個案總覽

Fluorescent Group (Fluorescent) was an Indian company specializing in manufacturing filament products that were used in incandescent light bulbs. It had been a market leader for over 30 years, and by 2017, it had seven group companies and over 400 employees. Its filament products were exported to 15 countries and sold in the domestic market. However, the group’s chief managing director had begun to embrace the concept of wellness and believed that the wellness industry might be an attractive future business option, since it offered ideal remedies for people leading hectic and stressful lives in the large cities of India.<br><br>Changes in the lighting industry meant the market for Fluorescent’s filament products was in decline and was no longer generating profits. Should Fluorescent simply adapt to the changes in the lighting industry and manufacture LED-related products? Or should it support only a few custom orders for the lighting industry while venturing into the manufacturing of blue water equipment? Alternatively, should it consider exiting the lighting industry entirely and manufacturing only wellness products like blue water equipment or rejuvenation centres?

In June 2015, Vasant Farm Fresh (VFF) was creating a supply chain in Ahmedabad, India, to integrate farmers with retailers and provide fresh produce to customers. Fruits and vegetables have a short shelf life, harvesting operations tend to be labour intensive, and produce quantity is unlikely to grow substantially. To increase the shelf life of fresh produce, farmers need storage facilities, such as refrigerators or cold-water vessels, to store freshly harvested produce. VFF established a collection centre to aid farmers in selling their produce and in receiving higher returns. The collection centre was close to the farms so that the produce could be distributed to the agricultural produce market committee market and to VFF’s new retail venture, Vasant Veggies. However, wastage was still considerable even after the centre was established. The founder of Vasant Veggies must identify the optimal procurement quantity for fresh produce.

Kobbina Awuah (MBA 2014) became intrigued with the possibility of adapting Entrepreneurship through Acquisition in Ghana, where he grew up and where his family still lived. While he knew he could work for a multi-national enterprise located in Ghana, he was confident that buying a small business to run provided an opportunity to have more of an impact. He formed Peak Investment Capital (PIC) at the beginning of 2014 with the goal of finding a business to buy in Ghana that he could grow as its CEO.

Supplement to case 811055.

In 2017, Farm Harvest Pvt. Ltd., a company that produced and marketed fresh corn and ready-to-eat corn products, was facing distribution problems. The owner and managing director of the company, was worried about the sales of his company’s products. During a discussion with his core management team about the non-availability of their products in the market, the owner realized that declining sales could be due to distribution network problems. In order to revamp their distribution network, the team considered pursuing direct distribution rather than going through distributors. The team also had to look at the financial aspects of the direct distribution model versus that of distributors in order to make a decision.

By May 2018, the owner of 30 FiLLi Café outlets across the United Arab Emirates had come a long way from helping out in his father’s a small cafeteria in the Mamzar area of Dubai in 2004. With his innovative FiLLi tea and FiLLi Zafran tea, he had successfully created a tea brand in the United Arab Emirates. After the company’s success there, he aspired to take the brand global using the franchising model. The path ahead, however, had to be navigated carefully. New entrants had emerged and were competing for market share. In the changing market scenario, how would FiLLi Café manage to retain customer loyalty locally and successfully manage global expansion? Was this plan too aspirational? Was it the right time to expand the company? Was franchising the best method for global expansion?

In 2012, Fastjet acquired Fly540, a low-cost airline with operations in Tanzania, Kenya, Angola, and Ghana, and began operating as a low-cost carrier with the goal to become the most successful pan-African low-cost airline. Since starting operations, Fastjet had grown tremendously, achieving strong market acceptance and a reputation for reliability and punctuality. Although yield per passenger had increased over its first two years, Fastjet had continued to report operating losses due to its poorly performing operations in Kenya, Angola, and Ghana. In September 2014, Fastjet had the opportunity to expand into other African regions, and the company’s chief executive officer needed to consider his options to successfully grow the company’s operations.

