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After much internal debate, THE VELUX FOUNDATIONS of Denmark have decided to allocate a small percentage of their investment portfolio to impact investments. Cambridge Associates, one of the leading investment advisory firms in the world, has been engaged to assist them in developing and implementing an "impact strategy." VELUX only invests in funds (as opposed to direct investments) and must now decide on fund selection criteria and on specific fund investment options that have been presented to them.

This case revolves around Verisk Analytics' initiatives to drive innovation throughout the firm's many business verticals. Verisk, originally named ISO, started life as an insurance rating agency in the early 1970s, acting as an intermediary between insurance companies and state governments. Over time, the firm transformed from being a non-profit to a for-profit entity, while expanding its lines of business to realms other than insurance. By both exploring the history of the insurance industry and Verisk's unique position within it, the case provides readers with an understanding of the firm's growth strategy and why innovation is so crucial for its success. The case leaves readers to ponder Verisk's innovation and growth strategy, challenging them to assess its strengths and weaknesses.

In mid 2010 the Sealed Air Corporation has to decide on next steps for its novel video tracking technology (called VTID) after unsuccessful attempts to market it in three different industry settings. The company must determine whether its most recent target market, the quick-serve restaurant segment, is still worth pursuing or whether the company should look for a different application and market altogether. The company could also revisit the previous two applications, tracking and tracing processed meat and tracking employee safety practices. At the other extreme, after seven years of R&D and marketing efforts and millions of dollars in expenses, the company could cease attempts to commercialize VTID.

Among only a handful of early adopters of a new revenue recognition mandate for calendar year 2017 annual reports, beginning of the year retained earnings for Ford Motor Company (Ford) was adjusted $36 million higher while General Dynamic's was adjusted down by $301 million, both a result of their early adoption of the new revenue recognition guidelines. A new revenue recognition mandate, she noted three important points.

This case study gives an overview of the creation of the Pay-for-Success (PFS) Lab at the University of Virginia (UVA). It promotes discussion of how other university institutions can scale up their own research labs with a limited budget, and also introduces students to the PFS concept and the role university research institutions can play in the social impact process. It highlights the key opportunities and challenges of launching such research labs and concludes with several key decision questions that should be considered.

The case describes the career path of Lebanese businessman Fadi Baaklini and traces the evolution of MEPCO (Middle East Paper Company), the enterprise he founded with a partner in 1997. MEPCO started out selling paper and later became a paper trading company, operating in markets in the Middle East, North Africa, and India. After presenting Fadi Baaklini's initial experiences as an entrepreneur and his early career in the timber industry and then the paper industry, the case focuses on MEPCO's rapid growth into a successful paper brokerage and prosperous SME. In 2005, the company opened a sales office in Tunisia and a subsidiary in India. In 2006, Fadi Baaklini bought the shares of his business partner, becoming the sole owner of MEPCO. From 2006 to 2016, MEPCO continued to expand, opening new sales offices in Egypt and Lebanon. In 2017, MEPCO employed some thirty people and had over US$100 million in sales. Fadi Baaklini has decided to put his retirement plans on hold in order to launch a new partnership with a Canadian firm specializing in biodegradable chemicals. His plan is to export these products to India for use in waste-water treatment, as well as in the agricultural, pulp and paper, and poultry industries. He sees in this opportunity the potential to turn MEPCO into a multinational company generating billions of dollars in sales.

Branded Lifestyle Holdings Limited (Branded Lifestyle) was an Asian apparel retail company that emerged in 2011 after Fung Retailing Limited acquired Hang Ten Group Holdings Limited, a company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. With five apparel brands, Branded Lifestyle was profitable in most of its Asian markets. However, it was struggling in China and had reported annual loses until the acquisition. In 2014, a new managing director of global brands was appointed at Branded Lifestyle. Looking at the evolving apparel industry in China, and reviewing the company's weak performance over the past years, the managing director knew he needed to develop a strategic plan to turn around the company's operations. His aim was to build a strong and sustainable business in the Chinese market.

