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Bizongo, an Indian e-B2B platform was co-founded by three college graduates in 2015 with the goal of creating the "Alibaba of India" when the B2B e-commerce landscape was practically non-existent. The founders saw a significant opportunity in connecting mid-sized enterprise buyers and small-scale suppliers in India's highly fragmented manufacturing sector. The journey had been difficult, but by 2023, Bizongo had carved a niche for itself with its platform offering digital order placement and processing and its financing facility for SMEs. It focused on the unbranded customized goods segment like packaging products and apparel. But with more players vying for market share and India's digital public infrastructure potentially set to disrupt the industry, the co-founders were under pressure to consolidate their position. They needed to take several decisions. Should Bizongo attempt to onboard more buyers and vendors, or increase wallet share among existing customers? Should it convert its platform to a truly open marketplace model that would allow vendor and enterprise discovery? Should it go deeper in existing product categories or build product breadth by adding more categories? How should the team think about consolidating upstream operations? Should it expand into Southeast Asia? At the core of the dilemma was finding the strategy that would best enable Bizongo to monetize its offerings.

In a groundbreaking move on September 20, 2022, Lasell University's President, Michael B. Alexander, announced an extraordinary 33% reduction in tuition, room, board, and fees, signaling a pivotal shift in higher education. Situated in an affluent Boston suburb, Lasell, a venerable 170-year institution, is taking a bold step to enhance transparency and affordability in response to the perennial escalation of college costs. This historic decision aims to recalibrate the value proposition of a college degree, attracting a more diverse student body, and challenging the prevailing narrative of spiraling tuition rates nationwide. The impact of this unprecedented policy shift is not confined to Lasell alone but reverberates through the broader landscape of American higher education, prompting a critical reassessment of the cost and value dynamics of pursuing a college education.

San Francisco based Vida Health, founded by Stephanie Tilenius, former vice president of Commerce and Payments at Google, was a B2B digital health startup focused on the treatment of cardiometabolic conditions, such as diabetes and obesity. Its innovative digital platform integrated technology with human care, and its treatment approach focused on physical health as and mental health, creating a unique, holistic solution. As a Series D venture backed company with $188 million in funding, Vida was eager to scale the business faster. In 2023 Tilenius was grappling with whether to start prescribing weight loss drugs as part of Vida's obesity management program. Consumer demand for newly FDA-approved semaglutide drugs (GLP-1s), like Ozempic, was surging. However, GLP-1s were already facing scrutiny for risks; they had known negative side effects; and there was no clear scientific proof that people could be taken off them and maintain weight loss. It was also not clear how the market would respond if Vida-which had differentiated itself through its behavioral management approach to chronic disease-entered the weight loss prescription drug business. Would Vida be characterized as a "pill-mill"? If Vida did decide to offer prescription weight loss drugs as part of its platform, it would also have to decide if it should roll out a B2C platform to reach consumers who were not covered through an employer plan or whose plan did not cover weight loss medications. Tilenius had significant experience with B2C brands and saw the potential. However, building a B2C brand would likely be a costly endeavor.

Catalent's newly appointed CEO, Alessandro Maselli, experienced the highs of the pharmaceutical contract development manufacturing (CDMO) space during COVID-19 while helping Moderna and others bring vaccines to market quickly and safely. After rushing to add capacity to help deal with the pandemic, demand for CDMO services dried up post-pandemic, leaving Maselli and Catalent to pick up the pieces. Once considered as an acquisition target by other industry giants, Catalent dealt with several struggles, including a departing CFO, several issues with plants, and declining demand. How can Maselli turn the ship around and drive Catalent to even higher heights moving forward?

Ken Xie, cofounder of cybersecurity giant Fortinet, faced a critical decision that would validate his leadership. Fortinet became the industry's second-largest pureplay cybersecurity firm by developing differentiated hardware and investing in R&D. However, after a stock downgrade despite strong financials, Xie weighed adapting messaging versus remaining steadfast. With competitors like Palo Alto Networks gaining accolades for cloud focus and acquisitions, some advisors pushed Xie to highlight Fortinet's comparable cloud capabilities more. But doing so would diverge from Xie's conviction in hardware advantages in a complex, rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape. As threats became more sophisticated, agility in communication was essential. The impending earnings call forced Xie to consider his conviction with openness to new narratives. Xie grappled with how to amplify cloud messaging without having it overshadow and dilute Fortinet's core identity rooted in hardware expertise and advantage. The case analyzes how cybersecurity leaders make high-stakes decisions weighing competing demands between long-held beliefs and market adaptations in shaping their communication, where a wrong choice could expose customers to evolving threats.

