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In September 2016, German-based Bayer AG (Bayer) and U.S.-based Monsanto Company (Monsanto) agreed to merge entities to create a global leader in agriculture. The combined entity would benefit from Monsanto’s expertise in seeds and traits, and from Bayer’s wide range of crop protection products. Bayer would acquire Monsanto for $128 per share, a high 44 per cent premium in an all-cash transaction. There were issues with the deal, which included antitrust concerns, which could require subsequent divestments, and Monsanto’s brand image, owing to its involvement in controversial business operations. Given these issues, would Bayer’s diversification into agrochemicals by merging with Monsanto be able to create sufficient synergies and deliver economic benefits to shareholders, while meeting expectations from other stakeholders at different levels?

In early 2017, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Raintree Resorts International, Inc. was contemplating the next moves for the timeshare company he had founded in 1997. He and his team had focused their attention on creating and developing properties in the world’s top destinations. The CEO felt privileged to have built the best vacation destinations for people, but the company was at a turning point. He was intrigued by disrupters in the broader industry of hospitality, such as Airbnb (the largest provider of rooms without hotel ownership) and Uber (the US$66 billion company that provided rides but did not own a single taxi). Should the CEO grow his company’s existing properties, develop new ones, or do something else entirely?

Spanx Inc., founded in 2000, was a U.S. intimate apparel company that sold body shaping undergarments known as shapewear. Through word-of-mouth marketing by celebrities and consumers, Spanx achieved 2016 sales of US$400 million globally. However, Spanx’s leadership position was being threatened by a shift in consumer preferences, medical concerns over the dangers of compression wear, and competitors launching more comfortable products in the active wear category. Would Spanx be able to sustain its growth or was it beginning its decline?

At the beginning of 2017, India was among the top 10 markets for Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning India Limited, accounting for around 10 per cent of its revenue. The company was trying to increase its room air conditioner (RAC) market from 11 per cent to 20 per cent by 2020. It was positioned in the premium segment of the RAC market but wanted to enter the popular segment, which was crowded with established players. The company’s focus had been on the inverter air conditioner (AC) segment, which accounted for 40 per cent of its RAC revenue; however, because of this segment’s market potential and growth, competition from key competitors was stiff. Under these circumstances, the company faced the dual challenge of finding the right strategy to establish itself in the popular RAC market and deciding how to defend its position in the inverter AC segment.

In late 2015, the chief executive officer of Shaw Communications was considering whether to reduce or divest the company’s media assets. Shaw Communications had been founded as a cable television provider and, over the years, had grown its consumer connectivity businesses to include Internet services, satellite television, landline telephony, and, most recently, cellular network services. Similar to most other major Canadian telecommunications companies, Shaw Communications had acquired media assets, including the Global Television Network and specialty channels such as History and Treehouse. Selling all or, some, of these media assets would strengthen the company’s balance sheet and help finance the expansion of its cellular network. The company’s chief executive officer needed decide how important media assets were to the company’s core strategy.

Students tend to think they know what a business is - after all, they are avid consumers. This case helps them understand what they do know, and more importantly, what they do not know. The setting is 2009 and is not current, so students must consider whether retail from a process point of view has truly changed, or whether using technology-based interfaces in retail makes it seem to have changed. It also allows students to consider what advances in their retail experiences are the result of technology. This introductory case presents Uncle Joe's bicycle shop, Deals on Wheels. Mike and Mary have relocated to Raleigh, North Carolina, and are thinking of opening a bike shop there. On the way to their college reunion, they stop by Uncle Joe's house to visit and learn about his bicycle shop. Over dinner, the couple learns about how Uncle Joe acquired his business, the basic operations, what products were offered, and how customers' needs have changed over time. Some issues that Uncle Joe brings up in regard to expanding the business are possible advertising methods to produce additional sales, Internet-based parts sales that require more inventory on hand, and the need for more highly skilled workers. The story also mentions how Uncle Joe values human relations through his bike donations. The case may be used for class discussion of the following topics: Foundations of entrepreneurship; What is a business? Creating financial statements - transactions for one month are included as an exhibit to the case. Two follow-on cases offer more practice on these skills; Analyzing financial statements - three years of financials are included as an exhibit in the case. Students are asked to do a horizontal analysis and a vertical analysis of the data; Information systems in a business.

Transaction template to case BAB372.

Answer Sheet to case BAB372 Exhibit 5.

Horizontal and vertical analysis assignment hints for case BAB372.

Financial statements to case BAB372.

This case is set in June 2016. Ted Lewis is the owner of Holson Forest Products Ltd. (Holson), one of the largest suppliers of lumber on the Northern Peninsula. In 2008, due to increased shipping costs, Holson's largest customer, Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Ltd. (CBPPL), decided to stop buying logs from the Northern Peninsula. Following CBPPL's decision, Lewis was forced to diversify his business. In 2011, after a feasibility study confirmed the potential of opening a wood pellet plant to produce finished products for local, national, and/or international markets, a pellet plant was completed in a remote area of the Northern Peninsula. Unfortunately, the lack of nearby port facilities to ship the product to international markets prevented the company from launching full production. In addition, because forested lands on the Northern Peninsula were not certified as sustainable forests, Holson's premium products could not be sold to residential markets in Europe. Lewis was faced with many challenges in an uncertain global market. Lewis needed a strategy that would allow him to confidently launch production of wood pellets. His strategic analysis had to take into account both external markets and internal issues related to resources, operations, marketing, human resources, and the management challenges of sustaining a business in rural Newfoundland. It also had to consider Lewis's values and commitment to the people of the Northern Peninsula.

