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This case describes the entrepreneurial journey of David Yeung, from campaigning for plant-based diets to building Green Monday, a purpose-driven business and an ecosystem based in Hong Kong comprising a retail platform, an alternative meat brand ("OmniPork"), a non-profit foundation, and an impact investment arm. Green Monday had been reshaping the traditional concept of plant-based food into a modern and aspirational lifestyle by providing more food options to the growing number of flexitarian consumers in Hong Kong and beyond. But in fall 2021, challenges were emerging that could slow its rapid growth. Externally, the breakdown of the global supply chain caused by the Covid-19 pandemic was affecting the company's expansion into new markets, such as mainland China, the U.S., and Southeast Asia. Internally, the strategy of operating multiple business models was testing the startup's ability to find a balance between growing the business without diluting its strong mission and purpose. Given these constraints, Yeung had some important decisions to make regarding Green Monday's growth plans. Should he continue the multi-business strategy or should he be more focused?

After Daniela Riccardi took over as CEO of Moleskine, she determined that the company needed to refocus on its core brand and central organization. With her first formal meeting with D'Ieteren, the company that owned Moleskine, approaching, she needed to decide what her action plan for Moleskine should be.

In March 2020, the global pandemic was delivering a dose of volatility to the US economy. Catherine Faddis, the CIO of Grace Capital, a Boston-based long-only equity manager, analyzed movements in her portfolio while eyeing previously shelved opportunities to invest in preferred stock. The case explores the characteristics of preferred stock, the investment philosophy and strategy of Grace Capital, and the decision making process behind the team at the fundamentals-based investment fund.

João M. P. De Mello and his team at the Central Bank of Brazil are preparing a move that would seek to tilt the scales in favor of financial inclusion for the entire country. The innovation at hand is the unprecedented nation-wide instant payment scheme: Pix. The fruit of years of planning and patience in the face of a banking industry refusing to change, De Mello seeks to kick start a wave of pro-consumer FinTech advancements for a sector whose growth has been relatively halted. While the success of similar wide-spread payment structures using mobile technology have drawn a clear roadmap in other countries, no other central bank has ever dared to undertake the task itself, preferring instead to let the private sector push ahead and regulate later. Pix would be the first instance of a government taking such massive upskilling into its own hands. At the same time, the risks De Mello and his team face will be entirely new as well. Will Pix be the highway to modernity so many imagine? Or will its challenges prove insurmountable, tarnishing growth and turning the country away from trusting the BCB at such a scale ever again?

This case describes the entrepreneurial journey of two college friends - Anchal Taatya and Abhiram Nukalapati. While studying at IIM Ahmedabad, they saw an opportunity for aggregating credit card discounts and launched a pilot in February 2019 under the name Circles. Circles helped discount seekers and credit card holders to connect and make transactions. Case A outlines their journey until the launch, where they faced the dilemma of choosing between a B2B and a B2C business model. Case B outlines their struggles in launching a B2C product and eventual shutdown of the venture. The key objective of this case is to understand the business formation stage of a college start-up, and how they arrived at opportunity identification. The case is aimed at enabling classroom discussions on the role of trust in platform businesses and how regulations - or lack thereof - can shape the destiny of new ventures.

In 2014, as the firm celebrated its ten-year anniversary, Jia started to take an interest in the sharing economy that was sweeping China. He was intrigued by the sharing concept and wondered whether designers' work time and professional abilities could be shared. He twice attempted to establish sharing models and was not frustrated by the setbacks. He kept searching for a good business model that could make his idea work. In 2016, for the first time, LKK's 100 per cent annual growth rate started to show sluggishness. This time, he decided to fully devote himself to the new economy as he knew this would become a new growth driver for the company and for the design circle. He was so determined that he appointed someone to take care of the traditional design company, LKK, declaring that he would focus 100 per cent on the new model and would lead the new team to "disrupt LKK". In July 218, a fire burnt LKK's Beijing office. Jia was surprised by what the office symbolized to his team when he saw an old partner break into tears. It suddenly hit him that his full devotion to the sharing platform model might have hurt the feelings of his old partners and have shaken LKK's basic values, professional idealism, pride and ambition of LKK designers. This was probably the deep-rooted reason why they felt so frustrated by the fire. Most senior designers were against the new model. Jia needed to conduct this venture by himself. Consequently in 2016, he founded a separate firm, LKKer, a platform company, later referred to as LKP, without taking any one from the LKK team. Inside LKK, a friendly joke, "the chairman went out to start his own business", went viral, and Jia perceived LKK staff hostility towards LKP. Jia desperately needed talent support from LKK and also LKK's existing brand influence, but he found himself unable to utilize these resources at LKP. LKP's first two years were very difficult.

