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In May 2018, Singapore's publicly-listed Hyflux Ltd, which was once the world's fifth largest desalination plant supplier, filed for court-supervised reorganisation of its liabilities and businesses. The company's total liabilities had escalated to S$3.4 billion (Including contingent liabilities); while its readily available cash balance was S$18.9 million and its market capitalisation was S$165 million. The court granted the company a debt moratorium, which was extended several times as Hyflux explored options of capital injection from strategic investors, asset sales and rescue financing. The revelation that the once-star company was under water and drowning in debt shocked the stakeholders. How and why did this reversal of fortune happen? Were there any red flags leading to this fallout? How would the financial restructuring affect the stakeholders? Finally, what lessons in financial management could be drawn for the company, creditors, banks and investors?

By February 2019, General Motors Company (GM) had evolved into one of the three dominant North American automobile manufacturers, selling over 10 million vehicles annually. However, GM's global market share had been declining over the previous 10-15 years due to intense competition in the small and mid-sized car segment from new entrants with a cost structure unlike global competitors and a product marketing strategy more focused on price than quality products. This development forced GM to rely heavily on sales of its pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles to increase gross margins that had been consistently below industry averages. At this point, the industry was also shifting toward a new automotive platform and related business model dominated by autonomous and electric vehicles. GM had to find a way to transform its current business and profit model to meet the needs and trends of an emerging electric and autonomous vehicle industry.

In 2018, the Singapore-based telecommunication operator StarHub Ltd. (StarHub) acknowledged that in 2017 its total revenue was relatively flat and its net profit had declined. In the face of rising competition and a slowing global economy, the company needed to explore new sources of revenue growth. Two areas of growth seemed promising. The first area involved the launch of StarHub's smart retail analytics for small and medium enterprises in the retail food and beverages industry, which had been experiencing a high churn rate. The second area would apply StarHub's new robotics and automation solutions in the labour-intensive hospitality industry, which suffered from an oversupply of properties and would likely see exits and consolidation. StarHub needed to choose between the two investment options.

This case asks students to review 10 columns of financial data drawn from 10 different companies and to match each with an industry in a list of 10 industries.

This case represents an amalgam of commonly reported experiences people have when interacting with others from different social class backgrounds and positions of power. The A case takes the perspective of Dan Marlow, who grew up with access to financial and cultural resources and has built his own construction company. He has just fired Robby Gomez, an otherwise great worker, for chronic lateness, and he wonders why he is having trouble motivating and keeping employees. The B case takes the viewpoint of Gomez, who works hard but has trouble getting to work on time because of practical difficulties like car trouble and obligations to family and others in his community. By comparing the perspectives and experiences of these two protagonists, students learn to see how our own experiences and cultural knowledge can inform our decisions and the employee programs that we design. Because we are not aware of cultural norms that we have not personally experienced, we need to include a diversity of viewpoints in the decision-making and design process in order to design effective systems and have effective interactions across differences.

Kewal Balana, Proprietor of Ganga Enterprises (Commission Agent firm) at Sriganga Nagar, Rajasthan, a province in western India, was worried about the government decision of abolishment of 2 % commission in May 2018, in 'Kachi-Aadat' line of business, due to the direct online transfer of money to farmer's bank account. Due to the abolishment of commission the firm suffered a net reduction in profit of INR 1 million, 2% of INR 50 million of commodities sold by the business to the government every year. More than the abolishment of commission, he was concerned about the recovery of interest on credit which he had been providing to approximately 400 farmers for more than 40 years. Ganga enterprises provided short term credit to farmers on interest rates ranging from 15% - 18%. Considering the above situation, Bhushan Kumar, younger brother of Kewal Balana, wanted to quit the Kachi- Aadat line of business and move to Pakki-Aadat line of business. This would help the firm to sell commodities directly to the industrial unit and charge 1% commission on net sales. His son Shobhit Kumar Balana on the other hand wanted to enter into an entirely new line of business where in the firm would buy the commodities, store them and sell them later when the prices increase (stock trading). He wanted to enter the business of stock trading using his knowledge of agricultural market and commodity derivatives and trading.

By 2019, two-sided online platforms (or marketplaces) were among the highest-growing internet startups around. These marketplaces sought to match suppliers of assets for rent, physical products, or services with customers demanding them. Among the most notable two-sided platforms that quickly reached millions of customers were Airbnb, Etsy, and Uber. They offered short-term property rentals, handcrafted goods, and car rides, respectively. As two-sided markets grew past the 1 million customer mark, challenges of typical large businesses appeared. Among the challenges facing Airbnb, Etsy, and Uber were maintaining the fast pace of customer acquisition, reducing customer retention problems, and avoiding regulatory issues. How did these platforms balance their fast growth and massive size with so little time to adapt to ever mounting challenges? How did they adapt and change their customer acquisition tactics to grow from 1 million to many millions of customers so quickly? This is the third and final instalment of the Airbnb, Etsy, Uber trilogy.

