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JOG Sports, a sports apparel and sports marketing business, has crossed the psychologically important threshold of $1 million in annual sales. Although the company was started as a hobby and side interest of the chief executive officer (CEO) and main founder, management of the company soon became his only occupation. The scale of the company increased quickly, with the sports apparel business growing in product lines, geographic scope of sales and diversity within products. Meanwhile, the sports marketing arm also grew as the CEO organized new and larger ice hockey tournaments. The CEO needs to make some important decisions regarding the future growth of the company, including issues of strategy formulation and strategy implementation, an explicit process within the rapidly growing company.

Case A describes the development from concept to production of the world's first and smallest hand-held espresso machine. It shows the importance the role of prototyping plays in developing an innovative product, capturing the phases and decisions involved along the design path. The machine is ready for tooling and the CEO of Nielsen Innovation must decide to bring the product to market. Should it be licensed as they had done with other products they had designed? Or should they create a stand-alone business? Case B describes how and why the team started a spin-off company for the Handpresso machine, and managed to grow the business in a short space of time.

Vendex KBB is at crisis point at the end of 2004, especially its flagship V&D department stores. A consortium of private-equity investors led by KKR, who bought the business a year earlier, persuade retail veteran Tony DeNunzio to take on the challenge of turning the diversified holding company around. Reluctant at first, he agrees, but only for three years and thereafter for 18 months part time. His mandate is clear: to turn around the iconic Dutch business by adding value to all stakeholders, not just the PE firm, a mission made more difficult by the reputation PE firms have recently acquired as 'barbarians at the gate'. About to embark on his first 100 days, what should he do on his first day? Please visit the dedicated case website http://cases.insead.edu/vendexkbb-maxeda/ (copy and paste the url into a browser) to view video interviews and other support material.

Spreadsheet Supplement for INS364

"Duxton Asset Management, a specialist agro-business investor, is evaluating an investment in rice farming in Tanzania, Africa. Duxton has a business strategy of investing in operating farmland assets, many of which are in developing or even frontier markets. The case discusses the complexities of investing in an atypical multidimensional asset. "

SoundCloud is one of the world's largest audio-share websites and a recent example of successful entrepreneurship to have come out of an unexpected place: Berlin. The case discusses how SoundCloud has flourished by identifying the type of 'place surplus' important for it to derive competitive advantage and succeed.

An Estonian success story, this case examines why Skype's Scandinavian founders chose Tallinn to establish their hi-tech start-up. We investigate the factors that contributed to their choice of location and the subsequent success of the venture. Skype's journey is discussed against the backdrop of post-Soviet Estonia's economic and industrial resurrection.

The founder of a bricks-and-mortar kitchen accessories retail store, Jill's Table, is considering the expansion of her existing information-based website to an e-commerce presence, but wonders whether the factors that have led to her current success can be replicated in the virtual world. Students are asked to make decisions related to translating brand values from the real world to the virtual world; overcoming technological hurdles; addressing design issues in terms of the user experience; developing a content marketing and digital promotions strategy, including social media and email marketing; determining a pricing strategy; planning for fulfillment and returns; handling customer service and measuring performance.

The founder of a bricks-and-mortar kitchen accessories retail store, Jill's Table, is considering the expansion of her existing information-based website to an e-commerce presence, but wonders whether the factors that have led to her current success can be replicated in the virtual world. Students are asked to make decisions related to translating brand values from the real world to the virtual world; overcoming technological hurdles; addressing design issues in terms of the user experience; developing a content marketing and digital promotions strategy, including social media and email marketing; determining a pricing strategy; planning for fulfillment and returns; handling customer service and measuring performance.

An entrepreneur is reviewing her business plan for a proposed new venture that would provide billing services to emergency room physicians in a hospital setting. She has to make a final recommendation regarding the feasibility of the plan. The entrepreneur must ensure that her financial analysis provides a realistic projection of the revenue and profit. She also wants to consider all the pertinent factors that could potentially affect the viability of this business before she invests $20,000 of personal funds in the venture.

Vice Media has gone from a startup in Canada to landing in New York City and assiduously building a global youth brand through unique and seemingly inimitable competitive advantages. While globalizing its operations, Vice Media appears to have developed expertise in standardizing certain aspects of its business, adapting others to local context and, increasingly, building a global chain. Given Vice Media’s explosive growth, how can its global value chain be structured to maintain the carefully cultivated emotional connection the company has created with its audience?

