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In March 2021, Greensill Capital, the UK-based leading supply chain financing provider, with 16 offices across the world, filed for insolvency; its Germany-based bank closed by regulators. Less than two years earlier, Greensill had received a $1.5 billion investment from SoftBank's Vision Fund, valuing the company at $3.5 billion. By 2020, the company was targeting a $7 billion valuation with a potential IPO. Supply chain finance was a centuries-old method that enabled companies to better manage their working capital. Greensill had ridden the wave of technological advances to bring supply chain finance into the 21st century, but it had spectacularly failed. The repercussions of this failure touched SoftBank, Credit Suisse and the steel empire of Sanjeev Gupta, and stretched across the globe, potentially putting tens of thousands of jobs at risk. The failure also revealed one of the biggest lobbying scandals to hit the UK Government. What caused the epic fall of Greensill? And how would it affect the future of supply chain finance?

The case describes the launch in the UK and Ireland in April 2020 of the mobile app Treeapp, intended to help combat the effects of climate change by enabling users to plant trees for free. The app is funded by Treeapp's brand partners, who pay £1 to Treeapp every time a user watches an advert on their phone. Part of the payment goes to NGOs around the world who manage tree-planting projects.

Dupden Lepcha started Tingvong Homestay, the first homestay in the remote Dzongu region of Sikkim, India, when the region was opened for tourism in 2006. Initially, the response to Dupden's homestay was good, improving Dupden's financial position and earning him the respect of the community. With Dupden's active encouragement and help, other members of the community also established homestays. Over time, however, a few of these homestays outperformed Tingvong Homestay by creating greater awareness of their offering. Despite the government's intention to develop the region as an ecotourism hub, the pace has been slow, compelling the village council to take proactive steps. They have asked Dupden to play an active role in working closely with government officials, and now Dupden must decide whether to focus on his homestay or take up the role offered by the council and work toward the development of the Dzongu region as an ecotourism hub.

The owner of Hailey's Handbags, a New England-based online business selling handmade products, had successfully grown her company using a limited-release sales model. However, by early 2019, complaints posted to her business's social media accounts had become abusive and personal. The emotional impact on the owner was severe, and before she could decide how to manage the comments, she needed to first determine whether they represented legitimate complaints or if she had become a target of cyberbullying.

Saudamini Mattu was the chief executive officer of Abu Jani Sandeep Khosla (AJSK), a successful Indian luxury brand specializing in luxe couture, interior design, and wedding decor. The brand had roots in ancient Indian embroidery, and its story was inextricably linked with the personalities of its founders, Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla, who thought of themselves as revivalists creating luxury products and experiences using designs with an Indian ethos. The luxury brand had deeply resonated with its loyal customer base for over three decades, but AJSK had to now address the relevance and sustainability of its brand story. Mattu therefore had to evaluate whether AJSK's brand story was relevant in the constantly shifting luxury market, and recraft the brand story for the House of AJSK, while considering missed opportunities and the viability of the business model of a creative organization in a challenging economic scenario.

In 2020, the legal cannabis industry in the United States was emerging. One large player in the nascent industry was Canopy Growth Corporation (Canopy Growth), a cannabinoid company based in Smiths Falls, Ontario, that grew cannabis and managed a range of cannabis-related brands. In September 2020, Canopy Growth announced a partnership with Martha Stewart that entailed the development of a mix of cannabis edibles and oils for wellness sold under the name Martha Stewart CBD. Although the legal cannabis industry held tremendous promise, there were a wide range of unique challenges associated with selling cannabis products, including regulatory and policy issues, stigmas associated with illegal cannabis, and other more typical issues associated with selling new products such as the need for consumer education. The partners would need to consider how consumers would respond to the Martha Stewart CBD offerings, what specific obstacles they would have to overcome, and what market segment(s) and products they should prioritize.

Students were provided with the financial data for 10 major companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2019. They were also given a list of 10 major industries. As an exercise, students were then asked to identify which company operated within which industry. The exercise would test the students' understanding of how a company's financial data can be specific to a particular industry. Using only financial figures, could the student identify within which industry each company operated?

In April 2021, the co-founders of the Onyx Initiative (Onyx) were reviewing the progress of their six-month old organization. The co-founders had founded Onyx to expand the Black talent pipeline by offering a scholar program that connected Black students with mentors and offered them online professional development. The initiative had successfully accepted an inaugural cohort of 170 Black students and partnered with numerous corporate, community, and educational partners. Recently, corporate sponsors had approached Onyx with a request to expand programming to their US offices. The co-founders needed to decide if now was the right time for expansion, or if this would be spreading their new organization too thin.

