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This case introduces Qualcomm's licensing practices in the mobile telecom sector, with a focus on the Chinese market. The point of view adopted is that of the partners of the fictitious Xiao Xing, a Chinese mobile phone start-up that has no sales yet but requires Qualcomm's chips in order to prototype its product. There are two cases. The main issues examined in Case A are: (a) the sort of questions and issues that entrepreneurs must examine when planning a technology start-up, including financing, location, and access to seed money; and (b) the terms under which Qualcomm's chips can be procured, and the problems posed by such terms, especially regarding the royalties involved, cross-licensing provisions included in their standard agreements, and their impact on the viability of the start-up.

Food Angel is a Hong Kong based social venture that recycles food into cooked meals for Hong Kong's poor. Founded by Gigi Tung, Food Angel has growth so a successful organisation employing over 200 paid staff and 20,000 volunteers who process over 10,000 meals and 200 food packs daily. Gigi believes her philosophy and leadership are working successfully. But going forward, as the charity expands, she wants to develop leadership from within. Can institutional culture, once established, be changed?

The Kolo Nafaso programme was started in 2009 in Burkina Faso by AAK, a 140-year-old Swedish supplier of vegetable fats and oils. AAK created a direct link with the producers - women in West Africa who traditionally harvested shea nuts - and cut out the middlemen. The aim was to improve productivity and pay a fair price. As a cocoa butter equivalent, the oil from the nuts was a major ingredient for chocolate manufacturers, who could then claim that their products were made from traceable ingredients and a sustainable supply - a growing concern for consumers and investors. As the programme expanded from Burkina Faso to Ghana, AAK met several obstacles: maintaining the loyalty of the shea producers when local competitors offered higher prices, operational challenges associated with expansion, ensuring a stable supply despite political unrest in Burkina Faso, rising costs, and realising the potential brand value of Kolo Nafaso.

Precision medicine company Blueprint Medicines was building a successful track record for bringing drug therapies to market 40% faster than average. The company had spent $40 million dollars and two years building a compound library that became its drug development engine. Blueprint's drug development strategy was twofold-it focused on creating a single drug compound for multiple disease indications, while at the same time developing drugs to track a disease through its progression. The company's goal was to become a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company that could move from drug discovery to development to marketing. But it was increasingly challenging to prioritize and manage programs, personnel and partnerships.

By April 7, 2020, over 1.4 million people worldwide had contracted the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Governments raced to curb the spread of COVID-19 by scaling up testing, quarantining those infected, and tracing their possible contacts. It had taken Singapore's Government Technology Agency (GovTech) and Ministry of Health (MOH) all of eight weeks to develop the world's first nationwide deployment of a Bluetooth-based contact tracing system, TraceTogether, and deploy it in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19. From late January to mid-March 2020, GovTech's Jason Bay and his team raced to create a technology that would supplement the work of Singapore's human contact tracers. Days after its launch, Singapore's foreign minister announced plans to open source the technology. Now, in early April, TraceTogether was a beta for the world. Whether the system would really help in Singapore, and whether other countries should adopt it was still a wide-open question.

This case describes the development of the Boeing 737 Max airplane model and the events leading up to two tragic plane crashes, in which a total of 346 people died: the crash of Lion Air flight 610 on October 29, 2018, in Indonesia, and the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 on March 9, 2019, in Ethiopia. The evolution of Boeing's organization and management is described, focusing on the span from Boeing's 1997 merger with rival McDonnell Douglas through the development of the 737 Max and the crashes. The case examines the antecedents and possible causes of the crashes, both through the lens of industry and competitive dynamics and through the lens of corporate culture and development processes at Boeing. The development of the 737 Max is described in detail, including the factors and decisions that led to the development of the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), the system that ultimately led to the crashes. Information about Boeing's response and actions during the period between the two crashes is also included in the case.

Brewing Peace was a company based in the Philippines that sold coffee beans. Despite having a base of 80 customers, 70 per cent of its business depended on 9 key accounts; this included its biggest buyer, Concepcion Coffee Enterprises Limited (CCEL), which accounted for 20 per cent of Brewing Peace's revenues. After a ₱30 million order from CCEL with a profit margin of less than 20 per cent, a payment period of 90 days, and a short delivery time, the co-founder of Brewing Peace was forced to review its relationship with its biggest client. The dilemma facing Brewing Peace was that it could not accept this order on CCEL's terms without jeopardizing the company's payment terms with its vendors and affecting the supply for orders, worth ₱25 million, to its other customers.

