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Headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Kat Rose was founded in 2009 to produce small strategic business conferences and corporate hospitality events. After mixed success, it was presented with an opportunity in 2011 to organize a cricket match in Toronto. Although sports were not on its radar, the company decided to use the project as a base for expansion. It put in place an aggressive advertising plan, largely aimed at South Asian and West Indian communities in the city who were fans of the game, and contracted Universal Productions, an ethnic marketing agency, to procure sponsorships. However, with only 10 weeks to go before the International Cricket All-Star T20 Match was scheduled to kick off on May 12, 2012 at the Rogers Centre, Toronto, only $60,000 had been raised; $750,000 was needed to break even. Management had four choices: give Universal Productions more time, offer it a financial incentive to step up performance, switch to another agency with a proven track record in this field or increase its own in-house sales force to focus on countertrade barter agreements. Each option required different skills, knowledge, experience and risk. Given the severe time constraint, any change must be implemented immediately. What should Kat Rose do?

It is year-end 2013 and management at Gabriel Resources, a Canadian junior mining corporation, is attempting to handle investor relations and political tensions surrounding its Rosia Montana mine project in Romania. Recently, the Romanian Parliament voted overwhelmingly against granting the final permit for the gold and silver mine until a more thorough environmental and legal framework is established. Although the company promises that its project will bring significant financial benefits to the state and needed infrastructure improvements and employment in the region, both national and international civilian and non-governmental organizations have protested vociferously against a development that they see harming not only the fragile geographic ecosystem but also historical artifacts that have been a major tourist draw. The draft bill was set to allow the company to begin work on developing the potentially lucrative mine, which has been 15 years in the making and has not yet generated any revenues. Investors are worried and the company’s share price is sinking. How can the company calm shareholder panic and negative stock price movement? What can it do to persuade the Romanian government and people to support the mine? Spreadsheet for students is available, see 7B14N025.

Alibaba is the world’s largest online trading platform, with higher revenues than Amazon and eBay combined. Its 2012 syndicated loan was the first sizable loan for a Chinese technology company with few tangible assets. Creative loan covenants stated that the subsidiaries would repatriate 100 per cent of the distributable profits for debt service. The loan was partially used for the buyback of Yahoo!’s stake in Alibaba. In the agreement, Yahoo! would sell half of its stake back to Alibaba immediately and an additional 10 per cent during Alibaba’s IPO in the next few years, and divest the remainder sometime after that. Now, Alibaba thinks it is time to tap the debt market in order to pay off the $4 billion in loans it received in 2012 and to finish the payments owed to Yahoo! for the stock repurchase.

Ten years after its founding, California-based Tesla Motors is close to becoming one of the world’s premier luxury car manufacturers. Its innovative design — using carbon fibre and aluminum rather than steel to construct body and parts — and technology — lithium ion battery packs rather than gasoline for power and a simple powertrain to provide maximum acceleration — make its models treasured options for eco-friendly and tech-savvy consumers as well as wealthy professionals. Relying almost entirely on word-of-mouth promotion through social media, the company sells its cars through factory stores in upscale malls rather than through dealerships and has built service centres to provide free battery charging. However, just as it is expanding into Europe and Asia and is contemplating buying its own factory to secure its battery supply, three of its cars have burst into flames following collisions, although no one has been injured. In addition, analysts claim that the company has been covering up its lack of cash flow by using non-generally accepted accounting principles for reporting its revenue. The CEO knows that the company has tremendous potential but is struggling with public relations problems arising from the crashes and questions about its financial stability and return on investment to investors.

This case and the three others in this series (9B13M098, 9B13M099 and 9B14M023) can be used together or on a standalone basis.<br><br>This case series features a female Egyptian entrepreneur who faces the challenge of developing her self-titled jewellery brand. The issues are strategic in nature and typical of a growing business. Following the successful establishment of her company, she faces issues related to rapid growth; she is a “one-woman show” who controls everything in the company including marketing, operations, human resources and finance. Although she enjoyed a successful start, the tremendous growth of her company has culminated in management difficulties. Thus, she is considering how to transform her business from an entrepreneurial firm to a structured organization.

