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Wymsee was a company that aimed to develop a mobile application (app) that would allow television audience members to identify and purchase clothing or accessories worn by characters in the program they were watching, with the Wymsee founders taking a percentage of transactions they facilitated. To get the data necessary to make this work, protagonist Alex LoVerde and his three co-founders built an app called SyncOnSet, which helped film crews update and streamline their previously analog and complex costume tracking workflow. The quick adoption of SyncOnSet and the relative difficulty of launching Wymsee made LoVerde wonder if the company should pivot away from a consumer-facing app and toward software designed for Hollywood film crews.

China's gold jewelry market was for a long time very homogenous: brands all offered very similar products and provided discounts to gain a competitive advantage. For many years, even Chow Tai Fook (hereinafter 'CTF'), an industry leader that boasted superior product design and craftsmanship, suffered from low profit margins and sluggish sales growth. Furthermore, CTF's competitors constantly tried to mimic its pricing and sales strategies to seize market share. It was against this backdrop of fierce competition that CTF launched the HUÁ Collection in September 2017. The new collection targeted the high-end market and was a resounding success, as well as an industry game-changer. However, as the HUÁ Collection gained market share and production scaled up, this gave rise to new challenges: How could CTF disrupt the homogeneous gold jewelry market through brand innovation? How could it maintain HUÁ's brand value while scaling up production? Moreover, how could it respond to an endless stream of imitation products and plagiarism?

HCL Technologies Ltd., one of the big four information technology companies in India, had established a corporate entrepreneurship function within its enterprise technology office (ETO). As part of its aspiration to scale up its corporate entrepreneurship activities, the ETO had adopted an ecosystem innovation strategy, and in 2020, the ETO team was deliberating how to standardize and institutionalize its corporate entrepreneurship practices, enhance the platform technology, and build a culture of innovation to leverage the newly adopted ecosystem innovation strategy.

Angus MacIntyre, CEO of Dumbarton Bearing Supply, LLC (Dumbarton), is deciding whether to introduce a new ceramic ball-bearing product line and whether to produce those bearings by refitting an existing production line or by building a new production line. The initial analysis favors a refit-despite a much higher variable cost, the investment is relatively small, and as a result this approach poses little risk. However, this analysis does not recognize the possibility that Dumbarton could abandon the new product line and recoup much of its investment in scenarios where demand for the new bearings is low. The ability to abandon the product line at a later date is a classic "real option." When properly recognized, this real option flips the conclusion on the production choice-it allows Dumbarton to capture the benefits of a newly built line's very low marginal cost while mitigating the risk created by a larger investment. The case provides insights into option-like features of decisions without any use of option-pricing tools. This case has been used successfully to introduce real options in Darden's core finance curriculum, a specialty master's degree program in data analytics, and an Executive Education program. It would be appropriate either in a sequence of cases covering optionality or as a later case in a sequence of cases on net present value (NPV) analyses. Any student with an understanding of basic NPV analysis can execute the required work, so the case can be used in a wide variety of settings. The emphasis can be easily shifted from technical modeling (advanced techniques in valuation) to intuition (strategic choices) as needed.

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (M&M), an Indian automotive giant, was pursuing strategies to retain the leading position in the domestic automotive space. Traditionally an SUV manufacturer, M&M created a new vertical-Advanced Technology Solutions (ATS)-to spearhead technology development as a means of competing with the multinational companies entering India. ATS's technology pursuits had already translated into several successful products; however, by 2019, the head of ATS had reasons to be concerned about the unit's future. The major areas of concern included investing in frontier technologies, bridging the time lag between technology conceptualization and deployment, and holding the team together into the future.

This case explores the role of deposit insurance in financial stability, including the importance of risk-adjusted insurance premiums and the complementarity between capital requirements and deposit insurance when risk is imperfectly measured by the insurer. The case is intended to follow a class on maturity transformation (e.g., as presented in ""The Economics of Maturity Transformation"" [UVA-GEM-0191]). It begins with a fictional cryptocurrency exchange, Koble, which proposes to conduct maturity transformation outside of the current purview of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The chair of the FDIC, Jelena McWilliams, now faces a huge normative question: should deposit insurance be extended to Koble? Her answer could change the trajectories of both the FDIC and the cryptocurrency market. The case reviews the history of deposit insurance in the United States and concludes with a series of questions for McWilliams to ponder, specifically questions that connect Koble to the historical lessons.