Anna Amphlett, a financial analyst with Tasmanian LLC, gathered information about Castlight Health, Inc., a company whose shares Tasmanian was considering acquiring for its cloud infrastructure portfolio. Castlight provided a cloud-based health solutions platform to its customers for an upfront subscription fee. Castlight experienced substantial growth in revenues over the last five years, but the company had not yet reported a bottom-line profit since its initial public offering (IPO) in 2014. Castlight Health was one of many companies that provided cloud-based computing services and were often referred to as software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. Castlight Health sold substantially all of its services through its direct sales organization which paid its sales force commissions for acquiring customer contracts. Tasmanian's portfolio manager had asked Amphlett to scrutinize the company's accounting methods, particularly its revenue and expense recognition methods. Upfront revenue recognition and capitalizing and amortizing some indirect outlays were well-known methods for enhancing a company's bottom line. Castlight Health had become quite wary of companies such as salesforce.com, ADT, and Pre-Paid Legal Services, which experienced significant stock price declines after popular press articles criticized their accounting policies. In some cases, the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) had launched an investigation into a company's accounting practices following the critiques. These critiques invariably questioned management's integrity while an SEC investigation distracted management's time and energy from the running the business.

Elena Pelc is the founder and CEO of 2 Proud Pups, a maker of all-natural dog care products. Sales are good, but revenues have plateaued at about $1 million annually. Plus she's pregnant with her first child. She must decide whether to sell the company--which would give her more time with her family and help her start-up grow--or hire a new CEO and continue to exert some control over its future. With commentary from Candace Leak, the founder and CEO of Loanables.com, and Todd Olson, a cofounder and the CEO of Pendo.

Elena Pelc is the founder and CEO of 2 Proud Pups, a maker of all-natural dog care products. Sales are good, but revenues have plateaued at about $1 million annually. Plus she's pregnant with her first child. She must decide whether to sell the company--which would give her more time with her family and help her start-up grow--or hire a new CEO and continue to exert some control over its future. With commentary from Candace Leak, the founder and CEO of Loanables.com, and Todd Olson, a cofounder and the CEO of Pendo.

Elena Pelc is the founder and CEO of 2 Proud Pups, a maker of all-natural dog care products. Sales are good, but revenues have plateaued at about $1 million annually. Plus she's pregnant with her first child. She must decide whether to sell the company--which would give her more time with her family and help her start-up grow--or hire a new CEO and continue to exert some control over its future. With commentary from Candace Leak, the founder and CEO of Loanables.com, and Todd Olson, a cofounder and the CEO of Pendo.

The case establishes the importance of various activities, from planning, design, manufacturing to distribution and retailing, in the value chain for a fashion product and thus leads the student on to understand the significance of fulfillment in the fashion industry. The case prompts the students to think about the interactions among the stakeholders, both upstream and downstream of the value chain. It persuades them to evaluate cloud-connected solutions and the underlying technologies of blockchain in the ALBL context and how the implementation challenges can be overcome to facilitate communication between various players in the chain leading to more responsive processes. The case details the design practice of ALBL-Concept to Shelf (CTS), followed by brands under the ALBL umbrella, primarily focusing on the challenges associated with the product development or the design phase. Material flow is discussed in terms of the manufacturing, supply, and retail strategy adopted by the company. It challenges the students to think about the strategies that would enable an Indian fashion retailer to improve the competitiveness in the market and focus on the key strengths of branding and retail of the licensed brands. It also discusses the influence of e-commerce on physical retailing and design of an omni-channel supply chain. This case encompasses the complete gamut of operations of an Indian fashion retailer. It facilitates the students to think about multiple facets working in sync to improve the overall functioning and profitability of ALBL.

This case describes the situation faced by a Trust named ArthaKranti. ArthaKranti (meaning economic revolution) was formed in 2005 to offer an unconventional taxation proposal based on Banking Transaction Tax (BTT). The BTT proposal is radical in nature, with minimum role of the state and with increased efficiency and reach. The vision of ArthaKranti Pratishthan is aligned to the concept of "Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam" or "Global Family-hood". The case provides an opportunity for participants to step into the shoes of the founder Anil Bokil (Bokil) and build a strategy to get BTT implemented. Participants use data on BTT and the public awareness attempts made so far and make reasonable assumptions with the use of SWOT analysis and Pros and Cons analysis to examine the feasibility of BTT. Bokil's lack of experience in politics as well his appealing to all political parties, provides an interesting background context for a rich case discussion.

