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The concept of Jungle Bay Dominica (Jungle Bay) was created by Samuel Raphael on the island of Dominica in 1997 and first opened for business in 2005. Raphael's philosophy was that he could profitably operate a luxury hotel with minimal disturbance to the surrounding natural environment that functioned as a tool to further the economic growth and social welfare of the local population. To its clientele, Jungle Bay offered a variety of experiences in a tropical setting, such as breathtaking views, spa treatments, lush gardens and orchards, adventure tours, and fresh organic food. For the Jungle Bay team, Raphael provided opportunities for learning new skills and a steady income, and he gave motivated individuals an opportunity to grow. However, a series of natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic had resulted in Jungle Bay struggling to achieve occupancy rates above 35 per cent. Raphael had to determine the best way to expand Jungle Bay's marketing efforts, increase occupancy rates, and increase revenue.

In March 2023, Fixie Co-Founder and Chief Architect Matt Welsh and co-founders had the kind of meeting no founders want to have. The president of leading artificial intelligence (AI) research and deployment firm OpenAI, which had catapulted into fame with its ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) products, briefs them on a new product that represents an existential threat. OpenAI is launching ChatGPT plugins, which would transform ChatGPT from a base layer tool into a platform, where third-party application developers such as Expedia, InstaCart, or OpenTable could leverage OpenAI's underlying models to build useful applications. This move threatened to derail Fixie's nascent cloud-based platform that leveraged large language models (LLMs) to build and customize conversational AI systems for enterprise. Fixie aspired to be the middleware standard that connected underlying models with AI-facing applications. Now they had to decide if their product was still relevant, whether a pivot was possible, and how to play their next move in the fast-paced Gen AI chess game.

Bizongo, an Indian e-B2B platform was co-founded by three college graduates in 2015 with the goal of creating the "Alibaba of India" when the B2B e-commerce landscape was practically non-existent. The founders saw a significant opportunity in connecting mid-sized enterprise buyers and small-scale suppliers in India's highly fragmented manufacturing sector. The journey had been difficult, but by 2023, Bizongo had carved a niche for itself with its platform offering digital order placement and processing and its financing facility for SMEs. It focused on the unbranded customized goods segment like packaging products and apparel. But with more players vying for market share and India's digital public infrastructure potentially set to disrupt the industry, the co-founders were under pressure to consolidate their position. They needed to take several decisions. Should Bizongo attempt to onboard more buyers and vendors, or increase wallet share among existing customers? Should it convert its platform to a truly open marketplace model that would allow vendor and enterprise discovery? Should it go deeper in existing product categories or build product breadth by adding more categories? How should the team think about consolidating upstream operations? Should it expand into Southeast Asia? At the core of the dilemma was finding the strategy that would best enable Bizongo to monetize its offerings.

Suparshva Swabs India (SSI), a family-owned firm started by Brij Mohan Jain and his sons in 1992, when India was going through liberalization, began its journey in the personal-hygiene category by launching high-quality cotton swabs (also known as cotton buds). SSI had steadfastly managed environmental challenges on the regulatory, economic, financial, and competitive fronts to offer good-quality products in India at an affordable price. In early 2020, as COVID-19 struck the whole world and the Government of India was under pressure to increase the number of COVID-19 tests conducted per day, the high costs of importing cotton swabs from the United States, Italy, and China exacerbated the crisis, making real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests unaffordable for the average Indian and reducing the number of tests conducted per day. SSI identified the opportunity to produce swabs indigenously in India and substantially bring down the costs. With very little time to respond to the challenge and meet the government’s demand with a price acceptable to all stakeholders, SSI worked within severe time and cost constraints to make this possible. In August 2022, as the intensity of COVID-19 tapered off and a slew of substitute consumer-friendly methods for testing were arriving in the pipeline, SSI needed to determine what strategic alternatives were available for growth from this point.

