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This part (B) of the case follows Scanteak: The Making of Successors in a Family Firm (A) to disclose how the founders of Scanteak Corporation responded to the proposal put forward from their second child, as described in part A of the case. While part A focuses on the issue of succession at the company, part B follows the business developments and discusses the transfer of management rights and family wealth to the next generation.

On October 10, 2017, the co-founders of Snapper Future Tech Private Limited (Snapper) were discussing the solutions they had proposed at a recent blockchain business conference. Snapper’s initiative envisaged digital solutions for smooth land registration, adding transparency, accountability, and good governance at every stage of the process. Snapper had developed a proof of concept for land records on a private blockchain in a cloud-based environment. Its live demonstration of the proposal was well received by the conference attendees; the challenge was whether the government would consider the solution and engage on a long-term basis with the company for blockchain solutions in land registrations. Would Snapper’s journey be acknowledged in the annals of the country’s digital revolution?

Mike Maples Jr. founded the micro-VC firm Floodgate in 2006, after a successful career as an entrepreneur with two startup IPOs under his belt. At the time, he had identified a group of overlooked founders in Silicon Valley: those who wanted to raise only $1 million or less, a growing group since costs involved in launching a company had been declining significantly as a result of technological advancements and innovative management approach, such as "lean startup". In the following decade, he invested in a stream of successful companies, including Twitter, Digg, Chegg, Twitch.tv, Demandforce and Weebly. In the mid-2010s, however, the Micro-VC category, which Maples had helped create, was quickly becoming crowded. Additionally, the sources for early-stage funding multiplied: angel investors, "super-angels", crowdfunding platforms and traditional later stage VCs expanding into seed investing turned into competitors. The combination of intense competition and high availability of investable funds had one natural consequence: founders could command higher valuations and choose from many potential investors - it was an entrepreneurs' market. Determined to preserve his position as a thought-leader and successful investor in Silicon Valley, Maples set off to understand how he could, once more, positively influence the VC industry through an entrepreneurial approach. Based on deep analysis of past investments, he developed a suite of frameworks to help entrepreneurs navigate their companies' trajectories at a time when getting to the next funding round and commanding ever-richer valuations became an obsession in the entrepreneurial community.

With emerging-market giants such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China experiencing slowdowns, investors, entrepreneurs, and multinationals are looking elsewhere. They've been eyeing frontier economies such as Nigeria and Pakistan with great interest--and enormous trepidation. Can one find serious growth opportunities amid extreme poverty and a lack of infrastructure and institutions? The answer, the authors argue, is yes. The key lies in "market-creating innovations": products and services that speak to unmet local needs, create local jobs, and scale up quickly. Examples range from MicroEnsure, which has made insurance affordable for 56 million people in emerging economies, to Galanz, which has brought microwave ovens to millions of Chinese consumers previously considered too poor to buy such an appliance. What's more, the essentials of development can be "pulled in" by market-creating innovators--and over time, governments and financial institutions tend to offer their support.

Many companies looking for breakthroughs struggle to move beyond incremental ideas, because cognitive biases trap people in the status quo and prevent them from seeing big opportunities. But four tactics can help firms overcome biases and think far more creatively: (1) Science fiction. Sci-fi writers have foreseen all kinds of innovations. When Lowe's invited some in to envision its future, it got ideas for augmented reality phones, service robots, 3-D printing, and other new technologies that boosted sales. (2) Analogies. These can help innovators make big leaps too. For instance, when Charlie Merrill applied the analogy of a supermarket to the brokerage business, he changed the industry. (3) First principles logic. Often it helps to reexamine foundational assumptions and rebuild from the ground up. That's how Regeneron cut drug development costs 80%. (4) Exaptation. Why do we use something for one purpose and not another? Asking that question led to the creation of the Flex-Foot, a revolutionary prosthetic that doesn't look anything like a foot but acts like one.