On January 2, 2018, the chief executive officer of a private company in Karachi, Pakistan, Imaam Spinning Mills (Imaam), was planning to expand the company's product line and enter the weaving business by setting up a new weaving plant. He asked his chief financial officer to conduct a financial evaluation financial evaluation of the project. To do so, she needed to calculate the weighted average cost of capital, using the comparative method to calculate the cost of capital for the unlisted firm based on financial data from Imaam and comparable firms, and determine the feasibility of the project.

Cynet Systems Private Limited (Cynet) was a subsidiary of Cynet Corporation, a technology services firm providing staffing support for US clients. The Cynet team in India was based in smaller Indian cities such as Karnal and Dehradun. When a lockdown was announced in early March 2020 to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the country, the recruiters working for Cynet had to shift to remote work. This was a dramatic shift for the young recruiters, most of whom were recent college graduates. The onus of ensuring the client deliverable was met was on Shyam Sharma, the team leader at Cynet. At that time, the company created a centralized data reporting team, and in December 2021 the organization was still looking to enhance an analytics dashboard to better predict employee performance; further analytical insights would allow Cynet's top management to make better predictive outcomes versus what was currently being measured to evaluate performance.

In August 2022, a Canadian investor, Adam Eissa, was considering making an investment in Nautilus Inc. (Nautilus). Nautilus was a manufacturer of connected home fitness equipment that was experiencing financial volatility amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Before coming to a decision, Eissa wanted to analyze the financial data from Nautilus's annual report and complete a business size-up of its corporate strategy.

The release of ChatGPT and other generative AI models marked the beginning of a revolution in various industries by automating work processes. These AI technologies, accessible through chatbot interfaces, could generate text, audio, code, images, and videos, saving time and resources. In 2023, generative AI was starting to transform the way professionals worked in the accounting industry, enabling them to streamline auditing and accounting processes, utilizing natural language processing (NLP), and improving information search. The big-four accounting firms invested heavily in developing their own AI solutions to enhance efficiency and offer innovative client solutions. However, in early 2023, some big-four offices restricted the use of generative AI models, while other firms embraced the technology, providing guidance and training to their staff. The rapid growth of generative AI posed challenges for businesses unprepared for automation, leading them to assess the risks and benefits before adopting AI. Joesy Loh, an audit partner at a Singaporean CPA firm serving SMEs, recognized the potential of generative AI to improve audit efficiency and financial statement preparation. How can Joesy persuade her partners to embrace generative AI technology, considering their concerns about the accuracy of the generated output and data security for their firm and clients?

Third Place Winner; 2023 Energy Innovation in LMICs Global Case Writing Competition Gigawatt Global Coöperatief U.A., a multinational renewable energy company focused on the development and management of utility-scale solar and wind fields in emerging markets, faces a striking dilemma: the firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities may be limiting its efforts to bring clean energy to Africa. Gigawatt Global's strategy is to partner with diverse stakeholders-energy financial entities, governments, development groups, and other institutions-to structure renewable energy investments in emerging markets. As a mission-driven company, it invests significant resources into CSR efforts alongside each project it completes. The challenge for the company is determining the right amount of mission-fulfilling CSR efforts it should invest in, while also growing and thriving as a business in a market replete with uncertainties. Where is the right balance, where should the CSR line be drawn, and why? The case presents conditions and potential decisions that the company's chief operating officer was actually facing.

Second Place Winner; 2023 Energy Innovation in LMICs Global Case Writing Competition This case puts students in the role of the protagonist Sergio Araújo, CEO of SolarEnergy, so that they can assess the company's next steps amid the arrival of new investors. SolarEnergy provides installation and maintenance services for photovoltaic panels in regions of Brazil. With shifts in the market and new government tax policies at the beginning of 2023, Araújo faces new dynamics and challenges. The new investors seek to multiply annual revenues by five within five years. Araújo and the investors have several alternative strategies.