Karen Chan was a Hong Kong second-generation leader in her family business, German Pool Hong Kong Limited (German Pool), a home appliance and furniture company founded by Karen’s father, Edward Chan. By July 2022, Karen had developed the family business and founded her own high-fashion brand, Sparkle Collection, amid ongoing disruptions in Hong Kong. Karen was an innovator of products and ideas for the family business, but her niche venture Sparkle Collection gave her an understanding of the hardship her father faced starting a new business from scratch. Social unrest in Hong Kong in 2019 and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 had a strong impact on the economy, drastically affecting sales of premium products. Karen pivoted to make her venture survive. She also created a new strategic plan for the enterprise’s portfolio. Sparkle Collection targeted a niche artistic and cultural sector. In contrast, German Pool’s appliance and furniture business, along with its Happy Kitchen Cafe, catered to the mass market. Karen knew that it could take years of continued investment in Sparkle Collection to make it a “star” in the portfolio. She wondered if she could balance her roles as steward of the family business, while pursuing her passion as the entrepreneurial founder of Sparkle Collection. Should she continue to invest in her venture despite uncertainties in the economy and in her own future? Or should she give up on Sparkle Collection and refocus her efforts on steering German Pool’s existing business through the pandemic?

San Francisco based Vida Health, founded by Stephanie Tilenius, former vice president of Commerce and Payments at Google, was a B2B digital health startup focused on the treatment of cardiometabolic conditions, such as diabetes and obesity. Its innovative digital platform integrated technology with human care, and its treatment approach focused on physical health as and mental health, creating a unique, holistic solution. As a Series D venture backed company with $188 million in funding, Vida was eager to scale the business faster. In 2023 Tilenius was grappling with whether to start prescribing weight loss drugs as part of Vida's obesity management program. Consumer demand for newly FDA-approved semaglutide drugs (GLP-1s), like Ozempic, was surging. However, GLP-1s were already facing scrutiny for risks; they had known negative side effects; and there was no clear scientific proof that people could be taken off them and maintain weight loss. It was also not clear how the market would respond if Vida-which had differentiated itself through its behavioral management approach to chronic disease-entered the weight loss prescription drug business. Would Vida be characterized as a "pill-mill"? If Vida did decide to offer prescription weight loss drugs as part of its platform, it would also have to decide if it should roll out a B2C platform to reach consumers who were not covered through an employer plan or whose plan did not cover weight loss medications. Tilenius had significant experience with B2C brands and saw the potential. However, building a B2C brand would likely be a costly endeavor.

Catalent's newly appointed CEO, Alessandro Maselli, experienced the highs of the pharmaceutical contract development manufacturing (CDMO) space during COVID-19 while helping Moderna and others bring vaccines to market quickly and safely. After rushing to add capacity to help deal with the pandemic, demand for CDMO services dried up post-pandemic, leaving Maselli and Catalent to pick up the pieces. Once considered as an acquisition target by other industry giants, Catalent dealt with several struggles, including a departing CFO, several issues with plants, and declining demand. How can Maselli turn the ship around and drive Catalent to even higher heights moving forward?

For more than fifteen years, successful Canadian entrepreneur and investor Kevin O'Leary had developed his brand into a global powerhouse. Since his first appearance on the Canadian television program Dragons' Den in 2006 and his meteoric rise to stardom through the hit show and cultural phenomenon Shark Tank, O'Leary had become synonymous with his penchant for telling the "cold hard truth," just as much as his investing savvy. A natural storyteller, O'Leary had long recognized the value of a powerful narrative. Now bolstered by network deals and a growing social media presence, the balding businessman had cultivated an audience of millions who eagerly await his advice on personal finance, just as much as they rely on him for entertainment. At the same time, active investments, speaking engagements, book deals, and a foray into politics bolstered his image as a formidable businessperson and thought leader. Within a decade, he had come to realize the vast potential of the virtuous cycle that underlies a successful personal brand. On November 11, 2022, news broke that could spell the end for Mr. Wonderful: FTX, a prominent cryptocurrency exchange firm that O'Leary had supported as an investor and paid spokesperson, declared bankruptcy amid reports of mismanagement of customer funds and a potential investigation by the US government. Sitting in Boston Logan Airport and watching his multimillion-dollar investment drop to zero, his phone suddenly rings: CNBC is running a national story on FTX and O'Leary's involvement, and if he wants to tell his side of the story, he has to go live on air in ten minutes. For O'Leary, the decision is more than whether to face the media. He must decide how to protect his personal brand, defined by honesty and credibility, from associations with potentially massive fraud. How should O'Leary respond? And what direction should he take his brand in the face of potential crisis?

