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In 2012, after several failed attempts at establishing a cloud computing solution for its entire Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) suite, SAP announced two major acquisitions: SuccessFactors, a major SaaS provider for Human Resources software and Ariba, a major SaaS provider of supply chain software. The first acquisition was for $3.4 billion, with a 52 percent premium over SuccessFactors' market value. The second was for $4.3 billion, with a 20 percent premium. The industry press and bloggers saluted this as a strategic shift in SAP's approach to cloud computing. In May 2012, Lars Dalgaard, CEO of SuccessFactors, was appointed head of SAP's Cloud Business, in charge of the entire SAP SaaS strategy. This case explores the decisions, tactics and strategies pursued to turn SAP into a major cloud computing company.

In late 2008, government officials in Summit County, Ohio began to discuss the possibility of combining the county's three public health districts. These early discussions set the stage for more than two years of negotiations that eventually led to the consolidation of the health departments in late 2010 and early 2011. This case tells the story of why and how officials in Summit County combined their public health districts and includes an epilogue that describes the consolidated agency's first year of operations. Case number 1987.0

In late 2008, government officials in Summit County, Ohio began to discuss the possibility of combining the county's three public health districts. These early discussions set the stage for more than two years of negotiations that eventually led to the consolidation of the health departments in late 2010 and early 2011. This case tells the story of why and how officials in Summit County combined their public health districts and includes an epilogue that describes the consolidated agency's first year of operations. Case number 1987.1

In 1993, the Indian government approved a constitutional amendment that would forever change the face of rural politics. The landmark legislation mandated that village councils-traditionally the bastion of higher caste males-hold regular elections and reserve one-third of the seats for women. India, however, was not alone in its efforts to increase women's representation in elected government. By 2012, half the world's countries had adopted political quotas for women. Despite the rapid rise of political quota systems there was remarkably little rigorous evidence on their effectiveness. Did more female leaders result in more gender equal societies? Could a mandatory change in the balance of power reduce discrimination against women? The design of the Indian quota system gave social scientists a unique opportunity to examine the causal impact of gender quotas. This case profiles findings from the body of rigorous evidence on the impacts of female political quotas in India-with potential lessons for governments and businesses everywhere. Case number 1996.0

When local governments face budget pressures, one approach is to regionalize services-that is, to seek out greater economies of scale by consolidating service delivery with other municipalities. This case describes the effort of two small (though well-heeled) Massachusetts towns to explore a police merger during the financial recession of 2009. The towns of Hamilton and Wenham, located north of Boston in the "North Shore" area, had, in the past, successfully consolidated school systems, libraries, recreation departments, and more. By some calculations, the towns stood to save a significant amount of money by merging police forces. Ultimately, however, they decided against it. The case includes partly conflicting data from several studies that estimate the financial impact of a police merger. Case number 1988.0

The work of CMG Life Services provides a window into the life settlement industry, showing the difficulties that one young company faces in trying to solve a market failure. This case uses CMG's strategic dilemma to both illuminate the mechanics of a small, inefficient market and show how the success or failure of a market can sometimes depend on more than intrinsic value. The case lays out disagreement about the future of the industry, and even within the industry as key players differ on the most promising path forward. Ultimately, the promise of the life-settlement market for both insurance policy holders and investors may not be realized, and the case lays out the strategic impasse and key factors that will dictate its resolution.

In recent years, men's tennis has been dominated by Roger Federer, Rafeal Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. The question is whether their performance depends on the type of court surface.

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The Smith family is in a cash crunch. Even with a combined gross family income of $80,000 per year, monthly cash outflows are still greater than inflows. Joel and Amber Smith are aware of these cash flow problems, but do not understand where their money goes and struggle to set financial goals. They have contacted a financial advisory firm to help them develop a plan and set realistic future goals. The Smiths face financial problems common to young families such as saving for their retirement and children's education, paying down credit card debt, paying down (and possibly refinancing) their mortgage, buying a new vehicle, and providing adequate healthcare insurance. Students are tasked with playing the role of the family's financial advisor and helping them bring their finances under control. The case is built in two parts, (A) and (B). These can be used in separate 75- to 90-minute classes, with Smith Family Financial Plan (A) covered at the midpoint of the course and Smith Family Financial Plan (B), product 9B13N006, covered near the end. Alternatively, it can be used as a two-part major assignment, with Part (A) as the first major submission and Part (B) as the second.

The founder of Hummus Bar, a successful restaurant in Hungary, is considering expansion. He is struggling to identify and select the most promising market. Should he pursue domestic expansion or consider internationalizing his concept? The founder wants to recruit and involve additional investors to spread risk, enhance the brand through diversified skill sets and ensure he selects the most appropriate entry strategy.

This version condenses the two parts of "K&S Industries Inc. in China: Transferring Knowledge (A) and (B)" into a single-use case. Suitable for the MBA, EMBA, GEMBA, and executive education programs, the case presents a manufacturer of semiconductor assembly equipment looking to achieve growth in its wire bonding tools segment-in particular, capillaries and dicing saw blades-through geographic expansion. At the time, it manufactured capillaries in Yokneam, Israel, and blades in Santa Clara, California. While much of the work on outsourcing to China focuses on the low cost and its tradeoffs, this case examines in depth the interaction between human capital and a firm's cost and capabilities. The expansion committee team is charged with designing and opening a new facility in Suzhou, China. Expanding operations to China meant cost savings, and it was where K&S's market had expanded. But it wasn't clear whether it made sense to move the capillary process, the dicing blade manufacturing, or both. And if K&S did move to China, it would keep the Israeli-based factory open but close the American-based. If both were moved, what order would make sense given that one existing factory would be closed down and the other kept open? And once those decisions were made, what exactly would the knowledge transfer look like?

