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In 2017, the president and co-owner of MacKinnon Industries was considering the opportunity to diversify his business and bring a former family business back into the MacKinnon family. With an extensive background in acquiring and managing manufacturing businesses, he now had an opportunity to purchase Corkford Brewery Inc. (Corkford Brewery). The deal included the land, building, and equipment, as well as four successful brands from Tanzer Brewing Company, which owned Corkford Brewery. MacKinnon wanted to evaluate the financial viability of the business venture under three different potential operating scenarios, assess the potential of adding ciders to the product mix, and consider the price that he would be willing to pay to acquire the business.

This case is part of a series of four integrated cases about The Empowerment Plan (TEP), a Detroit-based nonprofit that worked to break the cycle of homelessness through training, employment, and job placement. Founded in 2012 by Veronika Scott, TEP recruited employees through homeless shelters and provided them with training, education, and full-time employment manufacturing sleeping bag coats. The specially designed coats were distributed free of charge to the homeless population. Case A presents basic information about the founding of TEP, how employees were hired and trained, employee roles on the production line, and how employees were promoted, managed and motivated. The case also introduces the concept of the TEP internship/fellowship program and is appropriate for a class session focused on job design and job crafting.

The Indian digital payment market was estimated to grow to around USD 700 billion - USD 1 trillion by 2022. A number of players had entered the market to challenge Paytm which aimed to maintain its prominent position in the Indian mobile wallet space. To increase its user base and use-cases, Paytm introduced the Lucky Lifafa campaign to provide Indian users a novel way of sending money as a gift. The campaign bore similarities to the Red Envelope campaign used by WeChat to garner a wide user base in Chine. In spite of gift-giving being an integral part of Indian culture, the acceptance of Lucky Lifafa among Indian users was significantly different from that of the Red Envelope among Chinese users. The case describes the Lucky Lifafa campaign and the context in which it was executed, thus highlighting the differences in the way gifts are given in Chinese and Indian societies. Additionally, the case also provides details of existing and upcoming players in the mobile wallet market space in India.

Eating raw fish was not very common in Madrid in 1999, other than a few Japanese restaurants that existed. These restaurants were either targeting Japanese tourists in Madrid or well-traveled, high-income individuals who had discovered sushi abroad. Sushita's founders belonged to the second group. Young and cosmopolitan, both Sandra Segimon and Natasha Apolinario were quickly attracted to sushi on their trips to London and New York. A healthy, low-calorie, high-protein diet, which, in addition to being good for their bodies, was also delicious. They started their business by developing sushi trays. After years of growing a successful sushi takeaway business, one of their most important clients was lost in an expansion strategy disagreement. The client was forcing Sushita to open a large number of sushi corners at their own expense. This client represented 35% of their sales so losing them as a client was a huge blow to their projected revenues for that year and years to come. Following this major setback, Sandra and Natasha decided to never again be overly dependent on a single client. So what should they do? They were already present in the most important supermarket chains in Spain, and they had recently started selling frozen takeaways to major Spanish national hotel chains. They knew that they needed to continue growing the Sushita brand, but how?

ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, the viral short video app, made headline news when its valuation jumped to $75 billion, surpassing Uber ($72 billion) to become the world's most valuable start-up. ByteDance leveraged capabilities in consumer-focused artificial intelligence (AI) to become one of the first Chinese Big Tech digital platforms to succeed outside China, notably in the US and India. The case focuses on the strategic value of predictive AI on the supply and demand sides of digital content, illustrating how AI-based tools enable the production of viral content and customized delivery and consumption. It compares the Chinese and US approach to AI, drawing a distinction between their implementation and innovative capabilities. Other issues include the internationalization of digital platforms, notably the management of inappropriate and illegal content in the respective institutional settings, and China's unique approach to content filtering that combines AI with human censors. Competition with China's other Big Tech companies - Tencent and Baidu - is also discussed. The case can also be used as a general introduction to artificial intelligence, including a brief history of AI (Section 2), categorization of AI applications (Section 3), and a comparison of AI in China and the US (Section 4).

