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A young, college-aged entrepreneur seeks to launch a business around a set of interactive video games she has designed to help teens experiencing severe anxiety. She considers three possible business models, each of which targets a different customer segment with distinct value propositions, while remaining true to her vision of supporting teens with anxiety disorders. After doing basic research on each, she feels unsure which business model to pursue, and what her next steps should be. The case allows students to examine the process through which entrepreneurs develop and evaluate business models, while also highlighting a critical problem for many start up entrepreneurs - the need for focus. As students determine their recommendations for next steps, they come to understand the importance of the kind of disciplined research entrepreneurs must undertake to test the hypotheses embedded within their incipient business models.

In the fall of 2016, the Pleasant Ridge Habitat for Humanity Second Chance Home Supply (SCHS) store added an assistant manager in order to expand the hours the store was open and increase the store's presence on social media. The store, which sold donated building materials and some household items, was operated to generate funds for the organization's core mission of building homes for those in need in the local area. The case is set in July of 2017. The organization's executive director and the store's manager and assistant manager have reviewed the store's financial performance and discovered that both the store's sales and contribution to the organization have declined over the past year despite being open significantly longer hours. Students are placed in the shoes of the store's managers and must wrestle with why sales and contribution have declined and what they should do in response.

Nick Barr was the Personnel Manager for National Processing Inc. -- an 80-year old company and one of Canada's leading industrial processors. Barr, a recent graduate in Industrial Relations Management with very little job experience, was hired to manage National's 530 unionized employees. In his first year on the job, Barr encounters a particularly challenging case involving a sexual harassment complaint. One day a young, male employee went to Barr's office and reported that his female co-workers were sneaking up behind him and grabbing his testicles. After learning about this concerning behavior, Barr must decide what to do. A number of things factor into his decision including the safety and psychological welfare of the employee and his co-workers as well as Barr's responsibilities to the company and his personal reputation and job security. In Case A, the employee's experience is described. In Case B, it is revealed that Barr decides to conduct an informal investigation and finds that the employees are playing a 'grabbing' game. Barr is shocked to learn this and has to decide how to proceed with the complaint.

In December 2016, Jodi Butts, executive director of Rise Asset Development (Rise), sat at her desk pondering whether to take a more aggressive, strategic, and proactive approach to scaling the organization throughout Canada. While an aggressive expansion would ensure that Rise would serve many more people with mental health issues, it required a significant increase in resources and carried many risks to the viability of the organization. Located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Rise offered microcredit loans, training, and mentorship to people experiencing mental health and related poverty issues. The organization encouraged entrepreneurship among its clients to ease their transition from isolation and poverty to productive work and self-sufficiency. Rise currently operated in four cities in the Province of Ontario: Toronto, Ottawa, London, and Kingston.

In August 2016, Aron West, owner and creative director of board game publisher Elzra, was deciding whether or not to part ways with Impressions, his distributor. West had a hit product with his game Catacombs and its spinoff games and had recently concluded a very successful crowdfunding campaign. West was starting to believe that he was able to move on from Impressions, which specialized in small publishers with few products. Impressions acted as an extra layer of distribution between major distributors and small companies that may not have been worth the larger distributors' time. For their services, Impressions took 18% of the end price of the product, roughly equal to Elzra's share. The decision was also relevant because Elzra and Aron West had experienced some difficulty with which ales Impressions had a legitimate claim to, and the lack of flexibility exhibited by Impressions' president, Aldo Ghiozzi. West had been preparing for life after Impressions by training his operations manager to handle some of the distribution tasks, forging relationships with larger distributors, and developing company infrastructure. On one hand, Impressions was demanding, expensive, and Elzra may have outgrown it. On the other hand, working with Impressions, according to West, made everything easy.

Founded by entrepreneurs from Taiwan, Spain and China, Energo Labs is a Shanghai-based international start-up that brings blockchain technology to the energy sector to enable energy producers, such as buildings equipped with solar PV panels, to buy and sell energy to neighbors or other energy consumers. The founders of this young firm found initial support from various parties, including foundations and government agencies, based on phenomenon positioned the firm for an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) in mid-2107, the timing of which turned out to be nearly optimal. Their offering was successful, finding buyers for their funding target in less than a day. When the young firm realised that barriers to entry in Asian energy trading markets were much higher than expected, they were forced to consider alternatives, such as monetizing their core blockchain technology. However, the prospect of abandoning their sustainability-focused mission did not sit well with many of the young staff that would be needed to move Energo to the next level.The potential for their value proposition to address structural imbalances in access to electrical power in Southeast Asia.

Terrell Manufacturing (Terrell) was a small-scale producer of manifolds in Cleveland, Ohio. In late 2015, one of its clients decided to outsource the manifolds it had been producing in-house and approached Terrell with a proposal: Terrell could buy its equipment and produce the manifolds for the client. Terrell needed to quote a production rate based on the hourly cost of operating the equipment to make the client's manifolds. The rate needed to include the total cost of production, which involved processes in addition to those that were carried out on the purchased equipment. Terrell also needed to propose a payment plan for the machine.