This case study examines the initiation, financing, development, and failed merger of an ambitious online grocery retail venture: HomeGrocer.com. It highlights the risks and challenges associated with developing a revolutionary venture. Even though the HomeGrocer.com team did many things right developmentally, some key errors and unfortunate timing resulted in them expanding too quickly and running low on cash. It also forced them to make a tough strategic decision about whether to scale back operations and renege on their IPO commitments or merge with a well-funded competitor, Webvan. The case discusses lessons that can be learned from business failure.

The case puts students in the shoes of Todd Davis, founder and CEO of a boutique brownfield redevelopment firm, Hemisphere Development, in 2010. Davis is wrestling with decisions and processes surrounding the potential acquisition and redevelopment of the former Delphi Automotive plant in Columbus, Ohio. When making the investment decision, Davis (and students) must consider various factors: What is Hemisphere's implicit investment strategy, and what are the firm's core competencies? How should the firm finance this transaction to achieve an acceptable return?

An early stage investment firm is ready to launch after receiving funding from its first investor. With $400,000 in capital and twice that amount forthcoming, venVelo needs a process so it can be exposed to those seeking funding, evaluate the opportunities, make investments and mentor its portfolio clients. The challenge for venVelo’s management team is to apply the same principles in managing venVelo that it looked for in other companies seeking investment: don’t focus on being perfect; focus on getting better every day.

Since 1996, Indigo Books and Music had grown to become essentially a book retail monopoly in Canada. But the global recession had hit the company hard, and the chief executive officer (CEO) was focused on creating innovation at every level of the national operation. The hope was that Indigo would eventually be able to compete internationally with giants such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Nobles. How to stabilize the company's financials while at the same time creating and promoting creative product lines that customers would crave was the critical question that the CEO had to answer if her company was to thrive in the future.

In late 2013, the founder of Aztek Chocolate, a candy manufacturer, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is confronted with making an accounting system selection decision. He has two traditional options — outsourcing to an accounting or bookkeeping firm versus using an internally developed spreadsheet or commercial software package — as well as a third “hybrid” option — using an accounting cloud, or Software-as-a-Service, service provider. Sales are starting to flow in, and chocolates are shipping out, but he realizes he must now attend to setting up financial control and reporting systems before he loses control of the new firm’s financial performance. Should he hire an accountant, manage the finances himself with a commercial accounting software package or use an accounting cloud service provider?

In this note, we examine the extent to which venture capital is adequately positioned for the rapid commercialization of clean energy technologies in the United States. The need for a revolution in clean energy is driven not just by environmental consequences of energy use, but also by the need for energy security, to address growing concerns about a crisis in the balance of payments, and as a potentially important source of domestic jobs. Our premise in this note is that a key aspect of such widespread change is that these issues cannot be "solved" by a single technology. Rather, technological changes will have to be pervasive and will require a whole range of different products and processes to come to market. Some of the technological progress will come from incremental innovations that do not depend on venture capital.

In 2014, the restaurant Noma, based in Copenhagen, Denmark, was considered to be amongst the best restaurants in the world, and its co-founder, co-owner and chef, René Redzepi, among the most influential chefs. The restaurant was also leading the new Nordic food movement, a movement focused on rediscovering Nordic cuisine and ingredients, which had helped increase the popularity of Danish cuisine. Since 2013 Noma had a new investor, the American Marc Blazer, who joined to help Redzepi increase the restaurant's margins to make it a more sustainable business. But the question was-how? What options really were available?

In late 2013, the founder of Aztek Chocolate, a candy manufacturer, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is confronted with making an accounting system selection decision. He has two traditional options - outsourcing to an accounting or bookkeeping firm versus using an internally developed spreadsheet or commercial software package - as well as a third "hybrid" option - using an accounting cloud, or Software-as-a-Service, service provider. Sales are starting to flow in, and chocolates are shipping out, but he realizes he must now attend to setting up financial control and reporting systems before he loses control of the new firm's financial performance. Should he hire an accountant, manage the finances himself with a commercial accounting software package or use an accounting cloud service provider?

Since 1996, Indigo Books and Music had grown to become essentially a book retail monopoly in Canada. But the global recession had hit the company hard, and the chief executive officer (CEO) was focused on creating innovation at every level of the national operation. The hope was that Indigo would eventually be able to compete internationally with giants such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Nobles. How to stabilize the company's financials while at the same time creating and promoting creative product lines that customers would crave was the critical question that the CEO had to answer if her company was to thrive in the future.