In June 2018, the executive vice-president of Networks and Information Technology of KPN BV (KPN), Bouke Hoving, was evaluating the digital transformation of KPN, the leading telecommunications company in the Netherlands. Hoving had been an initiator of a turnaround that had started at KPN in 2014, after a financially and operationally hectic year. The entry into the market of over-the-top digital services, which used the Internet to bypass platforms the traditional telecommunications companies had once used to control access to customers, had forced KPN to act swiftly, fundamentally revisiting its strategy. By 2018, KPN was in much better shape. By working in agile ways, it had been able to respond more quickly to market and technological developments. Short-term survival seemed to have been secured. The question still to be addressed was how to accelerate KPN's transformation with the aim of making KPN a winner in a world where digital dominated.

In 2014, with Uber disrupting the taxi industry worldwide and Montreal's industry, hampered by obsolete rules and regulations, in dire need of a revolution, the founders of Teo Taxi hoped to offer a fresh alternative. They proposed a unique business model based on an electric-only taxicab fleet, decent wages for drivers, and profits reinvested in the local economy. Reinventing an industry and fighting strong adversaries such as Uber would however come at a huge cost. The case recounts the story of a young company striving to reach breakeven without compromising the social and environmental values at its core. Despite its best efforts, in January 2019, Teo Taxi filed for bankruptcy, leaving 450 drivers jobless. The case invites students to identify the factors that led to Teo Taxi's bankruptcy and propose strategies that could have helped to achieve breakeven, stabilize the business model, and ensure sustainability.

Reissco, a Tier 2 automotive supplier of chassis and safety technologies, is being squeezed by retail customers like Auto Zone who demand low prices and high service levels. In this environment, companies like Reissco must be as efficient as possible to survive. So, Reissco decided to outsource its production, closing its last remaining internal production plant. Unfortunately, diminishment of expertise often follows losing internal production, and in the case there is strong evidence that this has happened at Reissco. The company does not seem to understand the real cost drivers and is, therefore, vulnerable to opportunistic price changes by its suppliers. Additionally, Reissco is unable to capture upside benefits when supplier costs go down.

Play@Work is an online system that allows employees to award honorary 'medals' to subordinates, superiors and colleagues for actions that reinforce the company's values, and 'golden beans' that can be exchanged for benefits. Awards can be issued and are publicly accessible to all in real-time. Play@Work can realize a flat, flexible and warm management style, allowing organizational culture to motivate and regulate members' behaviors in a subtle manner, and give employees a clear idea of who appreciates, encourages and inspires them. The system has been fully implemented in Yonyou and has redefined work relationships. The prominent features of this case are novelty and practicality. Novelty is reflected in Play@Work's position as a cultural communication tool in the era of digital human resource management. Play@Work best suits enterprises dominated by knowledge workers, particularly those under strong pressure to innovate. Practicality is reflected in its use of 'soft' cultural management tools through a system consisting of medals, golden beans and other concrete actions. Before the introduction of Play@Work, enterprises mainly sought to improve their managers' awareness and skills by means of training, but due to the absence of a practical tool, the results of such training largely depended on the manager's own understanding and self-motivation. Play@Work provides a concrete method to communicate issues of corporate culture, and its versatile applications make it useful in a wide range of management scenarios. Improving work performance is one of the objectives of management, but the challenge that managers often encounter is that they are excessively task-driven and tend to neglect human elements. Play@Work operates on the principle that engaging with people on a human level can facilitate work and the attainment of targets. The value of this case is reflected in its demonstration of ways to improve work relationships by means of managing organizational culture.