Hemas Holding PLC (HHPLC) was a Colombo headquartered holding company. It had subsidiaries in a wide range of businesses. HHPLC was headed by Steven Enderby as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) with Husein Esufally as Non-Executive Chairman. The professionally managed but family-controlled conglomerate, which was already one of the dominant private sector entities in Sri Lanka, was attempting to transform into a regional powerhouse in South Asia. The Esufally family held majority shares in HHPLC, and had members of the family on the HHPLC board. The family had also formed a Family Business Board (FBB) consisting of Murtaza Esufally, Abbas Esufally, Husein Esufally, and Imtiaz Esufally, to manage the relationship between the Esufally family and the HHPLC Board. The FBB was a device to ensure that the relationship between the larger family and the top management of HHPLC could be managed smoothly. The members of the FBB were proud of their journey so far. However, they wondered whether there could be further improvements in the mechanisms to ensure that the interests of all the stakeholders associated professionally with HHPLC were met, even as the interests of the current and future generations of the family were protected.

The case describes the journey of Rolocule, a mobile gaming company based out of Pune, India. An early entrant into the mobile gaming space, Rolocule's fortunes go through many ups and downs as the nascent mobile gaming industry experiments with various business models. Rolocule responds by being nimble and flexible, rapidly developing multiple games and pivoting as the industry changes. Product-market fit always seems within reach but each time, an external event derails the company's plans to scale. The case is positioned at a low-point in the company's journey where it must decide whether it wants to continue to play in the B2C gaming space or shift into the B2B space. The case provides rich material to discuss the challenges of building a venture in a rapidly evolving industry and analyze the consequences of adopting different business models.

Set in 2017, the case describes the evolution of Yash Raj Films (YRF) in the Hindi-language movie industry, popularly called Bollywood, in India. In the year 2000, the Government of India officially recognized Bollywood as an industry. This policy change ushered in the corporatization of Bollywood. Set against this backdrop, the case describes how Aditya Chopra, the current chairman and managing director of YRF, led the firm's evolution from a boutique production company into a full-fledged studio. Students analyze the firm's pursuit of fit among different activities and evaluate the challenges involved in sustaining the fit, amidst ongoing developments in the industry.

Set in 2018, the case describes the evolution of the Indian Premier League (IPL), a franchise-based professional cricket league in India. Since its inception in 2008, the IPL has enjoyed huge popularity among players and fans, despite being dogged by controversies. Students must analyze the team-design strategies of the franchises profiled in the case. This analysis helps uncover different models of team design, including their pros and cons, in human-capital-intensive contexts. Relating team design to team performance helps understand the significance of star performers and complementarity among team members.

This case introduces the readers to information regarding the organization building journey of Ather Energy, an Indian start-up in the electric vehicle (EV) industry and the entrepreneurial journey of its founders. The case deals with challenges that Ather Energy faces as it works to bring its product, a two-wheeler EV, to market, adopting practices that were against the established industry norms (the internal combustion engine vehicles). The case outlines the overall environment of the EV industry across the world and in India, discussing key areas like government interventions, major existing players in the EV industry and key developments that have transpired over the past years. It then traces the journey of Ather Energy and its founders, focusing on the key phases through which it traversed as it grew from a two-membered start-up basis out of an incubator to a 350+ firm working to ensure that their product has a hassle-free entry into the market. The case outlines the background of the founders, their learnings on the course of developing their product, and the challenges faced in various stages of developing the product. The envisaged sustainability of Ather Energy and its product are then discussed, along with the challenges envisaged.

The case highlights a digital advertising campaign of a mobile app in India named "Highway Delite" using Google AdWords. The case provides the results of a 3-week AdWords campaign with 4-sub-campaigns (Brand Awareness, Enroute Conveniences, Highway Safety, and Offbeat Attractions). CPC and CTR computations are examined to gauge the effectiveness of the campaign in achieving Highway Delite's campaign goals. The case also emphasizes the challenges of brand building that extends beyond a short-term ad campaign.