This primer provides an overview of the implications of automation technology based on state-of-the-art "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) in the late 2010s: including the trends leading to the surge in AI, applications of AI categorized by the type of work performed, limitations of the technology, discussion about AI adoption, and key concerns the technology brought about.

By August 2015, Swiggy, an on-demand food delivery start-up, had been operating for almost one year in Bengaluru, India. The exponential growth of the business was expected to persist. However, Swiggy was incurring a loss, or a cash burn, on each delivery it was making. The company's current cash reserves were also drying up, and its chief executive officer had been unsuccessful in attracting new venture capital funding to finance the cash burn estimated for the next four quarters. Swiggy must figure out how to pursue its growth without the injection of any fresh funds.

In December 2017, during the celebrations of the third anniversary of his company, the founder and president of Dami Technology Co. Ltd. (Dami) reflected on the success of his entrepreneurship efforts since 2014. Using mobile Internet, Internet of things, and artificial intelligence technologies, Dami implemented a new rice supply chain from farm to table by developing smart kitchenware, such as rice buckets and rice cookers. Dami was the first company to accomplish this goal in the Chinese rice industry. By the end of 2017, Dami had created its own market in more than 30 of China’s major cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. Having achieved great success, Dami had two main options for its next phase of growth: (1) build a complete smart kitchen ecosystem using all available resources, or (2) partner with a Chinese home appliances giant and join a smart kitchen ecosystem.

By August 2015, Swiggy, an on-demand food delivery start-up, had been operating for almost one year in Bengaluru, India. The exponential growth of the business was expected to persist. However, Swiggy was incurring a loss, or a cash burn, on each delivery it was making. The company’s current cash reserves were also drying up, and its chief executive officer had been unsuccessful in attracting new venture capital funding to finance the cash burn estimated for the next four quarters. Swiggy must figure out how to pursue its growth without the injection of any fresh funds.

In January 2017, the founder of Sunton Manufacturing in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China, boarded a flight to Cambodia. He had to tackle the performance issue of the company’s garment manufacturing joint venture (JV) there—after two years in operation, it had run out of cash. After meeting with his JV partner, he concluded that the existing JV in Sihanoukville was beyond repair. He now needed to decide whether to exit Cambodia or to remain there, albeit in a different city and with a new partner. A new factory would require further investment. If he quit Cambodia, could his company survive and develop in the future?

In 2015, the corporate affairs executive of the leading Swiss agribusiness company Syngenta Crop Protection AG (Syngenta) and founder of the next-generation innovation platform Thought for Food, faced a dilemma about whether to register Thought for Food as an independent non-governmental organization, or to keep it housed within Syngenta. The choice had implications for Thought for Food’s potential for future growth and for its impact on global food-security challenges. To grow within Syngenta, Thought for Food would have to close the gaps between its open innovation practices and Syngenta’s traditional operations. To grow independently, it would have to develop a business plan that assured financial security. In either case, Thought for Food had to continue growing in relevance to its non-financial stakeholders, like the student participants and expert judges in its annual innovation challenge and summit.

In January 2017, the online cake company Ohmycake.in, which was started two years earlier by a young entrepreneur in Kerala, India, ran into trouble after a series of successful experiments. Adding to the company’s problems, customers were becoming more demanding and the competition was catching up. The entrepreneur had hired a new operations executive to help solve the company’s business strategy and scalability issues, including a current problem: whether to accept or reject demanding custom orders that were appearing in the company’s online order management system.

Sichuan Haidilao Catering Co., Ltd. (Haidilao) was the leading hot pot company in the Chinese market and the largest hot pot chain of restaurants in the world. Haidilao was famous for its extraordinary customer service, which had made it a legend in the catering industry. However, on August 25, 2017, a news report with online videos revealed that mice were in the kitchen of one of Haidilao’s restaurants, that dustpans and tableware were washed in the same sink, and that spoons intended for customer use were used to unclog blockages in the plumbing. How could Zhang Yong, the founder and chair of Haidilao’s board of directors, respond to the crisis, turn threats into opportunities, and prevent the recurrence of such a crisis?