In 2015, in Aalborg, Denmark, the two co-founders of Better World Fashion formed their company as a social enterprise, aiming to highlight all that was wrong with the fashion industry and offer a cleaner and more ethical solution. The business was designed to focus not only on profit but also on minimizing the environmental impact of the supply chain. The founders chose to specialize in garments made from re-purposed leather, as leather had a long lifespan, and could be reused repeatedly without its qualities diminishing. Leather was also the most resource-consuming garment material to produce, and therefore was both the most environmentally damaging material and the material that was most in need of recycling. The company's business model aimed to gain a competitive advantage through its image as a sustainable brand and its premium-quality products, which incorporated an emotional connection through the use of unique serial numbers and storytelling. However, in 2018, the co-founders wondered whether the company should continue as it had been originally positioned or whether it should change its strategies for growth and competitive advantage in international marketing.

Even as a teenager, Nadine Vogel knew she wanted to be an executive with a FORTUNE 500 company. This case chronicles her journey and her life and career choices, from college through her midlife decision to leave the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, where she had spearheaded the launch of a new division aimed at serving parents of children with disabilities. Vogel's leadership and career negotiating skills are exemplified, as she navigates through a myriad of personal and professional obstacles.

This case highlights the design, process changes and implementation challenges in an e-governance project designed for property registration in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh (MP). It identifies the critical success factors and the linkages between a good design and acceptance (adoption) both by users of the systems (officials) and citizens. The outdated legal and largely manual processes of the government, the intricacies of public procurement, lack of in-house capabilities and the requirement to interface with citizens make e-governance projects some of the most challenging projects to implement. Computerisation of such systems also leads to a review of underlying processes, changes of roles of employees and organisational restructuring. Adding to this difficulty is the environment of public procurement characterised by poor quality specifications and complex¬¬ regulations. Lack of in-house capabilities often means reliance on vendors and consultants without having the ability to effectively oversee the outputs that often leads to tremendous costs on training and deployment. Designing systems with an interface to citizens involves ensuring proper blueprint and flow of processes that facilitate their usage and contextual user experience, especially as government services may cater to wide variations in citizen profiles. The case highlights the implementation process adopted in developing and executing a web-based solution for property registration in 2015, namely, the Stamps and Management of Property and Documents Application (SAMPADA), under the initiative and leadership of the then Inspector General, Registration and Superintendent of Stamps (IGRS). It highlights the role of the top management, in this case the IGRS, formation of a multifunctional core team, extensive training, focus on an end-to-end solution, web enablement, bringing about the required legal changes, thorough review of existing processes, organisational restructuring and partnership

The case, set in August 2017 in the state of Punjab, India, follows the transformational efforts of Manjit Singh Brar, the Managing Director of Punjab State Cooperative Milk Producers' Federation Limited (Milkfed), the apex body of Punjab's dairy farmers' union. He had taken the reins of the cooperative in March 2015 after holding several top-level administrative positions as a civil servant. At the time of his appointment as the MD, the cooperative was witnessing a decline in its revenue and profit growth. More importantly, Milkfed's brand, Verka, was under siege from Amul, a brand of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which had invaded the Punjab market. Brar was tasked to turn around the cooperative and also to tackle the threat posed by Amul, a pan-national brand that was not only financially resourceful but also managed by a team of dairy technocrats and commercial experts. After securing the government's mandate for his transformation roadmap, Brar rolled out measures to overhaul the organization and shake it out of its bureaucratic complacency. He instituted accountability and efficiency across the organization by implementing commercial management principles and practices. He also put the cooperative on the track to attaining sustained growth in revenue and profitability by revamping its brand positioning, distribution and advertising, and by tweaking the product mix. Brar reinforced Verka's competitive advantage by unleashing defensive strategies and established new means of growing its revenue and market share to fortify its leadership position in the market against Amul. As a financially resourceful brand with a robust procurement network across the nation, Amul was keen on starting a price war in Punjab and disrupting both ends of Verka's value chain. Brar had to find the means to grow Verka's revenue and profits amid tough competition from Amul.

