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Two friends started the company Whizz in 2013 with a fleet of seven cars and a team of 12 people in Delhi. Within three years, Whizz had increased its fleet to 2,200 cars, capturing approximately 60-70 per cent of the Indian car rental market. The company had ambitious plans to expand to other cities with the rapid growth in the industry and increasing disposable incomes among millennials-the typical Whizz customer group. When one partner quit for personal reasons, the other was left to manage the company's marketing and business development divisions, and to secure new funding. Although Whizz was the first mover in the Indian market, it had not seen a profit since its inception, and now, in 2016, pressure was increasing, with Whizz's organized competitors having similar ambitious expansion plans. The remaining partner had to decide how to address these challenges and manage the risks of his business model, while maintaining operations and making a profit.

This case consists of conversations with six prominent venture capital investors in the United States. The topics covered include investment strategies and relationships with entrepreneurs in the United States and around the world.

Fluorescent Group (Fluorescent) was an Indian company specializing in manufacturing filament products that were used in incandescent light bulbs. It had been a market leader for over 30 years, and by 2017, it had seven group companies and over 400 employees. Its filament products were exported to 15 countries and sold in the domestic market. However, the group's chief managing director had begun to embrace the concept of wellness and believed that the wellness industry might be an attractive future business option, since it offered ideal remedies for people leading hectic and stressful lives in the large cities of India.<br><br>Changes in the lighting industry meant the market for Fluorescent's filament products was in decline and was no longer generating profits. Should Fluorescent simply adapt to the changes in the lighting industry and manufacture LED-related products? Or should it support only a few custom orders for the lighting industry while venturing into the manufacturing of blue water equipment? Alternatively, should it consider exiting the lighting industry entirely and manufacturing only wellness products like blue water equipment or rejuvenation centres?

In June 2015, Vasant Farm Fresh (VFF) was creating a supply chain in Ahmedabad, India, to integrate farmers with retailers and provide fresh produce to customers. Fruits and vegetables have a short shelf life, harvesting operations tend to be labour intensive, and produce quantity is unlikely to grow substantially. To increase the shelf life of fresh produce, farmers need storage facilities, such as refrigerators or cold-water vessels, to store freshly harvested produce. VFF established a collection centre to aid farmers in selling their produce and in receiving higher returns. The collection centre was close to the farms so that the produce could be distributed to the agricultural produce market committee market and to VFF's new retail venture, Vasant Veggies. However, wastage was still considerable even after the centre was established. The founder of Vasant Veggies must identify the optimal procurement quantity for fresh produce.

In 2017, the French film producer and distributor EuropaCorp S.A. (EuropaCorp) announced a historical record loss of €119.9 million. The company had almost doubled its revenues between 2001 and 2010 by using an integrated studio model, but the recent losses had been substantial. After entering into a number of international joint production and marketing ventures, the company reported its highest revenues to date in 2015, only to announce in July 2016 that the company had incurred significant losses and that its revenues were the lowest since 2008. Once again, the company tried to turn itself around, strengthening its position by focusing on the founder's core business and making some financial adjustments. A capital increase resulted in a positive shift in EuropaCorp's shareholding structure; however, the company was still experiencing losses and was anticipating a continuing loss into the next year. Was there anything more EuropaCorp could do to change its position?

In January 2017, the senior leadership team at Edwards Lifesciences were preparing for the quarterly earnings call that would cover the fourth quarter of 2016. They faced questions about what types of information they should disclose on the call, as well as during other key investor relation events that take place throughout the year.

Kobbina Awuah (MBA 2014) became intrigued with the possibility of adapting Entrepreneurship through Acquisition in Ghana, where he grew up and where his family still lived. While he knew he could work for a multi-national enterprise located in Ghana, he was confident that buying a small business to run provided an opportunity to have more of an impact. He formed Peak Investment Capital (PIC) at the beginning of 2014 with the goal of finding a business to buy in Ghana that he could grow as its CEO.

