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The CEO of Coconut Calendar Corporation was dealing with the challenges of managing a growing scheduling software company. After attending a CEO 'boot camp', she realized that the company would be pushed out of the market by aggressive competitors if they did not grow more quickly. She accepted an offer of venture capital funding and mentorship from a well-known investor in Silicon Valley and started scaling the company at a rapid pace. The company served a broad range of business customers, from small businesses to large corporations across several industries, and started to diversify their product offerings to include data analytics and other application services. However, Coconut Calendar had experienced decreasing profitability while trying to grow revenue and serve a diverse customer base, recording their first ever annual loss. The CEO, and students, are faced with the challenge of developing a clear strategic and customer focus in order to be positioned to pursue another round of venture capital funding and successfully grow the business to maturity in a highly competitive marketplace. Issues related to small business growth and diversity issues in the technology industry are also explored.

Blacbiblio.com, Inc., an educational materials start-up in Montreal, Canada, launched its first and only product, the ABCs of Canadian Black History Kit, in 2016. The product received strong positive reviews at the time of its launch, but its initial price of CA$2,500 per kit left it out of reach for most of its intended customers. The company founder, a historian and educational content creator, shifted to a flexible pricing strategy, offering the kits for as little as $400-$1,500 each, depending on the status of the buyer. By late 2018, she had sold fewer than 40 kits and held an excess inventory of over 100 unsold kits. Now she needed to decide whether and how to adapt her current approach to become successful in the current market. Should she consider other potential markets instead? Should she perhaps rethink the product design itself?

Top Cloud-Agri Technology Co., Ltd. (TPYN) was a Chinese high-tech company serving the agricultural industry. By implementing a digital business model, TPYN transformed from a traditional business model to a digital leader in the industry. To achieve further growth and develop an innovative digital business model, the chairman of the company put forward the new concept of "open, share, integrate, and win-win." This concept presented not only a rare opportunity for enterprise development but also a considerable challenge, as the required cross-industry, cross-domain integration meant an increased consumption of resources. Should the company look for collaborators within the government or with other larger platforms, or could TPYN continue implementing the new model alone?

Patrice Motsepe, the son of a small business owner, grew up in Apartheid era South Africa. He founded Ubuntu-Botho Investments (UBI) in an attempt to provide historically disadvantaged South Africans with access to the financial sector. In 2003, UBI entered into a partnership with Suid-Afrikaanse Nasionale Lewens Assuransie Maatskappij (Sanlam). Through the diversification of UBI's and Sanlam's business models and with a dual focus on economic and social value creation, the inclusion of a large base of black South Africans in the economy was facilitated. Now, in 2018, Motsepe was on the brink of sealing another historic deal with Sanlam. However, how should this second Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) deal be approached by both Motsepe's UBI and Sanlam, taking into account the extended shared value framework developed for BEE transactions?

PharmaCo was a large, multinational, integrated pharmaceutical company. Its board of directors was meeting to discuss a possible friendly merger with a complementary competitor and to review a quarterly cybersecurity report. However, before either of these discussions could begin, PharmaCo's chief financial officer interrupted with news that the company's customer database had been encrypted by hackers in a ransomware attack and a ransom of $25,000 in Bitcoin had been demanded. Unfortunately, this was the first in a series of cyber attacks affecting the organization. The board of directors must increasingly deal with a number of issues brought by management and make some critical decisions in overseeing this crisis.

Supplement to case W20218

Supplement to case W20218

Supplement to case W20218

Supplement to case W20218

Supplement to case W20218

The case describes a difficult choice faced by Victor Wang, Managing Director of Singapore-based Eurasian Brewing Company (EBC), concerning the competing product launch plans of Le Jie, Vice President of EBC's China and East Asian operations, and Vivian Chin, EBC's Director of Marketing and Export Sales. Wang's decision will shape not only the company's future strategy but also the organization model and management approach EBC takes in its fast-growing business. The narrative focuses on the role of Le Jie in growing the sales and profitability of EBC's beer business in China and subsequently in its East Asian operations. Tension arises when Le announces his plan to introduce a new product into the fast-growing craft-beer segment in China. Simultaneously, Vivian Chin initiated a rollout of a small-batch craft-type beer that she felt had strong regional and perhaps even global potential. The two executives have escalated their conflict to Wang. His decision will not only shape EBC's product market strategy but will also exert a strong organizational influence on the division of responsibilities between headquarters and subsidiary management. In addition, it will likely send a signal about the risks and rewards of local entrepreneurial initiative. The case can be taught in courses in strategy, general management, international business management, global marketing, organizational behavior, and entrepreneurship at both the MBA and executive education levels. Its action-oriented decision focus suggests using it in the later stages of a course.

