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The accounting industry is being disrupted by the introduction of cloud-based accounting information systems (AIS) that allow for a more efficient allocation of work between the accountant and the client company. In cloud-based AIS, the accountant and the client company as well as third parties such as auditors can simultaneously work on the data in real time. This, in turn, enables a much more granular division of work between the parties. This teaching case considers Kluuvin Apteekki, a small pharmacy business whose owner faces critical management decisions on how to embrace this new opportunity to move to the cloud. Students are guided to evaluate the advantages and drawbacks of cloud computing in the specific context of accounting services. Also, the owner must make a set of critical decisions concerning which tasks to outsource. The accounting process comprises of several tasks and sub-tasks, adding to the complexity of the decision making problem. The main learning outcome of the case is related to the development of the skills and competencies needed in creating a strong business case for implementing IT-enabled business processes.

When KBC Bank introduced their mobile banking application in 2011 they delivered much more than a piece of software. Mobile banking was a way to focus on their customers and rebuild trust. Yet, this case is not so much about what they delivered but how they delivered it. Agile development brought along both challenges and opportunities for KBC. The case explores how agile compares to traditional ways of ICT development. Can banks, given the new digital challenges, really build their future ICT portfolios on agile development?

Southern Bell Corporation, now AT&T, decided to upgrade its existing networks by extending its optical fiber network only to the neighborhood nodes and use existing telephone twisted pair copper wires to connect nodes with households. Leaders of Verizon Communications, on the other hand, decided to extend their optical fiber network all the way to homes at much higher cost. The choice of which of the two approaches was a better business decision is the main dilemma in the case. The network upgrades were necessary to keep telecommunication operators competitive with cable television companies, which after they upgraded their networks started offering the 'triple play,' a combination of video programming, telephone, and Internet services. The case reviews the history of telecommunication and cable industries in the United States, which leads to exploration of the key issues including (i) whether, and if so how competition in the telecommunication industry is even possible, (ii) how much bandwidth do we really need, and (iii) what is the effect of various compression techniques, convergence of digital technologies, and what other countries are doing. The case (describing the state of the industry at about the start of 2011) addresses an issue affecting all of us as we decide what services to select for our entertainment and communication needs.

Business Fundas, a portal that publishes educational business and management articles, is situated within the electronic publishing industry, which has many players and is highly fragmented. The start-up company faces many challenges in its efforts to position itself for growth and to take advantage of various innovative value propositions and business models. The senior managers hope to gain insights into user-specific trends through the use of data analytics.

At the time of its launch, Contently was a digital marketplace, where small businesses, agencies, and corporations could search for writers. But recent financial results showed that Contently earned substantially more profit from its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business than from its writers' commissions.

Founded in 1892, Nanjing Gulou Hospital, is one of the earliest western medical hospitals in China. It was founded by Dr. William Edward Macklin, M.D., Disciples (Canada) Mission to China, with the assistance of Prof. Frank Eugene Meigs, the Curch of Christ (USA), and the local Nanjing community. At its early stage of establishment, the hospital took "Love, Kindness and Public Service" as its philosophy and "No prejudice to patients as the first priority", proposed by Macklin, as an aspiration. However, due to the uneven distribution of medical resources, neglect of humanities in China's medical education, among other reasons, Chinese public hospitals showed a lack of human concern over a long period of time. In 2004, the president of Gulou Hospital, Ding Yitao, took humanism as a breakthrough point, and first proposed the missing of honoring the hospital's heritage of humanism and building the best humanistic hospital. At a high level, the strategic transformation is implemented along three dimensions: building a memorial hall to honor the heritage of humanistic spirit of Gulou Hospital, launching an expansion project for the hospital that improves availability and quality of health care, as well as transforming hospital management, operation and performance evaluation that stimulate the cultural consciousness of all employees and create a humanistic hospital. Since Gulou Hospital embarked on the journal to build the best humanistic hospital in China, it has generated positive results in terms of patient attraction and satisfaction level. Gulou Hospital has become an exemplar of modern, humanistic hospital in China and received many awards. However, going forward, the hospital faces mounting challenges. How to further deepening the reform and engage all employees? Will Gulou Hospital's core competency sustain into the future and continues to enable the hospital to gain a strong foothold in the increasingly crowded healthcare market?