On June 8, 2020, Sembcorp Marine Ltd. (SCM) announced a S$2.1 billion recapitalization plan to be followed by a demerger from Sembcorp Industries Ltd (SCI). SCM's business had been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and a collapse in oil prices, resulting in a critical need for liquidity. The recapitalization would be done through a rights issue. The demerger would be conducted through a subsequent share distribution of SCI's stake in the recapitalized SCM to SCI's shareholders. The case seeks to provide a reasonable valuation of SCM based on its past financial performance and other relevant market information. It also analyzes the rationale of the demerger and the impact of the demerger on shareholders of SCM and SCI.

In a short span of five or six years, CHANEL embraced CSR (corporate social responsibility) and ESG (environmental, social, governance) initiatives that stretched far beyond its established comfort zone of artistic direction and creative output. The progression of these initiatives culminated in March 2020, when the company launched CHANEL Mission 1.5°, a strategy for embarking on a decarbonization journey across the business as well as the value chain. In keeping with the timeframe of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the "1.5°" represented the commitment to help limit average global mean temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Entering the 2020s, Global CFO Philippe Blondiaux felt confident that CHANEL was primed to execute on its vision and usher in a "decade of delivery" in sustainability. The Group was about to transform every aspect of its business; help its partners do the same; innovate at every point in the value chain; and support change beyond its own operational footprint. Yet a host of challenges loomed on the road ahead: (1) Could an industrial group that was highly decentralized continue to spearhead initiatives and shape an integrated sustainability strategy? (2) In addition to creating a cultural glue and a shared sense of inspiration and purpose, could accountability trickle all the way down the organization with a worldwide workforce of nearly 28,000? (3) In the long term, was the company in a position to live up to the commitments it had encapsulated in the CHANEL Mission 1.5° document, and was there sufficient clarity on what the sustainability push would mean in the long run for CHANEL, as a luxury brand, as we know it?

Six months after the August 2018 launch of Troverie, a U.S.-based online retailer of luxury watches, the average cost of acquiring a customer is much higher than originally projected, and the startup is incurring a substantial loss on each sales transaction. Could customer acquisition costs be reduced through optimization of marketing messages and channels, or did high marketing costs presage a fundamental problem with Troverie's business model? Troverie was an authorized retailer of 17 luxury watch brands, and had partnered with brick-and-mortar jewelry retailers that would drop ship the watches from their inventory in exchange for a share of Troveries's revenue. The brands were authorizing online sales for the first time, to combat "grey market" outlets that sold their watches without the manufacturer's warranty.

This case explores how crisis management planning is a fundamental part of designing a communication plan. The case narrates a social media storm that affected Masglo, Colombia's bestknown and market-leading brand of nail polish. One of the company's growth strategies was to follow the global tendency of giving its products innovative and suggestive names to make them memorable and easily recognizable. The brand used names like Golosa (Rapacious, 2011), Fufurufua (Whore, 2012), Zángana (Hussy, 2013), Buscona (Slut, 2015) and Ñera (Street Girl, 2015). These labels are understood by Colombians as being at the limit of socially accepted female behavior, due to their sexual, suggestive and vulgar connotations. A Masglo fan page user questioned this strategy and inspired a wave of criticism and comments that went beyond the confines of social media. This case tells the origin story of these names, and explores the reaction to the fan page post, and it's impact in the media. The situation provides context for discussion on how to develop a media crisis management plan.