Spreadsheet supplement to case HK1207

Spreadsheet supplement to case HK1207

The case discusses the strategy of CIAM, a French activist investment firm, involved in a case of a buy-out of minority shareholders in the telecommunications sector. Altice NV, an international telecommunications company based in the Netherlands that owned more than 77% of SFR Group shares, made a bid for the remaining shares of France's second largest mobile operator. Believing that the offer was woefully inadequate and constituted an abuse of power, CIAM had been fighting for a better offer as one of SFR's vocal minority shareholders with a series of action plans-leveraging legal, communications, and public relations tactics. CIAM had just received a new piece of information, divulging a potential misuse of SFR corporate assets by Altice, and was discussing next steps.

In 2018 Intel celebrates 50 years in business amidst "a corporate transformation as we grow beyond our traditional PC and server businesses into data-rich markets addressing the explosive demands to process, analyze, store, and transform data." In this case, we will look into the history of Intel and the semiconductor Industry background, which provide a starting framework to compare the business models and value chain of Intel and one of Its competitors, ARM. A closer look at previous moves shows that Intel has made bets in many different fields which today are successful and yet is still struggling. Competitors such as ARM seemed to have a more agile value chain and reaped its benefits In [he past. However, ARM also seems to be stagnating, thus raising doubts whether its model is really a map to follow. In this context, it js unclear whether Intel is agile enough to respond to changes in the industries it operates in. Considering the industry environment, what strategy should be chosen based on challenges in environment and existing resources and capabilities? Robert Noyce, one of the company's founders, advised: "Don't be encumbered by hist01Y, go off and do something wonderful." So what will the next wonderful thin be for Intel?

The "Amazon in B2B - Friend or Foe" case describes a possible entry of Amazon B2B to the European Heating Ventilation and Air Condition (HVAC) industry. The case addresses questions like core competencies, Industry attractiveness, disruption, building and sustaining a competitive advantage. The readers can discuss how Grundfos should react to the growing online distribution channel and if the current Grundfos distribution model sustainable. Where the main objective is to come up with fourdistribution model alternatives that Grundfos can implement and choose the one that Grundfos shall pursue and argue why the model is chosen.

The case charts the creation and development of ObEN, a Los Angeles start-up that offers two kinds of personal artificial intelligence avatars - consumer avatars that can be created by individuals on their smartphones, and avatars that recreate a celebrity persona (requiring more data). It explores the challenges facing the company: building prototypes, recruiting staff, identifying markets, dealing with public acceptance issues, and attracting funding, while developing new technology and exploiting innovations such as blockchain (the commercial applications of which are still to be identified).

This case examines the organizational relationship between the Museum of Modern Art and its affiliate MoMA PS1. The relationship raises a number of business and corporate strategy questions regarding the evolution of organizational relationships and their management. The setting also allows students to learn about how nonprofit and for-profit organization strategy differ.

In January 2019, Florian vom Bruch was brought in as the first external CEO to lead the privately-held luxury watch winder and safe company, BUBEN&ZORWEG. The founders, Harald Buben and Christian Zörweg, driven by a passion for adventure, a keen ear for market needs and a canny eye for seeing and seizing opportunities, had successfully brought the company so far. However, they wanted BUBEN&ZORWEG to go to the next level of growth and had brought in Florian to help them double turnover by 2025. Florian's first mandate: to create and execute a growth strategy for the company. What was at the heart of the firm's distinctive advantage? In which segments and markets should BUBEN&ZORWEG expand?

In late 2018, the chief executive officer and founder of Tunaiku, a new digital consumer-lending financial technology (fintech) company in Indonesia, faced a dilemma. Although he had set out in 2014 to revolutionize Indonesia's consumer lending by providing people in the underserved lower segment of society with small unsecured loans, he now faced his most crucial challenge-dealing with Indonesia's changing regulatory environment. When he had launched the venture in 2014, fintech was unknown, and the founder had eventually decided to offer the product through a bank. But after Indonesia introduced a new fintech regulation, he needed to reconsider his earlier decision. Should Tunaiku move to a fintech licence or remain as a bank?