The case is set in September 2023, and talks about the energy transition of the oil and gas industry in context to ExxonMobil (Exxon), which has seen continued backlash from media and climate activists on its stance on climate change, strategies towards pivoting its core business towards more sustainable practices and moving away from fossil fuel energy that contributes significantly to global warming. While many oil and gas companies have increasingly opted to investing in renewable forms of energy, Exxon has instead focused on investing in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, and other alternate forms of energy like hydrogen and biofuels. Exxon had also introduced Net Zero pledges, but industry analysts continued to question the company's stance and strategies and its persistent focus on oil and gas. Was chasing Net Zero the right strategy for Exxon moving forward? Given its predominant involvement in oil and natural gas, was it strategic to persist in prioritizing oil demand alongside lower emission initiatives and transition investments? Was its existing strategy sufficient to help the conglomerate reinvent itself in a competitive and rapidly changing energy market?

This simulation case is meant to be used as a learning object for students to understand the various facets of the Resources, Events, Agents (REA) data model in designing accounting information systems. The case allows students to analyse the various entities in an REA data model, and identify associations between these entities and their cardinalities. There are two scenario examples provided in the simulation - 1) YY Frozen Yoghurt and 2) SMU Mart. The first simulation helps students understand the concepts of the REA data model, and the second simulation assesses students' understanding of the REA concepts and framework.

In February 2021, political turmoil had engulfed Myanmar following a military coup under which elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi was jailed after her party won a landslide victory in the elections. CEO and co-founder of Daung Capital (Daung), a microfinance institution (MFI) in Myanmar, Leon Qiu recalled the years before the coup, when inclusive finance businesses like his had just begun to flourish. Daung had offered a variety of loan products in Myanmar since its inception in 2017. Its products included short-term loans for purchasing motorbikes, short-term loans to salaried workers for purchase of everyday utility items, and educational loans to students from poorer households. In 2019, Daung had launched a new loan product for farmers. Unlike other loan products, the loan scheme for farmers did not entail regular repayments. Instead, the farmers were expected to repay the loan as a lump sum after the harvest. Careful credit risk assessment of the target customer base was a key criterion in designing a loan product for farmers. Ethical obligations and decision-making were important considerations as well. Qiu pondered over the various constraints around which the farmer loan product had been constructed and how it could be improved. How could Qiu and his team assess the credit risks associated with the farmer loan product? What strategies could they implement to control the credit risks associated with farmer loans? Could they use machine-learning algorithms to assess the credit risks? The case illustrates (1) the various challenges faced by an MFI in assessing credit risk of agricultural borrowers (mainly farmers) (2) the dynamics of the MFI sector in Myanmar (3) credit risks presented by rural lenders. The case can be used in undergraduate, postgraduate and executive education classes to teach concepts on credit risk management in microfinance for emerging markets.

Set in September 2021, the case traces the digital transformation of FoodXervices Inc, a Singapore SME operating in the food distribution industry. The case essays the challenges faced by Nichol as a leader helming the digital transformation and how the transformation helped the company redefine its value proposition to the stakeholders. To customers, it pivoted from being a distributor to a solution provider; to the labour market, it had become a foodtech company attracting savvy university graduates as employees; to the F&B community, it had become an incubator fostering innovations. However, Nichol wanted more value to justify the company's investment in digital technology and futuristic application. In addition, she wanted the technology to improve the business metrics by improving sales and margins.

Set in May 2021, this case describes the journey of transformation Hai Sia Seafood (Hai Sia), a Singapore-based seafood company, embarked upon five years earlier. Hai Sia, a family business established forty-five years earlier, supplied high quality, fresh, and processed seafood at competitive prices for domestic consumption in Singapore. However, the seafood processing industry in the city-state, including the port, was woefully backward. Hai Sia operated a manual processing plant that was twenty years old, and relied completely on labour intensive work processes, even though digitisation was on the rise in the country and consumers were increasingly migrating online in their buying behaviour. The company faced many challenges such as quota constraints on the number of foreign workers it could hire, inconsistency in quality due to human error, low productivity, and more importantly, the changing profile of its customer base. Hai Sia undertook many steps to transform its operations, including plant renovation and automation, digitisation of work processes, expansion into e-commerce, launch of a consumer brand, and product development for the retail market. The results were promising and the business grew from 1800 tons in 2015 to 2500 tons in 2020. However, the considerable corresponding investments to support these initiatives had adversely impacted the company's profitability. Ang Junting, the deputy director, knew that if he were to spend more time and resources in modernising the business, the senior management would need to be convinced about the returns that these investments would eventually bring. Moreover, he wondered if going forward, a similar business model that centred on automation, upskilling, training, and consumer retail could be successfully replicated in the neighbouring Southeast Asian economies.

Analysts have often compared Digital Transformation to an iceberg and a company embarking on it to a ship trying to manoeuvre the iceberg. Some facets of the transformation are easily visible, while others are under the water and difficult to identify and manage. Douglas Chia, Managing Director of g&m Insurance, was well aware of this theory when he embarked on his firm's digital transformation journey. Chia had implemented small digital initiatives in his organisation in 2019, and was able to see significant revenue growth of 30% in 2020, despite a sluggish market because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Chia wanted to continue driving his firm's growth and positive revenue trend, specifically with digital solutions that targeted the evolving insurance market. He set goals to embark further on the digital transformation journey, by introducing an online portal providing online insurance products and an aggregator platform by the end of 2021. The above goals were in tandem with the developments in the insurance industry, as more and more firms were introducing online insurance products and offering them directly to consumers, thus eliminating the need for an intermediary agent or broker. Amidst such changing market conditions, brokerage firms like g&m had no option but to transform their business models to compete in the market. Chia wanted to continue using his agent based business model for existing customers, and introduce online solutions to target new market segments. What strategies could Chia implement to further g&m's digital transformation journey to expand his business?

