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Abby Falik, founder and CEO of Global Citizen Year (GCY), quickly read through the most recent news updates regarding the Ebola crisis in West Africa as she prepared for her board call on July 31, 2014. Based in Oakland, California, GCY was a five-year-old not-for-profit with a fiscal year (FY) 2015 budget of $3.5 million. Its mission was to make it much more the norm for graduating high school students in the U.S. to choose a "bridge year." GCY believed this experience after high school, but before college, would help students build self-awareness, learn about the world, and develop grit. In turn, GCY felt these attributes laid the foundation for success in college, and beyond.

In September 2013, Ranger Creek Brewing and Distilling was in its third year of operations and had so far been a success. Its beers and bourbons had won several tasting awards and its financials were meeting expectations, but the management team was starting to feel acute growing pains. Before the owners could even focus on growth plans, there were some unanswered questions they needed to tackle. Considering the current production records, what was the maximum attainable capacity of the plant? Would brewing capacity need to be expanded and, if so, what equipment should be purchased? Should the focus be placed on automating the brewing or filling process? Finally, what were the operational consequences of the recently passed beer laws in Texas? The owners had to choose an operational scenario for the 2014-2019 capital and manpower budget that would address these concerns.

Juchheim Co. Ltd. was a confectionery family firm located in Japan. The chief executive officer and owner faced two important issues related to the future success of the firm: managing succession into the next generation and determining the company's expansion strategy in the overseas market. Under the Japanese tradition of patriarchal primogeniture, the owner's eldest son was the heir apparent and would take over the company. However, the market scenario had changed; new demographic and economic conditions had brought challenges that the company had never faced before.

The director of A & S Software Group was recalling his entrepreneurial journey. It was in August 2013, and over the past 16 years he had seen the evolution of the company's flagship product - enterprise resource planning software for educational institutes - and a variety of business models associated with it. While the product strategy evolved through various stages, he had conceptualized Blue Print software as a tool to enable the rapid development of software applications. As he aspired to take his business to the next level, he was searching for answers to the following questions: What are the possible options for improving the flagship product in the coming years? Could it be offered as a service? Does it make sense to take Blue Print software to the market?

The president and CEO of Providence Healthcare needs to devise a plan to sustain positive change at the health care company. In just four years, she has led the organization through massive change and turnaround, from potential crisis to financial health and innovation. She now needs to consider how to integrate and embed the values that helped her drive change and foster collaboration, both at Providence and with its key partners. What more can she do to sustain positive change at Providence Healthcare through her values-based leadership and to win the support of key stakeholders well into the future? Much of the success thus far has depended on her values and character as a leader.

This is part of a case series. As the Alps disappeared into the darkness through NayaMed's window, the General Manager Aarnav Sendutta considered how to grow his fledgling unit. It was February 2014, and NayaMed, a unit of medical device giant, Medtronic, was just over two years old. It was formed to distribute Medtronic's economy range of heart pacemakers and defibrillators, with regional sales and online technical support. Aarnav was facing two key issues. The first was the perception from Medtronic sales reps that NayaMed would cannibalise their offering. The second issue was how to grow the unit, which currently operated from its Lausanne base in Switzerland, targeting only Italy, Germany and Sweden. The business had grown but was still very small, generating US $4 million in its second year of existence. Aarnav's passion for the NayaMed business was clear, the justification for NayaMed made good business sense, but attempts to grow it were being constrained by organisational issues within the parent company, Medtronic. What could they do?

Supplement to case LBS168

In November 2012, the Greek economy was on the precipice of collapse. Antonis Samaras, Greece's newly elected Prime Minister, faced a difficult decision regarding the harsh terms of austerity proposed by the European Commission, European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, in exchange for external support in the form of a financial bailout. If accepted, the bailout would prevent the country from defaulting on its sovereign debts, but would create blowback among domestic voters and potentially result in Samaras losing power. On the other hand, Mr. Samaras could reject the austerity demands and take a course of non-action. This would assure a bank crisis, debt defaults, and capital flight, perhaps precipitating Greece's exit from the Eurozone altogether and the resumption of its national currency, the drachma. At stake was a decision with deep ramifications for the political and economic future of both Greece and Europe. This case explores the political economy determinants undergirding Samaras' choice. Students evaluate the causes and consequences of sovereign debt defaults using both historical and comparative evidence, analyze the domestic economic conditions that triggered Greece's crisis, study the role of public opinion and party politics in shaping policy outcomes, and apply theories of international cooperation in order to understand the interests and strategies of Greece's foreign creditors. Overall, the case illustrates the complex manner in which domestic and international factors interact to shape political contestation over financial policymaking.

