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It is now four years later, and Drinkotec is scaling up fast. They've had to make some tough decisions in order to focus, have the best people and build the culture that they want, but today, major beverage companies are seeking their technology in order to go packaging-free. This case is about leadership, culture, sustainability and taking the leap to follow your dreams.

Wat-a-Burger, a quick service restaurant chain, was incorporated by Rajat Jaiswal and Farman Beig on February 14, 2016. Their burgers, customized to suit the Indian palate, were their unique selling proposition. As envisioned by the founders, from 2016 to 2019 the brand quickly expanded and grew to over 60 outlets in 21 cities and 11 states. In mid-2019, they formulated a plan to expand to 150 outlets and aimed to serve more than 25,000 orders per day by mid-July 2021. The company was in general growing according to the founders' plan until the COVID-19 pandemic hit India and the lockdown was imposed in March 2020. The COVID-19 crisis caused a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous (VUCA) environment. Due to multiple waves of the pandemic, lockdowns, and the associated government regulations, the revenue of the company in the financial year 2020-21 declined by almost 56% relative to that in FY 2019-20. The following questions troubled the founders: Adopt an aggressive expansion strategy as initially envisaged or go slow and survive the VUCA environment for now? See the VUCA environment as an opportunity? How can a win-win value proposition be created at this point so that potential partners continue to get added to the network?

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.

Case Supplement for Case W33795

Case Supplement for Case W33795

Opened in January 2021, the medical centre of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), CUHK Medical Centre (CUMC), was a non-profit teaching hospital wholly owned by the university. In December 2022, Professor Hong Fung, the executive director and chief executive officer, knew that the CUMC board of directors would soon be asking how he was going to ensure that the privately operated CUMC would remain financially sustainable while still achieving its mission and vision—offering quality healthcare services at affordable and transparent package prices—and returning all surpluses from healthcare services to the hospital to support its future development and the CUHK Faculty of Medicine’s research and teaching.

It was June 2021 and the international tourism industry was beginning to show signs of revival after the COVID-19 global pandemic. Small business owner Tony Byarugaba was surveying the scenic grounds surrounding his tourist lodge in Uganda. Byarugaba had built his enterprise by offering international clients a superior African vacation that included Uganda and the neighbouring countries of Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From his beginnings as a self-taught tour operator, Byarugaba had diversified into the hotel business. His two early-stage companies, Mamaland Safaris and Woodland Lodges, had already survived very tough times—a global recession, the outbreak of Ebola, and, most recently, the pandemic.<br><br>Byarugaba now had to weigh the potential risks and rewards of a number of options for ensuring the growth and stability of his businesses. As a small entrepreneur with limited access to capital and labour, he could only afford to choose one direction to pursue. The future of his company depended on making the right choice.<br><br><p><p align="center"><b>This case was the first prize winner of the 2022 John Molson Business Ownership Case Writing Competition.<b/><p/>

It was June 2021 and the international tourism industry was beginning to show signs of revival after the COVID-19 global pandemic. Small business owner Tony Byarugaba was surveying the scenic grounds surrounding his tourist lodge in Uganda. Byarugaba had built his enterprise by offering international clients a superior African vacation that included Uganda and the neighbouring countries of Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From his beginnings as a self-taught tour operator, Byarugaba had diversified into the hotel business. His two early-stage companies, Mamaland Safaris and Woodland Lodges, had already survived very tough times-a global recession, the outbreak of Ebola, and, most recently, the pandemic. Byarugaba now had to weigh the potential risks and rewards of a number of options for ensuring the growth and stability of his businesses. As a small entrepreneur with limited access to capital and labour, he could only afford to choose one direction to pursue. The future of his company depended on making the right choice. This case was the first prize winner of the 2022 John Molson Business Ownership Case Writing Competition.

Having studied TV signals in East Germany from the 1960s to 1989 and rates of entrepreneurship there after German reunification, the researchers found that people in households with access to West German broadcasts were more likely than other East Germans to launch companies later in life.

The case traces the genesis and growth of Ganga Hospital, a trauma care center in Coimbatore, which is an industrial hub in South India. The case presents a study in contrasts. In a landscape that is dotted with multi-specialty hospitals, Ganga has chosen to provide niche trauma care. The decision to differentiate in the prevailing circumstances of the day amounts to a disruption, and highlights important management and strategy issues. The case highlights the central role that family members of the Ganga founders have played in establishing, running, and growing the hospital in an ethical way. It describes the contingencies that drove decisions about expansion made by the Ganga founder and directors. The narrative illustrates issues confronting hospitals that choose to expand primarily in response to patient demand. This is in stark contrast with investor-funded ventures that have come to dominate the landscape of Indian healthcare.

In July 2019, 15-year-old Charli D’Amelio posted a dance video on the relatively new social media platform TikTok and became a TikTok sensation, soon becoming the first person to reach 50 million followers on the app and earning her a spot in the Guinness World Records. TikTok’s meteoric rise, however, was at risk of being short-lived. In 2020, the US government was concerned about the app’s rapid expansion and threatened to ban it in the United States. Even if the ban announced by the US government failed to materialize, the D’Amelios and numerous other up-and-coming celebrity TikTokers had to contend with many other issues that threatened to compromise their growing social media influencer business. There was growing public concern about TikTok’s lack of content moderation policy, which resulted in the routine posting of questionable content on the platform. The company was also slow in developing a monetization scheme to incentivize, remunerate, and retain its most influential creators. How could the D’Amelios best “future-proof” their fast-growing but fickle business against potential risk?