The chief commercial officer of Johnson Controls International, a multinational manufacturer and marketer of security systems, was noticing a change in the buying behaviour of one of its premier customers. As one of the company's designated strategic accounts, this customer was entitled to multi-level collaborative support. Of late, the customer had been taking a "bid-and-buy" approach to its purchases, ignoring the standards agreed to in the strategic agreement with Johnson Controls International. It also sought a scaled-down version of a security system, and this ran contrary to the original strategic account agreement. The chief commercial officer was examining the way forward with the customer. Should he demote it from the strategic account status to a regular sales account, despite the risks involved in doing so?

Despite the pandemic in 2020-2021, the laundry care market in India, valued at INR 302.2 billion, was experiencing a healthy retail value growth of 4% over the previous year. Hindustan Unilever (HUL) dominated the Indian market as a clear-cut market leader, with around 43% of the market share in terms of value in the retail market. Ariel, Procter & Gamble's (P&G) premium laundry detergent was meant to be a head on challenger to Surf Excel of HUL., P&G was clearly banking on this campaign. P&G was concerned about the sustainability of the campaign in the long run. Even though the campaign was a success, the company was not gaining market share. This made them re-evaluate the campaign to decide a future course of action.

The Intel AI for Youth case tells the story of a global educational initiative spearheaded by Intel's public affairs group. Intel executives are seeking to establish artificial intelligence (AI) education and skilling programs for public school systems in international markets that are important to Intel's business. The key decision point of the case is how to bring a program that has already been successfully introduced in nine different countries to Intel's home market in the United States. Behind this core decision are the larger questions about the creating and capturing the value of corporate responsibility and sustainability initiatives. At the time of the case, Intel is making big bets on being a leader in the emerging AI economy, a market that some analysts see growing to nearly $16 trillion within this decade. If Intel can successfully capture a substantial portion of this growth, AI will be a major business line for the company. By analyzing the case, students discover the multiple ways that the AI for Youth initiative supports the development of this market and allows discussion of how Intel can benefit from its growth.

In March 2021, the Chinese government blocked access to H&M on leading e-commerce, ride-hailing, daily-deals, and map sites. The online blocking and calls for customer boycotts were in response to H&M's September 2020 statement that it would no longer source cotton from Xinjiang because of concerns about forced labor. At the time, H&M operated more than 500 stores in China, and it was the company's fourth largest country market. How will the boycott impact the H&M brand in China? How will H&M's decision impact its brand in other markets, such as the U.S., Germany, and the UK? Should H&M change its sourcing stance in China? Which stakeholders should H&M target in its messaging? Should H&M issue new supply chain statements?

A dramatic dispute between two partners was about to push their long-time, successful international alliance to the verge of collapse. FamilyMart Co. Ltd. (FamilyMart) Japan and Taipei-based Ting Hsin International Group (Ting Hsin) had collaborated through a brand licensing arrangement to develop and operate FamilyMart convenience stores in mainland China for nearly 20 years. With FamilyMart stores topping the ranking of foreign convenience store brands, the collaboration appeared quite successful. However, on May 15, 2019, breaking news swept through the business media announcing that FamilyMart Japan had sued Ting Hsin in court and requested a compulsory dissolution of their partnership. A fierce feud between the two partners ensued, and an uncertain fate was closing in on the co-operation. With their 20-year brand licensing arrangement coming to an end in just a few months, both partners had to contemplate whether to extend the partnership and, if so, how to renegotiate the terms.

In 2019, an American couple were travelling the world when they settled in Bali and were employed by Spice Island Cruises (SIC). At the time, SIC was controlled by a venture capitalist who ignored local Indigenous business traditions and measured success with short-term key performance indicators. A collision between the Western and Indonesian organizational cultures resulted, and following a crisis meeting of SIC partners, the venture capitalist sold his share in the company. The American husband was appointed general manager and had only two weeks to prepare an action plan for SIC before taking over. What strategy should he follow to restore the company's reputation and employees' trust and to develop a successful future?

In 2019, SATS Ltd. (SATS), the primary ground handling and inflight catering service provider at Singapore's Changi Airport, was considering its growth strategy for the next five years. China and Japan were identified as target markets in the cold chain logistics sector. Should the company consider the Chinese air cargo market, which was in a stage of high growth but fraught with bureaucracy? Or should it focus on the Japanese air freight industry, which was more established but challenging for foreign investments? The senior vice-president of SATS needed to choose between the two opportunities.

