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The chief executive officer of Ridlr, a mobile application (app), faced a new challenge in 2019. Ridlr was a subsidiary of ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd., which was a major player in India's transportation-as-a-service sector and also owned Ola, a ride-hailing app. The chief executive officer envisioned Ridlr becoming the preferred information and mobile ticketing option for India’s public transportation modes. He wanted to successfully position the firm to grow from 600 million annual transactions in 2019 to 6 billion in 2022. He was confident in the firm's value proposition to serve the large consumer base, but he wasn't convinced that direct monetization through consumers was the best option. Although the business-to-business channels of transporters and technology service providers offered some opportunities at monetization, how could Ridlr gain access to that value? The chief executive officer needed to prepare a product and marketing strategy that would ensure both growth and monetization. Where should he begin?

Jeffrey Deitch is an influential gallery owner and art entrepreneur. An HBS alumnus generally credited with developing the field of bank art advisory and financing services, Deitch has had a storied career in both the commercial and non-profit art world. Wrestling with industry consolidation and rapidly changing consumer tastes, Deitch must decide on his next entrepreneurial venture in the arts.

In 2019, the managing director of Sarva Pharmaceuticals Private Limited, a pharmaceutical company based in India, was considering an expansion of his company by entering the growing pharmaceutical market in Myanmar. He needed to identify the best way to execute this expansion plan, assess whether his company’s product range was adequate and suitable for the Myanmar market, prepare for possible risks and cross-cultural marketing issues, and plan the management staffing approaches in Myanmar.

The case discusses the international expansion strategy of The WeWork Company (WeWork), a co-working space company. In the United States and Europe, the expansion of WeWork occurred through greenfield investment; membership focus was on freelancers and entrepreneurs. In Asian markets such as India, where WeWork entered through a joint venture, enterprise customers were the revenue generators. In June 2019, a co-founder of WeWork considered buying the entire stake of its partner in the Indian joint venture. However, given that revenues continuously remained lower than losses, investors doubted the expansion strategy and business model of WeWork. Should WeWork’s pace of expansion be slowed? Can WeWork’s business model be revamped for more profitable returns, and if so, should it?

Matt Barnard, CEO of the indoor vertical farming company Plenty, analyzed the agricultural supply chain in the United States and determined it had a four-pronged problem that people would pay to have solved: flavor, waste, environmental footprint, and nutrition. So, in 2014, Barnard and his cofounders incorporated the business that is now Plenty: a technology company that aimed to reshape the inefficient, but entrenched, agriculture sector and build a global brand by selling fresher, tastier, and more nutritious produce. By early 2020, Plenty had 300+ employees and had attracted hundreds of millions in investment from the likes of Bezos Expeditions, Innovation Endeavors, and SoftBank Vision Fund and had a valuation of $1.05 billion. This case details Plenty's journey from an idea to a path-breaking company that is disrupting the field of agriculture and valued at over a billion dollars.

THRIVE's mission was to accelerate, invest in, and work with entrepreneurs, investors, and Fortune 500 corporations to advance the future of food and agriculture through innovation. Comprised of top agriculture, food and technology corporations, universities, and investors, THRIVE had built a community of more than 2500 startups from 90 countries. With John Hartnett as CEO and Helen Hartnett as COO, THRIVE ran an accelerator, a fund, and, in partnership with Forbes, a major agricultural technology (agtech) summit. Interest in its mission and services seemed to be growing exponentially. Indeed, the sector was generating so much excitement that THRIVE was inundated with a diverse set of opportunities and calls for its founders' mindshare. Excited as they were about the opportunities before them, John and Helen were beginning to feel as if they held a rubber band that was getting increasingly stretched. "Business has grown substantially," explained John, "400 or 500 percent, and it's going really, really well. So we're sitting here in 2020 thinking: How do we expand without bringing ourselves down to our knees?" This case explores THRIVE's options as it looked to expand both domestically and around the world.