The case, set in October 2017, follows the predicament of two enterprising young women, Saranya Das Sharma (Saranya) and Aamiya Viswanathan (Aamiya ), the founders of Project Sashakt. After learning that a large number of girls dropped out of school after reaching puberty due to lack of access to affordable disposable sanitary napkin and the adverse impact on the environment caused by the rampant use of disposal of non-indegradable sanitary napkins, Saranya and Aamiya founded Project Sashakt (Sashakt). It crowdsourced fund and procured 100% compostable sanitary pads that it distributed free of cost to the beneficiaries in and around Delhi. In addition, Sashakt conducted awareness workshops and outreach programs to educate the girls on MHM and dispel the taboos surrounding menstruation and they eventually extended their outreach programs to nearby slums. Sashakt's suppliers, Aasma Foundation and Aakar Innovations, were supportive of the cause and supplied biodegradable sanitary napkins at subsidized prices. Yet, as Sashakt grew, in order to become financially self-reliant and sustainable, the founders began to seriously consider the idea of vertically integrating the operations by setting up a biodegradable sanitary pad manufacturing unit in a village in Bihar, a state in Eastern India with poor gender parity indicators. They hoped that the manufacturing unit would not only create employment opportunities for disadvantaged rural women but also produce cost-competitive supplies for the project's free distribution drives, thereby scaling the scope and impact of Sashakt. The proposed venture involved a large capital outlay, yet that was the least of their concerns. They were more concerned about the potential implications of a non-profit transitioning into a social enterprise and the challenges and risks involved in setting up - and scaling up - the proposed venture.

Alfie.fit (Alfie) was a Montreal-based consumer software technology start-up that offered a virtual fitness concierge service for time-strapped people who wanted to keep fit, no matter their busy schedule. The Alfie platform helped personal trainers and trainees connect and interact with each other and supported the management of the transaction between them. However, Alfie faced several challenges, including the common chicken-or-egg problem of value-added intermediaries in their entry phase. As Alfie celebrated its one-year anniversary of being officially available to the public, the founders needed to make strategic decisions regarding the platform's design, scope, and future direction.

Chunyu Yisheng (Chunyu) was the largest mobile health (m-health) application in China. Since its creation in July 2011, the application had focused on providing online medical information and consultations with professional doctors. Chunyu's business model was based on free and premium online health care services. In the first three years, Chunyu gained more experience than profits. The primary concern for the founder and chief executive officer of Chunyu was to find a profitable and value-creating business model. Two potential solutions for Chunyu were to rebuild the current online consultancy-based model or move to an alternative profitable and long-term value-creation model. How should the founder and chief executive officer choose which option to pursue?

The founders of Strider Miles (Striders), a running club headquartered in Mumbai, India, faced a dilemma. Over 14 years, they had built a business based on their love for sport and their own entrepreneurial inclination. The growth of Striders was an outcome of both a growing interest in running for fitness as well as the promoters' efforts. The founders had, thus far, made minimal investments in fixed assets and marketing and promotion. Going forward, however, they were not sure about how to grow the business nor the implications of their current business model.

An investor, Janice Zhuk, examines Tesla's quarterly safety data that includes the number of miles it took to register one accident among Tesla cars driving with autopilot versus those without autopilot. The data set is small, so the validity of any statistical analysis may be compromised. The data allow one to run a simple t-test comparison of means. Because of the small sample size, the case invites a discussion on the hypothesis of the regression model, in particular, the normality of the residuals.

This case provides instructors with an opportunity to discuss some of the fundamental aspects of a typical public company's shareholders' equity financial reporting and financial disclosures. As such, students are provided with information pertaining to PepsiCo's common stock, preferred stock, stock repurchases, cash dividends, stock splits, and GAAP earnings per share (EPS) versus non-GAAP EPS. In addition, the case also provides an interesting bit of information regarding PepsiCo's 2017 move from the NYSE to the Nasdaq.