had been able to make a few advancements by deploying pilot products with potential customers. However, the company lacked a continuous source of revenue. At this critical juncture when Velmenni was making progress with customers and feeling hopeful of getting substantial funding, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Investors who had committed funds didn’t move forward and Solanki lost most of his team members. The chief executive officer now faced the critical question of Velmenni’s very existence. Asking the team members to leave and selling the technology (licensing or assigning it to someone else) would provide him some cash as well as time to think about his next move. But should he instead restructure the team and get more paid pilot projects, to increase the chances of commercialization and investment?
In 2024, three decades after its start as “earth’s largest bookstore,” Amazon.com Inc. (Amazon) was the world’s largest online retailer and operated businesses that were strong competitors in on-demand cloud computing services, advertising, retail grocery, and entertainment markets. Since 2010, the company had taken steps to gain greater control of its supply chain and had expanded into logistics services through the company’s Supply Chain by Amazon business unit. Amazon was employing more than 1.5 million people with a market capitalization of more than three times the value of its closest competitor. Amazon boasted a vast selection and volume of products sold through a wide range of formats. However, the company had to decide if recent changes to its ever-expanding supply chain were adequate to support the company’s strategic goals and objectives. Were more changes needed to maintain Amazon’s competitive edge? What supply chain capabilities would be necessary for Amazon’s continuously evolving business model?
On October 15, 2023, the founder and CEO of Girls in Sports Alberta (GISA) faced a critical decision about expanding her enterprise. Based in Edmonton, Alberta, GISA offered affordable, high-quality multisport programs for girls with the aim to build confidence and promote sports participation. After a successful first year, the business badly needed more employees and funding; however, as a sole proprietorship, it had limited access to certain grants. The founder was now considering changing GISA’s business model and legal structure. Should she transition GISA to a corporation to retain control, or become a non-profit to access new funding opportunities? Which was the right path to achieve sustainable growth?
The entrepreneurial beach vendor industry is culturally vibrant on the famous beaches of Zona Sul, including Copacabana Beach and Ipanema Beach, in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro (commonly known as Rio). Vendors, who mainly reside in low-income working-class districts known as a favelas, sell a variety of goods and services to locals and tourists from around the world. In addition to the numerous characteristics associated with Rio’s beach vendors, four key insights can be highlighted as being particularly noteworthy: the highly entrepreneurial and largely informal industry; the value created for consumers, vendors, and supply chains; the unique challenges; and the addition to Brazil’s economic and cultural fabric.
In 2024, the managing director of a pharma company faced an ethical dilemma after being informed that a senior manager had falsified her resumé and manipulated the reference check process when she applied for her position three and a half years before. After first denying all allegations, the senior manager eventually confessed. However, her pregnancy may have complicated the situation for the company. Given that the company had planned to promote her, would firing her be appropriate? Dismissing her could jeopardize the company’s relationship with major customers and five orders totalling over $20 million. Under these circumstances, how can the company balance its core values with potential business impacts and sensitivity for the manager’s well-being?
The Volkswagen Group (VW Group) unveiled its vision, “NEW AUTO – Mobility for generations to come,” in 2021, setting the goal of becoming a prominent provider of sustainable mobility by focusing on e-mobility, digitalization, and autonomous driving, while prioritizing environmental, social, and governance factors, regional markets, and effective financing for the transformation. As of 2024, the VW Group had recognized the potential of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the automotive industry, particularly in areas such as manufacturing, autonomous vehicles, and data analytics. Despite the promise of AI, challenges surrounding governance, compliance, transparency, and talent management needed to be effectively addressed for successful adoption and implementation by the VW Group.
This case follows the evolution of Tony’s Chocolonely (Tony’s)—a Dutch chocolate brand dedicated to eradicating child and forced labour in the chocolate industry supply chain—focusing specifically on the tensions inherent in any sustainable entrepreneurship. From its humble origins as a journalist’s protest over the use of child and forced labour, Tony’s grew into a globally recognized, sustainable brand with a mission to change the chocolate industry and abolish the worst forms of labour abuse. Along the way, Tony’s faced critical decisions where it had to balance conflicting social, environmental, and financial goals across the individual, organizational, and systemic levels—including in its own value chain. Tony’s chief executive officer (CEO) Douglas Lamont must make two key decisions about how to best address these labour practices: 1) what premium should be paid to cocoa farmers to support their livelihoods and thereby remove the need to resort to child and forced labour; and 2) whether to keep working with the Swiss chocolate producer Barry Callebaut AG, which had recently been accused of supporting forced labour in its own supply chain. Was it possible to change the system in the chocolate industry?
In 2023, Bud Light and its parent company, Anheuser-Bush InBev (AB InBev), faced a backlash following an advertising campaign featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. A marketing post by the influencer sparked a national outrage, throwing Bud Light into the centre of a national transgender debate. AB InBev’s stock price dropped by 18.4 per cent and sales of Bud Light plummeted as politically right-leaning drinkers publicly boycotted the brand in protest of the company’s “woke” advertising. The advertisement was part of an overall initiative to revive Bud Light’s popularity, as younger drinkers were moving away from beer toward seltzers, cannabis, and nicotine. Marcel Marcondes, global chief marketing officer of AB InBev, had been tasked with repairing Bud Light’s brand image by creating a new marketing strategy to appeal to all its drinkers amid the backdrop of declining beer consumption. Marcondes needed to determine how to rebuild the brand’s equity and customer loyalty in the year ahead.
Zhongzhi, a virtual reality (VR) company founded in late 2016 and based in Nanchang, China, used its VR films to lay the groundwork for its entry into the metaverse as a business. Since 2021, the first year of the metaverse, Zhongzhi has focused on developing the JiuTian Intelligent Space Platform, which integrates all kinds of digital technologies—such as VR, blockchain, and digital twin—to embed diverse case contents. Zhongzhi’s operations have encompassed three key areas: vocational education, a science and technology centre, and rural revitalization. However, establishing a sustainable metaverse business remains a significant concern. The company was confronted with a strategic dilemma: whether to focus all efforts on a core business area or diversify into new ventures that offer long-term sustainability.
In May 2024, Vernon Burke, owner and chief operating officer of Burke Family Farms, was deciding which of three options would be best for his cash crop operations when his existing combine harvester lease came to an end in two months. He could buy out his lease, buy a used combine, or outsource the work and pay another farmer to harvest his crops.
Jatinder Gill, an Indian immigrant, opened the vegetarian restaurant Veg World India in Barcelona. He gained rich culinary experience in Europe for 15 years before opening the restaurant in 2007. His personal beliefs and choices played an important role in the business. His business grew handsomely. In 2023, his partner in the restaurant decided to part ways. Gill needed a significant amount of money to buy back his partner’s share. This was possible only if the restaurant generated more revenue, and it could do so by serving alcohol to customers. At that time, Gill hadn’t served alcohol because of his religious beliefs. He faced an arduous dilemma that tested the strength of his beliefs against the need to increase revenue.
Xiaomi India, the subsidiary of Xiaomi Group (Xiaomi)—a world-leading electronics giant from China—had grown explosively since entering the country in 2014. However, in April 2022, the Indian Enforcement Directorate accused it of illegal remittance of profits out of the country and, in response, seized a fund of US$669.95 million in the company’s account. This seizure was record-breaking in Indian history, equivalent to nearly half the annual worldwide profits of Xiaomi. To unfreeze the fund was obviously urgent. More importantly, the company had to formulate effective strategies to navigate an increasingly hostile, foreign context that had been strained by the escalating geopolitical conflicts.