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Cathay Pacific's announcement that it would eliminate 600 staff jobs from its head office made headlines in the territory and internationally. The mass layoffs followed the loss of HKD3bn the previous year. This case study discusses the possible causes of Cathay Pacific's plight. Cathay had been among the best airlines in the world and a source of pride to many Hong Kongers. From the service management perspective, this case study describes the situation Cathay Pacific was facing in terms of service marketing, service human resource management, and service operations.

In this series of case studies, students learn to identify, assess, and control the risks of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in a real-world situation. PopVote was the electronic voting system used by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong. This case consists of cases A, B, and C. Case A gives the background on POP and PopVote. It describes the development history of PopVote, including past voting events, past cyber-attacks, and the evolution of its IT security infrastructure. Students are asked how to identify and assess potential security risks and how to prepare PopVote for an upcoming high-visibility voting event.

In this series of case studies, students learn to identify, assess, and control the risks of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in a real-world situation. PopVote was the electronic voting system used by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong. This case study consists of cases A, B, and C. Case B sets the scene for risk control in information security management. To improve cloud-based security, POP outsourced the system security to Amazon Web Services (AWS), CloudFlare, and UDomain. During the mock and preregistration period of the voting event, the scale of DDoS attacks forced AWS and UDomain to make an unusual move and withdraw their services. CloudFlare also warned that it might suspend its service if there was another wave of cyber-attacks. The POP team had to decide immediately what they should do to control the risks.

In this series of case studies, students learn to identify, assess, and control the risks of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in a real-world situation. PopVote was the electronic voting system used by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong. This case study consists of cases A, B, and C. Case C describes what actually happened to PopVote after AWS and UDomain, security system providers, withdrew their services.

This case study focuses on how Huawei had developed and used Huawei Innovation Research Program (HIRP) as its open innovation platform, showing how the company has changed its role from a research fund provider to a research collaborator, bringing mutual benefits to university-enterprise research collaborations. The case features the challenges of managing open innovation projects, such as looking for suitable external research partners, keeping the research projects on track, and evaluating research outcomes. It also shows how Huawei has tackled the problems common to open innovation projects, including the Not-Invented-Here syndrome, intellectual property protection, industry-university communication difficulties and research output evaluation.

This case describes a user-centred approach to public services and is a result after a pioneering collaboration between Hongkong Post and Hong Kong Design Centre. Since operating as a Trading Fund in 1995, Hongkong Post has managed to reinvent itself as a dynamic, customer-focused and market-oriented service organisation. Leveraging its extensive retail and distribution networks and a strong brand, Hongkong Post has grown beyond the traditional postal service to providing a wide and comprehensive range of services in the logistics supply chain, at the same time diversifying into new markets. Hongkong Post recognizes that the current design of the post offices at the retail level may not be able to meet the growing needs and changing patterns of its users. The collaboration between Hongkong Post and Hong Kong Design Centre is an attempt to adopt the user-centered design research approach to public services and to apply the concept at the Mongkok Post Office with a view to understanding users' needs, providing a better user experience and improving operationally efficiency of the Mongkok Post Office. Users in this context, include both customers and post office staff. Case (A) focuses on the internal design, while Case (B) focuses on the external design.

This case describes a user-centred approach to public services and is a result after a pioneering collaboration between Hongkong Post and Hong Kong Design Centre. Since operating as a Trading Fund in 1995, Hongkong Post has managed to reinvent itself as a dynamic, customer-focused and market-oriented service organisation. Leveraging its extensive retail and distribution networks and a strong brand, Hongkong Post has grown beyond the traditional postal service to providing a wide and comprehensive range of services in the logistics supply chain, at the same time diversifying into new markets. Hongkong Post recognizes that the current design of the post offices at the retail level may not be able to meet the growing needs and changing patterns of its users. The collaboration between Hongkong Post and Hong Kong Design Centre is an attempt to adopt the user-centered design research approach to public services and to apply the concept at the Mongkok Post Office with a view to understanding users' needs, providing a better user experience and improving operationally efficiency of the Mongkok Post Office. Users in this context, include both customers and post office staff. Case (A) focuses on the internal design, while Case (B) focuses on the external design.