Character House Entertainment was a small entertainment company in the Greater Toronto Area that provided Disney and cartoon-character performances for children’s birthday parties and corporate events. The company's customizable services featured musical performances, meet-and-greets, games, dances, stuffed animals, and cotton candy. In April 2017, the company’s founder and chief executive officer anticipated an influx in demand for a recently released movie that had achieved worldwide success and critical acclaim. She wanted to offer this new theme in the company's event options in order to contend with competitors and stay current with customers. In addition to customer and competitor indicators, she wanted to assess the return the company could expect if it expanded into offering those characters.

Shortly after entering the kombucha market in Calgary, Alberta, True Büch Kombucha (True Büch) experienced significant growth. True Büch was sold from reusable kegs and in single-serving bottles at local markets and retailers. However, with such high demand for its product, True Büch was struggling to keep up. The reusable kegs that were on site at retailers required maintenance and refilling, and the maximum output of the homemade bottling line was only 1,000 single-serving bottles per day. In addition, True Büch’s production space was at capacity, and the owners had nothing left to invest. They had yet to take on any additional financing, but they knew some capital would be required to keep up with demand. In 2017, three years into the business, the owners were at a crossroads and contemplated the best approach to maintain their growth and expand.

Since its founding in 1989, Mejzlík Modellbau, a propeller manufacturing company based in the Czech Republic, had gained high visibility in the remote-controlled plane market. It had achieved a strong position by maintaining product quality and providing excellent customer service. The company had a strong cash position and an excellent credit rating; however, by mid-2018, the market for remote-controlled planes was reaching its saturation stage, as evidenced by Mejzlík Modellbau’s declining profits. If the company continued to rely solely on the remote-controlled plane market, it might soon face bankruptcy. The founder decided to explore various other markets wherein he could utilize his expertise of making high-quality carbon fibre propellers. But how would he strategically determine which market to pursue?

At the end of 2016, the workplace productivity software company Asana faced a turning point. Launched in 2011 as a free online service, the firm added paid premium features in 2012 and grew exponentially. Four years later, millions of people used Asana's free version, while 35,000 companies, representing 140,000 teams and 10 million individuals, paid for its premium services. During its early years, Asana maintained a flat organization with no formal sales leader in place. Oliver Jay (OJ), Asana's first executive head of sales, was onboarded in late 2016. Observing key inefficiencies in the current sales processes as well as mounting competitive threats, OJ sought to create an organization capable of capturing the brand's full worldwide value. This case outlines the company's meteoric rise and asks students to consider OJ's best path forward.

Friends Parker and Miles are brainstorming the possibilities of a local start-up-a landscaping venture that leverages their love of the outdoors and their self-taught green thumb skills in planting, mowing, edging, trimming, landscape design, and the like. Without any formal professional or business training, however, they strategize and slowly work through their "next steps," taking into account the cost of their initial investment, potential competitors, target customers, and the type of budget-friendly advertising that will gain them a share of the local market. As they conceptually differentiate themselves in a way that creates business and customer value, are they ready to launch?

Supplement to case UV7664

In March 2018, the managing director of Maha Research Labs Private Limited, a pharmaceutical company in India, was charting his 2020 vision for the company. His ambitious plan was to achieve net revenue of ₹1 billion in 2018 and to have a pan-Indian presence and sales revenue of ₹2 billion in 2020. The managing director knew that the company would need to expand rapidly over the next year to meet these goals. First, however, he needed to assess several factors that would be key to deciding the sales targets. He also needed answers to some serious questions: How should the sales organization be designed? What sales force structure would be appropriate? Should the company opt for a generalist sales force structure or a specialist sales force structure? What was the optimal size for the sales force? What processes should the company follow to design the sales territories?