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Bank Audi, a leading financial institution, was founded in Lebanon in 1830 and, over the years, had been engaged in various forms of philanthropic, charitable giving embodying its responsibility towards its various stakeholders. The head of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) unit faced a prominent decision. How could the bank consolidate its CSR efforts-which had taken a largely philanthropic approach, especially between 2010 and 2012-in the context of a coherent strategy that built on the assessment of aspects that were material and critical to both the bank and its key stakeholders? Setting the bank's CSR priorities would serve as the basis of a coherent CSR strategy for Bank Audi.

Recruit Holdings, Japan's largest staffing firm and a leading marketing media company started out in the early 1960s as an advertising company publishing magazines for jobseekers. It scaled up over the following decades to add business verticals such as real estate, bridal, travel, beauty salons and restaurants. Spurred by the internet revolution in the early 2000s, Recruit launched job boards and websites for its diverse media businesses while also moving content online by digitizing many of its popular magazines. In the early 2010s, it transitioned into becoming a service provider with the launch of a number of web-based platforms that allowed SMEs to digitize several key activities, such as point-of-sale registers, reservations and payments. By 2015 Recruit's digital platforms had gained significant popularity and the company was generating enormous amounts of online data on types of transactions, end-user behaviors and SME business characteristics. It also held significant deep offline data that resided within the sales team. However, the platforms and the data was specific to individual businesses. Recruit began to push for a unified backbone platform that would cut across all businesses with vertically stacked integrated solutions. It also established an artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory in Silicon Valley. The mandate was to apply the latest technologies in data analytics, machine learning and AI to achieve breakthrough innovation. At the same time, Recruit harbored global aspirations and embarked on international expansion, mainly through acquisitions. Its goal was to become the world's largest staffing firm by 2020 and the largest media company by 2030. Could Recruit replicate its business model successfully overseas? Could it leverage its people and technological platforms to transform itself into a truly global internet corporation? Could it cannibalize its existing businesses through data-driven innovations to leapfrog into the future?

The case is set in May 2016 when the Monetary Authority of Singapore withdrew the merchant banking license of the Singapore branch of Swiss private bank BSI Ltd. The reasons cited were violation of anti-money laundering regulations, pervasive non-compliance and gross misconduct by staff. The closure of the bank was precipitated by an ongoing scandal around its biggest client, 1MDB, a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund spearheaded by the Prime Minister Najib Razak. At the same time, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority announced criminal proceedings against the BSI group for failure to conduct statutory due diligence on transactions involving hundreds of millions of dollars linked to 1MDB and slapped on a fine of CHF 95 million. The case provides an opportunity to analyze the factors that led to the demise of BSI, one of the oldest banks in Switzerland and the sixth largest in the country. Did the lure of lucrative business persuade it to cross the line in terms of ethics and regulatory requirements? BSI appears to have pursued top-line growth at the expense of compliance. To what extent was the senior management responsible? Could BSI have better managed the balance between risk management and its growth strategy? If so, how? Learning objective: To identify the contextual challenges of operating in complex high-growth markets. To understand the role of senior management in maintaining oversight. To recognize the balance between managing risk and compliance in pursuing aggressive targets. To assess the interface between the headquarters and the local subsidiary for functions such as audit, governance and conduct. To understand the global ramifications of a local breach.

In 2016, a soccer fan closely followed the scores, standings, and transfers of players in the European soccer leagues. Having witnessed countless exchanges of players from one team to another, she wondered about the factors that team managers considered when determining the players' market values. She gathered data on 77 notable soccer players in an effort to better understand the essential factors that made the players valuable. Could she use the variables she had collected to also build a functioning model that would predict a player's market value?

This is an updated version of "The Financial Detective, 2005" (UVA-F-1486). The case presents students with financial ratios for eight pairs of unidentified companies and asks them to mate the description of the company with the financial profile derived from the ratios. The primary objective of this case is to introduce students to financial ratio analysis-in particular, the range of ratios and the insights each one affords. This case presumes that students have already been introduced to the definitions of various financial ratios through other readings or lectures. The structured exploration of pairs of companies within an industry affords a number of important insights into strategy and financial performance. First, the economics of individual industries account for significant variations in financial ratios because of differences in technologies, product characteristics, or competitive structures. Second, financial performance results from managerial choices: within industries, the wide variation in financial ratios is often a result of the differences in corporate strategy in marketing, operations, and finance. For those reasons, this case is a good springboard into subsequent classes, which deal with the interaction of strategy and financial performance.