Building on his father's legacy, Omar Alghanim (MBA 2002) had been working on strengthening a performance-driven culture based on meritocracy in the family business, Alghanim Industries. The task had been particularly challenging because of traditional Middle East practice of relying on relationships and influence to conduct business. Omar's vision attracted and empowered like-minded employees who were rewarded on merit and who delivered on the firm's mission of providing excellent service to its customers. Together, they revamped the company's performance and compensation system and established a well-structured control and compliance mechanism. The next challenge for Omar was to transform the workforce from a mono-culture, male-dominant expat community to a diverse mix of people, cultures, backgrounds, and viewpoints. In particular, he needed to find a way to attract talented women and local Kuwaitis to become part of his organization.

A group of Canadian parents wanted the Canadian government to create a redress system related to Canada's no-fly list, which affected some of their young children whenever they flew. The parents formed an advocacy group called the No Fly List Kids group in 2016, and the group undertook various campaigns-including innovative guerrilla marketing campaigns and uses of both digital and traditional marketing-to highlight the issue of Canadian children being identified as potential security risks before they boarded flights within Canada. Over a three-year period, the group worked to raise awareness of the issue and to pressure the Canadian government to create a redress system similar to that in the United States. Its efforts eventually resulted in the allocation in 2018 of CA$81.4 million dollars for a redress system. In November 2018, the group was scheduled to meet members of the Senate, and it had to decide what short-term and long-term activities to undertake to achieve its stated goal of having a functioning redress system that would help all those affected by the no-fly list-not only children of group members, but all people, young and old, from various backgrounds.

In 2018, Volkswagen Group's newly appointed chief executive officer renewed the company's commitment to Strategy 2025, an ongoing plan intended to radically transform the German automaker. Volkswagen was being challenged by tectonic changes in the automotive industry, including the phasing out of the long-standing internal combustion engine, ongoing digitization, the entry of new competition from technology companies, the introduction of electric vehicles, and the launch of ride-sharing applications. Strategy 2025 was designed to reshuffle the company's existing formal and informal structures and restructure the automaker into a nimble, agile, and innovative corporation ready to face the realities of mobility in the digital age. The new chief executive officer faced huge expectations concerning the effectiveness and sustainability of Strategy 2025. Was the automaker doing enough to transform into a competitive mobility company?

This case describes a business opportunity for B+L, a German firm that forecasts demand for construction materials. China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a large infrastructure building program, could allow B+L to broaden both its product range and its client base. The protagonist is Martin Langen, the founder and chief executive officer of B+L. His firm produces forecasts for a range of construction materials in particular geographies. The forecasts are based on publicly available data. B+L adds value by creating models that contain a variety of factors and adjustments to produce forecasts that are standard and directly comparable across regions. This kind of forecast is unavailable elsewhere, and is highly valued by construction materials makers. When China announced the BRI, a plan to build infrastructure along the old silk routes through central Asia, Martin believed B+L could create new forecast products to estimate demand for construction materials in BRI affected markets. Since these markets were not always well developed, and there was a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the BRI projects, B+L would have to develop new techniques to create the new forecasts.

This disguised case presents the situation confronting the new VP materials supply chain as "HungryPet". Newly arrived in the role, the VP realizes that the ambitious new project to implement an end-to-end planning system neglects the key bottleneck of materials supply between the HungryPet factories and their packaging and ingredient vendors. In response to this situation, the VP conceives a new, innovative cloud solution to improve collaboration between HungryPet and its vendors. The solution would improve and streamline the information flow, saving planner time and propagating supply requirements and confirmations faster. This would protect and enable the expected benefits of the new planning system project. Ideal as an exam question for MBA or Master students, a Teaching Note is provided. This contains a grading guide as well as sample submissions considered exemplary.

The case examines the strategy, impact, and sustainability of a boutique philanthropy with a big goal: change the way people donate to charities. Epic Foundation was founded to support a portfolio of children's charities. Now, its leadership was considering taking on a broader role: to reshape the very nature of charitable giving-in the U.S., France, the United Kingdom and globally. Its wealthy, charismatic leader, Alexandre Mars, thought that Epic could be at the forefront of a movement to transform the global culture of giving. But there was an open question among the fundraising, communications and marketing teams at Epic about how to jockey between the management and growth of its portfolio and this new advocacy orientation. It was unclear whether Epic could simultaneously pursue both. Should Epic continue to grow and possibly diversify its portfolio of charities, or should it focus more on an advocacy model? Mars wanted to advocate for "making giving the norm"-a call for citizens to make frequent charitable donations through work, point-of-purchase and online channels. But were Epic's ideas truly innovative when it came to fostering this giving norm and was it positioned to advocate for it?