In 2017, Farm Harvest Pvt. Ltd., a company that produced and marketed fresh corn and ready-to-eat corn products, was facing distribution problems. The owner and managing director of the company, was worried about the sales of his company's products. During a discussion with his core management team about the non-availability of their products in the market, the owner realized that declining sales could be due to distribution network problems. In order to revamp their distribution network, the team considered pursuing direct distribution rather than going through distributors. The team also had to look at the financial aspects of the direct distribution model versus that of distributors in order to make a decision.

In late 2016, the board chair of T-Systems South Africa (TSSA), an information technology outsourcing company, faced a new challenge. As the previous chief executive officer (CEO) of the company, the board chair had moved the company from declining revenue toward growth and increased profitability. She accomplished the company's culture transformation and remarkable turnaround, in part, by capturing the interest of people with a vision about creating a company "with soul." She now needed to assist the new CEO in sustaining TSSA's culture change in a manner that would not intrude on his own ideas, leadership, and style.

By May 2018, the owner of 30 FiLLi Café outlets across the United Arab Emirates had come a long way from helping out in his father's a small cafeteria in the Mamzar area of Dubai in 2004. With his innovative FiLLi tea and FiLLi Zafran tea, he had successfully created a tea brand in the United Arab Emirates. After the company's success there, he aspired to take the brand global using the franchising model. The path ahead, however, had to be navigated carefully. New entrants had emerged and were competing for market share. In the changing market scenario, how would FiLLi Café manage to retain customer loyalty locally and successfully manage global expansion? Was this plan too aspirational? Was it the right time to expand the company? Was franchising the best method for global expansion?

Shanghai Contron Information Technology Co., Ltd. was a small technology company in Shanghai, China, established in 2011. The company's main customer was the government, and sales management was the company's primary department. In a rapidly expanding market, the company moved very quickly from the start-up phase to the growth phase. In 2016, the company's chief executive officer faced challenges in terms of obtaining, stimulating, and managing sales talent, and improving the leading role of the sales department. What could the chief executive officer do to address these challenges?

The chief executive officer of Bamboos Health Care Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. (Bamboos) started her entrepreneurship journey in 2005 with a telephone and a fax machine. She created a platform to match the demand from patients or their relatives with the supply of services from health care professionals. After 12 years in operation, following one consistent business model, Bamboos was listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Despite several challenges in its early years, the Bamboos business model proved to be sustainable in Hong Kong and became resistant to change. In early 2018, the founder was considering entering the health care market in mainland China and changing the company's business model for the first time. Could the current business model in Hong Kong be modified to enter mainland China and other countries? What changes would be required with respect to strategy and management?

In order to shift 30 per cent of the country's transport fleet to electric by 2030, the Indian government had launched multiple programs to promote usage of hybrid and electric vehicles (EV) in the country and had agreed to provide various fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to EV firms up until 2020. Many leading automobile manufacturers in India were investing millions of dollars in designing and manufacturing EVs, building the infrastructure required for running EVs, and creating the components required for the battery system used in EVs. Despite these multiple public and private initiatives, by September 2018 it had became apparent that many macro and micro issues were present in the overall environment that was being built for the smooth running of EVs. Would Mahindra Electric Mobility Limited and other automobile firms be able to effectively formulate strategies and compete successfully in this dynamic and changing business environment?

Skudge Foods Inc. is a consulting firm specializing in food pricing with an emphasis on bundling. Students will follow Skudge founder Sid Kris Jorgenson as his firm determines what prices to charge to maximize profits for his clients. The exercises explain the difference between pure components, pure bundling, and mixed bundling models and how they can be applied to unique consumer segments with various reservation prices. The exercise series is presented in four parts. Students should prepare Exercise A before class, and can complete Exercises B-D during the instruction period. Through this series of increasingly sophisticated exercises, students will gain a deep understanding of optimizing pricing and increasing profits through strategic bundling. Each consecutive exercise adds constraints to the bundling challenge, requiring students to construct increasingly complex algorithms.