In 1998, Courtney Kingston persuaded her family to expand their ranch in Chile from dairy and cattle into wine. By March 2016, Kingston Family Vineyards had a strong international brand for its small-production wines and successfully sold the remaining top-tier grapes to other Chilean winemakers. But they faced key choices regarding focus and growth. As Courtney packed her bags for Chile to attend the annual meeting of the family business, she considered three diverging paths. One option was to increase production of their highly rated, handcrafted wines, which had established the vineyard's reputation for quality, pursuing sufficient scale to turn a profit on the winery. Alternatively, the Kingstons could refocus on the vineyard, as they had originally planned, playing to their strengths in farming expertise and leveraging their primary asset - the land. A third possibility was to Invest in Chile's burgeoning tourism market, and open a boutique hotel in Casablanca's wine country. Courtney wondered how best to preserve the family's land for the next generation while contributing to the greater Casablanca Valley community. This case explores these three strategic possibilities and their potential economic impact. Kingston Family Vineyards - Trade and Education video provides an overview of their history and approach to winemaking in Casablanca Valley, Chile. https://vimeo.com/201833299 (TRT: 04:38)

In mid-2015, the Singapore-based CEO of Choson Exchange Geoffrey See pondered his next move. He had founded Choson Exchange as a non-profit in 2009 to further female entrepreneurship in North Korea by providing business and legal training in the isolated country. Now, however, he considered launching a for-profit incubator, PY Ventures, to provide North Korean entrepreneurs with customized mentorship and access to foreign capital. What role did See play in North Korea, and how should he evaluate the risks and opportunities of moving out of the non-profit space in what many around the world considered a "Rogue State"?

As the case opens in 1999, several key leaders at BlackRock, Inc.- then a relatively small asset management firm -- are trying to convince CEO Larry Fink and others that the firm should begin to offer Aladdin -- its proprietary analytics and trading platform -- to other asset managers. While some members of the senior team saw "selling our systems" as an opportunity, others likened it to "selling weapons to the enemy" or "giving away the crown jewels." What should Fink do? The case provides an overview of the asset management industry, the beginnings of BlackRock, and details around the Aladdin platform.

This case follows Jenica Fletcher as she rebuilds her company's guitar strings division from the ground up. Convinced that she could turn the division around if given complete independence from corporate headquarters, Fletcher relocated the group, rebranded it as Malenti Strings, repositioned the guitar strings as high-performance products, and transformed Malenti into a fast-growing, profitable business. The case traces Fletcher's key steps in rebuilding the organization, including the development of a team of committed, interdependent employees. Students learn about Fletcher's values and unique management philosophy, as well as her managerial practices and daily activities. The case also discusses the role and development of the partnerships that helped solidify and grow the business. Coming off its high-end success, Malenti must now decide whether to move into the mid-priced market with a new line of electric guitar strings called True.

The purpose of this case is to look at Autodesk's cultural and technological challenges as the company faces a changing industry. With various innovations such as the cloud, the Internet of things, and various new manufacturing processes affecting every aspect of the company's future, students will be introduced to the various decisions and challenges a corporation has to face in order to remain ahead of massive industry disruption. The case analyzes Autodesk's three major branches: (1) Architectural and Engineering, (2) Manufacturing, and (3) Media & Entertainment and how all three branches are adjusting to meet the future. Of particular focus is the shift to a subscription business model, the cultural ramifications of such a shift, the arrival of activist investors to the company's stock, and the various disruptive innovations in Autodesk's markets.

The number and value of Chinese enterprises' cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are increasing, but their success rate remains very low. The failure of cultural integration is one of the most important reasons. In 2005, Lenovo Group Ltd., acquired IBM's PC division in what was called a "snake swallows elephant" acquisition that caused a sensation worldwide. During the ten years after the M&A, Lenovo integrated IBM's PC division's culture through several stages of acculturation, which ended with great success. In 2014, Lenovo acquired IBM's x86 Server. Lenovo faced a challenge: Should the first acquisition's cultural integration be replayed and copied for the x86 Server acquisition? Or should Lenovo look for a new approach?

This case describes a situation in which Vivek Vyas and Vimal Popat conceive an idea to start an online obituary advertising platform. Vyas and Popat then discuss the possible ways to start an online obituary advertisement platform. The purpose of this case is to provide an opportunity to step into the shoes of Vyas and Popat and explore the best possible option to offer an alternate solution to print obituary advertisement. The case provides the context for students to examine alternate options for the print obituary advertisement amidst lack of entrepreneurial experience of Vyas and Popat.

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (DMRC), a government-owned enterprise in India, was responsible for building, operating, and managing the metro rail network in the National Capital Region of India. Delhi's reliable, punctual, clean, and green metro services began operation in 2002. By 2016, DMRC had transformed peoples' lives and become an essential form of transit for an average of 2.5 million commuters per day. In terms of customer satisfaction, DMRC was ranked in a global online survey as the second-best metro system in the world. But management at DMRC knew that to maintain that level of customer satisfaction, it had to be conscious of the gap between performance and customer expectations, which were increasing with demands from DMRC's assertive and ambitious millennial commuters. In addition, the government was embarking on strategies to induce commuters to switch from private to public transit. DMRC needed to evaluate its strategic service priorities while continuing to deliver value to its stakeholders. Should DMRC focus on enhancing customer experience with augmented services or invest in measures to reduce operational costs? Was DMRC's culture of customer delight sustainable?