Courier company XDel Singapore is not only involved in express courier and delivery services, but also e-commerce and last-mile fulfilment, international and cross-border deliveries, as well as mailroom and logistics activities. It has grown from a two-man operation in 1993 to a firm of close to 100 staff as at 2021, with its revenue rising from US$26,150 in its first year of operations to US$5.4 million in 2020. To enable the company to gain a competitive edge in the local logistics industry, XDel Singapore has invested heavily in information technology (IT) infrastructure. It has developed key technological innovations to improve its efficiency and productivity, which include the HOMES Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, its proprietary mobile app LUKE, and a website with enhanced capabilities. In addition, it has also switched to using the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone system and adopted the use of the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Springboard engine as part of its Vehicle Route Planning (VRP) system, while tapping on WhatsApp and Telegram messaging apps to communicate with staff and customers. Additionally, XDel Singapore has started to use data analytics to make better decisions on deploying staff and conduct route planning.

The case describes the Red Flags game, a single-player game that is complementary to seminar teaching, and provides more flexible experiential learning opportunities for students. It is aimed at teaching students the internal control and fraud prevention concepts covered in the Accounting Information Systems course. The role of this course is to provide a specialised in-depth accounting course that addresses these key notions: role of information systems within accounting; documentation of accounting information systems including data flow diagrams and flowcharts; database management, processes and modelling; exposures and risks associated with accounting information systems; evaluation of information technology internal controls and impact on internal control; impact of information technology on the audit process; relationship of accounting information systems to major processes of the business cycle; and development, design and analysis of accounting information systems.

In June 2018, Ow Fook Chuen, the Accountant-General of the Accountant-General's Department (AGD), was in charge of the Accountant-General's Department (AGD) as it sought to improve through innovation and the use of technology. Being the steward of public sector finance transformation, AGD partnered public sector agencies to uplift the role of finance from being the custodian of public finance, to a strategic partner who empowers decision-making. In its role, AGD had to handle various financial transactions related to the government and its vendors, and process the payroll of all government officers. Staff from AGD were seconded to work closely with other public sector finance professionals in the finance and internal audit departments of various public sector agencies in order to implement key initiatives. To improve the accuracy and efficiency of its processes, AGD had reviewed new technologies and spoke to private sector companies on their experiences. It linked many individual systems used by various ministries across the Whole-of-Government (WOG) into a central data analytics platform to enable public sector agencies to perform their jobs more effectively and efficiently. Despite facing a few challenges, Ow knew that the data analytics journey would help AGD strengthen finance functions across WOG.

Seng Hua Hng (SHH) Foodstuffs Pte Ltd, the largest nuts manufacturer in Singapore, was the company behind Camel Nuts, a trusted household brand name in nut snacks in the country. Camel had a prominent brand presence both domestically and internationally in 29 countries. Aspiring to continued growth, in 2016, the company set a strategic target of 100-100-10, which stands for S$100 million (US$72 million) revenue, geographic presence in 100 countries and a profit of S$10 million (US$7 million) by the year 2020. In late 2017, a year into his new role as Head of Group Finance at SHH, Colin Chin commissioned a team of SMU accounting students to build data analytics capability in-house to help the company achieve its strategic goals. In the past, SHH as a traditional family business would rely on ballpark estimates to make key strategic decisions, for example, to determine annual production capacity. The practice of using past years' demand in current year's production planning had continued throughout the decades. Some of the key challenges SHH faced was the lack of accurate demand forecasting on a periodic basis and the absence of important financial information that would support the risk assessment of expansion to new foreign markets. By leveraging the power of predictive analytics, Colin wanted to find answers from the data insights to help him overcome some of the challenges the organisation was facing. How could SHH grow its existing markets, both domestically and overseas, and by how much? What are some of the new markets SHH can enter? Will there be any potential cannibalisation of existing products if SHH were to introduce a new product line? Could data analytics help decision-making at SHH to become data-driven, hence enabling the company to better assess if the goals of 100-100-10 were within or out of reach?

In 2015, Arnoud De Meyer, President of Singapore Management University initiated SMU-X. This unique programme made experiential learning accessible to undergraduate students, allowing them to gain exposure to real life work experience that could help improve their critical thinking, analytical and problem-solving skills. The key strength of the SMU-X initiative was that it had been thought through in great detail and was closely linked to the university's existing pedagogy to create a cohesive learning chain within the university. The pilot phase of the initiative was run for a year, and a lot of the hurdles that had initially seemed difficult to resolve were overcome during this phase. The general feedback from the pilot phase was quite positive and it was observed that this form of learning enhanced the learning value for students, faculty and other industry stakeholders. It was planned to roll out SMU-X across the entire SMU undergraduate cohort in 2016, and De Meyer was considering what would be the most effective mechanism to do so. This case provides the students with an opportunity to reflect on the elements that support the practice of innovation in an organisation, particularly in a service environment. It also enables students to learn about how an urban city university can create an environment for living and learning without the large campus living facilities of suburban universities. Finally, it allows students to visualise the considerations associated with scaling up a project operationally for an organisation-wide rollout.