Chinese home electronics manufacturer TCL has identified the need to internationalize. However, because the global home electronics industry is a rapidly changing industry and the key to success lies in product innovation, TCL must now evaluate its innovation strategies to remain competitive. Traditionally, TCL's product development strategy has focused on modular innovation. By looking at the different product innovation strategies pursued by such global market leaders as Samsung and Sony, TCL has an opportunity to evaluate the differences between modular innovation and architectural innovation strategies and assess the risks involved.

Innovation is the key to success in the history of Honda Motor Group (Honda). In July 2007, Guangzhou Honda's Research and Development Co. Ltd. (GHRD) was established. It was the first multinational auto company to develop a R&D facilities with the technological capabilities to produce a completely new car from the ground up. While Honda Motor in Japan would provide technological support, the core technologies would be owned solely by Guangzhou Honda. This arrangement differed from the traditional R&D management in Honda, which, despite the existence of R&D centers around the globe, used to retain its core technologies at its R&D center in Japan. This case shows the motives, new opportunities and challenges behind business model innovation.

This case examines the challenges Citibank is facing in implementing e-business strategies. The focus is on how Citibank has developed an e-business strategy that fits with its corporate business strategy. Citibank not only needs to use information technology to improve internal operations and provide more efficient customer services at lower costs, but it also needs to ensure that its single, global online platform can serve the highly segmented market. At one end of the spectrum of the market are multinationals and top-level domestic corporations that operate sophisticated treasuries, and at the other end are companies and small- and medium-sized businesses that are not yet ready to upgrade or transform their systems.

Interlaken Village in Shenzhen, China, is an exact replica of the Swiss village of Interlaken, which is part of OCT East, a US$450 million investment in the thriving Pearl River Delta. This is a management strategy case for students to think outside the box about business strategies. In standard competitive strategy literature, firms should avoid being imitated or imitating others in order to gain unique competitive advantages. This case, however, examines whether copying can be a sustainable source of competitive advantage.

The IT productivity paradox debate has been going on for more than two decades, but the controversy has been exacerbated by a 2003 Harvard Business Review article by Nicolas Carr, who argues that IT doesn't matter. This case sheds light on the major drivers of IT investment: those investments targeted at improving operational efficiencies and those focused on entrenching a firm's strategic position. It does this by looking at the IT investment strategies of two of the world's largest financial institutions, HSBC and Citigroup. Of particular interest are how HSBC and Citigroup spend on IT projects, what drives their investments and the viability of measuring the efficacy of their investments in terms of improving operational efficiency or strategic position. By comparing the IT investments strategies of both banks, students will learn about the IT valuation process, the role of IT as a strategic necessity and IT's potential role in sustaining a firm's competitive advantage. Nominee for best paper award, International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS2007)

Jharna Software was a medium-sized Indian software developer with an offshore center in the United States. The team in the United States usually performed systems analysis and design work at the customers' sites, while the rest of the development process was done in Indian development centers. Jharna Software was doing very well and had earned many prizes for export performance from the Indian government. It was, however, increasingly pressured by its main U.S. clients to adopt the emerging methods of producing quality software in a shorter time and with smaller budgets. Builds on the fundamental concepts of software engineering such as the plan-based approach (e.g., waterfall model) and the agile approach (e.g., extreme programming). Although agile methods are seen as an improvement over plan-based methods, they have various requirements (e.g., dynamic requirements analysis, frequent face-to-face meetings, lack of structure, strong emphasis on people rather than processes) that are difficult to meet in the offshore environment. Explains why plan-based methods are therefore commonly used in offshore locations.