TokenFunder Inc. (TokenFunder) was a Canadian blockchain start-up focused on developing a platform to help companies perform token offerings in a legal and compliant way. The Ontario Securities Commission had granted the firm a sandbox that permitted it to bypass certain securities regulations for a brief window to test out its business model. TokenFunder's chief executive officer and chief operating officer knew that potential partnerships with various accounting firms, legal firms, incubators, and venture capitalists could be incredibly beneficial to the business. TokenFunder thus had to decide whom to partner with and how to get firms into its ecosystem.

In 2018, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) were an emerging fundraising method for blockchain-based projects. As the ecosystem grew, there were many open questions on regulation, pricing, and even which projects were a good fit for blockchain. However, there was already some emerging consensus on the benefits and challenges of building with blockchain and emerging best practices for Initial Coin Offerings.

The chief executive officer of Bamboos Health Care Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. (Bamboos) started her entrepreneurship journey in 2005 with a telephone and a fax machine. She created a platform to match the demand from patients or their relatives with the supply of services from health care professionals. After 12 years in operation, following one consistent business model, Bamboos was listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Despite several challenges in its early years, the Bamboos business model proved to be sustainable in Hong Kong and became resistant to change. In early 2018, the founder was considering entering the health care market in mainland China and changing the company's business model for the first time. Could the current business model in Hong Kong be modified to enter mainland China and other countries? What changes would be required with respect to strategy and management?

Phenicoptere Ltd. (Phenicoptere), founded in 2012 by two female entrepreneurs, was a Polish start-up offering a makeup-removal glove called GLOV. Phenicoptere went global at the very early stage of its development. By 2017, the company was present in 44 countries and derived nearly 90 per cent of its revenues from foreign markets. The chief executive officer and vice-president of Phenicoptere must now decide whether and how the company should incorporate e-commerce into its internationalization strategy.

Start-up Evisort was cofounded by two law students seeking to create AI-enhanced software providing contract management and processing solutions for attorneys and business professionals. For a small software start-up like Evisort with a single product in the marketplace, there was a relatively narrow spectrum of options for future development and tapping new sources of revenue: On one end of that spectrum was pure, client-driven development, i.e., the product could evolve based solely on feature requests from Evisort's current and future customers. On the other end was what the founders thought of as the "vision" approach, i.e., the product could evolve based on their conception of the ideal client solution for managing and processing contract data. While still considering the best path forward, the founders learn of an opportunity to work with a big life sciences company with headquarters in the Boston area-a client that would require a number of custom modifications to accommodate its desired workflows. The sale would be significant, perhaps Evisort's largest to date. There was no doubt that Evisort could customize the software for this client. The real question was whether to do so.

In mid-2015, the managing director of Feed Green Ethiopia Exports PLC (FGE), one of Ethiopia's leading export companies, faced a pivotal decision. FGE specialized in herbs and spices, and the price of one of FGE's major products, paprika, had skyrocketed in the past six months. As a result, FGE had sustained a massive loss. This problem had taken a toll on FGE's profitability, and the company's future was on the line. The managing director needed to mitigate this problem and prevent it from occurring again. He saw three alternatives: FGE could maintain the status quo, operate its own farm in one of two locations, or purchase its spices directly from local farmers. Maintaining the price and quality of the products and providing excellent customer service were the company's main priorities, regardless of which option it chose.

On September 15, 2014, the chief executive officer and the vice-president of the start-up Phenicoptere Ltd. were heading home to Poland. They were returning from a meeting with Armelle S.A. in Marseille, France about selling their innovative product-a makeup-removal glove called GLOV, in Armelle S.A.'s global retail chain. "Isn't it exciting?" asked the chief executive officer, how often does such a small firm get a chance to talk to the buyers of a global retail chain?" The vice-president of the company was not so enthusiastic. "It's great we could talk to them," she said. "But I'm not sure if this partnership is such a good idea. And I don't only mean the exclusivity terms. There is also something else. We can't afford to wait another year to start selling internationally." The two entrepreneurs sat back and wondered whether partnering with Armelle S.A. was the best way to take Phenicoptere Ltd. global.

