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Since 2006, Alcatel-Lucent, an international telecommunications equipment manufacturer based in Paris, France, has been conducting boot camps for its employees to provide business training and help them monetize their innovative ideas with a view to creating value for the company. The program has led to 32 projects of which two have been commercialized, three transferred to business units within Alcatel-Lucent and one spun off. In 2012, however, the boot camps were discontinued due to a cost reduction program aimed at making the company cash-flow positive. Now, in June 2014, after a change in top management and a desire to regain the innovative edge against its competition has revived the idea, the company’s director of Open Innovation & Intrapreneurship is facing three dilemmas: how to reconcile the big business intolerance for failure with failure-prone intrapreneurship, how to design a forward-looking component into intrapreneurship and how to change the design and architecture of the boot camp in its new edition.

An entrepreneur and co-founder of a private, non-deposit-taking, non-bank financial firm in Africa took his company public following a decade of phenomenal growth and strong performance. Established in an era when the traditional financial institutions would not grant credit to small and medium enterprises, the company successfully pioneered a wide variety of unique services in the non-bank financial services industry. Capitalizing on the failure of formal institutions to meet the needs of the informal sector, the entrepreneur had achieved organic growth by providing short-term loans and complementary services to customers in the neglected segment of the financial services market. The image of a high-performing company, coupled with the successful initial public offering surpassing all expectations, put tremendous pressure on the company to continue to grow the enterprise and deliver superior performance. To obtain substantial funds from the investing public, the onus is on the entrepreneur to select and pursue an appropriate strategy to keep the enterprise on a growth trajectory.

全球暖化下，特別是2014年4月整個北半球大氣中二氧化碳濃度首次高達400ppm，再次創下新高紀綠，且距450ppm上限，僅剩50ppm，若依照目前的能源消費習慣，不到30年，大氣中二氧化碳濃度即將抵達上限。藉由華航相關的碳管理策略，了解其企業社會責任網及環境永續報告書中，與碳排放相關之資訊揭露

Fishbay.in is an online store where Indian consumers can buy fish that is delivered to their home. Although the founder originally targeted individual consumers and households, he soon found that restaurants were also interested in buying fish online. Unlike individuals, restaurants were more concerned with quality than price and typically ordered larger quantities. The founder wonders whether he should stick to his original plan of targeting individual consumers or shift his focus to the restaurant business.

Starting with a small pilot centre in Hyderabad in 2010, a chain of quality dialysis centres had grown to 25 centres by mid-2014, with plans to expand to 100 by 2017. As they planned for this growth, the three co-founders had several questions with respect to NephroPlus's business model, partners, staff, systems, processes and culture playing on their minds. With the threat of competition looming large, they knew that they had to work hard to achieve both high quality and affordability as they continued with their fast-paced growth.

The management of the Youreka Hotel in Amritsar, India, was concerned about the hotel’s overall returns relative to its annual operating cost and large initial investment. The new five-star hotel was now up and running and customers had started checking in, but occupancy levels were low. The hotel industry in India was making double-digit margins, but the hotel had not even achieved operational breakeven yet. Of key importance for the operations head was choosing the best seafood supplier — based on selling price, transportation cost and other factors — for supplying the hotel’s restaurants. A poor decision could have a negative impact on room occupancy and profitability. Among management, there were also concerns that the location of the hotel might be unfavourable. When could the operations head expect the hotel to match the profitability of the industry? What could he do to improve the hotel’s profitability?

The chief operating officer at Westridge Cabinets, a Canadian cabinet manufacturer, needs to improve the company’s on-time delivery performance and reduce costs. Customers’ orders vary widely, in terms of both order size and product mix, leading to complications in planning and scheduling the plant. As part of their analysis, students are required to 1) recognize how the company’s order process integrates with production planning and control; 2) understand how manufacturing lead times affect flexibility and delivery performance and 3) calculate capacity in each department to identify and resolve potential constraints.

A new managing director of Microsoft South Africa was appointed in 2007 at a low point in Microsoft South Africa’s dominance of the software industry. He set out to address the issues by focusing on four pillars: people (employees), partnerships, revenue and local relevance. The latter included regulatory compliance requirements regarding social transformation and meeting the stringent Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment codes. The managing director knew that targets had to be met in order to build the relationship with head office and that once this was in place, it would be easier to manage the requests that were to come related to local relevance.