In July 2019, Green Trend Holdings Co. Ltd. (Green Trend) faced a difficult situation with regard to flaws in the preparation of its proposed initial public offering on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. According to the remedy measures raised by the underwriter facilitating the initial public offering process, Green Trend needed to raise additional capital of ¥1 billion with a proposed annual interest rate of about 30 per cent. Of course, the company could have postponed the initial public offering; however, without the long-awaited return following a successful initial public offering, all the efforts taken in past years would be in vain. The uncertainty of the capital market would further complicate the future road to an initial public offering. Did Green Trend have better alternatives?

In recent years the world has witnessed a growing wave of entrepreneurial ventures in developing economies. CB Insights reports as of March 2020, developing economies have produced 160 unicorns, equivalent to 35 percent of all unicorns in the world. Much of the success of these unicorns can be attributed to entrepreneurs having increasing access to financing. Our study, however, found that access to financing varied significantly across developing economies and remained as a key challenge for entrepreneurs in most of those economies. Differences in legal structures, operating conditions, talent pools, and available capital sources created myriad conditions for entrepreneurs to navigate when seeking funding to build and scale their ventures.

Machine learning holds great promise for lowering product and service costs, speeding up business processes, and serving customers better. It is recognized as one of the most important application areas in this era of unprecedented technological development, and its adoption is gaining momentum across almost all industries. In view of this, we offer a brief discussion of categories of machine learning and then present three types of machine-learning usage at enterprises. We then discuss the trade-off between the accuracy and interpretability of machine-learning algorithms, a crucial consideration in selecting the right algorithm for the task at hand. We next outline three cases of machine-learning development in financial services. Finally, we discuss challenges all managers must confront in deploying machine-learning applications.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is about imbuing machines with a kind of intelligence that is mainly attributed to humans. Extant literature-coupled with our experiences as practitioners-suggests that while AI may not be ready to completely take over highly creative tasks within the innovation process, it shows promise as a significant support to innovation managers. In this article, we broadly refer to the derivation of computer-enabled, data-driven insights, models, and visualizations within the innovation process as innovation analytics. AI can play a key role in the innovation process by driving multiple aspects of innovation analytics. We present four different case studies of AI in action based on our previous work in the field. We highlight benefits and limitations of using AI in innovation and conclude with strategic implications and additional resources for innovation managers.

Bringing service transformation is always a challenge for any organization. this is not anymore dependent upon the bifurcation of business as into product selling or service selling. All successful businesses are finally customer centric and experience centric. Rather They are focused on how and what the customers feel about the organization for them to want to enter into long term relationships with that company. The case of Delhi International Airport discusses the challenges faced by an entrepreneur to bring his business philosophy and values int reality. physical infrastructure is the tangible component ; behavior, attitude, empathy of the people serving the customers are intangible and critical components. Policies, Processes , Structure and Strategies are the part of the organization design. This case revolves around the complexities Rao faced and then addressed service culture issues in the face of socio economic and policy hurdles forms the learning from the case. This case posses important questions about linking the three key factors, i.e. functioning of th airport, involvement of the private player, evolution of PPP policy in India, with the vital aspect of customer service experience in the Indian airports. The case highlights the complexities of the Indian business environment where service thinking and customer centric service design are largely lacking. It focuses on the entrepreneurs decisions to align the various stakeholders to create service experience for airport customers.

In early January 2019, the founders of STMNT (pronounced “statement”) a Canadian peer-to-peer clothing rental platform, were reviewing the performance of their venture. The sisters had formally launched STMNT in November 2018 and wondered whether they had implemented the right business model for their venture or if they needed to pivot. The rental transaction process was taking too long for customers and required too much of the founders' time to make scaling up a possibility. The sisters needed to take stock of their progress to date and chart the next steps for their venture.

Nextdoor, striving to solidify its position as the leading global social media platform for neighborhoods, works to scale audience, geography, and revenue.