In early April 2018, Spotify Technology SA (Spotify) had planned a rare direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Unlike typical initial public offerings (IPOs), which used investment banks as underwriters to help set an IPO price, Spotify’s direct listing would allow market participants to determine the initial price. In a typical IPO, investment banks shopped the potential offer to various clients and, in the process of book building, determined a range for the offer when it started trading. They also often provided support for the issue on the day it started to trade, limiting the downside for shareholders if demand was low. In Spotify’s case, the investment banks were only being paid a nominal fee, and Spotify was not raising capital in the offering. The stock simply started trading on the prescribed day. A portfolio manager with a hedge fund that focused on growing technology companies was considering investing in the firm, but faced a challenge: how could she estimate Spotify’s value when it started to trade?

In 2016, the Japanese company Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC) acquired the remaining shares of the French trading company Compagnie Française de l’Afrique Occidentale (CFAO), which was operating in Africa. That same year, TTC registered its first financial loss in 16 years. Several years earlier, in 2012, TTC had participated in CFAO’s equity as its majority shareholder. These strategic moves were all part of TTC’s corporate campaign Vision 2015, "Lead the Next", which aimed specifically to reduce its dependence on its parent group by diversifying to increase earnings from non-automotive businesses, rather than targeting African markets as a long-term sustainability plan. What were the motivations of TTC and CFAO in pursuing these transactions? Was the positive performance that followed the acquisition a result of synergies or just a simple sum of the consolidation and an industry trend? Why did TTC move from preserving CFAO’s operational autonomy in 2012 to delisting and fully internalizing it in 2016? Was there a link between poor performance in 2016 and the acquisition of CFAO? How should CFAO solve the conflict between its existing automotive customers and the Toyota Group as its main rival? How could CFAO defend its leader position from the entry of major competitors from South Korea, India, and China? Although the Vision 2015 campaign was validated, should TTC revise its global vision strategy and 10-year plan in the future, given its bad year in 2016?

Hop Compost (Hop) was a Canadian start-up that took food scraps destined for landfill and converted them to an organic, highly nutrient compost using novel, licensed technology. The company was approaching the end of its first year and facing two decisions. First, it had to decide whether to pursue third-party accreditation for its environmental and social impact. The accreditation would demand time and money but could help Hop with its growth plans. Second, the company's founder wondered how to position Hop's environmental and social impact to appeal to potential investors, who would be primarily interested in financial returns.

The financials that are common in the business world are those that track past performance. With these statements, if we know past performance, we can better predict future performance. For a prospective business that has not previously existed, on the other hand, preparing financial statements is much more difficult. There is no past history to build on, there are no real numbers to start with, and it is not certain how the venture will materialize. It is not likely the numbers will be correct, so why do this? The main reasons for creating financials fall into internal and external arguments: 1. Your numbers reflect your positioning and business model. They can inform you about the viability of your business and help you determine whether and how to move forward. While some numbers are likely to be wrong, your initial approach to the business is also likely to be wrong in some aspects. If these numbers can help put you on a more viable path (sooner rather than later), this information is undeniably valuable. 2. Investors and other stakeholders will want to understand the viability of your business and how you intend to pursue the opportunity. They want to know that you have thought through the economic representation of your business model and that you have done your homework in crafting logical financials. While most sophisticated investors and other experts often believe entrepreneurs are overly optimistic with financial projections, they also want to see how ambitious you are in your thinking about launching the business.

Heading into Old Street Tube station in London on a chilly January day, Freddie's mind was racing with ideas. He had just come out from another meeting with Forward Partners, a well-known, London-based venture capital firm, and it was clear the conversation had gone well. The team at Forward Partners understood his vision and saw value in the opportunity he had identified: a personalised solution to the urban gardening market. Moreover, Forward Partners brings a unique value proposition, with a team of in-house technical and marketing experts that work closely with the entrepreneurs. But is that the right fit for him?