Karen Chan was a Hong Kong second-generation leader in her family business, German Pool Hong Kong Limited (German Pool), a home appliance and furniture company founded by Karen's father, Edward Chan. By July 2022, Karen had developed the family business and founded her own high-fashion brand, Sparkle Collection, amid ongoing disruptions in Hong Kong. Karen was an innovator of products and ideas for the family business, but her niche venture Sparkle Collection gave her an understanding of the hardship her father faced starting a new business from scratch. Social unrest in Hong Kong in 2019 and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 had a strong impact on the economy, drastically affecting sales of premium products. Karen pivoted to make her venture survive. She also created a new strategic plan for the enterprise's portfolio. Sparkle Collection targeted a niche artistic and cultural sector. In contrast, German Pool's appliance and furniture business, along with its Happy Kitchen Cafe, catered to the mass market. Karen knew that it could take years of continued investment in Sparkle Collection to make it a "star" in the portfolio. She wondered if she could balance her roles as steward of the family business, while pursuing her passion as the entrepreneurial founder of Sparkle Collection. Should she continue to invest in her venture despite uncertainties in the economy and in her own future? Or should she give up on Sparkle Collection and refocus her efforts on steering German Pool's existing business through the pandemic?

First Place Winner; 2023 Energy Innovation in LMICs Global Case Writing Competition Sammy Kalunji, 36, a low-income self-employed motorcycle taxi microentrepreneur in Kampala, Uganda, decided to buy an electric motorcycle with a rechargeable battery. He is one of about 250 such pioneers in low-emission transportation in this major (and air-polluted) city in west-central Africa at the end of 2022. However, operating in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment, he does not receive enough income to fully provide for his family. This is true, despite the fact that his electric motorcycle (known as an E-boda) has substantially lower operating costs than his former petroleum-powered one (known as a P-boda). This case elaborates on four financial, operational, commercial, and social organization models and alternatives Kalunji must navigate so that he and his fellow E-boda riders can harness economic opportunities emerging from this new low-carbon urban transportation solution, and be recognized as making an essential contribution to the transition to green urban mobility in Kampala. Ultimately, the case takes the perspective of low-income groups adopting low-carbon mobility innovations while working in generalized informal market conditions. It reflects and critiques the global Northern concept of social and environmental "sustainable innovation" as it is exported to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with the risk of making such innovations unsustainable by themselves.

Planet Abled is a woman-led, for-profit social venture based in New Delhi, India, offering customized tours around India and South Asia for people of all disabilities. Planet Abled was formed in 2016 by its chief executive officer, Neha Arora—herself a daughter of two disabled parents. Planet Abled’s start-up story explains how social ventures can repurpose traditional travel to reveal and reverse multiple types of stigmas (public, cultural, social, and structural) as well as defy and defend against the self-stigmatization of the one billion disabled people in the world (15 per cent of the global population).<br><br>Part A of the case presents the real-time conundrum of continuity of mission in the time of COVID-19 given the complete cessation of travel following the declaration of the pandemic and the lack of economic assistance from the Indian government. Part B describes real-time experiments Planet Abled undertook in a concerted and creative team effort to survive against all odds in the first year of the global pandemic—a period of unprecedented hardship for the global tourism industry. Part C jumps forward to discuss how Arora’s mid-2022 epiphany culminated in an early 2023 tipping point for Planet Abled and the global tourism industry. The three-part Planet Abled case series invites learners to drive system change by engaging them in real-time dilemmas about diversity and inclusion in the specific context of disability rights.

