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Now in his mid-40s, Tom Bandy was not a novice entrepreneur. He was a veteran of the IT revolution two decades earlier. He had started a company after college that successfully exploited a market niche in database management. But by his late 30s, he had lost the business. Now he was ready to launch a new business. And guided by experience, he had some thoughts about how to finance it.

Every time Jim Fonner thought about how his own business had zigged and zagged, he was prone to laugh. Once employed at Weyerhaeuser, the international paper- and wood-products company, Fonner had left the management ranks to transform himself into something very different: one-half of the Beach Blues Brothers, a duo of singing, dancing, Hawaiian shirt-clad salesmen selling patio furniture door to door to Florida hotels. Ten years later, in 2007, he was running a company in Lexington, Virginia, supplying commercial outdoor furniture nationally. It had not exactly been a linear progression to the Shenandoah Valley.

Arnie Katz was thinking about his company's recent expansion into Richmond. It was a different environment than Charlottesville, where the company had started up and experienced its first successes. In a larger, less tight-knit city such as Richmond, he did not believe the company could rely on the same organic word of mouth that had fueled its early growth in Charlottesville. Acquiring new customers in Richmond might require traditional advertising. What kind of mix of the two approaches should he employ?

The new president and CEO of ACCION New York, a community development loan fund, was considering leading her organization in a combination with an affiliate organization, ACCION USA, and that morning, she would be conducting a meeting to discuss how to present the combination question to the directors at Friday's board meeting.

Bandy was no stranger to entrepreneurship and the problems brought about by success. Having honed his programming skills in the 1980s, he had already founded a database company that had seen great success-and then had been squeezed out by investors. He spent a few years after that working for a computing firm in Richmond until a chance remark by his young son spurred him to become an entrepreneur again. In 2005, he founded BandyWorks, a computing services consulting firm.

Katrina Didot's local organic food business, A Bowl of Good, was on the upswing now, and there was a chance to expand operations. In order to do that, Didot knew she needed a partner to shoulder some of the work. Didot had the recipes and knowledge-and she had drive. She needed someone who could make the trains run on time and ensure things flowed smoothly when it came to operations.

Sitting at their kitchen table early one morning, Renee and Gary Harris agreed that they finally had almost everything in place: a solid business plan, a great network of suppliers, an appealing and well-priced menu, start-up capital from their own personal savings

Using computer spreadsheets to track the finances for his restaurant-CC's Gourmet Kitchen-was one of Carl Coleman's least favorite things to do. This had been especially true at the end of each month since he opened. This evening in July 2010 was no different, as one figure in particular, the paltry $2,800 in profit, was characteristically depressing. "If I don't make some changes soon," Coleman said to himself, "I'm not going to be able to afford this."

BL Gruppo was a holding company that operated eight wildly acclaimed and highly rated restaurants, plus a catering operation, in Boston, Massachusetts. Its culinary mini-empire had continually achieved recognition as a great organization. But the story of BL Gruppo was actually two stories, of two entrepreneurial journeys. One was the journey of Barbara Lynch, a high school dropout who, through hard work, self-education, perseverance, and entrepreneurial focus, became a world-class chef. The other was the journey of someone with no formal business training who built a culinary business employing over 230 people and grossing close to $18 million in revenue. Now Lynch faced what she considered one of her biggest challenges: How might she institutionalize her business to sustain the enjoyment expected by her regular customers and the opportunity for advancement by her loyal employees, while at the same time giving her management team and herself chance to monetize and create wealth? And just as important: Should she keep directing her entrepreneurial zeal toward trying new business opportunities? ?

This case follows a protagonist as he tries to secure start-up capital to get his entrepreneurial venture going.

Jane Darcy stared in dismay at the spreadsheet. As the editor of Bolt, a free daily newspaper in Richmond, Virginia, Darcy had been working since January 2007 to build a devoted readership. Published Monday through Friday, Bolt featured topics such as local news and sports and was written in a snappy style for readers between 18 and 34 years old. Advertising had been steadily climbing. But its parent company was suffering, and Bolt might therefore be on the chopping block. What could Darcy do to save her beloved paper?

David Brown sat at his desk in the stock room of his toy store, Huckle Buckle Beanstalk, looking at the three résumés in front of him. He needed a new store manager, and these three résumés were his top choices. Each offered a different mix of skills and experience, and he hoped he would have the unusual luxury of having one rise to the top in the afternoon interviews. He had fired his previous store manager just over a month earlier for theft, and he knew that the business would suffer if he had to continue managing the store himself.

Elizabeth Franks, CEO of VBV, had a week until her July 2010 board meeting. VBV had just completed a six-month marketing and advertising campaign for a new product line and strategic rebranding, and early responses from the board had indicated mixed feelings.

