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"The Shy Investor: CryptoCurrencies" is a fictional case written from the point of view of an investor carrying out investment risk analysis. The protagonist is a reasonably wealthy woman in Russia who wishes to diversify her investment portfolio. The case uses a fictitious cryptocurrency called URLBoyzCoyn issued by or on behalf of an equally unreal thrash heavy metal band called the URLBoyz. The overall theme is the assessment of risk and the factors to consider before investing in cryptocurrency. The case contrasts the high returns that can be and have been made by early speculators in cryptocurrencies generally. With the risks that later entrants to the market may have to shoulder.

A bank manager is thinking about how to manage the new private banking advisers (PBA) practice in her region. For that she needs to determine how many PBAs she needs, where they should be located, and to which branches each of them should be assigned. This three-case series exposes students to the underlying sequence of analytical tasks, which culminate in solving an integer-programming optimization model-a main tool of prescriptive analytics. The assignment part of the problem (e.g., given the home-base locations of advisers, how should branches be assigned) is solvable in Excel, but the higher-level problem of where the PBAs should be located is beyond the scale of the built-in Excel solver. The case's teaching note recommends the Gurobi solver (which is available to students for free), that is controlled through a Python interface (which is on track to becoming world's most popular programming language). The (A) case presents the problem and data ""as they are."" The (B) case focuses on the descriptive analytics task of visualizing the branch locations to gain intuition. Tableau software is used with default and advanced mapping functionality. The (C) case focuses on the predictive analytics task of estimating travel times between branches. Python code for that is provided, which repeatedly calls Google Maps to obtain the travel times-a task known as the application programming interface (API). By following the A-B-C sequence, the students will have all they need to build the optimization model. With A-B, they have a lot of intuition but still need to estimate travel times. With just the A case, the situation is mostly open ended: it is up to the students to decide what to do, in addition to how to do it. The case is suitable for advanced undergraduate or MBA electives on analytics, or for fast-growing Masters in Analytics programs.

300cubits is a blockchain application that aims to solve the no-show problem in the cargo shipping industry. Its founders, Johnson Leung and Jonathan Lee, are two HKUST alumni with experience in banking and shipping. They have identified a pain point, in the cargo shipping industry which does not require a pre-shipping cash deposit, results in no-show and cargo roll-over problems. They developed a new Ethereum based cryptocurrency, TEU, to serve as such collateral. They then conducted an initial coin offering (ICO) pre-sale in September 2017, and an official ICO in April 2018. However, the ICO failed to raise a lot of capital. However, the uptake of TEU tokens was very slow in the industry. They are now pondering the next steps forward.

In July 2018, the chief executive officer of Tiktauli De Corps (TDC) was thinking about the branding strategy of the company. Founded in India in August 2012 as a casual wear apparel brand, TDC had grown rapidly. The company featured three main business lines: electronic dance music fashion apparel and accessories; sports gear; and affordable fashion wear. The company had adopted a house of brands strategy for its three brands: TDC, Fieldgear, and Koolho. After six years, one of the three brands had started generating profits, but none had achieved recognition outside a niche circle. However, confident that the various brands were aligned with TDC's vision, and encouraged by the company's success, the chief executive officer was considering expanding into international markets. Because of limited access to funds, synergy among the company's house brands, and the impact of macro-environmental factors on his growth plans, he had to choose the best branding strategy for the company's future.

Formula E founder and CEO Alejandro Aga obtained the rights to develop a new electric car racing series from the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). Agag needed to develop the series from scratch-developing a race car, finding teams willing to race, cities willing to host races, and sponsors, media partners, and investors willing to fund the series. The first race was one year away. How should Agag go about developing this new series?

The ongoing U.S.-China trade war had lifted South American soybean prices to 20% higher than the CBOT price. Domestically, a severe drought had undermined Argentina's 2018 soybean production, leaving Argentine soy crushing plants extremely undersupplied. Pressed by the country's economic emergency, Argentina´s President Macri had imposed new tariffs on farming exports. With these and other factors in mind, Enrique and Alejandro Duhau had to decide what to plant the following year and whether to lease additional land for agriculture. Should they prioritize the market opportunity for soybeans over technical factors such as crop rotation? What risks would increasing the amount of leased land entail? Would it prove convenient to pay a higher-than-usual price to secure more leases? Was their hedging strategy appropriate or should it be revised based on the current context?