Karen Chan was a Hong Kong second-generation leader in her family business, German Pool Hong Kong Limited (German Pool), a home appliance and furniture company founded by Karen's father, Edward Chan. By July 2022, Karen had developed the family business and founded her own high-fashion brand, Sparkle Collection, amid ongoing disruptions in Hong Kong. Karen was an innovator of products and ideas for the family business, but her niche venture Sparkle Collection gave her an understanding of the hardship her father faced starting a new business from scratch. Social unrest in Hong Kong in 2019 and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 had a strong impact on the economy, drastically affecting sales of premium products. Karen pivoted to make her venture survive. She also created a new strategic plan for the enterprise's portfolio. Sparkle Collection targeted a niche artistic and cultural sector. In contrast, German Pool's appliance and furniture business, along with its Happy Kitchen Cafe, catered to the mass market. Karen knew that it could take years of continued investment in Sparkle Collection to make it a "star" in the portfolio. She wondered if she could balance her roles as steward of the family business, while pursuing her passion as the entrepreneurial founder of Sparkle Collection. Should she continue to invest in her venture despite uncertainties in the economy and in her own future? Or should she give up on Sparkle Collection and refocus her efforts on steering German Pool's existing business through the pandemic?

First Place Winner; 2023 Energy Innovation in LMICs Global Case Writing Competition Sammy Kalunji, 36, a low-income self-employed motorcycle taxi microentrepreneur in Kampala, Uganda, decided to buy an electric motorcycle with a rechargeable battery. He is one of about 250 such pioneers in low-emission transportation in this major (and air-polluted) city in west-central Africa at the end of 2022. However, operating in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment, he does not receive enough income to fully provide for his family. This is true, despite the fact that his electric motorcycle (known as an E-boda) has substantially lower operating costs than his former petroleum-powered one (known as a P-boda). This case elaborates on four financial, operational, commercial, and social organization models and alternatives Kalunji must navigate so that he and his fellow E-boda riders can harness economic opportunities emerging from this new low-carbon urban transportation solution, and be recognized as making an essential contribution to the transition to green urban mobility in Kampala. Ultimately, the case takes the perspective of low-income groups adopting low-carbon mobility innovations while working in generalized informal market conditions. It reflects and critiques the global Northern concept of social and environmental "sustainable innovation" as it is exported to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with the risk of making such innovations unsustainable by themselves.

For more than fifteen years, successful Canadian entrepreneur and investor Kevin O'Leary had developed his brand into a global powerhouse. Since his first appearance on the Canadian television program Dragons' Den in 2006 and his meteoric rise to stardom through the hit show and cultural phenomenon Shark Tank, O'Leary had become synonymous with his penchant for telling the "cold hard truth," just as much as his investing savvy. A natural storyteller, O'Leary had long recognized the value of a powerful narrative. Now bolstered by network deals and a growing social media presence, the balding businessman had cultivated an audience of millions who eagerly await his advice on personal finance, just as much as they rely on him for entertainment. At the same time, active investments, speaking engagements, book deals, and a foray into politics bolstered his image as a formidable businessperson and thought leader. Within a decade, he had come to realize the vast potential of the virtuous cycle that underlies a successful personal brand. On November 11, 2022, news broke that could spell the end for Mr. Wonderful: FTX, a prominent cryptocurrency exchange firm that O'Leary had supported as an investor and paid spokesperson, declared bankruptcy amid reports of mismanagement of customer funds and a potential investigation by the US government. Sitting in Boston Logan Airport and watching his multimillion-dollar investment drop to zero, his phone suddenly rings: CNBC is running a national story on FTX and O'Leary's involvement, and if he wants to tell his side of the story, he has to go live on air in ten minutes. For O'Leary, the decision is more than whether to face the media. He must decide how to protect his personal brand, defined by honesty and credibility, from associations with potentially massive fraud. How should O'Leary respond? And what direction should he take his brand in the face of potential crisis?

In 2016, Roche, then a 120-year-old global leader in healthcare, pharmaceuticals and diagnostics, was in growing need of reinventing itself to become faster and more adaptable. It was facing disruption both from nimbler rivals and new competitors. The organization was sometimes likened to a "tanker" - a collective of 100,000 employees around the world that had become slow-moving and weighed down by bureaucracy and too many processes. Cris Wilbur, the incoming head of People & Culture, was tasked with articulating and orchestrating what she termed a cultural evolution towards agility, empowerment and self-directed leadership. One of the transformation's primary goals was to channel more funding into the company's R&D pipeline. This required that Roche should not only reengineer its ways of working but also uphold its long-standing commitment to science and innovation, its newly articulated core values and its purpose of "Doing now what patients need next." The case examines the difficult choices that executives at Roche had to make in order to anchor and sustain the change for its workforce around the world, including tradeoffs between: Autonomy and alignment, top-down and bottom-up initiatives, quantifiable business outcomes versus employee engagement and professional growth. And, more specifically, the demands placed on Roche - a manufacturer of PCR tests - by the Covid pandemic while it was simultaneously battling a sense of transformation fatigue among employees. The case raises questions about segmenting and signposting the change process, and about the next phase in the process, likely more stable and, by comparison with the starting point in 2016, less defined by immediate and existential external threats.