Eye-controlled communication device startup EyeControl was founded in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2016 by cofounders with a shared personal connection to locked-in syndrome-a neurological disorder that left sufferers cognitively sound, yet paralyzed, with the exception of eye movement. The team was committed to addressing the frustrations that accompanied the loss of communication associated with the condition. The EyeControl device was reasonably priced, required minimal set-up, and was the first screen-free solution available-thus easy to use around the clock and in any setting, compared with the costly, cumbersome, and complex to use existing solutions. EyeControl initially targeted the home-care segment of permanently locked-in individuals, estimated at more than 850,000 patients worldwide. Seeing the efficacy of their device, the cofounders contemplated targeting the hospital facilities segment, a far larger market. So far, EyeControl had raised $5 million from startup competitions, accelerator awards, grants, and angel and impact investors. Yet they also realized that their cash needs would be far greater if they were to now pursue the facilities market opportunity, requiring them to conduct costly clinical trials. They would have to seek funding outside of grants and impact funds, tapping traditional VC funds who would be interested in the $ 5 billion potential of the facilities market. The cofounders also wondered whether a strategic corporate partner was a potential alternative solution. As they were about to start clinical trials for their facilities product, they were still unsure whether they should start penetrating the facilities market or if they should concentrate all their efforts in the home-care market. Would it be possible to do both?

Supplement for product 9B20C037.

Supplement for product 9B20C037.

BusBoard Prototype Systems Ltd. (BusBoard), a company based in Calgary, Alberta, that designed and manufactured printed circuit boards targeted at the electronics hobbyist market, managed foreign-currency transactions on a transaction-by-transaction basis. The company’s general manager had been buying and selling CAD and USD while attempting to maximize the company’s value, timing transactions based on previous experience and professional judgment. This was challenging because she did not have any experience with currency futures or options, and she wondered if she could improve company performance by trading currencies differently. Exchange-rate volatility put constant pressure on her ability to make the best choice. The company paid most of its suppliers and received most of its payments from customers in USD. Highlighted in the case study is a recent transaction in which BusBoard ordered parts and supplies from a Taiwanese supplier, with 50 per cent payment due on contract negotiation and the remaining 50 per cent due on delivery. The general manager knew that developing a more effective way to manage currency transactions could play a big part in keeping the company profitable in the future.

Circles.Life is the new telco challenger startup in Asia. Securing several rounds of funding from Sequoia Capital, Singapore's EDBI, Silicon Valley's Founders Fund, and Warburg Pincus for its fully-digital technology and business model innovation, it offers cloud-based telecommunications services around simplified data-focused plans, a simple onboarding process, and easy-to-use mobile app. The case explains how its 'fully digital' strategy improves upon established unit economics, enables rapid expansion beyond Asia, and diversification beyond voice and data offerings. Such innovations are often based on improvements in back-end infrastructure that differentiate the disruptor from competitors. In this case, Circles.Life develops a new technology stack with featuries in the e-commerce, network intelligence, and system operations layers that are substantial improvements over other MNVOs (mobile virtual network operators). These eliminate physical retail outlets, cut customer acquisition and service costs through automation, and allow the company to introduce non-telco services such as event ticketing, insurance, games and shops on the platform by early 2020. Meanwhile, 5G is promising to transform the telecom competitive landscape in Asia.

Voi Technology, a fast-growing start-up out of Sweden, is competing in the highly contested European e-scooter sharing market. With a presence in nearly 40 cities in Europe by February 2020, the firm is working hard to improve its unit economics to reach profitability. In the meantime, Voi must also edge out its rivals to claim market share. As cities begin to regulate the space, Voi's leaders hope their strong relationships with government regulators will allow them to secure the few permits cities are expected to grant.

The case describes the management style of Philipp Schindler, Google's Chief Business Officer, and the programs and organizational structures he implemented to promote innovation within Google's business organization.