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The founder and chief executive officer of Mobiroo Inc. must make several decisions regarding the future of his mobile application (app) gift card company. Mobiroo had created the first app gift card for Android and Blackberry users ? similar to the iTunes gift card for iPhone users. Over the past two years, the company had experienced phenomenal growth in the business-to-business space, selling a white-labelled app storefront to mobile carriers and handset manufacturers. Recently, the company had focused on moving into the competitive retail gift card space: should Mobiroo enter the world of retail slowly or go full speed ahead, making significant investments in both time and money? With the holiday season for gift-giving approaching, a decision was needed quickly.

John Gilleland, CEO of TerraPower, returned to his office after a lengthy meeting with potential investors. It was October 2012, and TerraPower was in the process of raising a $200M Series C round to finance the ongoing development of its next-generation nuclear reactor. Though early in the fundraising process, Gilleland noted that this most recent conversation was similar to conversations with other interested cleantech growth equity investors. The conversations circled around a common theme: "This is the biggest idea that's ever been presented at our partners' meeting. We love what you're doing, but it's not right for us as an investment." Outside of raising money from typical growth equity and infrastructure funds, Gilleland could partner with a government and/or form a joint venture with an existing nuclear power player. Reliance Industries as an investor in TerraPower could provide an entry point into the fast growing Indian market. At the same time, Gilleland and Gates had talked with China National Nuclear Corp. about a possible cooperation with TerraPower. Whom should Gilleland call next?

Supplement to case SMU403. This case is the second part of a two-part series on Innova Technology, a technology start-up company based in Singapore. The two cases focus on: Case (A) - Developing, producing and marketing a product innovation Case (B) - Growth strategies for a young technology company The case is set in May 2012, and begins with the protagonist, Rick Tan, chief executive officer of Innova Technology Private Limited, contemplating what his company's go-to-market strategy should be. Tan and his business partner, Jonathan Lim, who is also the Chief Technology Officer for Innova Technology, developed PROTAG, a new anti-loss device, using Bluetooth technology. The device, which is about the size of two credit cards stacked together, is synched to a mobile phone and can be attached to valuable personal belongings such as keys, wallets, handbags, passports and even phones. If the valuable item were to be separated from the person by more than a certain distance, the device would set off an alarm alerting the owner of its potential loss. Tan and Lim are two young entrepreneurs who set up Innova Technology in January 2011 as a technology start-up under the auspices of Singapore Management University's Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Tan, the partner with the business and finance skills, focused on developing a sound business plan and raising funds for their product. Lim, the technology guru, channelled his efforts to fine-tune the technology and develop a design with unique functionality. After extensive market research and encouraging results from beta test sales using the crowdfunding site IndieGoGo, Tan had confidence in his product. Yet, he was keenly aware that a great product could fall flat in the market if it was not backed by a well-designed marketing strategy. The partners had invested in manufacturing and 5,000 pieces of PROTAG had already been shipped out from the factory.

Edison Schools, Inc., a pioneer in the for-profit management of public schools, demonstrates the challenges and opportunities related to private sector involvement in the delivery of a public good. Follows the organization from its start-up through its initial public offering and, eventually, through its decision to execute a management buy-out to exit the public market. Explores at the corporate level the tension between Edison's effort to generate profits while achieving excellent educational outcomes.

The "Andrew Sullivan and Faraway Ltd" case series focuses on entrepreneurial selling, and is based on an older case study, "Deaver Brown and Cross River Inc." (9-394-042). It concerns two entrepreneurs, Andrew Sullivan and Hope Abasi, who have designed an innovative pushchair (baby stroller) and, a year later, are looking for an order from a large retailer. The case requires students to prepare, deliver, and evaluate Sullivan's sales calls on two important retail buyers, Sam Cartwright of Mothercare and Anthony Pierce of John Lewis. The main case provides relevant background information about Faraway's market opportunity, business model economics, and scaling requirements. The (B) case provides information about Sam Cartwright's view of his job and supplier issues. The (C) case does the same for Anthony Pierce.