This case follows the decision of two Stanford Graduate School of Business classmates, Heather Fernandez and Daniele Farnedi, to start a company together. It explores the criteria they used to assess ideas, how the pair identified an opportunity in consumer health care, and how they started testing urgent care clinic software concept. The case culminates with making a go or no-go decision.

This case is about the growth of one of China's top design companies. The design trade is a knowledge-intensive and traditional industry. The protagonist Jia Wei started LKK in 2004. Following the industry's traditional organizational model, over 10 years he managed to grow the company's staff size to over a thousand and reach the peak of the industry. Jia's understanding of how the organization structure could unleash output upgraded several times. Owing to the reorganizations, LKK was able to reach 100 per cent annual growth rate. The story begins with Jia graduating from college and tells of the founding and evolution of LKK's organizational structure step-by-step. It allows participants to clearly see the relationship between organizational structure changes and enterprise growth. The goal is to illustrate that there is no ultimate, static organizational structure that necessarily leads to rapid development. The authors also try to use this material to illustrate that organizational culture needs to evolve along with the organizational structure. In addition, this case features change leadership.

Founded in 1996, Dalian Leasun Food Co., Ltd. had become one of the largest canned food manufacturers in northeast China by 2020. In 2016, it began a digital transformation, adopting digital technologies such as data mining and cloud computing. The company also revised its internal operations and adopted an omnichannel sales strategy. Digital transformation enabled Dalian Leasun Food Co., Ltd. to move beyond the traditional retail and distribution market, which was becoming oversaturated. Its successful transition also helped the company maintain a stable sales growth rate during the COVID-19 pandemic. The next stage for its digital transition however, presented a dilemma. One option for the chairman of the company was to develop a customer-oriented platform and create value for customers. The other option was to digitalize the company's supply chain and internal management system. The chairman had to decide which direction to follow.

After almost a year of rebranding and renovations, the Bitter Sisters Brewery opened to rave reviews on February 14, 2020, in Calgary, Alberta. Just 29 days later, the COVID-19 pandemic would force the brewery's doors shut for over three months. Two further closures would come in 2020, and times remained uncertain as of December of that year. The owners had to pivot-and quickly-to ensure the viability of their business in volatile times.

Byteboard aims to replace the pre-on-site technical interview for software engineers with a more effective, efficient, and equitable web-based assessment. The case follows the founding team's journey from problem definition and customer development through the testing of their minimum viable product and validation of their core value hypothesis. By recounting Byteboard's early quest towards product-market fit, the case poses several key questions including, "What is the core value hypothesis?" "What features should be tested with customers?" and "How will they know if they proved their hypotheses?"

For decades, Titleist was the dominant player in the golf ball industry partly due to its strong technical performance and popularity among professional golfers. As a result of its technical superiority and the mystical image it had cultivated, Titleist's brand was revered by consumers. Its domination began to fade in the 2010s, however, as its competitors introduced balls that offered similar quality, but at a more affordable price. Moreover, Titleist lost several major patent infringement lawsuits. Finally, in February 2020, the golf industry's regulatory authorities, who were in charge of establishing the specifications to be met by ball manufacturers, announced that they would be investigating the possibility of adjusting existing specifications, a move that could harm manufacturers, such as Titleist, that were trying to differentiate their products through R&D.

This two-part case looks at flowcasting at Princess Auto, going beyond a simple presentation. Case A describes the challenges of implementing this system and its impact on the accountabilities of employees who are responsible for store replenishment, while Case B describes situations that are specific to Princess Auto, such as stocking surplus items (a unique strategy to attract customers to its stores) and the challenges of e-commerce.

Presented in the form of a comic book, this two-part case follows the efforts (or lack thereof) of Richard, the Quebec regional manager of Frippe, a cross-Canada chain of fashion boutiques, to implement a new performance indicator. Four years earlier, Mary, the founder's daughter, had taken over the reins of the company and repatriated production to Canada. Her next goal was to improve the customer experience with the help of a new performance indicator: the conversion rate. Richard was not fully on board with the idea and paid little attention to its implementation, but, at the end of the fiscal year, he had to submit a progress report to Mary.