In June 2013, the general manager of the Banff Aspen Lodge in Alberta, Canada, had to decide how to use the space previously vacated by a gift shop that had been housed in the lobby of the hotel. With high occupancy rates and no immediate pressure to add significantly to the hotel's bottom line, the general manager had the luxury of testing new services that could help deliver on the hotel's mission to provide every guest with an exceptional experience. However, he had to work within the hotel's footprint at the time. He was considering using the prime storefront space to add a restaurant or a café. He also knew, however, that complementary service offerings could pull resources away from the hotel's core lodging offering and pull him away from crucial long-term business development.

In August 2015, the general manager of Western Regions Gas Pipeline Company was gazing at a natural gas pipeline map in his Beijing office. The multinational natural gas pipeline (MNGP) would deliver natural gas from the Republic of Timur to China through the Republic of Frespirit. The construction of the pipeline was at the planning stage. To construct and operate the MNGP, Western Regions Gas Pipeline Company was legally required to set up a joint venture with a local company in each of the transit countries. However, the construction period for the MNGP was extremely tight, and the relationships between the stakeholders were quite complicated. How to exercise control in the joint ventures to ensure the smooth construction and operation of the MNGP had become a difficult issue.

This case series charts the evolution of the hostile battle for Allergan and its ultimate sale to a white knight, Actavis. David Pyott had been the CEO of Allergan since January 1998; only the third CEO in the company's 60-year-plus history. Allergan was primarily known for Botox, the aesthetic anti-wrinkle product, but the company, which had started out in eye care, had developed Botox into a US$2 billion multipurpose drug. By 2014 the company, which enjoyed double-digit growth, had over 11,000 employees, sold its products in 100 countries and had 40 direct-selling subsidiaries. The business mix included eye care, neurosciences, medical aesthetics, medical dermatology, breast aesthetics and urologics. R&D was the backbone of the company and it had strong cash reserves. In April 2014 it came as a shock to Pyott and the Allergan board to learn that that pharma company Valeant, in partnership with Pershing Square Capital Management, had announced its intention to make a hostile takeover of Allergan. The ensuing battle was hostile, attracting media interest, hostile and supportive stories in the papers, and 'games' to force Allergan into negotiating a sale. Tricks included hacking emails in an attempt to find out information on the fight team's strategy and moves. Pyott and the board had managed to drive up the share price over several months in their attempt to keep Allergan independent. In November 2014, a Californian judge accepted Valeant/Pershing Square's demand that shareholders should be allowed to vote on its bid. Case A follows the battle from the initial announcement to the court judgement. Case B then illustrates what happened next. Pyott and the 'fight' team realised that they were not able to keep Allergan independent and looked for a white knight to make a higher bid for the company. They successfully identified and negotiated with Actavis, a fellow pharma company. The sale was announced later in November. While Allergan no longer remained an independent

Serial social entrepreneur Andreas Souvaliotis is looking at new ways to achieve his lifelong mission: to improve the health and wellness of his Canadian compatriots. His previous venture, Green Rewards, demonstrated the power of loyalty rewards to promote environmentally-conscious purchases. Andreas is now looking to impact non-commercial habits like walking more, eating less, as well as education. The health and wellness market is growing but hyper competitive, with more than 150,000 apps available on Google Play or on the App Store. B2B or B2C? Fitness, nutrition or mindfulness? Fee, freemium or free? Stand-alone or in collaboration? These are the key questions students must address to help Andreas and his team achieve their goal - and make a profit.

This case follows Silicon Valley software veteran Thomas Siebel as he launches a new company, C3, in 2009, and steers it through two major pivots - transforming the business from a firm focused on energy conservation to a data management, machine learning, and artificial intelligence platform for large enterprises. The case looks at the multiple business transformations and re-brandings C3 went through and examines the strategic challenges the company was facing in 2018 as it began to compete head-to-head with companies such as IBM and SAP. In 2009, three years after selling his eponymous enterprise software company Siebel Systems to Oracle for nearly $6 billion, Siebel launched a new business, C3. "C" stood for carbon, and the "3" was shorthand for three "M" words: measure, mitigate and monetize. The idea was to help large companies navigate the new world of carbon taxes and reduce their carbon footprints. But after just two years, C3 was in trouble. It had found clients for its software product, C3 Energy Management, yet oil prices had stumbled, and in wake of the financial crisis, companies pulled back on spending. Siebel was no going to give up. He saw great potential in the data flowing from sensors in smart meters, turbines, transformers and other infrastructure in power grids. In 2012, he laid off about 100 of C3's 150 employees, retaining the core engineering team. The company renamed itself C3 Energy and helped grid operators aggregate and analyze data from various sensor devices and enterprise software systems. C3 Energy's engine processed data at very high rates, then applied machine learning to do useful things, such as predictive maintenance, detecting theft, and monitoring sensor network health.