This case explores private and public proposals for digital forms of money that bypass the commercial banking system. A private proposal comes from Facebook's Libra. A public proposal comes from central bank digital currency (CBDC). The case begins with Mark Zuckerberg's vision for Libra and the ensuing pushback from policymakers. One of the main concerns-financial stability-is revisited during a tour of the arguments for and against a CBDC. The introduction of the first official CBDC by the Central Bank of the Bahamas is then discussed. The case closes with Zuckerberg pondering the economics of Libra in a bid to bring policymakers on board. The case is intended to follow a class on the economics of cryptocurrency (e.g., as presented in "The Economics of Cryptocurrency" [UVA-GEM-0190]). Prior exposure to the causes of and responses to the 2008 financial crisis is also strongly recommended to permit a substantive discussion of financial stability risks.

Honorable Mention; DEI Global Case Writing Competition. COVID-19 had been one of the deadliest pandemics ever seen, causing nearly two million deaths and 100 million cases worldwide. With no vaccine in sight for the public until at least January 2021, Dr. Bonnie Henry, the provincial health officer of British Columbia (BC), had to steer the Canadian province through the COVID-19 pandemic. Had Dr. Henry overlooked the implications that factors such as ethnicity, language, and race had for the fight against COVID-19? Public health messaging destined for racialized and diverse communities was inherently complex, and social media had already erupted with posts from many frustrated members of visible minority communities. Dr. Henry wondered what communications strategy, if any, should be urgently set in motion to help curb the increase in COVID-19 cases. Who should the communications strategy target? What message should be delivered and through what channels? The lives of BC residents were in Dr. Henry's hands.

The case describes the patrimonial situation of Marcela and Jorge Mansilla. The siblings descend from a family of landowners with fields in the province of Buenos Aires. They developed gastronomy and real estate activities and diversified risks. However, the bifurcation of destinations and businesses generated constant friction between the siblings. Frequent discussions made the situation very tense, and they are determined to do something to prevent money issues from affecting their relationship. The solution they intend to explore is to share the assets where each of them has the most control. For this, it is necessary to value the various businesses that the family holds.

Orchadio, a direct-to-consumer grocery business, needs to conduct its first two A/B tests-one to evaluate the effectiveness and functioning of its newly redesigned website, and one to market-test four versions of a new banner for the website. To do so, it will rely on a technology management platform designed by Split Software, whose feature flags allow Orchadio engineers to (1) turn specific software features on and off and (2) to limit access to those features to specific groups of website visitors. These capabilities in turn enable A/B feature testing. Split also offers data analytics to allow Orchadio to assess how its tests affect a plethora of Orchadio's business, software, and operating metrics. Orchadio managers now need to decide how to design their experiments for maximum impact, including whether or how to sequence them.

Describes a marketing director about to launch a new process for demand forecasting. Provides data that allow students to do a multivariable regression analysis. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

Jinfeng (David) Huang founded Yatsen Holding Limited in 2016 and launched the first direct-to-consumer (DTC) cosmetic brand, Perfect Diary, in 2017. Perfect Diary used social influencers or key opinion leaders (KOL) to successfully build brand awareness and to grow sales. By 2020, Perfect Diary was the second largest cosmetics brand in China behind Maybelline. Yet, as more brands used social influencers, Perfect Diary is facing increasingly fierce KOL competition. In resolving the problem, Huang has decided to build a multi-brand company by expanding into skincare. Could Yatsen compete with large legacy companies like L'Oréal and P&G in skincare? Huang needs to assess if the company could continue to grow using KOLs who helped successfully build Perfect Diary.

By June 2021, Yummy had become Venezuela's first and largest food delivery app and last-mile logistics company. In Caracas, the nation's capital, Yummy held a 55% market share, while operations in other cities had already started to take place, including in three of the country's most populous ones. But this did not come without challenges - it had been a hectic year since the operations were launched in April 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out - with the direst one being the difficult task of raising money to start and grow a business in Venezuela, a country that ranked among the worst globally for doing business. However, the startup has just gained admission to an American seed money startup accelerator, allowing Yummy to attract institutional investors and to explore potential growth avenues. With a board meeting approaching, the company's CEO, Vicente Zavarce, reflected with co-founders on the possibilities that lay ahead. Should Yummy keep expanding geographically to other cities in Venezuela or even branch out into other countries, either in Latin America or worldwide? Should the company instead grow by expanding to new verticals, leveraging its customer base by offering additional services such as ride-sharing or financial services? And what would be the right sequence for these activities if Yummy's new vision was to become a super app?