In 2014, the owner of a family business that includes two fast-food restaurants, a highway restaurant and a catering services operation located in Pune, India, is confident that his business is at the cusp of taking off on a path that will make it significantly larger in scale. He is evaluating three alternatives: setting up a chain of small restaurants with a central kitchen facility, creating a couple of large restaurants similar to those that he has at present or investing in new highway restaurants. He also must consider whether he is ready to expand to other cities in India or globally and whether to develop family-owned land, buy new property or lease facilities for his planned ventures. He needs to come up with a strategy that best meets the needs of a changing business environment and also leverages his company’s existing resources and capabilities. Before the next management meeting, he must decide what to do, in what sequence to take up the opportunities available, how to go about operationalizing the plan and also what design fallback options can be designed in case things go wrong.

Yantra Harvest Energy Private Limited (YHEPL), an energy service company, has sought a term loan of INR100 million to fund its growth and expansion. The Small Industries Development Bank of India, though convinced of the company’s credit worthiness, is concerned about the fact the loan will be used to create assets at the premises of YHEPL’s clients and YHEPL has mortgaged all its existing assets to the Urban Cooperative Bank towards working capital. Considering the nature of YHEPL’s cash flow and other issues, the bank wants to design an appropriate financing product and determine whether or not financing energy efficiency projects like YHEPL’s is a good business strategy.

In the summer of 2014, the founder and sole owner of F.P. Journe, a maker of luxury watches, sat in his Geneva headquarters and wondered about the future. Founded in 1999, the private company had 125 employees and a strictly limited production of 850 to 900 watches per year. It was a well-respected brand that was distributed globally through a network of company-owned boutiques and third-party jewellery stores. Its exclusively designed and individually manufactured products were prized by collectors and had won many awards and distinctions. However, the “haute horology” market had become increasingly competitive. Was producing 95 per cent of all watch components in-house a good idea? Should he scale up his business through mergers and acquisitions or by increasing the company’s online presence? Or should he rest on his laurels and preserve the status quo?

The plant manager of an aluminum alloy production plant is faced with capacity constraints and must determine which of two new speciality orders to take on. Both orders cannot be filled simultaneously.<br><br>Students are asked to: (1) perform an industry size-up of the global metals industry and its subset, the aluminum industry; (2) perform a business size-up of the company's current operations; (3) determine the pros and cons of accepting each customer order; (4) calculate the projected contribution margin rates for each product order; (5) analyze, using differential analysis, each customer order and (5) make a decision as to which order to accept.

An ethical hacker had recently started his entrepreneurial venture, EnterAll InfoSec Solutions. A technologist who believed that “ethical hacking” had huge market potential, he and his partner were searching for a business model that would address the information security needs of corporate clients, public sector undertakings (PSUs) and government institutions. Ethical hacking was a specialized and relatively nascent field, and the entrepreneur foresaw many challenges in convincing customers to use the services of his start-up company. The immediate concerns were how to expand the business, identify an optimal business model, explore sources of funding and create a strong team.

Mahindra and Mahindra Financial Services Limited is a non-banking finance company in India whose product portfolio includes vehicle loans, used vehicle financing, housing finance, personal loans, fixed deposits, mutual fund distribution, insurance broking, gold loans and loans for construction equipment. Catering to the rural poor across India, the company has close to 6,600 employees, mostly hired locally to serve local needs. Because it focuses on future cash flow projections and not on past credit history, and takes into consideration the integrity and character of the customer — primarily farmers, small traders and vehicle operators but also some small and medium enterprises — as well as the projected business plan, it is a good fit for poor rural Indian consumers. It bridges the gap between moneylenders, who charge exorbitant interest, and public sector banks that require collateral. In 2013, the manager of the Bijnor branch is approached by the owner of a transport firm who requests a loan to buy two more trucks to expand her business of moving goods for small pharmaceutical companies. Given that the prospective borrower has been rejected by a competing bank, should the loan to her be sanctioned?