This is the second case in the Azza Fahmy series. This case and the three others in this series (9B13M097, 9B13M099 and 9B14M023) can be used together or on a standalone basis.<br><br> This case series features a female Egyptian entrepreneur who faces the challenge of developing her self-titled jewellery brand. In this case, the entrepreneur realizes the importance of having a clear organizational structure with different departments and a clear chain of authority. As a result, she hires her daughter as the managing director to take on the responsibility of developing a mission, vision and explicit organizational structure. This restructuring allows the company to grow further, which leads the entrepreneur to consider her opportunities in the international market.

This is the third case in the Azza Fahmy series. This case and the three others in this series (9B13M097, 9B13M098 and 9B14M023) can be used together or on a standalone basis.<br><br>This case series features a female Egyptian entrepreneur who faces the challenge of developing her self-titled jewellery brand. This case describes some of the first steps of doing business internationally in the West. Lacking international experience, the entrepreneur seeks to minimize risk by entering into a strategic alliance with renowned fashion designers. They systematically help her to introduce her brand to the international market, albeit on a limited scale. After the initial success, she begins to plan a more structured approach towards internationalization. She decides to commission a thorough study of France, Spain and Turkey, as they are historically familiar with Arabic jewellery designs. Accordingly, the case identifies specific information about the three countries so that students can compare them in order to reach the best decision about structured international expansion.

This is the fourth case in the Azza Fahmy series. This case and the three others in this series (9B13M097, 9B13M098 and 9B13M099) can be used together or on a standalone basis.<br><br>Azza Fahmy Jewellery: Going Online Post-revolution (B) (9B14M024) is a supplement to this case.<br><br>This case series features a female Egyptian entrepreneur who faces the challenge of developing her self-titled jewellery brand. This case describes the changes that have occurred in the external environment and their effect on strategy implementation. The Egyptian Revolution on January 2011 has forced the entrepreneur to re-evaluate her strategy and make the necessary changes. The use of social media, which was a catalyst of the revolution and also affected its outcome, presents a great opportunity for expanding her business even further.

This is a supplement to 9B14M023, which is the fourth case in the Azza Fahmy Jewellery series.

Bayer Group needed to reassess its strategies regarding intellectual property, as well as its emphasis on research and development. The Indian government had ruled against Bayer by granting a compulsory licence to a local generic drug manufacturer that allowed them to distribute a copy of Bayer’s blockbuster cancer drug at a fraction of the original price. This ruling demonstrated that pharmaceutical innovation could not be effectively protected by conventional intellectual property rights in emerging markets. As a result, the core of the pharmaceutical industry’s business model was called into question: If ideas and inventions could not be protected, was the there any incentive for firms to innovate? Would this victory for generic drug manufacturers trigger similar rulings elsewhere? Would the prevailing patent-centric IP strategies need to be adapted to emerging markets? Or would innovator companies finally have to withdraw from markets with weak IP protection?

The recently appointed commissioner of insurance for Arlandia, an emerging-market country, is determined to do everything possible to minimize insolvencies and their potential destabilizing effects on the country’s financial system. The commissioner has an urgent need to quickly get up to speed on the Polaris Life Insurance situation. The minister of finance has already fielded inquiries regarding the company’s soundness, and the Arlandia Insurance Authority’s on-site inspectors have expressed deep concern about the company’s investment portfolio. The commissioner now needs to brief the minister of finance about the situation, develop plans for how the insurance authority should proceed and consider recommending additional regulatory changes.

Inaash is a Lebanese non-profit organization that supports the development of Palestinians in refugee camps. Inaash has created jobs for thousands of women in the camps through the production of traditional Palestinian embroidery items such as shawls and dresses, which the association sells in its shop and at exhibitions. The organization has also been successful in creating valuable social infrastructure in many camps through offering medical support to the elderly and sponsoring children’s education. Major changes in the macro environment have resulted in diminishing sales and an increased dependence on donations. Inaash must rethink its strategy and consider improving its performance measurement, using social media to connect with stakeholders and raise awareness, and professionalizing its donor management. How can Inaash bridge the chasm between social purpose and financial viability?

The world's leading documents company is in a transformation mode. From being a provider of cutting-edge technology products for decades, it is moving towards providing product-service combinations. As a person driving this enterprise-wide change, the head of Xerox Innovation Group (XIG) is facing two specific issues. How should XIG become more customer-centric? How should the company build new competencies to provide consistent services across devices and locations for each customer?