Supplement for product W33795.

Supplement for product W33795.

Udaan was an Indian business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce start-up founded in 2016. Initially, it grew at a brisk pace, achieving unicorn status in record time. For the small retailers Udaan targeted, the pre-existing product distribution chain was long, inefficient, and highly fractured. With the arrival of e-commerce, deepening cell phone penetration, and the government’s increased interest in digitization, many start-ups emerged in the B2B e-commerce space. While most players adopted a vertical-based business model focused on specific product categories, Udaan pursued top-line growth and attacked the sector’s inefficiencies with a horizontal, cross-category business model. As of 2021, the valuation of Udaan’s competitors have grown much faster than its own. In face of this pressure, Udaan’s founders had to consider revisiting their strategy and exploring other options.

Husband-and-wife co-founders Patrick and Alexandria Gentry had built Sprout Solutions to be one of the biggest Software-as-a-Service human resources management platforms in the Philippines, guided by the mission to "impact the life of every Filipino by improving business in the Philippines." In 2019, they closed a $6 million Series A round of funding; in 2022, they were projecting what a Series B funding round might look like. Crucially, they were pondering two different growth trajectories: to stay in their home market of the Philippines and move towards creating an entire HR ecosystem including fintech offerings; or branch out into neighboring markets, a path which may attract more global investors.

In early 2022, Rajendra Jaiswal was in a quandary about the future of the collective enterprise Diwak Mata Farmer Producer Company Limited (Diwak Mata), which his organization, Prakriti Foundation for Natural Resources Regeneration (Prakriti), had helped incubate and grow. Since Diwak Mata's registration in 2018, Prakriti had helped it develop connections with various value chain participants and overcome the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. With a supportive Board of Directors (BoD) and an able chief executive officer (CEO) in Rakesh Sen, Diwak Mata was recognized as one of the better-performing producer companies in the region and had growing revenues with fluctuating profits. Looking at the figures of the audited balance sheet, Jaiswal wondered whether Prakriti should withdraw its support to the producer company. Were Diwak Mata's BoD of farmers and the CEO strong enough to chart the organization's own path? Could they create sufficient ownership from the stakeholders for sustained growth in Prakriti's absence? Should Prakriti remain loyal to Diwak Mata or exit and continue its core activities with other communities?

After selling the PerkinElmer name and several ancillary business units, Prahlad Singh (CEO) and his team at the newly christened Revvity faced a challenge on how best to capitalize on the opportunities ahead for the business and emerge as winners within the Life Sciences and Diagnostics industries. Would the focus on Life Sciences and Diagnostics allow Singh to capture the value in the market that eluded him when PerkinElmer was saddled with other non-core businesses, or would challenges persist by trading at lower multiples than their peers? Singh and the company had a clean slate, and needed to craft a corporate strategy that focused on core strengths and showcased the unpolished gems that Revvity had acquired and polished into a global stable of respected brands.

By August 2023, Re-Match, an artificial turf waste-to-value company, had operations in Denmark and the Netherlands and had recycled over 160,000 tons of waste and plastic fiber. With recent capital injection from the VC firm Verdane and a dual revenue business model, the company wanted to expand its operation to become the global leader in turf recycling. However, stakeholders were divided between rapid U.S. market entry and refining their proven model to generate more downstream revenue. This case study delineates Re-Match's business model and assesses the carbon reduction potential of recycling in comparison to landfilling or incineration. Additionally, it raises the question of whether to prioritize market dominance or operational efficiency and how to identify the most receptive market for Re-Match's recycling solution.

Student Spreadsheet for product W27158.

Student Spreadsheet for product W27158.