Airtel mCommerce Services Limited was waiting for news from the Reserve Bank of India related to mobile banking regulations, as it was eager to unleash the massive potential and untapped opportunity in India regarding mobile commerce. Its service, Airtel Money, was struggling in India, but it had experienced a huge success in Africa. Though it had some initial success in India, it still had a long way to go to capture the Indian mobile market.

Vietnam has made impressive economic gains over a period of three decades, following the Doi Moi reforms of 1986. Before reform, the country's socialist economy had been unable to displace the poverty that had plagued the country in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. After reform, Vietnam has experienced many years of sustained growth, as evidenced by its advances on several economic performance rankings. By 2014, Vietnam's rankings compared favourably with those of many of its Asian neighbours. A major feature of the country's strategy for economic development was its emphasis on information and computing technologies. Students will analyze Vietnam's past successes to extract lessons that can lead to additional future success.

It took 19 years to build Knight Capital Americas LLC into the largest market maker on the New York Stock Exchange, but on August 1, 2012, it took only 45 minutes for the firm to be wiped out by an information technology (IT) problem: a change in the company's software caused it to lose more than $450 million dollars in less than an hour. Although it was ultimately saved from bankruptcy when it was acquired two days later, the terms of acquisition were very unfavourable to the company's shareholders. How did this happen? Could it have been prevented? What should the staff, the chief executive officer, other managers and the board of directors have done differently? What lessons does this story hold for how firms should be managed and governed? And what does it say about our ability to manage risk in large modern corporations operating in increasingly fast-moving and complex global markets?

Qihoo 360 Technology Company was a leading Internet platform company in China, the number one provider of Internet and mobile security products as measured by user base. The company entered China's fiercely competitive Internet market relatively late and adopted the "freemium" model as the basis of its business. "In the beginning," said Qihoo founder Zhou Hongyi, "Forget how to make money - focus on how to create a valuable service for every consumer." Qihoo sought to monetize through continuous product-side innovation and product-design that puts users first.

Acme Inc, a large retailer, explores the use of Data warehouse for addressing their decision support infrastructure Challenges. Acme plans for a pilot study to assess the feasibility and evaluate the business benefits of using Data warehouse. The focus of this case is to ascertain the steps involved in design, development and implementation of a Data warehouse.

As the co-founder of a software platform called Ushahidi, Ory Orykolloh watches the unfolding catastrophic earthquake crisis in Haiti and must decide how her company's crisis-mapping software might assist international authorities as they move into Haiti to provide help and relief. Ushahidi was developed as an open-sourced mash-up platform combining Google Maps with publicly reported (text-based) incidents of election violence during the Kenya 2007 elections, and thus, the system effectively managed to bypass government censorship. Expansion into other uses during both political crises and a variety of national/international events provided opportunities for growth. Now, with Haiti, Ushahidi's management team must consider how its software could be used to provide assistance during a catastrophe like an earthquake.

This case study describes how Fiat Brazil developed a collaborative platform that combines crowdsourcing, open innovation and creative commons in order to develop a "futuristic concept car" called Fiat Mio. Over 15 months, the Fiat Mio team managed interactions with 17,000 participants, from 160 different nationalities, and the selection and processing of more than 11,000 ideas. When Fiat Mio was launched in December 2010 at the Sao Paulo Auto Show, hundreds of people showed up to claim the prototype as their own.

In July 2014, the head of Data Sciences Lab, the technical division of Housing.com, an online realty company based in Mumbai, India, is wondering whether the company has truly revolutionized the housing search process. The Indian real estate market is extremely unorganized, fragmented and suffering from lack of clear information. Any facts about properties for sale or rent primarily rest with brokers, who not only often charge exorbitant fees from the buyer as well as the seller but also commonly misrepresent the location and condition of the property in question, making finding a place to live a very frustrating experience. Founded in 2012, Housing.com is a relatively new entrant to this market and is using a data-driven approach to attract customers by providing accurate intelligence, using photographs and a map-based user interface to display all its listings on the Internet. Recently, the company started scaling up its operations by leveraging the power of quality, technology, innovation and speed, with impressive results. Will this strategy help Housing.com capture an even bigger portion of the market? Will competitors in the online property space be able to imitate its business innovations easily? More importantly, what future products should Housing.com offer?

Supplement case for KEL366.