Marjorie Burnett knew she was taking a gamble and wondered whether the potential new business she was considering would be worth the investment. Was expansion-offering even more products-the answer to increasing revenue, and would that decision be more profitable than her present business?

This case series is appropriate for undergraduate, MBA, executive education, and MBA Exec audiences but is specifically designed for decision analysis, a first-year MBA core course. The Part II case affords the opportunity to examine downstream decisions and a real option regarding how fast to harvest the fish when the virus hits. Monte Carlo simulation would be used to incorporate uncertainties about when the virus hits, if it hits, and mortality, and to generate the risk profile of contribution for the option alternatives and to compare whether to use 1 or 2 squads to harvest the fish. Based on the simulation results, an evaluation will be made of what to pay for the option.

Peer Swinkels (36) took a moment in 2011 to reflect on the achievements and the challenges that lay ahead for the 330-year-old family brewery. Peer was responsible for the commercial activities of the company. Together with his fellow board members, he was quite aware that his predecessors had left behind a beer company that excelled in manufacturing but lacked the brand traction to really hit the big league. The challenge for the seventh generation was clearly to leverage its exceptional brewing skills to create an equally strong brand using the unique family values and culture nurtured since the company was created back in 1680. Bavaria stood for fierce independence and a high degree of entrepreneurship, mixing legacy with innovation. Despite its long history, Bavaria regarded itself as a fresh young company, as epitomized by its internal motto ("Let's try") and the branding pay-off of the Bavaria brand ("Done!"). In the last few years, Bavaria had made significant progress in (re-)positioning the brand. It had successfully revitalized it in its Dutch home market with a new brand design, and was now rolling it out on a global scale. It launched award-winning innovations such as alcohol-free white beers. Its innovative guerilla marketing activities at the World Soccer Championships in South Africa won applauses and recognition all over the world. Should the company roll out the same aggressive product and marketing tactics in its 120 markets? Would it be possible to pull off a new guerilla marketing campaign around the 2012 European Soccer Championships in Poland and Ukraine? What other channels should it consider to reinforce the brand and match its product innovation prowess? Learning objectives: Guerilla marketing, growth management, family business.

Swiss Milk is a dairy company. Its new manager is trying to explore ways to increase profitability and decides to use optimization tools (i.e. linear programming) in order to answer some of the questions he has about the company. Learning objectives: The minicase puts emphasis on interpreting linear programming spreadsheet solutions. The focus is on getting insights from sensitivity analysis and on looking beyond the "optimal solution".

Marianne, an analyst for Geneva Bank, has been asked by her boss, Laura, to look into the returns from loan interests. She uses linear programming to get more insights about the issue and she walks into Laura's office with nothing else but a printout of the Solver sensitivity report. Learning objectives: The minicase puts emphasis on going beyond the optimal solution and tries to help students understand how to use the sensitivity report provided by Solver in order to discuss different scenarios.

Founded in 2007, Kunwu Jiuding Capital Co., Ltd (hereinafter referred to as Jiuding) is a Chinese private equity (PE) firm that specializes in equity investments in late-stage, pre-IPO companies. Despite its brief history, the firm had secured a strong foothold in China's PE industry with its tremendous growth and dazzling investment returns. As of 2011, Jiuding had 260 employees and 6 RMB-denominated funds with 6 million RMB under management. While investors showed strong enthusiasm for the firm, Jiuding nevertheless had generated much debate in the PE community about its pioneering investment practice - known as the "PE factory" model where investment activities were carried out in a way similar to large-scale industrial production. This model has subverted the traditional PE business practice in many ways. Concerns were raised about whether or not Jiuding's business model was sustainable in the next ten years, given the fast-changing landscape of China's PE industry.

Xinxing Dutile Iron Pipes Co. is a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE) that manufactures cast pipe products and steel products. The company had grown to become a dominant player in the ductile iron pipe industry, holding more than 40% domestic market share and nearly 20% global market share. Historically, Xinxing Pipes' management control system was based on standard costs. This system worked well until the global financial crisis in 2008 where market demand for steel declined rapidly, resulting in intense price fluctuations in both upstream and downstream. The existing management control system failed to respond in a rapid and efficient manner. As a result, Xinxing Pipes reformed its management control system. The reform was based upon two core ideas: (1) keep close watch on the market, increase communication among departments, take coordinated actions, and respond quickly to external market changes; (2) transform the production divisions' cost-centered model into a profit-centered model." These two guiding ideas gave birth to the "Production-Supply-Sales Rapid Linkage" and the "Simulated Legal Entities".