Sogeti, a global leader in providing technological services chooses to invest in a social collaboration platform for its employees with a view towards bringing about business transformation. Partnering with IBM, the company launched “TeamPark.” After the implementation, the company’s central challenge was to encourage employee engagement levels and how to increase utilization of the platform. A further issue: Should the platform be opened up to clients and other stakeholders? There was a lot of deliberation around the way the community should be created – should it be restricted or open? If the company decided to open its information-sharing platform with its clients, how should it manage the issues of security and trust?

To target the expanding segment of upwardly mobile and upper-income Indians, a pre-eminent organized retailer in India decided to introduce Western-style hyperstores with high-end merchandising. The initial reactions of shoppers were positive, but soon the novelty wore off and store traffic declined. To counter the negative consumer responses, the retailer undertook a year-long test of a new repositioning strategy in its signature hyperstore in a large urban centre. The key challenge was to increase the store’s traffic and profitability without jeopardizing its distinctive and high-quality upscale image. The case provides the test results, which include consumer reactions as well as impacts on store traffic and profit margins.

JOG Sports, a sports apparel and sports marketing business, has crossed the psychologically important threshold of $1 million in annual sales. Although the company was started as a hobby and side interest of the chief executive officer (CEO) and main founder, management of the company soon became his only occupation. The scale of the company increased quickly, with the sports apparel business growing in product lines, geographic scope of sales and diversity within products. Meanwhile, the sports marketing arm also grew as the CEO organized new and larger ice hockey tournaments. The CEO needs to make some important decisions regarding the future growth of the company, including issues of strategy formulation and strategy implementation, an explicit process within the rapidly growing company.

In 2014, two friends have launched tentree (TT), a Canadian entrepreneurial venture that sells an environmentally sustainable and trendy brand of apparel. For every product sold, TT plants 10 trees in locations around the world. Although TT is still in its infancy, it is already experiencing huge growth. The entrepreneurial founders now face several challenges: how to keep pace with the growing demand; how to plant as many trees as they can while staying true to their sustainable, environmental philosophy; how to break into the U.S. and other markets; and where to source their product.

Considers the marketing and strategic challenges faced by natural beauty brands using the case of Australian-based Jurlique, which was acquired by Pola of Japan in 2011. The case opens two years later in July 2013 when Sam McKay, the chief executive officer, on a visit to Pola's head office in Tokyo, heard news of critical comments about the company and animal testing in a Facebook post from a group in South Australia, where the brand had been founded as a small biodynamic farm in 1985. The discussion of Jurlique's involvement with animal testing was a sensitive issue as it contradicted the brand's strong environmentally-friendly and ethical positioning. The matter had already arisen during the Pola acquisition as Pola, like all Japanese cosmetics companies, traditionally tested products on animals. The animal testing issue is put in context by a discussion of how during Jurlique's growth as a successful premium brand there had been substantial changes in market position, in part associated with shifts of ownership. At times the brand had been focused on core green consumers, but McKay had sought to broaden the consumer base by repositioning it as making "the most effective products as natural as possible." The company lost few existing customers, and found that Jurlique's image was an asset in attracting Chinese consumers who liked the story of the Australian farm which produced most ingredients. However, Chinese regulations refusing to allow the firm's stores to use recycled wood, and mandating of animal testing, were challenging to the brand's global natural brand position. The case can be taught both in marketing classes concerned with green business and in strategy classes exploring the challenges faced by global brands.

Business schools have done an admirable job of teaching competencies, and many business organizations have defined the framework of competencies that are required to be successful in the institution. However, much less attention has been spent on leadership character and the importance of commitment to the leadership role. There is no consistent understanding among executives about what character means, despite a concurrence that it is important. The movie Invictus portrays Nelson Mandela in his first year as the first black president of the newly desegregated South Africa as he persuades not only both black and white populations to support the national rugby team in its effort to win the World Cup but also the players themselves. It provides a truly brilliant illustration of not only the competencies required to lead but also the leadership character and commitment that are needed to lead during trying times.

Vice Media has gone from a startup in Canada to landing in New York City and assiduously building a global youth brand through unique and seemingly inimitable competitive advantages. While globalizing its operations, Vice Media appears to have developed expertise in standardizing certain aspects of its business, adapting others to local context and, increasingly, building a global chain. Given Vice Media’s explosive growth, how can its global value chain be structured to maintain the carefully cultivated emotional connection the company has created with its audience?