This case describes the rapid growth of a social enterprise in Singapore - Foreword Coffee - that aims to empower persons with disabilities by providing them with employment in cafes. Drawing on interviews with its co-founders and published sources, the case highlights key challenges faced by the social enterprise, including sustainable growth, inclusive hiring and leadership succession. The accompanying teaching note guides educators on using the case for discussion in social entrepreneurship, diversity and inclusion, human resource management and leadership classes.

Wateroam is a social enterprise that develops water filtration systems for rural and disaster-hit areas. Since 2014, Wateroam has deployed its water filtration systems to more than 30,000 people in remote villages and disaster-stricken areas across Southeast Asia through Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). In 2014, three young men met at the HydroPreneur Programme, an industry-oriented entrepreneurship programme organised by the Public Utilities Board (PUB) - Singapore's national water agency - to accelerate commercialisation of technologies and foster a new generation of water entrepreneurs. This event kickstarted the journey of Wateroam, a social enterprise founded by David Pong ("David"), Wateroam's Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Lim Chong Tee ("Lim"), Wateroam's Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), and Vincent Loka ("Loka"), Wateroam's Chief Technical Officer (CTO). David graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS) with a Business degree, while Lim and Loka graduated from NUS with degrees in Environmental Engineering. 2021 was a challenging year for Wateroam, and the seventh year of its operation. As its three co-founders perused a 2020 World Economic Forum report that identified Singapore as one of the five most promising start-up hubs to watch outside of Silicon Valley, they reflected on their journey and the road ahead. What additional tools and frameworks would they need to navigate changing social and economic conditions worldwide? How should they position Wateroam to succeed in Covid-stricken communities as well as post-pandemic markets?

David Pong, co-founder and CEO of a water technology start-up, had good news to share with his team: after several rounds of pitching and evaluation, they had raised seed funding for their social enterprise, Wateroam. David had started Wateroam as a fresh university graduate with two younger co-founders in August 2014. The trio's mission was to tackle the global problem of water scarcity by providing water filtration systems to the rural poor. As a new start-up, Wateroam faced challenges in funding, product innovation, sales and distribution. Wateroam broke even in its second year of operation. In the four years since its formation, the social enterprise, which is based in Singapore, has provided people in 14 countries with access to clean water. Now, with this round of seed funding, Wateroam was poised to enter its next phase of growth and reach out to more underserved communities that were in dire need of clean water. As CEO, David had many important decisions to make. Chief among them was how he should scale up Wateroam, bearing in mind the latter's double bottom line of profitability and social impact.

In 2018, the Singapore-based telecommunication operator StarHub Ltd. (StarHub) acknowledged that in 2017 its total revenue was relatively flat and its net profit had declined. In the face of rising competition and a slowing global economy, the company needed to explore new sources of revenue growth. Two areas of growth seemed promising. The first area involved the launch of StarHub's smart retail analytics for small and medium enterprises in the retail food and beverages industry, which had been experiencing a high churn rate. The second area would apply StarHub's new robotics and automation solutions in the labour-intensive hospitality industry, which suffered from an oversupply of properties and would likely see exits and consolidation. StarHub needed to choose between the two investment options.

This case examines gender challenges confronting women leaders, particularly in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)-related sectors through the lens of Wendy Chan, a data science team leader in Europa a multinational insurance company, and the challenges she encountered in her role, as well as the steps she took to address her situation. It highlights issues concerning bias against women leaders, gender differences toward work issues, and work-life balance. This case caters to undergraduates and graduate courses on management and/or entrepreneurship that focus on diversity and leadership issues, especially those covering the topic of gender. It is also suitable for gender studies and women's studies courses with a focus on diversity and leadership issues.

In 2017, the president of Fujitsu Asia Pte. Ltd. in Singapore, a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Fujitsu Limited (Fujitsu) needed to decide between two project options that represented growth in different industries in Asia. Both projects represented Fujitsu's vision of connected services and could potentially be much-needed engines of new growth for Fujitsu Singapore over the next 5 to 10 years. The first option was to offer its Japanese-engineered cloud-computing platform to engage small and medium enterprises in the manufacturing industry. Given the high costs of customizing the existing platform for local use, the president wondered whether small and medium manufacturers would generate sufficient demand to justify such a costly investment. The second option was to leverage the success of Fujitsu's intelligent agricultural cloud-computing project with the Japanese government to offer vertical farming to Singapore and other Asian cities that faced similar space constraints but valued food resilience. But was it the right time to enter the agricultural industry? The president had limited time and resources, and needed to make a decision very soon.