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This case explores how a creative agency in Southeast Asia created the region's first virtual influencer. The client, a prominent global sports and lifestyle brand, wanted someone to run a campaign to promote its new line of sneakers. Because Southeast Asia is an incredibly diverse region, the agency struggled to find an influencer who would appeal across all markets. Eventually, it decided to create its own influencer, using artificial intelligence and the latest 3D-rendering techniques. Through the case, students will study the factors that led the agency to make such a decision, and examine how virtual influencers compare with traditional flesh-and-blood ones, in terms of marketing appeal, cost, and other factors. They will also consider the question of how sustainable virtual influencers are as a marketing tool for future campaigns.

Just before Warren Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway Inc, acquired H. J. Heinz Company on February 14, 2013, rumors had been circulating that the Omaha investing oracle had set eyes on the condiment giant. By the time the official acquisition was announced, questions had arisen about some unusual trading activity in financial markets. A very profitable trade was made on the option market just a few days before the announcement: a $90,000 trade that resulted in profits of around $1.8 million. The case puts students in the shoes of a fictional SEC analyst in charge of investigating rumors of insider trading in the context of Berkshire Hathaway's acquisition of Heinz. Which market would an informed investor with limited capital choose? Which option contract would the insider choose, and why? The case allows the instructor to introduce option "Greeks," measures of sensitivity of option contracts to underlying risk factors. The Greeks are presented in an intuitive fashion, and the analysis provides an applied, true-to-life setting to a topic that students often consider very abstract.

The Peerless Potato Chip Company (Peerless) is a private-label, family-owned-and-operated, national potato chip manufacturer specializing in organic chips. The CEO, Kate Kelly, had been with the company from the beginning-since her uncle had first started making chips more than 25 years earlier on his farm in the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia. In fact, she'd been the primary architect of its growth and expansion. For the first time since its founding, the company's profit margin had been declining steadily-to almost one-third of what it had been just seven years earlier. Kelly admitted that much of the downturn stemmed from her lax, even absentee management. As she came to grips with the situation, Kelly identified an array of missing or incomplete metrics, unquantified performance indicators, and uncontrolled variable costs that were severely impacting the company's bottom line. The case, designed for an MBA or non-MBA audience, is about management, especially of performance-indicating metrics and operating data. Students are asked to consider a number of options Kelly is looking at: determining key manufacturing data, making cuts to the product line, ""going green,"" and other potential cost-cutting and profit-generating possibilities to reverse the downtrend in profits and regain control of the company's finances.

Established in 1969 as a cosmetics lab in the city of São Paulo, Natura grew briskly over the ensuing decades and by 2004 it had become Brazil's largest beauty company. Unlike its competitors, Natura was built on the principle of reconciling socioecological sustainability with value creation. During the 2010s, Natura evolved from a strong regional player focused on a single brand and direct sales to a multinational, multi-brand, multi-channel group and renamed itself Natura &Co. Its three business units, Natura, Aēsop and The Body Shop, operated independently, with decision-making autonomy and their own CEOs and executive teams. Each unit continued to grow and operate sustainably, but group profitability plummeted. In May 2019 Natura &Co announced that it had agreed to acquire mass-market beauty company Avon in a transaction worth $3.7 billion. The takeover would present several challenges, from turning around underperforming Avon to developing a coherent corporate strategy without betraying Natura's sustainability ethos.

In January 2020, the chief executive officer of the family-run business Scak Textiles LLP (Scak), based in India, was thinking about how the company could achieve a new milestone of ₹500 million in revenue by 2025. He wondered why the company, after coming so far, could not achieve that number with a sustainable margin. What else could he do to help Scak reached this target, and how could he solve the bottleneck of resource constraints?<br><br>The bright next-generation entrepreneurs of the family were taking an active interest in the business and had strategic plans for enhancing the effectiveness of both business and revenue models while navigating the ever-changing business ecosystem. The promoters of Scak wanted an outline of the entrepreneurs' recommendations with adequate assumptions and a business valuation. The promoters would expect a 15 per cent return on additional capital invested; the corporate tax rate would be 30 per cent. The next-generation family members saw three possible options: add manufacturing operations, establish e-commerce platforms for business-to-business and business-to-consumer businesses, or enter the business of exporting. Could they take up all three options, or should they maintain the status quo? The value and future of Scak would depend on their decision.

