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The founder of ChopValue Manufacturing Ltd. (ChopValue) was working to resolve his growth strategy. In 2016 his research had suggested 100,000 chopsticks were thrown out daily in the Metro Vancouver region. This moment of inspiration led him to develop an initiative to recycle and recircle these utensils and to create ChopValue. The company collected and cleaned used chopsticks, pressed them into tiles, used the tiles to create furniture and home décor products, and then sold the products. After launching ChopValue, the founder recognized a global need to reduce waste and developed a franchise system to grow his circular economy. He was now working to develop the best strategy for moving forward.

In December 2019, LUSTER LightTech Co., Ltd. was a company in the field of machine vision. As the business was rapidly developing, the founder, Yao Yi, realized that the company’s research and development directions were very scattered, and some projects with heavy investments might not be profitable. After reviewing the existing business, the chief financial officer, Gu Baoxing, proposed a "focus" plan, in which the company should concentrate on core customers in key industries or standardized core products, based on financial sustainability and profitability as the main criteria. In Case (A), students are required to use management accounting knowledge to assist the company in making business choices and strategic decisions.

April 2023: Case (B) primarily discusses LUSTER 's finance-business integration reform: upgrading digital management systems, building data analysis and financial forecasting systems, and strengthening performance evaluation. At the end of Case (B), CFO Gu Baoxing proposed an internal marketization plan: each division would be able to dismantle barriers and share customers, while each product line and sales team could collaborate across divisions to discover the most advantageous partnerships. However, employees were resistant to the reform plan. Students are expected to assess whether LUSTER has the foundation for internal marketization based on the information in Case (B), and to suggest corresponding financial tools if necessary. This is a supplement to LUSTER: The Strategy of Value First (A), product # W37053.

Wowing Coffee Beans Corporation Ltd. (Wowing Coffee) was established in 1997 in Yunnan Province, China. From the beginning it had embraced improvisation—in both its founding of a coffee plantation in China to its decision to produce specialty beans. In early 2020, just as Wowing Coffee explored the new and innovative idea of pairing its coffee estate with tourism opportunities, the outbreak of COVID-19 disrupted everything. With opportunities and challenges coexisting, where would Wowing Coffee go? Who would they sell their specialty coffee to during the lockdown period, and how should they sell it? Should they continue to invest in exploring new tourism opportunities within the plantation or return to supplying raw materials, like they had in the past, just to survive?

A 19-year-old student had just started university studies and was confronted by the financial challenges that many young adults faced as they embarked on their own life away from home. Her parents provided for her education and many basic living expenses, but there were still many unexpected costs and social life expenses to plan for. After an interesting conversation about personal finances with her friends, the student decided to start her own financial plan to resolve some important questions and to set some key financial objectives for her future.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W37003.

A retail investor was interested in investing in XPEL Inc., a market leader in the paint protection film industry. The investor felt that the company’s stock was undervalued and wanted to conduct a company valuation. She started by reviewing the company’s annual report for 2023 and gathered relevant market information for her analysis. On March 14, 2024, XPEL Inc.’s stock was trading at US$48.56 per share, which the investor believed was undervalued. However, she would have to consider all financial and market information she had gathered before reaching a final investment decision.

The business model of Side Door Access Inc. (Side Door), a Canadian start-up co-founded in Halifax, Nova Scotia, was based on facilitating live music performances in intimate, non-traditional venues like living rooms, art galleries, and bookstores, enabling direct connections between artists and audiences. The platform provided artists with opportunities to perform in unconventional spaces and negotiate directly with hosts regarding performance fees, with Side Door taking a modest commission. As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020, Side Door had to adapt to achieve continued growth. The chief executive officer considered various adaptations, including partnering with platforms such as Zoom and Twitch to facilitate virtual concerts; exploring different revenue models like pay-what-you-can and subscriptions for exclusive content; and diversifying offerings with workshops, masterclasses, and panel discussions. Each option presented its own set of challenges and opportunities and required her to weigh the potential impacts on Side Door’s mission, artist relations, audience engagement, and long-term strategy.

KiranaKart Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (Zepto) was a quick-commerce start-up founded by two 19-year-old Stanford University dropouts and operating in the Indian e-commerce market, one of the fastest growing in the world. Using a quick hyperlocal e-grocery delivery model, the company faced challenges during its post-pandemic growth; these included the viability of its disruptive model, the competition it faced, and a long wait for profitability. While the quick-commerce grocery delivery model, initially supported by a steady flow of funding from venture capital firms, faced close scrutiny the world over as the flow of easy money started drying up, not everything was ominous for Zepto. As August 2023 was coming to an end, the start-up found itself on a stable funding runway. However, critics raised doubts about the feasibility of its 10-minute delivery service. Every reduction in customer wait time led to an increase in costs, and there was no broader e-commerce or food delivery platform to synergize with. Moreover, there were also social costs associated with delivery. To sustain the next phase of growth, Zepto’s founding team had to consider various strategic options. They could commit to grocery and focus on high-margin items to increase the frequency and basket size of online grocery customers. Alternatively, they could aggressively re-launch Zepto Café to expand their product range, attract more customers, and increase average order value. Diversifying the company’s product categories by adding e-pharmacy or even electronics could be another option to win over more customers.

