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With one satellite aloft and in the midst of beta testing in late 2018, Analytical Space founders Justin Oliveira and Dan Nevius turned to critical questions about the pioneering startup's go-to-market, pricing, and business development strategy. Analytical Space aimed to build and operate a constellation of inexpensive satellites that would receive and relay to the ground data gathered by orbiting Earth observation satellites, thereby speeding and increasing the amount of data their operators could collect and sell to clients in the multi-billion market for information on crops, weather, and other observable changes on Earth. The cofounders now needed to select the best initial customers, validate demand for their unique data relay service, and establish pricing that would both spur adoption and impress investors ahead of their next financing round.

The Katerra case takes a deep dive into the opportunities to leverage disruptive technology in the global construction industry. The case analyzes the history of Katerra, a technology-driven offsite construction company and walks through each of the company's major strengths and opportunities.

Buying a company is a high-stakes and complex process, and involves an in-depth review of hundreds of pages of legal documents. This white paper gives a full listing of these important documents and what each document should detail - along with practical guidance on what relationships, responsibilities, and information these documents will spell out. In addition, there are recommendations on which aspects of these documents warrant closer scrutiny, and practical suggestions to keep legal fees from escalating needlessly.

How much information is enough, when it comes to investor reports? For early CEOs, this white paper offers practical advice and best practices on the preparation of these reports. The best reports, the white paper argues, focus on essential information, presented in a clear and transparent manner. This information would include key performance indicators, for instance, but also capture operational details that might not be included in the standard financials. The white paper lays out a clear format for writing these reports, with details on what to include in the main body of the report as well as the appendices.

This case, set in October 2017, follows Danielle Sheer, general counsel for Carbonite, as she defends the company against claims of patent infringement. It provides a broad overview of the U.S. patent system and explores the impact that non-practicing entities (sometimes also called "patent trolls") can have on companies.

The case discusses attempts by Singapore Press Holdings Ltd (SPH) to transform its core media business, which was battered by digital disruption. Revenues from SPH's core media business (newspaper subscriptions and advertising revenues) had fallen year after year, as had its share price. What strategy should SPH adopt for its media business and what challenges could it expect? Would digital reinvention be the best course of action and the only way to go? Was SPH mired in a "do-or-die" predicament? The case also provides a concise description of the digital reinvention of the Washington Post, New York Times and South China Morning Post.

FODY Foods Inc. (Fody) was a Canadian-based entrepreneurial manufacturer and marketer of a line of food products designed for people suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a condition that affected an estimated one billion people worldwide. With public awareness of the socially sensitive condition growing, Fody's founder needed to figure out how to market the company's line of products while creating a new category in the process.

New Balance Athletics, Inc., a major U.S.-based athletic footwear and apparel brand, sources most of its footwear products from independent suppliers whose factories are located in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Monica Gorman, vice president of responsible leadership and global compliance, is seeking to combine data sets collected by different parts of the organization to see whether she and her colleagues in the company's order management function can make a clear connection between the corporate social responsibility (CSR) results that her function tracks at the supplier level, with New Balance's order placement practices.

The case opens in 2013 as Amine Benkirane, founder and CEO of the leading Moroccan furniture company KITEA, contemplates the loss his company has incurred for the first time in its 20-year history. The case then describes KITEA's origins and provides a detailed overview of the business plan that enabled Benkirane to bring affordable modern furniture in flatpacks to the Moroccan market, which had previously been dominated by unorganized artisans. At the beginning of 2010, KITEA was a market leader with a robust market share of 24%. However, Benkirane read about rumors that IKEA was planning to enter the Moroccan market. The case explores in detail KITEA's efforts to prepare for the increased competition. In 2013, KITEA found itself in a difficult situation, facing a downturn in the economy, a slowdown in sales, a delayed store opening, and souring creditor sentiment following the news about IKEA's entry. Would KITEA be able to bounce back and remain competitive when IKEA entered the market?

Alibaba's Rural Taobao initiative had been launched in 2014 as a public service initiative to increase e-commerce adoption in China's remote rural areas. In the first two iterations of the initiative, dubbed "1.0" and "2.0", Alibaba had partnered with local businesses and young returnees to operate village stations. Village stations served as logistical and educational hubs to help villagers make online purchases. Despite significant growth in sales through village stations, the business model was operating at a loss, and competitors JD and Pinduoduo were growing quickly, threatening to challenge Alibaba by claiming the rural e-commerce markets. Bill Wang, the head of the initiative, was tasked with designing and implementing the next model for Alibaba's future expansion into rural areas. The decision centers around whether Alibaba should copy the successes of competitors JD and Pinduoduo, escalate commitment to its original value proposition (hands-on service to villagers), or embrace an entirely new model. The case highlights the competing pressures of financial performance, CSR and corporate mission, government relations, and long-term competitive positioning that are common to major strategic decisions.

This case contains excerpts from prominent business leaders and others expressing their views on the responsibilities, if any, of business leaders to other stakeholders in society. It begins with an excerpt from Andrew Carnegie, the nineteenth century steel magnate, in which he argues that although making wealth through business was valid and desirable, the business leader should see himself as a trustee who should distribute this wealth to society. It then tracks debates concerning business responsibility over the decades. It includes excerpts from Theodore Levitt's warning of the "Dangers of Social Responsibility" (1958) and Jensen and Meckling's (1976) "Theory of the Firm," which argued that a firm was merely a nexus of relationships among individuals and could have no responsibility. The case ends with excerpts from Warren Buffet, Dominic Barton, Judy Wicks and Larry Fink, each offering a different perspective on the responsibility of business leaders.