In 2018, the Singapore-based real estate agency OrangeTee launched a new, online platform in response to disruptive innovation in the real estate sector. Property Agents Review allowed clients to rate and review OrangeTee's agents upon the completion of a real estate transaction. After a hard-fought campaign to overcome initial resistance to the idea, agents credited the new platform with an increase in referrals. OrangeTee proudly championed Property Agents Review as an example of embracing technology and a future-focused outlook. Nevertheless, the management team understood that there was more work to be done. For example, the platform's technology could be easily copied by competitors. What could they do to stay at the forefront of technology?

In late 2016, it had been three years since Blackstone Group Inc. (Blackstone) had completed its last public-to-private leveraged buyout (LBO), and it had US$45 billion of capital available for investment, called "dry powder." Blackstone's head of private equity (PE) blamed this public LBO drought on "historically high multiples of cash flow." Blackstone submitted a preliminary offer to acquire a firm they had previously acquired 11 years earlier and exited in 2009. The banks committed to provide a senior credit facility, consisting of a seven-year Term Loan B, a revolver, and junk bonds; management provided forecasts of revenue and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization. The four-week exclusivity period was set to expire, and previous bidders in a recent takeover battle could re-emerge. Blackstone had to determine a final offer based on their LBO model.

Based in the Canadian Prairies, Promotions Manufacturing had been manufacturing promotional items for over 40 years. The organizational structure consisted of four manufacturing units and the administration department, each with its own distinctive staffing needs and cost structure; consequently, profitability calculations and operations management had become increasingly difficult. In June 2018, the question of how to allocate the overhead and administration costs to each manufacturing unit became a pressing concern. The different cost allocation methods resulted in diverse profitability levels. Subsequently, decision-making with regard to production priorities, operation scheduling, and staffing needs had become unsystematic, often resulting in missed deadlines and disappointed customers. The general manager had to make a decision: which cost allocation method would offer the most accurate profit centre profitability, provide guidelines in reorganizing operations, and result in higher efficiencies?

Haboydem was a second hand clothing store in Jerusalem that operated as a social enterprise by hiring and training individuals who were living with mental illness. The two store locations had successfully trained workers, and 70 per cent were able to find employment in mainstream businesses; however, in mid-2017, the co founders faced new issues. How should they deal with emerging competition from other second hand clothing retailers? How should they address the possibility of partnerships with other organizations? Should the company expand to additional locations or into additional activities? How should the co-founders measure Haboydem's success? They needed to reflect on how to best address these challenges, and how their social enterprise could best move forward toward a long term future.

Digital to the core has been a rally call in DBS Bank for almost a decade. The bank was recognized as the "World's Best Digital Bank" by Euromoney twice in 2016 and 2018 respectively. What role did HR play in supporting the bank's transformation journey? The aspiration to transform the bank into a 28,000-person startup culture requires the Human Resources Division to reimage the HR value chain. What would a HR digital roadmap look like? How would employees, including potential new hires, experience an employee-centric digital culture? In a global war for digital talent, how to win the heads and hearts of employees?

Career Karma is a startup focused on helping individuals looking to transition careers into computer engineering roles or similar fields by preparing them for formal technical training programs, or "coding bootcamps," that would lead to a successful career pivot upon graduating from the program. The platform also encouraged users to engage with each other in "squad" support groups and paired users with mentors (other users who successfully transitioned careers through Career Karma). This case explores the journey of Career Karma's three founders and navigating growth through an unexpected recession caused by a global pandemic.

The case describes widespread misconduct at Wells Fargo Community Bank in the period leading up to 2017 and the company's subsequent attempts to improve internal controls, company culture, and corporate governance. The case examines the potential causes of large scale customer related fraud in the Community Banking Division and across a range of businesses. The extent and length of time over which these misconduct events took place suggested a company that was fundamentally unable to ensure a compliance culture and customer focus among its employees. The case describes in detail the systems and practices that led to the systematic failures. Faced with withering political and regulatory scrutiny the company embarked upon a series of initiatives to improve systems and structure to prevent such misconduct and improve culture. The case describes these initiatives and the challenges faced in implementing them. The case also focuses on the role of the board in overseeing and improving internal control and corporate culture. The case ends with discussing entry of a new CEO amidst board turnover in March 2020.