Headspace in 2018 examines the company as it charts a new trajectory. The case follows the point of view of Randhir Vieira, Head of Product at Headspace, and dives into several challenges and opportunities from a Product Manager's perspective. Topics include boosting customer retention rates, finding and testing key metrics, incorporating new technologies, employing the "jobs to be done framework," and evolving the platform.

Shelby Diaz, country manager for Cepuros Foods International - Malaysia (CFI-M), must decide a growth strategy for the expansion of CFI-M's line of salsas, particularly regarding whom to target and how to allocate marketing investments. CFI-M could expand aggressively by mass marketing to the general population. A more conservative approach would use targeted communications and promotions. Diaz needs to build an argument for a specific growth strategy and recommend which marketing investments CFI-M should pursue. The case can be used to discuss strategy, positioning, and marketing communications, which are relevant to considering alternative strategies for growth. The possibilities for growth include market penetration, product development, and/or market development. The case touches on the potential benefits and risks of each option given the competitive landscape, customer perceptions, and demand determinants. Students should find the product and distribution easy to understand, but the international market context provides a unique opportunity to apply core marketing principles. The case is recommended for upper-level undergraduate students or first-year MBA students studying marketing strategy. It can also be used in a course on international marketing.

Bahwan CyberTek (BCT) was an IP-enabled technology company founded in 1999 by Sheikah Hind Bahwan (Hind) and S. Durgaprasad (DP). Over the years, it had grown into a global provider of innovative software products and services and had become a $275 million group with more than 2,950 business and technology professionals. BCT was privately held, based in Chennai, India, with operations in the United States, the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. BCT had worked with more than 1,000 customers, including Fortune 500 companies, and delivered its innovative software solutions to companies in North America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. In 2016, BCT began to seriously ponder how it could carve out an identity for itself in the digital space, thereby leveraging and capitalizing on the great and growing amount of knowledge it had created. "From day one we were building our IP," said Hind, "and that is why we are consolidating all our knowledge in the separate company, and that is the company that will go public or get investors: dt360. It is already registered as a separate company. So we have now restructured and are moving forward." In addition to establishing a home for its growing IP, BCT also wanted to build an entity that could best deliver transformation value to its clients along with the capability to scale fast with state-of-the-art and emerging technologies. And, it wanted to enable its own workforce to embrace these new technologies, thereby keeping them current and relevant in the rapidly evolving market. So, with these multiple potential benefits in mind, BCT officially established dt360 (the name was intended to represent digital transformation across 360 degrees) as a wholly owned subsidiary in late 2017. In 2018, BCT's top management was considering the strategic and organizational challenges they confronted in further developing and leading the newly formed company.

Melinda Ellis Evers, a Bay Area native and Stanford GSB alumna, founded Ellis Partners (Ellis), a commercial real estate investment and development firm in 1993 together with her father and brother. One of Ellis' projects was the redevelopment of an obsolete manufacturing facility located in Emeryville, California into Class A office / R&D space - Emery Tech - in 1998. After a successful nine-year investment period, Evers spotted another development opportunity to convert the remaining unused space into new office space to further take advantage of the vibrant office leasing environment in the Bay Area. Together with its new equity partner CarVal, Ellis successfully closed a recapitalization deal and put in additional new equity to fund the construction. However, just as Emery Tech's new space became ready for tenants in late 2007, the global financial markets collapsed and the demand for office space evaporated. To make things worse, one of Emery Tech's key tenants, Washington Mutual Bank, had gone into receivership and notified Ellis in December 2008 that it was invoking an obscure provision of U.S. banking regulation to terminate its lease. Emery Tech was suddenly underwater. Evers was faced with the decision to walk away from the project and lose the original investment made only two years ago or put in additional capital to bring in a new tenant - Clif Bar - amid a rapidly deepening global financial crisis.

The co-founder of a geological consulting start-up was taking an unconventional approach to employee motivation by using non-salary enticements (e.g. retreats) as tools to drive employees' engagement with the company. The approach ran contrary to not only long-standing human resources practices but also to the preferences of the company's own employees. But that approach had only been tested in a small setting so far. Would it work as the company scaled up in size to become a larger organization?