Supplement for case 813104

Supplement for case 813104

The Hidesign case examines issues facing a niche fashion company in pursuit of its next growth phase. After three decades of offering a leather products portfolio, the founder and president of Hidesign has decided to extend Hidesign’s portfolio to include non-leather product categories such as sunglasses and pens. The company’s advertising tagline — “Real leather. Crafted the forgotten way.” — has helped position Hidesign as a quality leather accessories brand. How should Hidesign position its new product range? Should different taglines be used for its leather and non-leather products? Should Hidesign do away with taglines altogether? Could the decision to extend the brand to non-leather product categories dilute its carefully cultivated core identity? Or could this decision help transform Hidesign into a fashion lifestyle brand?

The three-case series is about how a medium-sized Taiwanese company approached competition with 3M in global markets. The series covers a 14-year period. The A case starts in 1994, when 3M decides to launch a lawsuit against companies (including Hopax) selling repositionable notes that compete with 3M's highly successful Post-It notes in the United States. How should Hopax respond? The B case explains that, unlike the other players, Hopax decides to fight in court. Staples, Hopax's largest customer in the United States, decides to cancel its contract. What should Hopax do now? The C case recounts the events that follow until 2008 and explains how the company applies principles of judo strategy to become the second largest supplier of repositionable notes in the world. The series allows students to explore options to smaller innovative companies as they try to compete in global markets with large, resource-rich, players who do not hesitate to use courts to try to eliminate their smaller competitors.

This supplement to Hopax (A), product number 9B10M004, explains that, unlike the other players, Hopax decides to fight in court after Staples, Hopax's largest customer in the United States, decides to cancel its contract.

Supplement for case 809011

The FDA approvals of novel therapeutics were seen as signs in the personalized medicine community of real progress in the growth of personalized medicine; The FDA's approval of such drugs, along with companion diagnostics, suggested a shift in thinking and regulatory practices at the agency. Beyond the regulatory questions, many considered the reimbursement system archaic, dispersed, unpredictable, and unnecessarily time consuming. Many questioned whether the traditional models of reimbursement were relevant in the era of personalized medicine, and who should be covering the cost of tests needed to identify the sometimes small number of patients who could benefit from expensive targeted drugs. This case focuses on the array of possibilities and the ambiguity surrounding these regulatory and reimbursement issues.

Changes in the global environment are generating opportunities for companies to build advantage by creating loosely coupled networks or ecosystems. Ecosystems are larger, more diverse, and more fluid than a traditional set of bilateral partnerships or complementors. By leveraging ecosystems, companies can deliver complex solutions while maintaining corporate focus. This article describes six keys to unlock ecosystem advantage: pinpointing where value is created, defining an architecture of differentiated partner roles, stimulating complementary partner investments, reducing the transaction costs, facilitating joint learning across the network, and engineering effective ways to capture profit.

Confronted with public concerns about health and obesity, food companies are taking several initiatives. However, it is unclear to what extent they should communicate these policies. This article explores reactions in the blogosphere to health-related announcements by large food companies. Results show that taste-related announcements generate not only more reactions, but also more positive buzz than knowledge-related announcements. Valence is influenced by issue association per company type: those with highest obesity associations generate more negative blog posts. In case of low issue association, there are only limited blogosphere reactions. This analysis has important implications for managing interaction with social media.

The maritime industry is widely seen as less permeable to innovation than other industries. However, the industry is now recognizing that demands for increased environment protection can only be achieved by more innovation. This study demonstrates that environmental innovation has played a significant role in changing the industry's innovation paradigm. It has also been transformed over time.