PremiumSoft, a Hong Kong-based software company, relied heavily on its creative workforce to drive new product delivery, manage product upgrades, and incorporate customer feedback in its products. As founder and Director of Software Development, the core responsibility of Ken Lin was setting up strategic goals for the organization and identifying new products and opportunities for innovation to ensure the company's growth. In addition to this role, Ken had been the company's human resource (HR) manager since its founding. He alone handled all the HR-related activities including recruiting and retaining talent, and ensuring a healthy work environment. This role, however, had become more challenging over time. Demand for good developers was at an all-time high, and just across the border, Chinese companies such as Alibaba and Tencent were willing to provide Silicon Valley-like salaries and benefits to attract developers.

Yalia, a Chinese tech company that is experiencing rapid expansion overseas, has been sending more expatriates on assignment in recent years, but its approach to global mobility has not caught up. Managers are not strategic about the expatriation process. Existing mobility policy guidelines are unclear and has not been adjusted to address the company's expansion needs. Xiao Jing, the new human resources director at Yalia, is becoming frustrated with the outdated approach as she deals with a recent complaint from a Chinese mid-level manager, Fan Kewen. Fan, the head of Dubai's office, thinks it is unfair that his housing budget is lower than that of his US colleague from a newly acquired cloud solutions company, and he threatens to shorten his assignment. As she investigates further, she uncovered the difficulties of Fan working in a foreign culture, as well as differences in cultural and policy practices at Yalia and the acquired company. Jing suggests to Liu Hong, head of global strategy and managing director about a policy overhaul, but Hong dismissed, and instead asks her to use monetary incentives to keep assignees happy. What should she do? The case demonstrates how global mobility policies need to consider operational needs, business strategy and talent strategies. It breaks down the components of an expatriate package, and shows how culture can play into its design. It also shows the impact of having a well-structured, strategic approach to managing mobility programs.

Rachael Ray built a remarkable career and brand, first as a cooking personality, and then as a lifestyle maven. This case explores her early career, decisions taken along the way, and the successes she achieved in publishing, television and as a spokesperson. As her career matured, the case follows the choices she made and charts the opportunities a brand personality such as Ray faces in reinventing themselves authentically over time. It provides students with insights into managing a career over the span of life events; the ways a narrative arc helps anchor an individual's story, and may need to be actively managed over time; and the tradeoffs at play in managing such a narrative.

The case recaps the development of a contemporary online furniture brand in China, and the path of development to ride on the wave of digital retail. From an art store in Beijing's 798 Art District to becoming an online furniture brand on Tmall, Uvanart has positioned itself as an "affordable and artistic" furniture brand and built quite a following in the last few years. But China's home furniture market is fiercely competitive. Traditional custom-furniture brands Oppein (欧派家居), Soufeiya (索菲亚), and Homekoo (尚品宅配) have all gone public. Internet giants Alibaba and Tencent have teamed up with retail mall operators Easy Home (居然之家) and Red Star Macalline (红星美凯龙), to gain a foothold in the growing market. Online furniture design brands like Zaozuo (造作) and Ziin (吱音) have won the hearts of China's millennial consumers as well as venture capitalists seeking high growth investment opportunities. Growth and scale are critical to Uvanart in the coming years. Was the "affordable and artistic" brand strategy a sustainable differentiation?

MP Maintenance was a social enterprise composed of several micro-businesses (landscaping, window cleaning, pressure washing, graffiti removal, litter pick up, etc.) offering transitional employment to individuals previously living on the streets. Like many budding social enterprises, MP Maintenance needed to carefully balance the organization's social mission and the financial competitiveness of the services that it offered. In May 2016, Matt Smedley, executive director and chief executive officer, and David Greaves, general manager, sat together in the company board room awaiting the arrival of the four college students who had agreed to help them develop a marketing strategy. Their common goal was to enable the social enterprise to continue to deliver on its mission - supporting the employees of Mission Possible - while generating an unrestricted flow of revenue. After seven years spent establishing and growing the business, a fresh set of eyes was welcomed.

In March 2018, Snap Inc. (Snap), based in Venice, California, and commonly known as Snapchat for its application that allowed users to send photos that disappeared, was looking for ways to grow its user base in the competitive social media platform industry and to differentiate itself from the other major platforms. To do this, it was trying to position itself as a "camera" company and to become relevant to a larger target market: adults aged 25 and older, a demographic that seemed already well-served by current social media platform options.