This case outlines the fundraising history of Marin Software. The case discusses the events that led up to the initial public offering (IPO) and the tumultuous aftermath of the stock going public. This case examines who were the winners and losers from the decision to go public, whether it was the right decision for the company at the time, and how deal structuring in early fundraising rounds impacted financial outcomes for those involved.

Following decades of civil strife among warring clans, and exacerbated by the worst drought in decades (2010-2012), millions of starving dislocated Somalis resided in crowded camps throughout the country. Humanitarian aid organizations made good-faith efforts to distribute food and medical treatment and supplies to those who suffered most. Almost always, however, these nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were thwarted by so-called gatekeepers, who, backed by military force, required that all aid be delivered first to themselves and only thereafter to the intended recipients, under conditions the gatekeeper set. This case summarizes the tactics used by the gatekeepers of Al-Shabaab (a cell of the radical Islamic group Al-Qaeda) in Somalia and the corresponding risks that the United Nations and NGOs had to confront.

The case expands its companion case, "Al-Shabaab, Gatekeepers, and the Ethics of Humanitarian Aid" (ETH-1), from the level of individual-within-organization to the level of organization-within-political system. The dire need for humanitarian assistance to Somalia's hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) was confounded by the presence of a government that seemed hopelessly weak. Weak governmental institutions created a power vacuum largely filled by Al-Shabaab, a jihadist group with geo-political and religious ambitions. The conditions insisted on by Al-Shabaab gatekeepers and their senior leaders (shura) resulted in the eviction of several NGOs from Somalia. Their reluctant exit left many other humanitarian aid organizations to contemplate whether "negotiating with terrorists" was worth it when such negotiations perpetuated the system of corruption, oppression, and physical danger.

Onion prices have been particularly volatile in India, reaching an all-time high of Rs. 100 in the month of October 2013 in certain parts of the country. The core of the onion price problem appears to stem from massive hoarding by cartels of intermediaries. How can this be stopped? Are there deeper problems with India's agricultural policies that belie the onion market failures? Onion is an important commodity for Indians of all classes; it is also the one that has swung political fortunes in India. The state of affairs in the onion market is indicative of gaping policy holes in the Indian agricultural markets. As India gears for the national elections in 2014, there is heightened interest in policy manifestos of the competing political parties. A history of policy measures adopted by past governments of India and the effects of these measures are outlined in this case. The case provides a platform for students to discuss the appropriateness of various policy measures with respect to agricultural produce marketing in India.

The case is about Inscape, a Bangalore-based Indian entrepreneurial company in the category of furniture attempting to develop a brand. Since times immemorial, humans have expressed their "one-upmanship" in a variety of ways. Consumer behavior has a '`self-concept'' component that is reflected in the symbolic behavior of consumers. Products, brands, and possessions of consumers form a symbolic part of their self-concept. Status orientation, reflection of lifestyles, and a sense of belongingness are some of the universal themes associated with symbolism. There are three aspects that form the highlights of the case. Emerging markets such as India are closely following western symbolism with regard to possession and consumption of products and brands. The case develops a historical perspective on the category by dividing the timeline into three periods of time frame that stretches from the pre-independence to the post-liberalization era. The influence of imperial lifestyles on the Indian cultural landscape is captured in the case. The second aspect is the unorganized nature of the furniture industry. An unorganized industry structure in the Indian context means several unbranded offerings are a part of the industry. Many of these offerings may be of sub-standard quality, may not have typical distribution channels and most importantly these offerings are priced much lower than the branded offerings. Around 90% of the industry is characterized by the unorganized sector. The third aspect of the case is the challenge in the formulation of a marketing strategy that can be extracted from cultural symbolism and self-concepts associated with the category. The three major aspects are set in the backdrop of a consumer survey among two prospective groups consumers and the survey delves into the behavioral dimensions associated with self-concept and cultural symbolism associated with furniture as a part of the Indian culture.