The outbreak of COVID-19 (coronavirus disease, 2019) posed unprecedented challenges to the global supply chains. As a leading and innovative supply chain that achieved just-in-time manufacturing, Apple's performance was put in the spotlight. This case describes how Apple's supply chain has coped with the COVID-19 pandemic. Apple's supply chain has weathered natural disasters, such as earthquakes, fires, floods, and SARS; the risks and challenges brought by the outbreak of COVID-19 were unprecedented and complicated. Unlike the symptoms of SARS patients with high fever, the symptoms of COVID-19 varied; some patients had no symptoms at all, which made them difficult to identify. Moreover, the pandemic complicated supply chain planning because it was difficult, if not impossible, to predict where the next epicenter would be and what measures local governments might take to prevent the further spread of the virus. Social distancing was effective to control the pandemic, but it brought both challenges and opportunities for companies like Apple. On the one hand, social distancing slowed the manufacturing process and had a negative impact on the economy, which could dampen consumer confidence and reduce demand. On the other hand, social distancing boosted the demands for electronic devices, as many people had to work at home. Using this case study, students will understand the importance of risk management in supply chain management and learn the challenges and opportunities of the disruption posed to business operations. The case provides an opportunity for students to discuss and understand why some companies can recover from the disruptions better than other companies and how a resilient supply chain can improve a company's competitiveness.

The case is inspired in the real story of Scott Stiles and the Fair Employment Agency, a non-profit employment agency, founded in Hong Kong, with the purpose of eliminating forced labour. The Agency aims to address this issue with the introduction of a new business model in the domestic worker employment agency industry, which addresses social aims while allowing companies to be profitable. In the business model of the Fair Employment Agency, the hiring of domestic workers is made through transparent pricing and ethical practices, and foreign domestic workers are not required to pay placement fees to find jobs in Hong Kong. This allows foreign domestic workers to be free of debts, therefore being less susceptible to exploitation by employers and employment agencies.

In 2016, Akira Fukabori and Kevin Kajitani, aeronautical engineers at All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd., began to wonder why, in a world of accelerating globalization and digital connectivity, those who lived in far-remote villages or impoverished urban areas could not access high quality education or healthcare. They believed that with a faster, cheaper mode of transportation, they could democratize the world's resources-bring the right people or resources together to the right places at the right time. Although teleportation was still the "stuff of science-fiction," teleporting human consciousness and skills to remote locations through robots was not. Their vision was to build an "avatar service platform"-a global infrastructure of general-purpose avatar robots that humans could rent, like Uber or AirBnB, to perform surgery, defuse a bomb, visit elderly grandparents, attend school, or vacation in distant physical environments. In Akira and Kevin's eyes, ANA was in the mobility business, not just the airline business. They influenced senior management to invest $22 million to fund the ANA AVATAR XPRIZE and, with ANA's support, built a global avatar ecosystem of technologists, start-ups, corporates, non-profits, and government, including the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. As they worked to advance the technology and regulatory landscape, they also generated demand for avatar services-for that, they needed to change the mindset of the general public. By 2020, the "ANA AVATAR" program, as they called it, had made significant progress, and Akira and Kevin initiated the process to spin out of ANA, and launch a start-up, "avatarin." Then, COVID-19 upended reality. The years they thought it would take to create widespread demand for avatar-enabled telepresence had evaporated. Now, the question was, how should they deploy their start-up team to meet the humanitarian need, investor, and partner expectations?

In 2016, Akira Fukabori and Kevin Kajitani, aeronautical engineers at All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd., began to wonder why, in a world of accelerating globalization and digital connectivity, those who lived in far-remote villages or impoverished urban areas could not access high quality education or healthcare. They believed that with a faster, cheaper mode of transportation, they could democratize the world's resources-bring the right people or resources together to the right places at the right time. Although teleportation was still the "stuff of science-fiction," teleporting human consciousness and skills to remote locations through robots was not. Their vision was to build an "avatar service platform"-a global infrastructure of general-purpose avatar robots that humans could rent, like Uber or AirBnB, to perform surgery, defuse a bomb, visit elderly grandparents, attend school, or vacation in distant physical environments. In Akira and Kevin's eyes, ANA was in the mobility business, not just the airline business. They influenced senior management to invest $22 million to fund the ANA AVATAR XPRIZE and, with ANA's support, built a global avatar ecosystem of technologists, start-ups, corporates, non-profits, and government, including the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. As they worked to advance the technology and regulatory landscape, they also generated demand for avatar services-for that, they needed to change the mindset of the general public. By 2020, the "ANA AVATAR" program, as they called it, had made significant progress, and Akira and Kevin initiated the process to spin out of ANA, and launch a start-up, "avatarin." Then, COVID-19 upended reality. The years they thought it would take to create widespread demand for avatar-enabled telepresence had evaporated. Now, the question was, how should they deploy their start-up team to meet the humanitarian need, investor, and partner expectations?