In July 2019, 15-year-old Charli D'Amelio posted a dance video on the relatively new social media platform TikTok and became a TikTok sensation, soon becoming the first person to reach 50 million followers on the app and earning her a spot in the Guinness World Records. TikTok's meteoric rise, however, was at risk of being short-lived. In 2020, the US government was concerned about the app's rapid expansion and threatened to ban it in the United States. Even if the ban announced by the US government failed to materialize, the D'Amelios and numerous other up-and-coming celebrity TikTokers had to contend with many other issues that threatened to compromise their growing social media influencer business. There was growing public concern about TikTok's lack of content moderation policy, which resulted in the routine posting of questionable content on the platform. The company was also slow in developing a monetization scheme to incentivize, remunerate, and retain its most influential creators. How could the D'Amelios best "future-proof" their fast-growing but fickle business against potential risk?

Based in New York, Convene was founded in 2009 by Ryan Simonetti and Chris Kelly. Convene was founded on the question: "What if you ran an office building like a hotel?" The company offered a premium corporate events and workspace product. Convene initially took a measured approach to growth, but in 2018, company leadership accelerated that growth. 2019 was a record year from a revenue perspective. However, the pandemic forced Convene to close all of its locations and reduce staff and operating expenses. In April 2022, Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) announced that it was taking a majority stake in Convene, marking the beginning of yet another chapter for the company.

Frank Brown, CIS of Atlanta's new Black CEO, was keen to extend CIS's well-honed case management in schools program to youth in college. Founded 50 years ago by Bill Milliken, CIS, a network of 110 affiliates, had built a strong program of assisting and supporting youth in poverty schools to complete their high school education. CIS Atlanta's thrust which would be a new stretch for the network had the strong backing of the network's new national CEO, Rey Saldana, a CIS alum himself. Under Saldana, the organization had won two major grants of $133.5 million and $165 million recently, which could be put to use. The case wrestles with the question of what should the network do? What should the Atlanta affiliate do?

The case presents Imptek Chova, an Ecuadorian manufacturer of waterproofing solutions for residential infrastructure looking for agility and efficiency gains through digital transformation initiatives. Juan Pablo Sotomayor, Imptek's general manager, was analyzing two ideas: the first, raised by the operations manager, considered automating the asphalt membrane production line through an Internet of Things (IoT) application; the second, suggested by the commercial manager, contemplated collecting critical information about final users through a physical warranty shield with a printed QR code installed in the company's residential infrastructure to geographically identify areas with a greater or lesser presence of Imptek solutions.

Mike Cassidy owned Maritime Bus, which provided an essential service built on efficient and effective travel and terminal-to-terminal package delivery in the Maritime provinces of Prince Edward Island (PEI), New Brunswick (NB), and Nova Scotia (NS). Headquartered in Charlottetown, PEI, the Maritime Bus company was part of the Cassidy Group, which employed over 500 people, including Cassidy’s wife and three sons, and served over 80 per cent of the busing needs of the region. The company had experienced historic profits in 2018 and finally broke even in 2019; 2020 was supposed to be its first profitable year. However, the COVID-19 pandemic brought instability to the industry, and ridership shrunk to nearly zero. By December 31, 2020, Cassidy had covered over $2.2 million in business losses with personal retirement savings. Despite the large personal financial cost, he was determined not to let COVID-19 destroy his company’s legacy. Canadian intercity busing was historically regional, and many prominent companies had failed without federal or provincial government bailouts. Facing surmounting financial pressures and lacking ridership as the company entered the 2021 season, Cassidy had to plan for the venture’s survival.

The case traces the story of Jodi Huettner, a mechanical engineer, and her journey to launch Helga Wear Inc. (Helga Wear), a company that developed personal protective equipment (PPE) in the form of workwear specifically designed for women. Huettner started the venture following her own struggles working in PPE designed for men. The case outlines the various challenges she encountered in bringing her product to market and illustrates how gender bias affects not only product design but also product demand. The case also follows the “idea journey” of an innovation, outlining the founder’s bootstrapped approach and her interactions with multiple stakeholders along the way. It also demonstrates the importance of considering the role of the broader ecosystem—such as industry standards—in shaping product demand.

Mike Cassidy owned Maritime Bus, which provided an essential service built on efficient and effective travel and terminal-to-terminal package delivery in the Maritime provinces of Prince Edward Island (PEI), New Brunswick (NB), and Nova Scotia (NS). Headquartered in Charlottetown, PEI, the Maritime Bus company was part of the Cassidy Group, which employed over 500 people, including Cassidy's wife and three sons, and served over 80 per cent of the busing needs of the region. The company had experienced historic profits in 2018 and finally broke even in 2019; 2020 was supposed to be its first profitable year. However, the COVID-19 pandemic brought instability to the industry, and ridership shrunk to nearly zero. By December 31, 2020, Cassidy had covered over $2.2 million in business losses with personal retirement savings. Despite the large personal financial cost, he was determined not to let COVID-19 destroy his company's legacy. Canadian intercity busing was historically regional, and many prominent companies had failed without federal or provincial government bailouts. Facing surmounting financial pressures and lacking ridership as the company entered the 2021 season, Cassidy had to plan for the venture's survival.

The case traces the story of Jodi Huettner, a mechanical engineer, and her journey to launch Helga Wear Inc. (Helga Wear), a company that developed personal protective equipment (PPE) in the form of workwear specifically designed for women. Huettner started the venture following her own struggles working in PPE designed for men. The case outlines the various challenges she encountered in bringing her product to market and illustrates how gender bias affects not only product design but also product demand. The case also follows the "idea journey" of an innovation, outlining the founder's bootstrapped approach and her interactions with multiple stakeholders along the way. It also demonstrates the importance of considering the role of the broader ecosystem-such as industry standards-in shaping product demand.