KOODESIGN was founded in Hong Kong by Larry Koo and Natalie Chan in 2017. From its base in Hong Kong, KOODESIGN has managed global design projects for clients around the world, such as Philips, Whirlpool, and Softbank. All of those product designs then needed to be manufactured and brought to market. Accordingly, KOODESIGN also developed its Go-to-Market strategy to facilitate the process of moving a product from a design concept to a finished product ready to be launched in the market. KOODESIGN's latest project was the design of an Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS) for a major, new client, Eaton, a global conglomerate with US$20 billion in annual sales. The product called the ATS MATSN was to be manufactured in China and was intended for the mainland China market. As the product design lead for KOODESIGN, Larry interacted extensively with Studio Blue, Eaton's human-centric design team, and studied the Eaton Designer's Guide to Visual Brand Language (VBL) that Studio Blue had shared with KOODESIGN. Natalie, on the other hand, had been in close communication with the ATS MATSN project team in China, which included product development, as well as sales and marketing. They also provided input on product design. Over the course of the interactions that Larry and Natalie had with the respective parties, it became apparent that the priorities of the design team in the USA and the product development and manufacturing teams in China were not necessarily aligned. While KOODESIGN had an established Go-to-Market strategy, implementing that strategy varied across projects depending on the stakeholders involved in each project and their respective priorities. It was necessary, therefore, for Larry and Natalie to further vet the priorities of the parties involved with the ATS MATSN project and ensure that key elements of Eaton's VBL were not compromised while also ensuring that the product could be manufactured and assembled in a cost-effective manner so as to be competitive in

In October 2022, Chinese car company BYD Auto Co., Ltd. (BYD) announced its entry into the Indian automobile market with the Atto 3, an electric sports utility vehicle (e-SUV). Despite facing challenges in India's emerging electric vehicle (EV) market and the close scrutiny on investments from China, BYD aimed to sell 15,000 units to be assembled at its existing Chennai plant, to establish manufacturing facilities, and to open fifty-three dealerships by the end of 2023. BYD's push into India was part of its larger expansion strategy to diversify into new markets globally to include Japan, Thailand, the United States, and Brazil. However, the company needed to determine its target segment, who its competitors were, and what macroeconomic challenges it would face so that it could establish a position within India's competitive car market. The existing Chennai plant saved BYD from having to obtain new approvals from the government, but the company still had to navigate the challenges of entering a new market with a nascent EV infrastructure.

"For ghSMART, freedom is the first principle from which all good things flow"-Geoff Smart, Chairman and Founder, ghSMART. ghSMART was a leadership advisory firm that was grounded in the principle of freedom. Talented Consultants and Partners could work remotely from where they wanted to, they could work on whatever they wanted to, and with whoever they like. There was no up-or-out culture, and employees were rewarded based on outcomes, not hours worked. In January 2022, ghSMART & Company conducted a comprehensive review of its 12-year performance, revealing remarkable growth with nearly $100 million in revenue by 2021 and a strong reputation for employee satisfaction and client impact. However, after a decade of success, the firm faced challenges related to its freedom-based culture, including difficulties in promoting self-sustaining partners, limited knowledge sharing, and uncoordinated innovation efforts. To shape its future, the firm's leadership had identified five key questions regarding maintaining its culture, formalizing promotion policies, decentralizing or centralizing innovation, geographic expansion, and the possibility of going public to address capital constraints. This case discusses these questions, and the central question of whether the company should change or keep their freedom-first culture as the company continued to expand.

Husband-and-wife co-founders Patrick and Alexandria Gentry had built Sprout Solutions to be one of the biggest Software-as-a-Service human resources management platforms in the Philippines, guided by the mission to "impact the life of every Filipino by improving business in the Philippines." In 2019, they closed a $6 million Series A round of funding; in 2022, they were projecting what a Series B funding round might look like. Crucially, they were pondering two different growth trajectories: to stay in their home market of the Philippines and move towards creating an entire HR ecosystem including fintech offerings; or branch out into neighboring markets, a path which may attract more global investors.