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Boll & Branch is a direct-to-consumer (DTC) business launched in 2015. It was the first Fair-Trade Certified manufacturer of linens. The case provides background on the company, its start, business model, and evolution through 2019.

The case highlights the challenges and successes LAX CEO Deborah Flint and Board Chair Sean Burton have achieved from Flint's arrival in 2015 to December 2019. It explores issues of leadership and change management in a highly complex environment: LAX Airport. Chair of LAX Board Sean Burton and LAX CEO Deborah Flint have made progress on streamlining and modernizing LAX's complex capital projects ($12 billion worth) while reorganizing and retooling Los Angeles World Airport (LAWA) staff resources, management processes, and revitalizing the LAX guest experience. From 2015-2019, LAX's performance improved, yet many challenges remained, and new ones continued to come to light. In December 2019, as Flint prepared to move onto a new position, Burton and the board are assessing the progress the team has made, and looking to next steps.

This case describes the efforts of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to lower the cost of production of vaccines to prevent polio infections. It is an abridged version of Case No. 620-021 with less emphasis on comparison between traditional and the new compact modular process developed with the Foundation's funding. It focuses more on the lowering of entry barriers to vaccine manufacture and some of the perceived risks associated with that.

A weather technology startup, ClimaCell considers the R＆D trade-offs and financing implications of pursuing a proposed contract with a major automobile maker, rather than continuing its focus on building a scalable, all-purpose weather prediction engine.

In October 2019, National Basketball Association (NBA) team the Milwaukee Bucks are about to tip off their first home game in the 2019-2020 NBA season. Peter Feigin, president of the Milwaukee Bucks, and Jon Horst, the league's youngest general manager, could look back at a very successful prior season. In fact, just five years after a new ownership team led by Wes Edens, Marc Lasry, Jamie Dinan and Mike Fascitelli came in after the Bucks experienced one of the worst seasons any NBA team had ever seen, the Bucks finished at the top of the standings in the NBA's Eastern Conference. Star player Giannis Antetokounmpo played an instrumental role in the team's ascent. Superstars of his caliber, however, often do not stay in smaller markets like Milwaukee. In fact, many superstars switch franchises while at the peak of their abilities, electing to team up with another superstar (or even multiple stars, forming what had become known as 'super teams'). The summer of 2019 in particular saw a number of stunning moves by big names. Now, Feigin and Horst are leading the charge to try to buck the trend. Do they have the right approach to keeping Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee, and away from other teams plotting to attract him? And what else can they do to ensure the Milwaukee Bucks will not only rise to the top of the league, but also manage to stay there?

Beyond Wireless (BW) is an IoT remote temperature monitoring equipment and services company headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. At the time of writing the case, Ian Lester, BW's CEO, is exploring approaches to growing the organization. The case demonstrates the strategic, operational, cultural, and technological challenges with scaling IoT businesses, particularly in low and middle-income countries. The case specifically examines: 1. The benefits and challenges of leveraging existing technology infrastructure to grow a business beyond a single offering 2. The expansion of IoT services to multiple industry verticals 3. The design of digital platforms to achieve demand-side economies of scale The case asks students to suggest strategies for growing BW considering the state of the company and its technologies, competitive challenges, and opportunities to transforming its business model and serving new market segments.

The Black Duck case describes the transition of a 14-year-old software start-up that was languishing with outdated technology, low growth, and modest margins, to a rapidly growing innovative company that had become attractive enough to be an acquisition target for major software houses. The new incoming CEO, Lou Shipley, had to make some tough decisions and a number of changes - some major and many minor - to set Black Duck back on a growth path and ready the firm for a sale, so that the investors could get their exit.

The events in this case, which are fictional, provide a background for class discussion about problem-solving, critical thinking, stakeholder management and crisis management. The case puts students in the position of senior managers of an Indonesian geothermal energy company. Following an earthquake near the company's main geothermal power plant (there is some suspicion that it may have been caused by the geothermal power plant), the managers are asked to devise strategies and solutions to a series of problems to satisfy various stakeholder groups. With the CEO temporarily trapped in a lift, they must come up with recommendations to handle the crisis by the time their leader arrives.

In the year 2000, only 2% of women in India used menstrual hygiene products. Almost a quarter-billion relied on cloth rags and many rural women were banished to a hut during their monthly cycle. In these unsanitary conditions, 62.4% had experienced at least one reproductive tract infection, with the result that teenage hysterectomies were not uncommon. The lack of menstrual products was linked to a high drop-out rate from school, forced teenage marriage, teenage pregnancy, illiteracy and often a lifetime of subservience. Yet despite the severity of the problem, taboo kept it largely hidden. Indians did not discuss menstruation. Arunachalam "Arun" Muruganantham changed this by innovating a new business method: micro-factories where women produced and sold sanitary napkins directly to other women. The case discusses how he solved a previously unaddressed problem in a way that created a new market, overcame deep social taboos, challenged centuries-old traditions and bettered women's lives, resulting in the creation of over 3,500 small businesses. It highlights how enterprises can be economically profitable and a force for good. And why, contrary to conventional thinking, innovation does not need to be disruptive but can be based on nondisruptive market creation.

In June 2018, the wedding dress industry in Suzhou, China, was confronted with "the harshest clampdown," which required all unqualified wedding dress factories to move out within one week. The initiative from the local government had been expected, although its speed and force were surprising to the founder and chief executive officer of Suzhou Beibao E-Commerce Co. Ltd. (Babyonline). Established in 2012 and engaged in cross-border e-commerce of wedding dresses, Babyonline was unlikely to be affected by the clampdown. However, changes across the wedding dress industry as a result of the initiative had started the founder thinking about issues in the management of his company. At the end of 2015, Babyonline had moved to a make-to-stock system, which lowered costs but seemed to have raised inventory issues. Particularly in recent times, selective selling by some sales representatives had led to structural inventory problems. The founder wondered how he should resolve the inventory issue.