At the end of 2016, the leadership team of Commonwealth Joe Coffee Roasters-Robert Peck, Chase Damiano, and Jeremy Martin-had begun an ambitious retail expansion strategy in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area for their specialty coffee business. That October, they had opened their first custom-designed store in a brand-new luxury apartment building. The new store was an immediate success, even though a Starbucks had recently opened across the street. At the same time, a separate business line-selling cold brew coffee in kegs to office customers-had grown unexpectedly. Many new office accounts were added, even as the team promoted the new retail store. Now, as Peck, Damiano, and Martin prepared for the next capital raise, targeted for February 2017, they evaluated their strategy going forward. Should Commonwealth Joe stay with retail, or should they shift their strategy to focus on the office business?

Chef Wolfgang Puck oversees a disparate business empire that includes fine dining restaurants, a catering business, and various licensed products that run from cookware, to soup, to fast-casual restaurants. His businesses activities are divided between three separate entities-Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group, Wolfgang Puck Catering, and Wolfgang Puck Worldwide-that share some formal and informal linkages. But the key person holding this all together is Wolfgang Puck himself. Now in his late 60s, Puck wonders what he needs to formalize-in terms of systems, processes, and management-to ensure that his different businesses will endure long after he is no longer involved in the day-to-day management of these three businesses.

Founded in 2012 in Dalian, Liaoning Province, China, Dalian Venture Workshop Technology Service Co., Ltd. (Venture Workshop) was a business incubator that provided early stage start-ups with incubation and investment services. In 2014, China identified Venture Workshop as a "state-level technology business incubator." By 2017, Venture Workshop had become the largest incubator in Northeast China. However, behind its prosperity, it had faced years of losses. Since its establishment in 2012, its only source of income was the fees it charged for renting office space to start-ups. Its standard rates were far lower than market prices, which made it difficult for Venture Workshop to generate sufficient income. In February 2018, the chairman of Venture Workshop needed to increase Venture Workshop's income and avoid subsequent years of losses. What was the best strategy to pursue?

This case study examines the B Corp certification process of Paris-based food products company Danone's North American business. With $6 billion in sales, in 2018 Danone NA became the largest Certified B Corp in the world by a factor of two. The certification of this massive entity created many strategic and logistical challenges for both Danone and B Lab, the non-profit that certifies B Corps. B Corp certification assesses a company's social and environmental performance, and so the case study provides an opportunity to discuss an on-the-ground example of how some of the largest companies in the world are becoming more accountable to the general public. Furthermore, looking forward, students can analyze how the system that B Lab set up to certify mostly smaller and medium-size organizations can be improved in order enable larger organizations to join the B Corp movement. More generally, a key question is about consumer awareness and support. When will large numbers of consumers start making purchases based on their social and environmental values?

Shipping conglomerate and industry leader Maersk Group has to figure out a strategy to remain competitive in the struggling shipping industry. In the face of sluggish global trade, overcapacity in the shipping industry and falling freight rates, the company has managed to stay afloat by conducting cost cuts and operational improvements. But the strategic direction ahead is not clear. And to further complicate the issue, its other major revenue stream in the oil and gas business isn't doing well either. Falling oil prices has severely affected the profitability of its upstream oil and gas division. Søren Skou, recently appointed CEO of the company, now has to forge a new strategic direction for Maersk. Should he look into M&As, alliances, or even dispose of the oil business? How can he further differentiate Maersk and create a competitive strategy for sustainable growth? This case explores the strategic options of a market leader in a competitive dilemma. It touches upon concepts of alliance, M&A, differentiation, horizontal diversification, vertical integration, and technology adoption. It also looks into the issues of companies operating in China, where state-owned firms are incentivized to adopt cross-subsidization.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and big data seem at odds with each other, but with the Healthy China 2030 blueprint and China's Internet Plus action plan announced in March 2015, the ambition of Gu Sheng Tang to integrate the two is not too far-fetched. GST's vision is to become a central intelligence unit for Chinese medicine, mining the extensive medical data it harvested toward building a big-data-driven TCM solution. Since inauguration in 2010, the Group has reinvented TCM's outpatient service with its Chinese Medicine Practitioner Partner Scheme, enabling experienced practitioners in the public sector to enter private practice. It has also developed an institutionalized supply chain integrating procurement, processing, testing, and prescription of herbal medicine. It operates an online platform for appointment scheduling and healthcare support services. In August 2017, the company successfully raised CNY1.1bn funding. How should the company use this cash injection to optimize its business strategy to take advantage of China's state mobilization of the Internet Plus strategy?

