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It is 2014 and Environmental Technologies Fund (ETF) Partners, a U.K.-based venture capital firm, has an opportunity to invest in a privately-held U.K. company that manufactured engineered composition leather extracted from waste leather using an environmentally-friendly process. The end product looked, smelled and felt like natural leather. Scalable marketplace adoption of E-Leather's products looked promising, but was just that-promising. And the company's success would largely depend on management's ability to significantly improve the efficiency of its manufacturing operations. ETF needed to decide to invest in the company and, if so, at what valuation. In addition, ETF needed to decide the structure of the investment and how the firm would assess E-Leather's environmental impact.

In December 2017, Vincent van den Boogert, CEO of ING in the Netherlands, was reflecting upon the company's "agile" transformation, a reorganization of work which had been critical to respond to and exceed rapidly changing customer expectations. Launched in 2015 at the head office, agile had spread to the rest of the Dutch organization, from client services to the branch network, and permeated the overall company culture. It was now time to rollout the transformation to other units of the ING Group, but some questions remained: could agile be as successful in other countries as it had been in the Netherlands? How fast should ING roll out the transformation? How could they build on the experience acquired so far to improve their methodology?

Autonomous vehicles have enormous implications for business and society. But, despite the headline-laden attention paid to the technology, there remain more questions than answers. Students will learn about the complex industry and have explicit discussions about the factors influencing development and commercialization and how various stakeholders might respond. They will also be put in the shoes of decision-makers looking for signals that might help them prepare for the disruptive change ahead.

This case explores how Walmart should compete with Amazon.

In early 2017, HCA Holdings, an investor-owned hospital management company, faced a strategically important capital allocation decision. After the exit of its private equity sponsors in 2016, HCA had to determine how best to allocate its substantial annual free cash flows among several competing alternatives. Equity analysts and some mutual fund investors were clamoring for the company to initiate regular quarterly dividends, while some other hedge fund investors were eager to see more share repurchases. Other choices being advocated by various parties included reducing leverage to improve HCA's credit rating to investment grade, spurring growth by initiating a major acquisition program or reinvesting heavily in existing markets to enhance HCA's strong competitive position. These choices had to be made in the face of uncertainty about the future of healthcare regulation and tax policy following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and in the context of its closest publicly traded peers struggling with heavy debt burdens. HCA's capital allocation choices would be crucial to its ability to provide high quality health care to patients, implement its corporate strategy and deliver value to shareholders.

A sixteenth century Renaissance masterpiece, missing for 137 years, believed by many to have been destroyed, and then rediscovered less than a decade ago, becomes the most expensive painting ever sold, all the while surrounded by controversy. Did the buyer of Leonardo da Vinci's painting pay too much? Was it real? Did it matter? The sale of Leonardo's painting allows students to reengineer brand equity to understand from what it is derived and how marketing actions influence changes in it. Methods for brand valuation can be discussed and issues related to branding in contemporary times, such as authenticity, legitimacy, authorship, craftsmanship, and storytelling can be used to show how brand value is built and destroyed. Brand partnerships, particularly between and among Leonardo, Christie's auction house, the sellers, the experts who attributed the painting to Leonardo, and the celebrities used to market it, are dissected to understand how brand meaning and value transfer from one partner to another.

In May 2014, Honda Canada was planning to relaunch the Honda Fit-its entry-level car. The purpose of the relaunch was to kick-start growth in sales of the Honda Fit, which had fallen from 14,836 units in the launch year of 2008 to 9,512 units in 2013. The target customer group was an up-and-coming demographic cohort known as millennials. Honda Canada's manager of Customer Conquest Management was mandated with strategizing and executing the relaunch. She had to make two core decisions: How should Honda Canada connect with millennials, and what communication medium should it choose to reach them?

In 2017, Tomer Zvulun, the CEO and artistic director of The Atlanta Opera, was considering next steps. Zvulun had adapted quickly to the new, dual role of chief executive and artistic director, although there had been a steep learning curve. As he gained traction, the Opera's profile as an up and coming arts organization also grew. However, there was still much to be done if Zvulun wanted the Opera to be ranked among the best in the country. Should Zvulun should hire a chief operating officer to help manage day-to-day operations, and if so, should he focus his search on internal or external candidates? More broadly, Zvulun wondered how could he best balance his significant personal, professional, and organizational aspirations?

In two short years, Viacom's Data Science & Advanced Analytics team built a web platform called Science Central that allowed employees from Viacom's 20+ cable networks to access television audience insights through three data science apps. In the past, employees would have approached the team to carry out these requests. Vice President of Data and Audience Development Fabio Luzzi, who oversaw the 10-person team, believed that making data science instantly available in accessible formats would allow teams to make better-informed decisions. By June 2017, the platform had 600 regular users, but Luzzi wanted to expand its reach. He considered whether the team should focus on strengthening the platform or devote more resources to custom analytics requests that would allow the team to explore new problems and develop new insights.

In 2017, bike sharing was one of the hottest technology trends in China. Since its inception two years earlier, Mobike had quickly become one of China's leading bike on-demand companies because of its bicycles' superior quality, and the company's intelligence capability, open innovation, alliance strategies, and big data applications. Mobike expanded aggressively to take advantage of opportunities in this emerging market and the need for efficient, green, and sustainable solutions to short-distance urban transportation. However, Mobike's aggressive expansion faced tough challenges, including shared bicycle operations and management, competition from rivals, and government regulations. By late 2017, several bike-sharing services had gone bankrupt. How could Mobike avoid the same fate, generate profit, and continue to prosper?