Leaders of Accenture's compliance and ethics program are seeking to design a new code of business ethics for its global workforce of over 400,000 employees. The case explores the decision making process that went into the design process and ultimately how they created a revised code.

The Institute of Technical Education (ITE) was established by the Singapore government as a post-secondary principal provider of vocational and technical education (VTE). This case study chronicles ITE's transformation from a public education institution that was plagued by social stigma into an award-winning institution. It relates how in Singapore, VTE and ITE were destigmatized through a multi-pronged approach that encompassed social marketing, industry partnerships, strategic planning, and government support.

Pat Chan and Nicky Caxton, a married couple and co-owners of Chan & Caxton Booksellers, faced a difficult decision. Seven months before, they had changed their channel strategy, moving from their home-based business to a shared retail space to increase revenue and decrease lower-margin consignment sales. This new strategy was not generating the expected increase in sales; however, the space offered them both low cost and flexibility to deliver special events for their customers. Were these problems merely growing pains, or were they evidence that the bricks-and-mortar retail channel wasn't working out? Pat and Nicky thus found themselves pondering several options: staying in their current location, moving their business back to their apartment, renting an office space, or finding a stand-alone retail space in a better location. Each option had different potential implications for their business model, channel strategy, and their family life. This case is appropriate for upper-year undergraduate and graduate business courses or workshops in small business, small-business development, entrepreneurship, or family business. It explores the ongoing issues of managing and adjusting when a strategy fails in a context of small business and constrained resources. We use the business model canvas (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010) and the Diamond-E framework (Crossan, Rouse, Rowe, & Maurer, 2016)to illustrate the interrelationship between the industry environment, management preferences, and business model alternatives. As such, the case explores the role of management preference in a small family business.

In June 2015 Lina Bowden, chair of the Innovation Works Finance Committee (Finance Committee), needed to finalize a plan to raise an additional $1,000,000 of capital. The capital would primarily be used to fund renovations to a building that had become known as Innovation Works, a novel coworking space and social innovation hub located in London, Ontario, Canada. The building was already secured; however, significant renovations were required before all floors could be rented. The Innovation Works project was spearheaded in 2009 by Pillar Nonprofit Network, a member-based organization comprised of nonprofit organizations. Members of the Innovation Works Project Team (Project Team) expressed a strong desire to launch London's first ever community bond to finance the renovations. The Project Team tasked the Finance Committee, lead by Bowden, with the job of providing a recommendation on the viability of the community bond financing strategy. If it was determined that a round of community bond financing was indeed viable, Bowden would need to recommend bond structure details as well as report how much capital would be needed in a second round of financing. If she concluded that community bond financing was not viable, she would need to present a convincing case for pursuing another strategy given the team's strong desire to make a statement in the community.

Case describes the career journey of the owner of two small family businesses, and illustrates the intertwining of crisis planning, retirement planning, and succession planning. The owner loses more than $500,000 in some problematic ventures, but gradually achieves steady profitability. At age 62 he has a heart attack, requiring emergency triple-bypass surgery. His wife, shaken by this close call, asks her husband to retire or at least sell one of their two businesses. However, this owner-manager is in no hurry to relinquish control. Next, a fire destroys his fast-casual restaurant, and the insurance settlement will not fully cover the cost of renovations to restore it to full operation. He considers several options: 1) walk away from it (minimal renovation, covered by insurance) and focus on his granite restoration business; 2) restore and return the restaurant to full operation (drawing on his personal savings) and continue as before. Discussing this case helps students appreciate why family business owners should plan for predictable surprises and how and why to develop a solid management succession plan.

In fall 2018, the 64-year-old owner of a small 5th-generation family business in rural Iowa has not begun succession or retirement planning. His older daughter asks to talk with him about possibly taking over the store someday; Skip defers this talk until after the busy harvest season. A few days later "Big Ag Feeds" (disguised) offers to buy his business; they want an answer by year-end. Skip discusses the offer with his wife. If he accepts it, ownership would transfer to Big Ag in four years, ending the family business legacy. Skip always assumed he would keep the business in the family, yet now he considers this option and three others: 1) Counter-propose to transfer ownership to Big Ag in one year ("clean break" to retirement). 2) Groom his daughter to succeed him as owner/manager; 3) Hire an outside manager to run the store (retain ownership). Seeing that times are changing (huge agribusinesses are replacing small farms, with repercussions for his business; emerging technologies and new government regulations bring other opportunities and threats) Skip believes the next owner/manager will face a tougher road than the rough road he traveled in his career journey.

Aaron Slade, CEO of Snakes & Lattes (S&L), was tasked with overseeing the ambitious growth plan for the company. Snakes & Lattes was a chain of board game cafés in Toronto; customers could come and play board games, eat, drink, and have a good time. The firm had grown from one small location opened in 2010 to three locations in 2018, each larger than the last, and annual revenue had increased to $7 million. The company had announced plans to sell franchises in about 20 North American cities and open three more company-owned cafés. The immediate problem that Slade was wrestling with had to do with marketing strategy and communication. To date Snakes & Lattes had very controlled, centralized branding and communication, but each of the cafés was different due to its location, clientele, games, and history. With each venue having its own character there was room for more decentralized marketing, but only if it was not to the detriment of the brand. Two factors complicated this further: the company was involved in many non-café revenue-generating activities, and the planned rapid growth would exacerbate the existing problem of individual character of each café. Slade needed a strong marketing plan to complement the growth in locations.