The case "Beyondsoft Co., Ltd. (A)" completed in early 2010 described the strategic path of Beyondsoft over its history of more than 10 years since its foundation in 1995, containing its major business lines and the relations with the major customers at that time, the market environment faced by the company, competitive power of major rivalry players and Beyondsoft's own resources and capabilities, as well as the future objectives set by President Ben Wang for the company. The focus was put on the development strategy Beyondsoft should choose in the next 3-5 years, given its actual external business environment and internal business conditions. This case is an extension of case (A), focusing on the strategic path of Beyondsoft during 2010-2011, the market environment at the new historical moment faced by the company in early 2012, when Beyondsoft did its IPO, including the situations of major competitors and Beyondsoft's own resources and capabilities, as well as its bushiness adjustments and future objectives designed by Ben Wang and his top management team.

This case chronicles the challenges of establishing an innovative tissue bank service to accelerate the research and development processes of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies worldwide. Asterand’s two major challenges involved achieving a standardized approach to collecting tissue samples in hospitals all over the world and achieving the highest possible quality of tissue samples shipped to their primary customer, Amgen. Despite the identified need for high-quality tissue samples, Asterand was experiencing multiple quality control problems in their processes and procedures. Tissue samples were being packaged poorly, labeled incorrectly or delivered at the wrong time or to the wrong place. Additionally, there were quality issues with the RNA analysis of the samples, which was a critical factor in the usability of the tissue sample for research and development of new therapies and drugs. <br><br><br><br>The head of pathology at Amgen’s California facility was threatening to terminate their existing order and communicate the failure of Asterand to all company employees, which would have a devastating ripple effect across the industry and likely destroy opportunities for any future orders with Asterand. If this happened, Asterand would not be able to secure contracts with customers and was at risk of losing investors and going bankrupt.

In 2010, a hybrid entrepreneur working at a full-time job has come up with the idea for his first product, a smartphone car stereo. He has invested $10,000 of his own money plus $3,000 from an early investor to develop his prototype. He needs to put together a viable commercialization plan and is considering crowdfunding as a viable funding source. He also needs to decide whether to distribute his product through direct sales or a traditional retail model.

Genentech is a rare success story in the biotechnology industry. Hundreds of billions of dollars of venture capital have been invested without the expected transformational effects. Established in 1976, Genentech was to develop the new science of recombinant DNA into viable therapeutic products with mass market appeal, something that most scientists agreed was at least a decade away. The founders, Herbert Boyer and Robert Swanson had limited financial resources, so they turned to Tom Perkins, the co-founder of Kleiner-Perkins, for venture funding. Genentech developed through an effective union between scientific and venture investment mindsets. In 1980 an IPO valued Genentech at $300 million. In 2009 it was fully acquired by the Swiss-based healthcare company, Roche, for $47 billion. Roche had held a majority stake in the company since 1990.

Primary co-operative banks in India located in semi-urban and urban areas, known as Urban Co-operative Banks (UCBs), were traditionally centered around communities and work place groups. The main business of these banks was lending to small borrowers and business houses but the scope of their operations had increased greatly. The case describes Shamrao Vithal Co-operative (SVC) Bank’s inorganic growth strategy through acquisition of weaker/loss-making UCBS, and the problems and challenges faced by the bank. <br><br>It also examines the alternative of organic growth towards its objective of achieving a pan-India presence. One of the fastest growing Urban Co-operative Banks (UCBs) in India, SVC Bank was moving towards this objective. From a total of 38 branches in 2005, with a deposit base of Rs24 billion, the bank had grown to more than 100 branches with a total business of Rs100 billion by 2011. This growth had come in three phases. During 2005-2008, when government policy did not permit opening of new branches, SVC Bank had grown by acquiring three weak UCBs with 24 branches. When the curbs on organic growth were lifted in 2009, the bank aggressively added 26 new branches in two years. During 2010-11, it added 16 new branches and also acquired one UCB with one branch.<br><br>Since the vice-chairman of the bank had experienced the advantages and disadvantages of both organic and inorganic growth, he wondered which route made better sense and whether the bank should continue with the kind of aggressive expansion of the past six years.