HCL Technologies Ltd., India's fastest growing IT services company, had radically improved its performance since the announcement of its famous "Employee First, Customer Second" strategy. Although sales, customer and employee satisfaction had significantly increased, HCL still lagged its competitors on overall profitability. With manpower costs accounting for a significant part of the operating cost, HCL responded to the changing competitive environment and redesigned its talent management strategy. The case is set in the dynamic context of the growing competitive environment of talent shortages and increasing wage costs in India where the Talent Acquisition Group (TAG) of HCL is looking to become a true business partner by evolving its service capability to help increase overall profitability. As part of its new strategy, HCL realigns the TAG, implements major change initiatives to align its members and signs up aggressive SLAs with the business stakeholders. With the implementation of a new HRIS system to aid quick decision making, innovative methods of talent acquisition and focused metrics for the function, the HCL TAG pushes the boundaries of what can and should be strategic recruitment.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation (TAPF) was founded in 2000 in Bangalore to provide free mid-day meals to the students of government schools. TAPF's kitchen in Vasanthapura provided meals to 650 schools in and around Bangalore benefitting 87,045 children. In 2014, TAPF provided meals to 1.4 million students and by 2020 they wanted to reach out to 5 million students. This massive expansion needs to be achieved without compromising the quality of food provided and simultaneously ensuring that all the key performance indicators such as time of delivery and temperature of food at the time of delivery are maintained as per the specifications. Muralidhar, the head of quality at TAPF along with his team have implemented several quality improvement projects. However, massive expansion plan by TAPF posed a greater challenge to Muralidhar. One of the critical to quality metric in TAPF is the "cooking-to-consumption time'', which should ideally be less than 6 hours. As the number of children to be fed increases, the cooking-to-consumption time is likely to increase. Muralidhar is contemplating use of lean and Six Sigma concepts to ensure that the cooking-to-consumption time is kept within the allowable time limit.

The case describes the use of linen at the Apollo hospitals. Apollo Hospital in Bannerghatta Road Bangalore is a tertiary care hospital with a capacity of 250 beds. In 2013, Apollo Hospital spent INR 5.1 million on managing bed lines (consisting of bed sheets and pillow cover). Dr Ananth N Rao, head of quality at the Apollo hospitals thought that the cost of linen management can be optimized using mathematical programming techniques which can have a significant impact on the bottom-line of the hospital. Each bed in the hospital is given two bed sheets and a pillow cover; however, there was 2% additional usage of linen owing to various reasons such as linen becoming dirty, wet, etc. Apollo hospital keeps a safety stock of linen for two days and any linen sent for washing is returned on day d + 2. The objective is to develop a mathematical programming model to minimize the total cost of linen management.

Spreadsheet Supplement for IMB495.

Larsen and Toubro (L&T) was India's largest technology, engineering, construction and manufacturing company. Construction and Mining Business (CMB) sold equipment such as Dozer Shovels, Dozers, Dumpers, Hydraulic Excavators, Motor Graders, Pipe Layers, Surface Miners, Tipper Trucks, Wheel Dozers and Wheel Loaders. CMB also provided the services of equipment installation and commissioning and other maintenance services. Supply of spare parts was critical, since the customer faced severe losses in case of equipment unavailability. Forecasting was done on an ad hoc basis based on the experience of the planning personnel. The value of each spare part ranged from INR 10 to INR 8 Million. It was critical to maintain a correct balance for the spare-parts inventories, since unavailability led to loss of revenues, decreased profitability, customer dissatisfaction and also gave rise to the fake products industry. Excess inventory led to high inventory carrying costs, working capital lock-in and also a possibility of spare parts becoming obsolete. Vijaya Kumar, Deputy General Manager of CMB, had to arrive at a forecasting methodology with an error of less than 10% for the 20,000 odd spare-parts. This warranted for 20,000 forecasting models, however this was not only very time consuming but also very expensive to develop and manage. Kumar wanted to build the forecasting model quickly so that he could roll out the forecasting strategy on a pan-India basis within a few weeks.

Spreadsheet supplement for IMB499.

Beijing Xiaomi Technology Co. Ltd. (Xiaomi) had grown into the third-largest cell phone brand in China and the sixth-largest in the world. The company solely deployed online channels, which contributed to its success. In the initial stage, Xiaomi depended on its own online channel to interact with consumers to develop user-friendly products and sell products. Three years after its inception, the company successfully established its flagship store on the largest business-to-consumer e-commerce platform in China. However, Xiaomi was facing a series of challenges, such as competitors' imitation and consumer complaints regarding services. Xiaomi was at a crossroads: should it stick to its online channels or develop online-to-offline channels?