In 2011, Dillon Beresford, a computer security expert, discovered a series of new vulnerabilities impacting components of widely used industrial control systems. These new, previously unknown vulnerabilities-what are known as "zero-days"-were potentially very serious. Zero-day vulnerabilities are key components of computer viruses, worms, and other forms of malware. Vendors and security firms seek these flaws in order to patch and fix insecure software and hardware. Increasingly, however, nation-states and criminals purchase zero-days from independent security researchers in order to develop new destructive cyberweapons and capabilities. Managing the growing trade in zero-day vulnerabilities is a key challenge for policymakers and corporate leaders. The case follows Beresford as he discovers a set of new zero-days and considers the different disclosure options available to someone in his position. The case reviews the mix of incentives that might encourage or discourage the discoverer of a new zero-day to: (1) disclose the flaw to the vendor of the insecure software or hardware privately; (2) disclose the flaw to the public, without notifying the vendor; (3) pursue a hybrid-strategy known as responsible or coordinated disclosure; (4) or opt to sell the vulnerability. The case illuminates the different costs and benefits of each of these approaches for the security researcher, the vendor of the flawed software or hardware, and the public at large. Ultimately, the case asks students to consider which model of disclosure is most beneficial for the public and to consider what policy levers are most useful in supporting that model. Case number 2029.0

This epilogue accompanies case 2029.0. In 2011, Dillon Beresford, a computer security expert, discovered a series of new vulnerabilities impacting components of widely used industrial control systems. These new previously unknown vulnerabilities-what are known as "zero-days"-were potentially very serious. Zero-day vulnerabilities are key components of computer viruses, worms, and other forms of malware. Vendors and security firms seek these flaws in order to patch and fix insecure software and hardware. Increasingly, however, nation sates and criminals purchase zero-days from independent security researchers in order to develop new destructive cyberweapons and capabilities. Managing the growing trade in zero-day vulnerabilities is a key challenge for policymakers and corporate leaders. The case follows Beresford as he discovers a set of new zero-days and considers the different disclosure options available to someone in his position. The case reviews the mix of incentives that might encourage or discourage the discoverer of a new zero-day to: (1) disclose the flaw to the vendor of the insecure software or hardware privately; (2) disclose the flaw to the public, without notifying the vendor; (3) pursue a hybrid-strategy known as responsible or coordinated disclosure; (4) or opt to sell the vulnerability. The case illuminates the different costs and benefits of each of these approaches for the security researcher, the vendor of the flawed software or hardware, and the public at large. Ultimately, the case asks students to consider which model of disclosure is most beneficial for the public and to consider what policy levers are most useful in supporting that model. Case number 2029.1

The director of A & S Software Group was recalling his entrepreneurial journey. It was in August 2013, and over the past 16 years he had seen the evolution of the company's flagship product - enterprise resource planning software for educational institutes - and a variety of business models associated with it. While the product strategy evolved through various stages, he had conceptualized Blue Print software as a tool to enable the rapid development of software applications. As he aspired to take his business to the next level, he was searching for answers to the following questions: What are the possible options for improving the flagship product in the coming years? Could it be offered as a service? Does it make sense to take Blue Print software to the market?

Within a few years of its establishment in 2010 by four young engineers in Pune, India, BlazeClan Technologies had prospered as a cloud solutions delivery company by providing true value to its customers in India and around the world. By 2014, though, the company was facing a long and slow sales cycle in the Indian market where businesses were hesitant to give up in-house data control to the cloud. Though the company invested a lot of marketing dollars in educating this potential segment through events, webinars, social media campaigns and talks at important industry forums, the customer base was not building and market penetration was not gaining ground. The momentum that was badly needed to push cloud adoption to the next level was also affected by external factors, such as the availability of the Internet, regular service outages leading to network disruptions, resistance to change and unclear licensing issues. The company worked hard to reduce these fears, but it had a number of decisions to make to go forward.

Many managers seek to use existing information in the branding, marketing, and general operations of their business. When that information belongs to another entity, managers risk legal liability unless they obtain the proper permissions or use the information in a way that does not infringe intellectual property rights. Currently, substantial confusion exists regarding when such permissions are required and how to avoid infringing others' rights. This installment of Business Law & Ethics Corner provides managers with basic information about the proper use of copyrighted and trademarked material, including an overview of the doctrine of fair use as applied in the copyright and trademark contexts.