In July 2018, Google's Android software platform was fined $5 billion by the EU's Antitrust Commission. This case follows Hiroshi Lockheimer, SVP at Google responsible for Android, Google Play, Chrome and ChromeOS, as he and his team respond to the fine and the challenges of managing Android's increasing ubiquity and success.

Under the visionary leadership of Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo Co., Ltd. (Nintendo) of Japan had transformed from a small founder-controlled business to a global and professionalized firm. Yamauchi's death in 2013 had the potential to affect Nintendo's corporate financial policy. Following his passing, Yamauchi's family was left with a huge inheritance-but also an exorbitant inheritance tax bill. The family sought advice from Nintendo on how to deal with the matter. How could Nintendo solve this financial trouble in a way that balanced the interests of both the family and Nintendo's management?

GAIL (India) Limited (GAIL), a public-sector undertaking, was India's largest gas transmission and marketing company. As a leader in India's gas and energy sector, the organization aimed to set a benchmark for other companies in the industry by implementing the best safety practices for its employees. In late 2013, GAIL's top management decided to implement the behaviour-based safety (BBS) program across all of the company's work sites. BBS was a health and safety standard that promoted change by training and enabling employees to observe and correct unsafe behaviour on the spot. BBS's strength-changing employee behaviour-was also BBS's challenge. Employees initially supported the initiative; but over time, employee commitment began to wane, and leaders redirected their energy to other pressing work demands. In 2016, general manager of HSE, and his team were finding it increasingly difficult to sustain the BBS initiative and transform the safety culture of the company. With the company's operations growing and the number of employees increasing, management was grappling with what more could be done to inculcate a culture of safety.

In June 2017, the managing director of T-Systems South Africa (TSSA) was considering how best to inspire stakeholders to join his movement towards contributing positively to nation building in South Africa. TSSA had experienced some success in setting up information and communication technology systems and academies to create jobs and to create shared value, but it needed to overcome a threshold to exert its influence over a broader level within the country. Specifically, the managing director wondered how TSSA could receive a positive sustainable return on its investments in environmental and social impacts during a time of cost-cutting.

In January 2018, the Philippine cement industry changed forever with the entry of the 100-per-cent Filipino-owned cement manufacturing company Big Boss Cement Inc. (BBCI). When the company decided to set up shop with a cheaper, eco-friendly manufacturing process that promised less carbon emission, competition became fierce. BBCI planned to expand its capacity to take advantage of a growth in both infrastructure projects and local demand for cement, but it had to analyze the macro-environmental and competitive forces relevant in the context of its entry in the cement industry. It had to ascertain whether it could differentiate its product based solely on ecological appeal. BBCI also had to ensure that its environmentally-friendly brand promise would work, and anticipate potential obstacles to its success and determine how to counter these hurdles.

Historically, data analytics have not been used in the professions of accounting and auditing to the extent that they have been in other industries. However, an understanding of big data and the relevant analysis techniques is more often becoming mandatory for accountants and auditors so that they can provide greater business insights for their businesses and clients. This note prepares readers for using big data and data analytics by providing an overview of data analytics, explaining how data analytics techniques can be used in accounting and auditing practices, and providing a tutorial that walks students through a basic use of ACL Analytics.

Realizing the missing link between traditional veterinary services and modern-day technology, Dicky Lau created a solution of his own-a telemedicine platform for pets. He founded VetNX in 2016 in Hong Kong after working in his family's pet food business for six years. As with many other early-stage companies, the two-year-old venture had gone through a few changes in its business model and seemed to have found the right niche to tackle the large potential market in China. The company had expanded rapidly in terms of geographic coverage and product offerings, and was at the stage of final testing on when it would be ready for commercial launch imminently. Dicky was also concerned about the future of his venture: the competitive landscape of the pet industry, the regulatory environment in the e-commerce sector in China, the efforts involved to secure venture funding, and above all, the kind of operating model he would use in his company.

Over 26 consecutive days from September to October, the transboundary haze of 2015 lingered in Southeast Asia. For Singapore, this episode was one of the city-state's worst and most protracted pollution. The fires originating mostly from Sumatra and Kalimantan in Indonesia, produced more greenhouse gases each day than the emissions by the entire U.S. economy. They rendered two million hectares of land barren, incinerating forests, oil palm and pulpwood plantations alike. This was a repeat of the haze pollution two years earlier. How did Singapore, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia as a whole respond to the haze pollution of 2013 and 2015? What did different segments of society do to cope with the pollution? What could companies like Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) that had sizeable stakes in plantations across Indonesia do to improve their operations and public reputation? This case highlights the multifaceted sustainability challenges encountered in the quest for environmental protection and the resolution of transboundary haze in Southeast Asia. The haze is an annual phenomenon; its effects are exacerbated by destructive agricultural practices, climate conditions, inadequate legislation, weak environmental activism and intergovernmental cooperation, and a lack of consumer action. To date, it remains an intractable problem.