Investors had lost confidence in Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi. It was once one of the world's most valuable private technology companies, valued at USD45bn after four years of operation. With Xiaomi, founder Lei Jun had created an internet company with an online business model that made tech-driven products with minimal margins. It focused on building value around the phone with products and services. Consumers quickly became fans. In 2014, Xiaomi became China's best-selling smartphone brand and also the world's third largest. Investors anticipated continued growth. But the excitement around the company did not last long. In 2016, Xiaomi's overall smartphone shipments fell 36% from the previous year after a series of supply chain issues. To revive investor confidence, Lei adjusted the company's strategic direction and led a series of internal restructurings. Its long-awaited IPO in 2018 was priced at the bottom of the range and raised USD4.7bn, less than half of its initial target. Worse, six months after the IPO, the company's market capitalization had dropped by half. According to some analysts, the company had been "overhyped" and Xiaomi was "just a hardware company." But the image of Xiaomi as a value-for-money brand stuck. Some even gave it the nickname "assembly house." What could Xiaomi do to revive the confidence of investors?

In 2018, after ten years at the helm of the Festival Aix-en-Provence, Bernard Foccroulle had passed the reins to Pierre Audi, leaving behind him a uniquely positioned festival with a distinctive artistic vision renowned for its policy of accessibility and audience diversification. It was also distinguished by being firmly anchored both in its region and in the Mediterranean. In addition to the artistic and economic objectives that generally characterize such organizations, the Festival also had societal objectives. This case unfolds a few months before the passing of the torch.

Drop Technologies Inc. was a major success in the Toronto, Ontario, Canada technology community. Having raised its initial pre-seed funding with only a slide deck, it grew to become a popular loyalty mobile application across North America. In 2017, the company was featured in LinkedIn's top 25 start-ups in Canada, and it closed CA$58 million in a series B funding round. In 2018, the marketing manager had to decide which marketing channel was most effective based on the goals of the company. Traditionally, Drop Technologies Inc. used paid social advertising and referrals to generate user growth. However, the rise of influencer marketing was on the marketing manager's radar, who had previously tested this channel, but had yet to decide whether or not to allocate more of the marketing budget to it. While this channel had many potential benefits, it was still a new concept and held many potential risks.

In May 2020, Chinese state-owned Shandong Gold Group was attempting to acquire the Canadian gold mining company TMAC Resources, whose gold mines were located in the High Arctic. If this acquisition took place, it would be the first time Shandong Gold Group would operate a gold mine outside of China. However, it would be a challenge for Shandong Gold Group to operate a mine in such a hard-to-navigate polar environment. As well, there were other lingering questions: How would the company handle the relationships with the indigenous Inuit people during the development stage of the project? Would Shandong Gold Group's potential acquisition of TMAC Resources be successful, considering the Canadian government's recent strengthening of its reviews of foreign acquisitions of Canadian companies? Would Shandong Gold Group's state-owned identity increase the uncertainty of this potential transaction?

FinVolution Group, previously known as PPDAI (PaiPaiDai), was the first P2P (peer-to-peer) lending company in China. With more than a decade's experience in the online consumer financial industry, the group has developed its core capabilities and a business model that is working well in China. It has gained extensive knowledge and experience in credit risk assessment, fraud detection, big data and artificial intelligence. Its online platform links underserved individual borrowers with financial institutions. By showing how FinVolution has developed its competitive advantages and built a successful online lending business model in China, this case provides an opportunity for students to discuss what factors have led to the success of a fintech company. It raises the question of whether a successful fintech business model developed in one country can be ported to another country. It also highlights the regulatory change challenges facing fintech companies, especially P2P lending companies.