The dilemma Evan Blue faces stems from a report by sustainability advocacy group Ceres that calls on companies to take climate change into consideration in their risk models and develop response strategies. The fictional vice president of Traveler's Insurance is tasked with briefing the company's board on the matter the next day. He must decide if there is a business case to be made for taking action in response to climate change risk. Students are asked what the company's responsibility is and if integrating climate change into its risk models will make it a better underwriter or price it out of certain markets.

In 2004 the low-cost carrier business model is introduced to Southeast Asia. And Singapore's first budget carrier, Valuair, finds itself in fierce competition with two emerging competitors in the second half of that year. Valuair needs to expand in order to remain competitive. However, for this to happen, the company requires additional access to capital. The CEO, Sim Kay Wee, begins pitching the company as a smart, low-risk investment. Is Sim right, given Valuair's competitive position and the nascent market environment in which it operates?

The founder and CEO of a mountain bike race in South Africa wonders how to build on the world-class event that he and his team have created. Although the event is popular and continues to grow in prestige, the business's dependence on a single event creates both a threat and an opportunity. The threat is that the business would be in serious jeopardy if something were to go wrong with the event. The opportunity is that the event can be a launch pad for additional events or for other business concepts. Although the team has experimented with some ideas, they have not hit on anything that they want to pursue on an ongoing basis. The founder and CEO is therefore looking for the concept or idea that will provide the business with its next injection of growth. Learnings from the case may be applied to any event-based creative industries business, such as music festivals, exhibitions, fairs or film festivals.

This case pairing was designed for use in the Darden School's Global MBA for Executives program in the core Leadership and Organizations course and is also suitable for MBA, EMBA, and Executive Education courses in a module covering transformational leadership or human resources strategy. The field-based case uses the experiences of three managers at a big-box retail distribution center to set the stage for an analysis of transformational leadership in a large company. Kevin Henson has worked at big-box retailer SingleStop's distribution center for only four months when he was offered a job at another firm. He had joined the firm in the spring of 2012 while it was undergoing a difficult transformation. His disastrous hiring process and difficult first months are described from Henson's viewpoint and two other management members of the firm. Henson must decide whether to give SingleStop another chance.

This case pairing was designed for use in the Darden School's Global MBA for Executives program in the core Leadership and Organizations course and is also suitable for MBA, EMBA, and Executive Education courses in a module covering transformational leadership or human resources strategy. In this case, Henson's decision whether to stick with SingleStop is revealed.

After more than 45 years of service, the company was facing some major challenges. Legacy carriers in the United States had become more efficient, and the recent mega-mergers involving Delta/Northwest and Continental/United were shaking up the industry. Smaller companies like JetBlue and Allegiant were pressuring Southwest's cost-advantage and low-fare focus. A major internal challenge for Southwest would be managing its acquisition of AirTran. To make the acquisition a success, the company would have to integrate a workforce of more than 8,000 and new markets that included non-U.S. destinations. In addition, high fuel prices were a continuing challenge, and Southwest's salaries were among the highest in the industry.

Internationalization of emerging market multinationals is a recent phenomenon gaining importance in the global economy. This foreign expansion of a new breed of companies has challenged established theories and practices in the field of international business (Cuervo-Cazurra, 2007). This article addresses the issue of whether or not there is something to learn from these emerging market companies and their foreign expansion. Focusing on the international trajectories of four Brazilian multinationals (i.e., Odebrecht, Embraer, Stefanini, and Marcopolo), this study analyzes their strategies and managerial processes during and after the recent economic crisis with regards to internationalization. Our qualitative fieldwork suggests that the trajectories of these Brazilian multinationals are quite unstructured and evolve as a reaction to the opportunities they face in international markets. It seems all four companies in our sample shared a strong entrepreneurial spirit and a high motivation to expand their international operations despite the crisis and the obstacles they faced. Our findings and suggestions in terms of lessons learned should provide valuable implications for multinational managers from other emerging markets by providing a better understanding of how Brazilian multinationals expand internationally, deal with economic crisis, and manage relationships with local and foreign institutions.

Growth management is a challenging but critical corporate strategy facing the fast economic growth in emerging markets. An overemphasis on growth would lead to the growth fetish, where growth is unqualified and seen as an end in itself. By examining the performance of 105,260 firms in key sectors of Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) from 2002 to 2011, this study presents quantitative evidence that supports a profit-oriented strategy as a more effective path to sustained profitable growth in emerging markets. To further support this argument, this study also provides qualitative evidence of a group of 70 sustained high-performing firms that are superior to their peers (the top 500 private companies in each of the BRIC countries) in terms of profit, growth, market share, and efficiency over a 10-year period. The study shows that sustained profitable growth requires qualified sales growth (i.e., organic growth), competence-based and competence-enhancing growth, and continuous product diversification.