A social entrepreneur running a business in Khayelitsha, near Cape Town, South Africa, made and distributed healthy bread-based products for consumers in a poor community through his social enterprise, the Spinach King. His aim was to improve consumers' eating habits and help them improve their health. In early 2014, after facing and overcoming many difficulties related to starting this social enterprise start-up in a resource-constrained context, this entrepreneur had a successful business. The business model had evolved over time, and while it was still small in scale, the owner was convinced that it was ready to scale. He needed to determine what business model would be most appropriate going forward and how he could implement it.

The co-founders of Prosper, an early-stage start-up offering a mobile application-based interview preparation and coaching service, were preparing a report for an upcoming meeting with private equity investors. The co-founders sought a CA$1 million seed investment and had to choose where to allocate marketing funds. Should they bias the marketing mix toward students reached via educational institutions or families, or toward professionals making a career switch? They knew that success or failure would depend on their ability to craft a compelling narrative and lay out a realistic marketing plan that would lead to an increased user base and greater revenue growth.

In August 2018, the founder of Speak-On, was finalizing plans for his company's first year of operations. Speak-On was a learning tool used in classrooms to help students improve their communication and public speaking skills. Having worked on developing a prototype all summer with financing from the Government of Ontario, the founder needed to understand the cash needs for his company. He planned to project a cash budget for fiscal year 2018 and do a sensitivity analysis on his projections to determine the amount of additional financing needed. Did Speak-On require external financing, and would the line of credit support the cash needed?

MoviePass provided a subscription-based service that allowed its users to see films in theatres for a monthly fee. The company rose to stardom between 2016 and 2017, but in mid-2018, it suffered crushing financial losses when operating costs increased and ancillary revenues were too slow to materialize. The company's subscription base shrank sharply following the introduction of restrictions on its service and an announcement of a price increase. Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc. (H&M), MoviePass's parent company, would be de-listed if its stock price remained below the threshold stipulated by the NASDAQ Composite Index (i.e., US$1 per share). The chief executive officer of MoviePass and its management team had to keep the company afloat while trying to regain MoviePass's lost momentum. How could they revitalize the once-promising upstart and prevent H&M from being de-listed?

The case on Chow Tai Fook (CTF), the world's largest jewelry company, introduces an important challenge for data analytics in the jewelry or luxury product industry. It is difficult to provide an accurate demand prediction for a product at CTF. The reasons are mainly three-fold. First, the jewelry products are of high value and slow-moving, with mostly single digit sales numbers over a year. Second, the demand of a product partly depends on the availability of other products, due to customers' substitution behavior. There are 16 product categories with more than 15,000 distinct products offered by CTF, and how the sales of different products are related is not clearly understood. In this case, traditional statistical methods such as linear regression is not useful.

Many companies study the management strategies of others, adapting and learning from the experiences of large multinationals. But global corporations also need strategies that are capable of adapting to changing markets and profitability. Is it possible for these corporations to develop new and powerful insights from smaller firms? The Toyota Motor Corporation's philosophy and business strategy, known as the "The Toyota Way" is globally recognized as an industry leader, and its managerial values and business methods are regarded as benchmark practices, guiding the processes and strategies of organizations worldwide, e.g., Toyota's Kanban method, of inventory control which facilitates just-in-time manufacturing, is seen as the optimal approach to inventory control. Founded in Japan in 1937, the company grew rapidly. But a series of issues, resulting in a drop in vehicle sales and profitability left Toyota's president, Akio Toyoda, considering how the company could find a more sustainable way of growing and how to incorporate this new philosophy into its existing business model. Toyoda is now a strong advocate for an alternative philosophy known as the "Nenrin or tree ring" strategy. He credits a small company, Ina Food, which makes agar, a traditional ingredient in Japanese food, as the source of Toyota's ongoing success. Finding inspiration in Ina Food's 55 years of sustainable growth and profit, Toyoda now follows many of its key initiatives. The corporate giant has become one of the largest corporations globally, while still promoting the virtues of slow and steady growth on an ongoing basis.

In 1993, when the Chinese economy was in a major recession, Beijing's Greatwall Enterprise Institute was founded by six consultants. The company eventually found its niche providing strategic and operational consulting to the governmental agencies (administrative committees) that managed science and technology parks. These agencies had witnessed explosive growth in China since the early 1990s. In 2019, with more than 350 consultants, headquarters in Beijing, 12 branch offices throughout China, and an annual revenue greater than ¥200 million (US$30 million), Greatwall Enterprise Institute faced new threats and opportunities: its success with so many government administrative committees meant that there was little room for it to grow in this area. The company wondered if it should expand to other local governments and their agencies in China. Or would business firm clients and the international market offer new opportunities?

On October 22, 2016, U.S. telecom operator AT&T Inc. and television media giant Time Warner Group announced that AT&T Inc. would acquire Time Warner Group for $107.50 per share, using half cash and half stock, to a total equity value of $85.4 billion. Although the chief executive officers from both companies were very confident about the future prospects for their shareholders once the transaction was approved and completed, there was much controversy surrounding the acquisition. A portfolio manager with a significant portion of her investment portfolios tied up in AT&T Inc. equity wondered if the price was fair. She needed to make a thorough valuation analysis to ensure that she could anticipate the future value of the merged firm and mitigate any possible loss in value for her investors.

Student spreadsheet to case W19651