Hope Blooms was a social enterprise based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, that grew its own garden produce and manufactured and sold a line of herb dressings. For a small social enterprise, it was remarkably successful. Hope Blooms had appeared on CBC's Dragons' Den and was constantly selling out of its products in local markets. In addition, it had secured placement in a national grocery retailer and was continuing to fulfill its social mission of empowering marginalized youth by providing education on food, sustainability, and entrepreneurship issues. These successes started to create a series of problems associated with production and capacity shortfalls associated with using a youth volunteer workforce, stock outs, and potential mission drift. As the executive director of Hope Blooms prepared for the final board of directors' meeting in 2015, she wondered how to solve two of the organization's fundamental problems: How could the retail operations provide stable employment for its youth members? How could Hope Blooms increase its profits to continue to expand its activities?

In September 2006, the general manager at Norwood Waterworks (Norwood) was faced with a difficult situation. Since his original employer, EMCO Corporation (Emco), acquired Norwood, he had been tasked with trying to turn around the new acquisition. Like Emco, Norwood was a distributor of building products and equipment in the waterworks industry. The company had three locations, all in Alberta. However, the general manager soon discovered that Norwood was suffering due to a poor organizational culture. Employees were unmotivated, overpaid, and complacent. He needed to communicate-clearly and effectively-that the Emco culture was here to stay, and that the Norwood employees needed to find a way to change the way they operated.

The case is set in June 2014, when Lau Wing Chew, Chief Transformation Officer (CTO) at Alexandra Health System (AHS) in Singapore was highlighting the achievements of the data analytics initiative made by the Health Analytics Unit (HAU) at AHS to his management team. Although the initiative was still in its initial stage, multiple medical and administrative areas had been improved with the help of data analytics. The journey to develop the data analytics initiative had commenced in 2011, when Lau reviewed a set of data presented by the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department, and realised that non-emergency cases at A&E were taking up too much of hospital resources. He also noted other pressing resource-related issues, such as acute bed shortages and patients not showing up for their appointments at specialist outpatient clinics, causing a sub-optimal utilisation of critical resources like doctors and appointment rooms. Lau knew that given the right metrics, predictive analytics could improve the situation. In the following three years, the HAU had leveraged the capabilities of data analytics to roll out initiatives such as population health and ageing-in-place programmes, and implementing solutions into patient medical billing and operating theatre dashboards. Although these unremitting efforts were showing results, the challenges ahead were significant. The HAU team not only needed to get buy-in at an operational level with different business units, but also needed to increase health awareness in patients. How could AHS improve the data analytics initiative further, and plan its resources optimally? Students will gain an understanding of the critical success factors and challenges faced during the implementation of analytics projects, as well as learn how to operationalize such a project within an organisation.

This case study outlines the strategic, regulatory, and broader issues that confront the venture capital and tech startup ecosystem in China; as the country continues its reforms towards a more domestically driven market economy.

Tunisia has been the only country to emerge from the Arab Spring with a successful transition to democracy. This case focuses on a critical period in this transition process, when the country appointed an interim government. The case zooms in on the leadership and governance challenges of this "caretaker" administration during its one-year mandate in 2014-2015. In order to convey the highly turbulent environment this government faced, the story centers on one of the cabinet ministers and his struggle to deal with students' protests, labor strikes and threats to national security. It also outlines the challenge of making ethical decisions and pursuing much-needed reforms in this context. The protagonist of the case - the Minister of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Information & Communication Technologies, Mr Tawfik Jelassi - is unusual in that he was a business school professor and dean with no political experience, who was plunged into a new environment and expected to "sink or swim." He had to learn to map out the constellation of stakeholders who were important to his decision-making and to understand the dynamics of political conflicts. He was a member of a diverse team: non-partisan "technocrats" coming from different sectors and countries. An esprit-de-corps and high-level coordination enabled the government team to achieve the objectives set by the country's National Dialogue Quartet at the outset of their mandate. In 2015, Tunisia was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for having built a pluralistic democracy. The Norwegian Nobel Committee stated that: "The ultimate validation of the Quartet's historical effort came in the autumn of 2014, when the parliamentary and presidential elections were carried out. Both the technocratic government and the interim president resigned and were replaced by lawfully elected successors."

Kurt Darrow, CEO of La-Z-Boy furniture, must decide whether to continue an overhaul of the company's strategy in the face of a collapse in demand during the great recession. Having pared back La-Z-Boy's portfolio of brands and manufacturing network, he intends to reposition the company as a branded retailer of furniture and home fashions. Just management is poised to implement a new strategy that involves a heavy investment in brand advertising, a complete overhaul of the retail organization and a fundamentally new manufacturing system, the industry experiences a catastrophic downturn. Should he continue to invest in a highly speculative strategy or rein in investment and preserve cash?