With the 2010 FIFA World Cup fast approaching, Johannesburg, South Africa, needs a much-improved public transport system. A bus rapid transit (BRT) system is proposed and the key challenge involves getting buy-in from the minibus-taxi industry, which serves current commuters with 22,000 minibus-taxis, but which sometimes threatens violence to ensure there is little change in its way of operating. The leader of the main Johannesburg taxi association embarks on a process of personal growth to find the courage and capacity to lead the taxi industry away from resistance and into a business partnership with the city. He and his small team undertake a personally risky journey to implement BRT through the Rea Vaya project, thus changing the landscape of Johannesburg and bringing safe transport to hundreds of thousands of residents. But only days after the launch of the BRT system, two people in a BRT bus are shot by a gunman. With the 2010 FIFA World Cup less than a year away, is it worth commuters and Rea Vaya workers being shot and potentially killed? Could anything have been done differently to avoid this? Should the whole project be put on hold? If they stop one more time, it might never get off the ground again.

The Caribbean Information and Credit Rating Services (CariCRIS) cases depict the strategic dynamics of setting up a first-of-its-kind international venture by an Indian credit rating agency in an emerging market. The cases trace the institutional and market development challenges in the evolution of this international joint venture (IJV) in a multi-country setting in the Caribbean and the strategic dilemmas faced by the expatriate chief executive officer (CEO) in setting up the new venture by leveraging home-country experience. Case (A) focuses on the unfolding events and the business environment that define the strategic context for the IJV’s formation and up to a point in time when the management is poised to make critical market entry-related decisions. Also see case (B) 9B14M084.

In July 2001, the newly elected president of the board of directors at Dovercourt Recreation Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, faces a dilemma. The facility’s executive director has suggested that in light of a poor performance review, his only option might be to resign. He is revered by his staff and the community for his passionate advocacy of outreach to disadvantaged and marginalized populations and has a successful track record in running the organization and popularizing its programs throughout the city. However, he is under great stress because his informal management style does not fit well with the board’s need for specific monthly accounting. The new president was recruited to improve unproductive board meetings, but he has quickly realized the root issue is the escalating tension between the executive director and the board. Confident that he can use his consulting background to deliver a solution to the conflict that threatens to undermine the centre’s strong reputation, he needs a plan and must act on it decisively and immediately.

The managing director, founder and promoter of Manjushree Technopak Limited, based in Bangalore, India, had exploited various market opportunities to establish his third venture, which over 20 years had become the largest manufacturer of polyethylene terephthalate bottles and preforms in Southeast Asia. His brother and sons had also joined the company, which was listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, and were now co-directors under his leadership. By 2013, the company was ready to expand to meet the growing demand for plastic containers in the food, beverage, health care and pharmaceutical industries and to counter its competition. It needed to convey a clear vision to all its stakeholders. Growth also meant the need for clarity in leadership roles and a sound internal governance structure. The managing director had three choices: 1) continue the status quo with himself as head of the company; 2) step aside and allow his professionally qualified sons to step up to the company leadership; or, 3) hire a professional from the corporate world as a new chief executive officer.

SABMiller, the world’s second largest brewer, has developed a business model in Mozambique that represents a radical departure from the firm’s traditional approach to beer production. Despite this multinational’s well-developed global supply chains and heavily centralized processes, it has disrupted both established processes and products and has, instead, innovated to produce a cassava-based beer in an effort to serve the low-income consumers who comprise the bulk of the African economic pyramid. In a marked departure from corporate best practices, the manufacturing process begins outside of the brewery and in the vicinity of the scattered and rural cassava farming plots.

This case traces the various events that happen in the organizational journey of a newcomer to the corporate world. It is based on the real-life incidents of a new employee in a leading information technology (IT) services company, Xciting, in India. Xciting is one of India’s top IT and IT-enabled services companies, with offices around the globe. With revenues in excess of $6 billion in 2010 and a global headcount of around 100,000, Xciting is a popular and reputable company in the global software services industry.<br><br>The case covers the initial year of the employee’s work with Xciting, following college graduation. She undergoes a training period with examinations in order to determine an appropriate work domain and relocation destination within India. She experiences organizational culture shock and location anxiety, and must respond to difficult co-workers and cancelled projects. In September 2011, with the first yearly review approaching, she reflects on her journey at Xciting and has to decide on what she wants to do with her career. Is there a mismatch between her expectations and those of Xciting?