Westinghouse Electric Company (WEC) filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 29, 2017. The bankruptcy arose from billions of dollars of cost overruns on four nuclear power plants (NPPs) it was designing and building for two utilities in the United States. The cost overruns were a direct result of a completely new NPP design, the AP1000, and its innovative modular construction. Although WEC's core engineering intellectual content would live on (that was in part the objective of the chapter 11 process), many questioned whether WEC's failure didn't signal the end of nuclear energy for electrical power generation.

James McAllister was responsible for the construction of new production facilities for a rapidly growing global medical equipment manufacturer. A recent safety audit, triggered by an anonymous reporting system, revealed that a supervisor had discouraged reporting several significant "near-miss" events that could have led to serious injury or fatality. The same individual indicated several deviations from company safety policies and standards. The company's COO, Sarah Gupta, asked McAllister to extract lessons learned from BP's Macondo oil spill and NASA's Challenger disaster. Each of these incidents is summarized in the case.

In early 2017, the vice-president, Enterprise Innovation, at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), one of Canada's leading banks, encountered roadblocks in partnering with a fintech firm as part of the bank's open innovation strategy. The vice-president wondered how she could leverage the learnings from her experience with onboarding the fintech firm to better manage future open innovation projects at the bank. Streamlining the onboarding process was a priority, as was dealing with internal pushback. The vice-president thought about the role of the facilitator in this process, and whether she should pursue an enterprise innovation lab within the bank.

In early 2017, the vice-president, Enterprise Innovation, at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), one of Canada’s leading banks, encountered roadblocks in partnering with a fintech firm as part of the bank’s open innovation strategy. The vice-president wondered how she could leverage the learnings from her experience with onboarding the fintech firm to better manage future open innovation projects at the bank. Streamlining the onboarding process was a priority, as was dealing with internal pushback. The vice-president thought about the role of the facilitator in this process, and whether she should pursue an enterprise innovation lab within the bank.

Logset Oy (Logset) was a privately held, specialized forest-machine manufacturing firm in Koivulahti, Finland. The firm had a strong presence in Europe but not in North America. Canada, with 42 per cent of its land mass covered by forest, was an appealing market, although 15 years of effort had not resulted in any appreciable increase in sales there. Logset had a strong dealer network in Ontario and Quebec. However, efforts to recruit a dealer for Atlantic and Western Canada had been unsuccessful. What strategy should Logset use to enter into partnerships with Canadian companies?

On November 8, 2016, the Indian prime minister announced that in an effort to counter corruption, black money, and counterfeiting, high-value currency notes of ?500 and ?1,000 denominations would be withdrawn from circulation. The currency to be removed in the demonetization exercise was worth ?15.4 trillion, or 86.9 per cent of the total value of currency in circulation. The old currency would be replaced with new ?500 and ?2,000 notes, but the transition would limit cash liquidity for 50 days in the Indian economy, which was heavily dependent on cash to facilitate both consumption and production. How would this process affect India, which had been identified as the world’s fastest-growing economy? Would demonetization have the desired effect of purging the economy of black money and moving India toward a cashless economy with increased growth? Or would it simply bring India’s remarkable growth story to a grinding halt and discourage investments?

In July 2017, Jorge Salcedo-Benitez was reflecting on his first decade as president of Solubles Instantaneos C.A. (SICA). Under his leadership, SICA had retained ownership of two leading brands of instant coffee in Ecuador: Don Café and Café Oro. As his descendants prepared to take the helm, Salcedo-Benitez wondered whether the company was still headed in the right direction. Giants like Nestlé S.A. dominated the markets elsewhere, in part by consolidating small, family-owned operations such as his own. Salcedo-Benitez wondered whether it was time to seek new markets, develop new products, or update the brand image; yet he was hesitant to make large strategic moves while his sons were still preparing to take the helm.

In July 2017, Jorge Salcedo-Benitez was reflecting on his first decade as president of Solubles Instantaneos C.A. (SICA). Under his leadership, SICA had retained ownership of two leading brands of instant coffee in Ecuador: Don Café and Café Oro. As his descendants prepared to take the helm, Salcedo-Benitez wondered whether the company was still headed in the right direction. Giants like Nestlé S.A. dominated the markets elsewhere, in part by consolidating small, family-owned operations such as his own. Salcedo-Benitez wondered whether it was time to seek new markets, develop new products, or update the brand image; yet he was hesitant to make large strategic moves while his sons were still preparing to take the helm.

The makers of the Roomba, a robotic vacuum cleaner, connected the latest version of their product to the Internet. This new feature opened up a wealth of new opportunities and challenges for the company.