Kossan is a publicly listed company in Malaysia that produces rubber gloves for industrial, medical and household uses. The industry is oligopolistic and the products are basically homogenous. Thus far, its competitive strategy has relied on low cost, low profit margin, and high volume production. This cost-based competitive industry, as a whole, has been growing at 6-8% per annum and the industry prospect seems promising. In February 2016, the issues facing the company were about its expansion plan and future competitive strategy. Kossan's top management needed to address these concerns: -Should Kossan invest in the expansion plan, amidst similar expansion by its competitors and therefore, potential over-supply scenario in the market? -What should be the product mix of Kossan, given the changes in market demand and competitors' production? -Given the homogenous products and possible expansion by competitors, what were possible strategic options for Kossan to consider to prepare itself for a potential over-supply? -Given that the US market is one of its largest markets, the company also worried about the rising Trump's protectionist sentiment, although it was not certain if and by how much the rubber gloves industry would be affected.

iD Fresh Food (India) Private Ltd., is a leading ready-to-cook and eat packaged food company serving several cities in India. The company is known for its popular product, Idly-Dosa batter that it sells through retail outlets. iD started with packaging Idly-Dosa batter and has since diversified into Malabar Parota, Wheat Parota, Chapati, and Chutneys. In 2017, iD Fresh was a 1000+ member team with seven factory locations and eight offices - two plants in Bengaluru, one each in Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Mangalore, and Dubai. They manufactured more than 50,000 kg of Idli-Dosa batter per day which is equivalent to a million idlis. The company produced and sold nearly 15 ready-to-eat packaged food products and their flagship products include Idli-Dosa batter, Mini Parota, Malabar Parota, Whole Wheat Parota, Whole Wheat Chapati, and Whole Wheat Junior Parota. iD Fresh Food was in expansion phase and adding several outlets to its distribution network. Since all the products sold by iD Fresh Foods had short shelf life, anywhere between 4 and 7 days, forecasting demand accurately is important. iD would like to be in a state where there will be a greater degree of predictability in its operations. Ideally, they would like to know how much of each SKU should be loaded into each vehicle for the following day when a salesman starts his beat journey. The forecast for each store, based on past performance of each store in each beat, should be fairly accurate. This would then enable a macro-view of the business operations over a month and consequently help in production planning and operations for the future.

This case introduces the concepts of information and material flow analysis, operational improvement procedure and the steps to be taken for successful change management in the context of warehouse consolidation at Manipal Hospitals Bangalore (MHB). The case describes the warehouse consolidation project which was expected to lower operational costs and improve service levels by leveraging economies of scale through aggregation of demand. It discusses the benefits of aggregation of demand and the procedure to design a supply network based on the demand pattern and criticality of products. However the desired outcomes were not achieved initially and the service levels plummeted rather than increasing. The second case then describes the steps taken to manage the change and meet the desired goals. This case goes beyond process improvement, to its implementation, the challenges faced, and related change management techniques needed for ensuring success of the process improvement initiatives. The case challenges the students to think about the various stakeholders involved when change initiatives are implemented on an organization level and to recommend solutions based on the voices of various internal customers. The case also encourages the students to think about the various aspects of organizational behavior that are involved at the time of changes in management processes. The Part B case showcases the changes that were implemented by the protagonist to improve and deliver the necessary service levels.

Kalpana Sankar, was working with community-based initiatives, using a five-pillar approach. The approach is an intricate interconnection between a problem and its connection with the society. One of the pillars is provision of financial services to augment livelihoods. As she moves ahead, the financial services grow faster than other pillars. The ecosystem for inclusive finance has also changed; other initiatives dictate the rules of the game. Kalpana's path is of development with community involvement and ownership. This militates against rapid growth. The case explores the dilemma of ideology lead inclusive initiative stagnating, with growth opportunities appearing in a market based model. So, is it the ideology-mission model or a market-led model?

The case on Wipro BPO's Base)))TM highlights the critical decisions faced by service businesses as they develop products and platforms. This case elucidates the evolution of the Indian business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, Wipro's competitive position in the industry, and the architecture of the Base))) Suite of products. As Base))) began contributing to Wipro BPO's competitive advantage, the company had to make a few key decisions regarding product integration, verticalization, and network management in the context of Base))) Suite of products.

Spencer's is major retail firm in India that operates in hypermarket and supermarket space. True to the formats, food and grocery business is the strength of Spencer's. This case focuses on two strategic issues typical of retail business in most emerging markets: should the company follow aggressive growth model (that is used by many competing retailers who have more market share than Spencer's) or should it consolidate its current position and focus on profitability instead. The case provides adequate customer information, competitors' strategy vis-à-vis Spencer's strategy to carry out an in depth analysis of retail business environment and generate appropriate strategy. This can be used for discussing retailing as well as marketing strategy.

This case discusses the evolution and dynamics of the Indian sugar industry. It provides a detailed analysis of various factors that impact the structure and attractiveness of the industry in India. It further explains how the global industry scenario is developing and has an influence on the advancement of the industry in India. It throws light on various aspects, such as government regulations, geographical differences, technological trends, availability of substitutes, barriers for exit, lack of sufficient focus on by-products, demand and supply forces, change in global practices and guidelines from international agencies such as WHO, that influence the elevation and future of this industry. In a scenario where sugar producers persistently face high inventory situation, high cost of production, exit restrictions and stiff government regulations, along with other global factors such as excess supply and stagnant consumption growth, innovative players are also struggling to maintain profitability, can Indian sugar manufacturers find ways to sustain their business? Would complete deregulation, backward or forward integration, further diversification into by-products, moving into multiple geographies, changing the source of sugar or strategic partnerships with other global companies be good enough options to turnaround the situation?