This case illustrates the challenges that retailers face when they aggressively pursue geographical growth by expanding both their physical store network and their online presence. It features Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) Retail, a franchisee of Carrefour hypermarkets in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, a company that strived to strike the right balance of offline and online for each of the markets it served. MAF Retail had a strong presence in the Middle East, particularly in its home market, the United Arab Emirates, and it had been building its presence in Egypt, Pakistan, Kenya, Georgia, and most recently in Uganda. There were also opportunities to open hundreds more stores in each of these markets and expand into 15 other countries in Asia and Africa where it had a license. But the retail environment was changing across the globe, owing to a shift in consumer behaviors that accompanied the rise of the online-only players. CEO Hani Weiss had been driving a digital transformation within the company, building the necessary technology and online capabilities to provide a seamless experience to its customers. The company also partnered with online-only players to increase its reach to customers in countries where MAF Retail had a presence and to provide an online offer to customers where it had no online store. Going forward, Weiss faced hard choices in deciding which markets to prioritize. He also had to determine the right balance of offline and online for each market. Should he invest his resources in opening new stores, or in building online capabilities-or both? How would his strategy differ in the key markets?

In July 2019, AFC Ajax's chief executive officer Edwin van der Sar finalized one of the biggest transfers in soccer-that of Matthijs de Ligt, only 19 years old but already one of the sports world's brightest stars-from AFC Ajax to Italian powerhouse Juventus FC for a €75 million fee. A few months earlier, Ajax had sold another young star, Frenkie de Jong, to Spanish champions FC Barcelona for a record €86 million. Once Europe's most feared team, Ajax had lost its prominence to teams from Europe's bigger leagues since the mid-1990s but gained a stellar reputation as a feeder of young talent to clubs in those leagues. Now, just as Ajax seemingly was making its way back to the highest echelons of European soccer-in the 2018-2019 season, Ajax managed to advance to the semifinal of the Champions League, Europe's most elite club competition-the club would lose two players who played a crucial role in its comeback. Did van der Sar have the right strategy to find long-term success? Could Ajax continue to develop soccer's next superstars-all while challenging Europe's elite clubs?

In April 2013, TransDigm, a company that manufactured a wide range of highly engineered aerospace parts for both military and commercial aircraft, announced an agreement to acquire Aerosonic Corporation for $39 million in cash (1.2 times Aerosonic's sales of $31 million). Having acquired more than 40 companies in the past 20 years, TransDigm was an experienced acquirer with a unique business model focused exclusively on value creation. This case describes TransDigm's acquisition process with a focus on the merger negotiations and the key contractual terms in the merger agreement (break-up fees, go shop period, standstill provision, top-up options, etc.). It serves as a complement to the TransDigm in 2017 case (HBS #720-422). Whereas the TransDigm case provides an overview of the company, its history, its value creation strategy, and its financial performance, the Aerosonic case provides a deep dive into a single transaction as a way to illustrate TransDigm's acquisition-driven growth strategy and to practice valuing an acquisition offer using multiple methods. Ultimately, the goal is to understand the change in value from a standalone company to a fully integrated and value-enhanced subsidiary of the TransDigm Group.

The first two cases in this series are set in the financial services industry, and explore whether it is better for back-office workers to be generalists who provide the flexibility of being able to handle the complete range of transactions that the company faces or specialists who focus on a subset of the overall transaction mix. The objective is to introduce the advantages of demand pooling in reducing the variability associated with the forecasting of highly variable workloads, while also demonstrating the benefits to worker learning and efficiency improvements that can come from specialization. The case is set at the Retail Investor Group Operations of the Vanguard Group, the mutual funds and ETF giant. Karin Risi, the managing director, is faced with a back-office operation that hasn't kept up with massive transaction growth, one that is struggling under the weight of mounting client phone call and transaction volumes, client complaints, and buckling employee morale. And worse, the press was taking notice. The (A) case details the complexity in the growing backlog and frames the question of whether they should pursue a specialist model. The (B) case, for distribution in class, details the impact of an initial segmentation of workload into eight categories and poses additional questions for class discussion and analysis.

The case series titled "Indian Railways - Powering Through to Excellence (A) & (B)" are highly intricate and complex primary data pricing cases involving a public-private partnership (PPP) undertaking by the Indian government, specifically the Indian Railways (IR). The seed of the idea lived through multiple governments and IR administrations before becoming a reality. The pricing and plant development decision took seven years to execute. While the case can be viewed broadly as a study of a PPP project in India, the significant aspect of the project is that it was initiated primarily with price considerations in mind. The IR had been facing rising engine costs for its locomotives, poor asset utilization rates, exorbitant costs for replacement parts and underperformance in asset service and repair. The technology platform of its current fleet of 6,000 HP locomotives and spare components was nearly 20 years old.