The case is set in 2021, amid accelerating digitalisation in Singapore, as Marriott International is facing pressure to innovate and review the AI strategy for its hotel brands. Marriott is the second largest hospitality player in terms of market share in Singapore, with AccorHotels Group holding market leadership. In 2016, Marriott merged with Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, valued at US$12.2 billion, making it the largest hotel chain in the world. Before the merger, Starwood had established itself as a technical innovation leader in the hospitality industry, which aligns with Marriott's goals to improve the guest experience and build loyalty using technology. For example, Starwood invested in an array of services such as a mobile app which guests can bypass check-ins and use their mobile devices for keyless entry. Marriott has also channelled efforts toward digitalisation and innovation, and is one of the pioneers in deploying guest-facing technologies such as keyless entries and smart rooms. The company had partnered with Alibaba Group in a joint venture to pilot test a facial recognition check-in system with Fliggy, Alibaba's travel service platform. This seamless and convenient alternative sought to meet the needs of tech-savvy Chinese travellers, who are receptive to technology powered by facial recognition.

Jacquelyn Yang is the Senior Marketing Manager at a young Singapore company, Funding Societies, in the nascent debt crowdfunding scene in the island city-state. Debt crowdfunding, also referred to as peer-to-peer (P2P) lending, represents an alternative source of loans for businesses to borrow money. P2P companies are different from banks in that they operate through online platforms, utilise data analytics and algorithms for credit risk assessment, and have much shorter turnaround times for loan approvals than the banks. Moreover, while banks lend money to companies using customer deposits, P2P companies play the part of a matchmaker by enabling individual investors to put money directly towards funding a particular loan. Crowdfunding is part of a growing worldwide trend in FinTech innovations. It is perhaps unsurprising then that there were no fewer than seven P2P lenders in a mere three years since the first company, MoolahSense, was founded in Singapore in 2013. The rivalry is intense and exacerbated by the fact that business loans tend to be a product that does not differentiate on non-price factors. In addition, all of the competing companies, with the exception of CoAssets, appear to be competing head-on for the same general SME market. To improve the effectiveness of their marketing efforts, it would be helpful for Funding Societies to move away from a 'shotgun' approach to marketing to more carefully identify the segments or types of SMEs that would be more inclined to borrow from the crowdfunding market. These SMEs would represent the 'lower hanging fruit' so-to-speak, and identifying who they are will help Funding Societies better focus their marketing resources. Understanding the factors that influence an SME's decision to borrow from a P2P lender will help Funding Societies build a strong competitive advantage, giving it an edge over its P2P competitors as well as banks. What should Yang focus the marketing strategy on?

The case is set in January 2019, when Di Xu, the team leader of Ant Forest, a green initiative within the Chinese payment and lifestyle app Alipay, is reviewing the strategy for Ant Forest. Ant Forest was started in 2016 as a corporate social responsibility (CSR) project under Alipay. It was financially supported by Alipay's parent company, Ant Financial. From the time of its launch to October 2018, Ant Forest has managed to attract almost 400 million users to its cause of promoting 'green', low carbon emissions behaviour among the lifestyles of its users. It has done so by letting users of Ant Forest win 'energy points' through low-carbon behaviours (such as walking to work instead of driving, or reducing their use of plastic), and then accumulating the points towards planting a virtual tree of their choice. When a user had accumulated a sufficient number of energy points, Ant Forest would, through its partners, plant a real, physical tree on their behalf in the deserts of Inner Mongolia. The uptake of the Ant Forest initiative has exceeded the team's expectations, and there has been considerable positive feedback received from users who have experienced good social and health benefits through their use of Ant Forest. Di Xu is now evaluating the next steps for Ant Forest. Should the Ant Forest initiative be taken overseas? If so, which features of the product, and the business model, should be implemented?

The case traces the birth of 1436, a new luxury brand specialized in cashmere garments. It describes how this venture emerged organically out of a combination of manufacturing and retail expertise with the ambition of creating the first pure Chinese luxury brand. The brand name was inspired by the measurement of superfine baby cashmere fibre (14 micrometers in diameter and 36 millimeters in length). It is estimated that only 2 out of 1,000 grams of cashmere measure up to the standard of 1436. Describing the brand evolution over its first 8 years of existence, the case allows for an exploration of the challenges associated with creating a luxury brand and reconciling several strategic imperatives: the need to build a strong and desirable brand identity, grow the business but also protect the brand integrity and exclusivity. The case also provides an opportunity to discuss the benefits and challenges associated with being 1) a luxury brand "made in China" and 2) a category specialist (cashmere). As Jane Wang, 1436's founder and CEO, looks to the future, she has to decide what to do to establish 1436 as a recognized luxury brand on a global scale.

The case is set in 2014, from the perspective of Pyra, a Singaporean subscription box company for beauty products. Subscription-box services are a fairly new business model that involves the delivery of product(s) to the consumer on a periodic basis. A more recent variant of subscription-box services personalises the selection of products delivered, by closely matching products with customers' preferences. The company, in essence, becomes a personal shopping assistant for the customer. Pyra falls squarely in this last category. Pyra relies on data analytics and proprietary algorithms to personalise its selection of products. Given that customer data is central to the operation of the business, a platform that provides ease and convenience to customers in the provision of their feedback and preferences is paramount. Pyra developed a mobile app for this very purpose. The fact that its target segments are millennials and centennials, consumers who are tech savvy and always connected, makes this a sensible move. The app also makes it easy for customers to share the curated boxes they received on social media. Pyra was launched in early 2013 and has had reasonable success in its first year of operations, with double-digit month-on-month growth in customer base. There are nagging doubts, however, about whether the business will continue to be viable in the longer term. For one thing, retention of customers might prove to be a challenge, as customers' interest in accessing novel products could wane with time. In addition, with the entry of direct competition becoming an imminent event, there are looming questions about the sustainability of Pyra's competitive advantage.