This experiential case simulates an investment committee (IC) meeting at the private equity (PE) firm Bridgepoint, a leading European mid-market private equity firm. In the first quarter of 2011, with Europe in a recession following the global financial crisis, forecasters are predicting the start of an economic recovery. The firm is midway through investing its €4.85 billion fund, Bridgepoint Europe IV ("BEIV"), looking specifically for market-leading European companies with potential to grow through geographic expansion or operational improvement, strategy refocusing and add-on acquisitions. Three senior partners (Charlotte, Andrew and Bengt) from its offices in Germany, London and Sweden are preparing to present potential investment opportunities to the committee - respectively, Charlie, a German chemicals company with global plants; Alpha, an industrial firm listed on the London Stock Exchange; and Bravo, an elderly-care company based in Sweden. All three have submitted written papers to the members of the IC, including Harriet, a senior partner at Bridgepoint, who regularly spends her weekends analyzing information in preparation for the Monday morning meeting. Students are asked to either pitch one of three companies to Bridgepoint's investment committee or to play the role of the IC and ask their classmates questions to clarify the rationale for putting them forward.

This case study is set in May 2021. It describes how Sarah Lee, Director of Engagement at Federated Hermes (FH) has been engaging with Ruby Goods (Ruby), a consumer goods company that operates in Asia, Europe, Latin America and the United States, to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in its dairy operations. The case illustrates how an external stakeholder, an investment management company with minimal formal organisational authority, can influence and drive ESG (environmental, social and governance) performance improvements. While Lee was successful in getting Ruby to streamline its ESG approach and establish the Ruby Corporate Responsibility Council to drive company-wide ESG initiatives, she encountered resistance from Ruby's senior management and the board to commit to the more ambitious science-based targets critical for achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. What should she do to pressure Ruby's senior management into commitment and action while preserving FH's carefully cultivated relationships with Ruby's senior management?

Proxima Servicios is a company with a social orientation, recognized in 2017 among the 10% most sustainable B companies. It had the objective of improving the working conditions of workers with low qualifications and low salaries, through the provision of subcontracting services in the field of industrial cleaning and maintenance, by transforming the subcontracting work into supercontracting. Proxima sought to deliver a service of excellence and the development of its employees. The development of its workers focused on improving their work skills, increasing their employability, and supporting their welfare. The specific activities that were subcontracted in Chile were varied, and there were no tasks that could not be subcontracted: outsourcing of security and surveillance, cleaning and maintenance, construction and assembly, transport and/or distribution, legal services, and food was widespread. In contrast, the areas of IT, marketing, sales, and finance were outsourced by a small group of companies. From this, Eduardo considered that specifically security guards, cleaning personnel, transportation of workers, or maintenance tasks, were activities that in the last decade had ceased to be an integral part of a companies' operations. The growing trend in human resources pointed to these services being outsourced or subcontracted. In particular, Eduardo was informed that the Chilean private security market had risen to over 130,000 workers, reflecting a 211% increase in the last five years. This made him think that it could be very attractive to transfer Proxima's experience in the cleaning service to the private security market. If he remained in the cleaning service, Eduardo thought it was necessary to redefine his strategy but to maintain shared value or offer a new related service.

The case provides a background on the Saudi financial sector, as well as NCBC, and continues to chronicle Al Suhaimi's journey in NCBC and the transformation process she and her team put in action. When she joined NCBC as the first female CEO of a Saudi investment bank at the young age of 31, Al Suhaimi inherited an underperforming business with broken relations with all key stakeholders including the parent bank, customers, and the regulator. The case follows the turnaround process Al Suhaimi executed. After putting together a senior management team both from inside the business and external hires, Al Suhaimi worked with her team to diagnose and address pain points. Most notably, they drastically shifted NCBC's strategy from a brokerage driven, transactional revenue model to a recurring revenue, full-fledged investment banking and asset management model. They also made cultural and operational changes across NCBC, and mended fractured relations with their parent bank and the regulator. By 2019, NCBC became the market leader in revenues and profit securing landmark advisory mandates and creating innovative, successful products. At the fifth year mark of her appointment, in 2019, Al Suhaimi was now looking at a much different picture: NCBC was the market leader and internally, members of Al Suhaimi's senior management team were being poached by the competition, with no immediate candidates to replace them. Meanwhile, Al Suhaimi knew that she needed to make adjustments to the strategy to get the company on its next wave of growth. Externally, the Saudi stock exchange was opening up to foreign investors and had just joined three of the top emerging markets indices and competition in investment banking had heated up. With her trusted team at risk of departure, she needed to decide on her focus for the next five years: succession planning, setting the strategy for the next growth phase, and inspiring and motivating the team were top of her list.