Intelligent Avionics (IA) was an entrepreneurial company launching three inflight entertainment (IFE) systems. In April 2012, with a small development team working on the IFE system designs simultaneously, the time had come to meet with IA's leaders to determine where the company should focus its efforts. The company's vice-president of marketing contemplated which lines the company should bring to market and wondered how IA should market and launch its offerings. In addition, organizational and locational issues gnawed at him. He struggled with the company's virtual structure, given that IA was composed of fewer than 15 staff members living in five different countries. As he contemplated how the structure was affecting IA's effectiveness, he asked himself who IA's target market should be.

Ganzeb Microfinance Institution (Ganzeb) was formed as an extension of an indigenous non-governmental organization, and provides loans to rural Ethiopians to fund their business ventures. The microfinance industry is heavily regulated by the Ethiopian government, and the political landscape is not very stable. Since its inception in 2000, Ganzeb has been run by the same chief executive officer. The company flourished until 2006, when its financial performance declined as a result of an increasing number of defaulting loans from clients. Many other organizational problems have also emerged, which are quickly degrading the institution's work. Now, in late 2008, the chair of the board of directors is faced with threats from the National Bank of Ethiopia: he must fix the problems or lose Ganzeb's licence to operate. The board chair is being asked to meet with the bank to talk about the situation and the proposed solutions. He must figure out how to fix the problems of high turnover among staff, poor financial performance, and a lack of communication between the different levels of the organization.

Following its re-emergence from bankruptcy protection in 2014, the marketing team at Kodak has been charged with tripling brand value with consumers, with little marketing budget. The case focuses on the strategies used by senior Kodak marketers Steven Overman and Dany Atkins to leverage the brand's heritage for innovation and creativity with existing and new audiences. With few resources other than heritage, Overman and Atkins have focused on making Kodak 'cool' through partnerships with a range of brands targeting younger users while also reinforcing the brand's historic links with the motion picture industry and benefitting from the so-called 'analog revival'. The case explores issues of cultural branding, focusing on how relevance can be built through connections to crowd cultures, communities and other brands to build a platform for growth and revitalization.

Set in 2016, Bata India versus Relaxo-Analyzing Performance compares the strategies and financial performance of two Indian footwear companies. Bata India had long been the market leader in footwear in India, but its leading market position was being challenged by Relaxo, a relatively young, upstart company. The case is framed from the perspective of an emerging markets financial analyst presented with the financial statements and operational data for both companies. The analyst has to compare and contrast the performance of the two companies based on financial ratios. Students can apply the traditional DuPont decomposition framework to drill down into the business model of the two companies. The case then allows students to use the modified (also known as additive or alternate) DuPont approach with the goal of systematically understanding the differences that arise from operating performance, leverage, and the effect of large cash holdings (in Bata). In doing so, students learn the components of the traditional and modified DuPont frameworks and how to analyze financial statements to better understand how firm performance can arise from operating and financing decisions. The traditional DuPont framework provides for a methodical evaluation of performance for each business, but it has its limits: it does not separate operating assets and liabilities from financing assets and liabilities. When the financing components are separated and reclassified using the modified DuPont framework, students can clearly observe the crucial role that financing activities vis-à-vis operating activities can have in amplifying performance.

Shiseido was in the midst of a six year corporate turnaround, trying to reverse the effects of decades of under-investment in R&D and marketing which had led to a cycle of declining customer support and brand value. Would the CEO's VISION 2020 plan, centered on four strategies: 1.) increasing R&D spending from 1.8% to 3% of sales, 2.) investing an incremental ¥120 billion in brand-building marketing, 3.) moving to a "think global-act local" matrixed brand management structure, and 4.) rethinking brand portfolio strategy, be enough to achieve aggressive 8% per year sales goals while simultaneously increasing the company's operating margin from 8% to 10% in the highly competitive and slow growing beauty industry?

In 2010, when China surpassed the United States to become the largest global market for automobiles, China's Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. (Geely) entered the global automobile industry by acquiring Volvo Group's cars division from Ford. Seven years later, Geely bought a controlling stake of 51 per cent in Lotus Cars, a stake in the truck maker AB Volvo, and a 10 per cent share of Daimler AG worth US$9 billion, becoming its largest shareholder. On August 31, 2018, Ford's chief executive officer faced a strategic challenge: assess the level of threat that Geely posed and how to respond to it, if necessary. Was Geely's rise in the market endangering Ford's market position?