Maplebear Inc. - operating as Instacart - was a leader in the online grocery delivery service market. It was founded in 2012 by a former Amazon.com Inc. employee-turned entrepreneur Apoorva Mehta, who had realized that in order to succeed, he needed to create a simple, fast, and convenient approach to a growing problem at hand: online grocery delivery. Although the company was realizing year-over-year growth in a market that was experiencing rapid growth, it was unprepared for the pandemic of 2020, which generated astronomically high demand and led to dramatic changes in consumers' shopping behaviour. Understanding that this market growth would likely continue, and in a world still reeling from the effects of COVID-19, Instacart needed to react quickly to maintain its leading position among the competition and solidify its competitive advantage in the grocery delivery market.

Set in mid-2021, the case follows the events happening at the Taiwanese company, Wistron, which commenced operations as an Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) - a company that designs and produces products for other companies. Its founder, tech billionaire Simon Lin, started Wistron in 2001 as a spin-off from ACER Inc., one of the largest multinational computing companies' hardware producers. After former US president Donald Trump and his administration began taking a hard line on Chinese state-backed enterprises, both superpowers began retaliatory measures that hurt several vital industries. One of the key measures taken by the Trump administration was to impose tariffs on all products entering the US that had manufacturing origins from China, regardless of the firm's nationality. Foundry manufacturing firms, including Wistron, could no longer sustain the margins required to stay afloat and had to contemplate decoupling their operations out of China to alternative sites. In 2018, Lin saw the opportunity to relocate his iPhone manufacturing operations to India to avoid caught being in the middle of the trade spat. Amidst the move, Wistron was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, which made the initial costs of relocation untenable. As a result, Wistron had to raise capital very quickly. Luxshare, a relatively new upstart in the manufacturing world was ready to acquire Wistron's operations in China. Initially blocked by Taiwanese regulators, as Wistron was viewed as a strategic player in a vital industry, Luxshare managed to circumnavigate the restrictions and the sale went ahead. Wistron's decoupling strategies are now faced with massive challenges in their Indian operations. The firm had struggled to maintain the same level of competency in India as it had in China. As a result, it ran into many issues in the knowledge transfer process and faced one of the largest labour strikes that the country has seen for a while.

Cisco Systems Inc. (Cisco) was a modern technology company with a culturally diverse workforce. In 2008, it embarked on a plan to establish "a culture built on fairness, dignity and respect, free from bias, discrimination and negative behavior." However, despite those efforts, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing brought a legal claim against Cisco in June 2020 alleging workplace discrimination, harassment, and retaliation based on caste hierarchy among Indian employees at the workplace. According to the claim, the employee had brought his grievance to Cisco's notice, but Cisco failed to satisfactorily recognize and remedy the situation. What, if anything, had gone wrong at Cisco, and what could other firms learn from Cisco's attempts to alleviate workplace harassment, hostility, and unequal outcomes stemming from casteism?

emmtrix Technologies GmbH (emmtrix) was a spinoff company from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, a leading German university, and a result of an excellent-rated research project. At the end of January 2019, the emmtrix founders were preparing for a meeting with investment managers of a venture capital firm in Karlsruhe, Germany. After previous meetings with the investors in which the business concept and technology had been the focus, the main point of the upcoming meeting was to present the start-up's fundraising goals. The founders were expected to express how much money they wanted to raise and at which valuation of the company. To that end, the start-up team wanted to prepare information on the company's financial forecasts for the next five years, the fundraising amount to be raised in the initial financing round, and first ideas on the value of the company.

In November 2020, A&W Food Services of Canada Inc. (A&W Canada) had a difficult decision to make. As a fast-food chain with a track record on advancing sustainability issues, the company could not ignore the mounting public concern about plastic and packaging waste or the continuously evolving regulatory environment regarding waste in Canada. The company had already taken steps in this direction by introducing paper straws and compostable burger bags, for example. However, it was the large number of beverage cups that stood out as generating the largest amount of disposable waste. Regulations on extended producer responsibility were being introduced across Canada, although the details in each province varied. New materials were constantly being developed, which provided various potential alternatives. A&W Canada had to make a decision but was unsure what criteria to apply. How would this decision affect key stakeholders? How could the company make a more informed decision?