This note is about tokenization and tokenized assets. Tokenization refers to the process of creating a representation of a particular asset on a blockchain via digital tokens. Tokenized assets typically derive their value from the value of the underlying asset. This note explores the benefits and risks of tokenization, as well as use cases. Moreover, it explores Security Token Offerings, considerations for tokenized asset issuers, and the Howey Test. It concludes with a consideration of how possible future trends may affect tokenization.

Trina Wolfson incorporated her business, Tartan Loungewear (Tartan), on June 1, 2022. The business sold trendy loungewear with tartan accents. After Tartan’s first year of operations, she and her friend, an accountant, were working together to record all accounting transactions and prepare financial statements for the year.

In March 2022, Jack Jelinek and Mikey Woolfson, co-founders and co-owners of CRANK Lite Bev Corp (Crank), were considering whether they should sell their beer (Crank Lite Lager) at the Northern Heat Rib Series (Ribfest). As an Oakville, Ontario-based brewery startup that launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, Crank had already taken on a large amount of risk, and Jelinek and Woolfson were unsure of whether they could afford to take on additional risk. However, they wished to continue growing their business to eventually get acquired by another company. Jelinek and Woolfson wanted to determine whether the Ribfest opportunity made sense from a qualitative and quantitative perspective.

Instructor Spreadsheet for product W34894.

Student Spreadsheet for product W34893.

RiQian Motor was a Chinese company focusing on the development of wheel motors for mining machinery. Its long-term track record with providing high-quality products and service had won the trust and favour of its many clients. In 2016, the mining machinery industry began to focus on the production of electric vehicles. RiQian Motor invested in this new direction, but as of 2018, it was suffering losses in this new area. RiQian Motor was faced with a difficult choice: Should it discontinue its efforts at diversification and go back to the specialized strategy it excelled at? Or should it take a risk and continue the diversification strategy?

As managers face a flood of data, it is very important that they effectively analyze and interpret the available data to make decisions. Plotting data will help them in their analysis and interpretation of raw data. The same is true for students in business programs. However, students in business programs (and managers) often do not see the importance of plotting data. This exercise presents a typical classroom scenario in which the professor of data visualization quotes statistician John W. Tukey to his students and tries to drive home the importance of plotting data. A representative student understands about presenting summary statistics and running some statistical tests, but questions the usefulness of plotting points as well. The professor must decide how to teach the class about the merits of plotting data. The professor gives the student an assignment with data and instructions, and tells the student to report the class the next day. The student is unaware that he has been given the Anscombe quartet, and he becomes convinced of the benefits of plotting data.

In 2010, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, India, had been working for several months on an initiative to catalyze cleantech start-ups in India. This required multi-point intervention, including mentoring, acceleration, and funding. Substantially funded by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), this policy experiment aimed to address both market and government failures in developing countries like India by unlocking venture capital to clean-energy start-ups. As the project required CIIE to raise additional funding from other sources and there had so far been no venture capital funding of clean energy projects in India, the CEO wondered who he could approach for such funding, how to approach them, and how to structure the resulting fund to ensure the greatest potential support for innovative cleantech solutions.

Zhongke Xinke (Beijing) Technology Co. Ltd. (Zhongke Xinke), founded in November 2016, enjoyed a high reputation in China’s makerspace industry. Miao Jinsheng, the founder of Zhongke Xinke, sensed the changing environment and the development challenges of the enterprise and created the Foreseeing Unicorns Project. Jointly launched with the Jiangxi provincial government, the project supported the success of entrepreneurs and helped Jiangxi Province to discover and cultivate unicorn enterprises, creating shared value economically and socially. However, its commitment and close ties with the local government limited Zhongke Xinke’s future growth to a certain extent. How could the project grow by balancing its commitment to Jiangxi Province with its need to grow outside the province (national)?

In the era of artificial intelligence (AI), data and algorithms have been increasingly incorporated into organizations’ talent management in general and recruitment processes in particular. The case discusses the experience of the China-based technology giant Baidu Inc. (Baidu) during its implementation and incorporation of AI in its recruitment process. It introduces the new trend of intelligent recruitment, addressing the transformation toward it, its technical functions, and the operational model and value creation it enables. It also explores the challenges and future opportunities in the use of AI for talent management.

In 2022, the SEEMA Center for Training and Protection of Women and Children’s Rights, a non-profit organization in Khartoum, Sudan, was focused on eradicating the practice of female genital mutilation. The organization was facing cultural, educational, and political challenges in Sudan, as well as tensions from decades of civil unrest, which created barriers for the founder’s fight to eradicate FGM. Her work was also greatly challenged by the deep cultural roots of the practice that existed within the country and in the surrounding regions. Female genital mutilation was a traditional ritual that generated a culture of illegal procedures and groups of extremists. These groups countered the work of the organization and made the founder’s job all the more difficult. She had to find effective strategies and partnerships to help her achieve her organization’s goal of eradicating female genital mutilation.