This case describes the aggressive growth of Luckin Coffee since its inception in 2017. In merely two years, Luckin established a coffee network in China, surpassing Starbucks despite the US giant's 20 years of experience in the country. The case concludes with Luckin's announcement of accounting fraud in April 2020, followed by the immediate stock market and investor reaction. The case's epilogue also enables students to consider the spillover implications of accounting scandals for other stakeholders. This case exposes students to several business-related, accounting, and finance issues that lay the foundation for further examination in specific accounting and finance topics.

Kapila Krishi Udyog Limited, a Kanpur-based cattle feed manufacturer, was the market leader in the organised cattle feed market in North India. The organised cattle feed market was estimated at around 17-18% of India's cattle feed market. The product was commodity type and had demand mainly in rural and semiurban areas. Traditionally, Kapila Krishi had a market presence in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, but later, it moved to Punjab and Haryana. It faced competition from national and international brands in the cattle feed market besides competing with many unorganised players. Kapila Krishi saw a decline in its year-on-year revenue growth in 2018-19, but it simultaneously witnessed a massive increase in promotional expenses. The decline in Kapila's revenue growth could be traced to a changing competitive market scenario and unawareness among customers towards market-based cattle feed, besides a lack of strategic fit between market segmentation and marketing mix and a shift in the promotional and distribution strategy. Sameer Shivhare, Director, Kapila Krishi, was concerned with this development and was pondering to prepare a business plan to bring a reversal in declining revenue growth and ensure a steady growth in the business. He had to present the plan in the next board meeting.

In building the International Space Station (ISS), NASA opened the door to the development of a robust in-space economy in low-Earth Orbit, and yet the decision to build the station, and continue to extend its lifetime, placed a huge burden on NASA's Human Spaceflight budget. Should NASA continue to invest in the ISS? Or is it possible for the agency to facilitate the commercialization of the Station and move beyond low-Earth Orbit?

Massachusetts General Brigham (MGB) Chief Innovation Officer Christopher Coburn had overseen a period of exciting transformation and growth in healthcare innovation at MGB. In November 2019, the health system was the largest recipient of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding in the world. The Innovation Office sought to capitalize on that funding. Their team aimed to help the organization's 3,505 Principal Investigators translate and commercialize their research, with the goal of both producing revenue and improving patient care. Despite the success of Coburn and the Innovation Office over the last decade, MGB CEO Anne Klibanski and other key stakeholders had a serious concern. Although women comprised approximately 40% of the medical researchers and physicians it employed, the percentage of women participating in innovation activities lagged behind--in some categories, by a ratio of 4:1. Coburn knew that change would require an understanding of the main sources of disparities, the right strategy to address those disparities, and an equally robust execution. How could MGB expand and diversify its community of innovators?

In March 2020, the director of Shikshaa Public School (SPS), a privately owned school with 785 students, located in Chennai, India, and his wife and co-founder were reviewing the school's performance and deciding its strategy going forward. The Indian education sector was highly regulated and competitive. Government schools, government-aided schools, and private schools all competed for new student enrolments to obtain a portion of the US$101.1 billion (in fiscal year 2019) Indian education sector. Having recently taken out a bank loan to construct a school building that increased SPS's capacity to 3,000 students, the cofounders were considering ways to increase SPS's revenue and profitability. The options considered were (1) more effective marketing to attract an increased enrolment of new students; (2) relocation of SPS to an upmarket location, where families had the potential to pay higher fees; and (3) acquisition of another school to expand rapidly and leverage the SPS brand.

Foodics aimed to develop a point-of-sale system that offered food and beverage establishments an all-in-one workflow solution, providing a digital menu system to replace outdated analog systems and paper stickers to update menu prices. The case study discusses the hurdles and complexities of bringing what appeared to be a logical and simple digital solution to market, as well as plan for strategic expansion across multiple countries. Integrating Foodics' digital meus into existing point-of-sale systems would involve unexpected challenges, as the founders soon realized restaurants and coffee shops in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Middle East relied on proprietary technology platforms for many of their business operations. Further complicating matters, the highly individualized rules, laws, and ways of doing business in different cities would require local staff and expertise, and a large field sales organization.