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The owner of a designer handbag company, 442 McAdam, found she could no longer manufacture in-house the quantity of handbags required to meet existing orders. Manufacturing would need to be outsourced, and the owner would have to choose between a local manufacturer and an overseas manufacturer. Local manufacturers offered the same quality as overseas manufacturers but charged higher prices. International manufacturers, while offering lower prices, required larger minimum order quantities. Regardless of the manufacturing option she chose, the owner wondered whether the minimum levels of inventory she needed to order could be sold within the upcoming six-month style season.

In 2004, bids were invited from airport developers and operators for the development and operation of Mumbai's Chattrapati Shivaji International Airport and Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport. On January 31, 2006, a consortium led by GMR Group (GMR) was selected as the only technically qualified bidder. However, in order to avoid a monopoly in Indian airport operations, GMR was asked to choose between the two airports and match the financial bid of another bidder that was not technically qualified for the work. The Delhi airport, the pride of the National Capital Region, would serve as a gateway for participants, dignitaries, and other guests arriving for the upcoming Commonwealth Games to be held in New Delhi in October 2010. However, the Mumbai airport was the gateway to business investments in India. GMR faced a difficult choice between a mission-critical airport in the National Capital Region or an airport in India's commercial capital. Which airport would give GMR an edge in the global aviation sector? Which choice was in line with GMR's vision?

By 2016, two-sided online platforms (or marketplaces) were pervasive among the highest growing internet startups around. These marketplaces sought to match suppliers of assets for rent, physical products or services with customers demanding them. Among the most notable two-sided platforms in terms of their tremendous early growth were Airbnb, Etsy and Uber. They offered short-term property rentals, handcrafted goods, and car rides, respectively. As two-sided markets grew to scale, network effects kicked in as more consumers bred more suppliers and vice versa. But how did these platforms acquire their first customers, at the time when they had so few providers? How exactly did they go about acquiring their first thousand customers?

With $289 million in 2015 revenues, Camposol is a Peruvian grower, exporter, and marketer of fruits and vegetables, with a focus on the high-growth, high-margin blueberry category. Camposol aspires to become Peru's first multinational branded produce company. It already has a strong foothold in the U.S.-an important market where it is refining its branding and retail-customer strategy-and it also seeks to expand in other markets, especially China. To become a leading year-round supplier to retailers, Camposol needs to increase the product volumes it controls, likely through increased sourcing from third parties. At the same time, Camposol has evolved rapidly in recent years and is undergoing the challenges of transforming from family to professional management. This case allows students to consider Camposol's growth, branding, and marketing strategies in light of the challenges and opportunities ahead. It also invites consideration of the opportunity for Peru and other South American growers to exploit counter-seasonal export opportunities, selling into northern-hemisphere markets when prices peak.

This case considers the entrepreneurial career of Olivia Lum, who founded the Singaporean water company Hyflux in 1989. An orphan born in Malaysia, Lum provides a rare case of an entrepreneurial success in a country whose economic success has primarily rested on state-owned and foreign firms. The case describes the formidable challenges she initially faced, her subsequent breakthrough in China, and the subsequent growth as a global water treatment company employing membrane technology. In 2004 the company entered the large Middle Eastern market for water treatment but soon encountered problems, including political turbulence. The case ends with demonstrations and an emergent crisis in Libya in 2011, a country in which Hyflux had recently invested. The case offers opportunities to explore the nature of entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia, the business importance of relationships between overseas Chinese and mainland China, and the challenges faced by female entrepreneurs. More broadly, it serves as vehicle for teaching students about the global water crisis and the role of business in helping to resolve it.

Financial executive Alexi is considering a job change. Will his long-ago association with a company currently embroiled in a scandal hurt his chances in the job market? In the (A) case, Alexi and executive search consultant Marguerite strategize about career opportunities.

In early 2013, an analyst at an insurance company was examining whether IndusInd Bank, a mid-size bank in India, would be a good investment for the insurance fund's equity portfolio. From January 2008 until March 30, 2013, the bank's stock had tripled under its new management. The analyst wondered whether deploying funds in the bank would yield any significant returns. He decided to use the available financial information and the residual income valuation method to forecast the company's stock price.

The two co-founders of India's online retail aggregator Baggout needed to come up with some ideas that would create new growth for their company. Baggout's e-shopping website had been operational for two and a half years, and during that time, the start-up had enjoyed considerable success in the highly competitive and rapidly growing online retail market. The two partners wanted to establish a strategic growth plan for the upcoming year in 2016, but they knew they would first have to address some important questions if they hoped to identify ways to capture a larger share of the digital marketspace: What technical and digital capabilities would Baggout need for success in the future? What were the possible scalability issues for Baggout? What marketing strategies could the company implement to ensure increased adoption of the Baggout mobile application?

In the summer of 2015, India-based Amtek Auto Ltd., one of the country's largest companies in the manufacturing of automotive components, was on the brink of financial ruin. After more than a decade of being immersed in a spending spree on acquisitions to build capacity and expand its clientèle in both the European and Asian auto markets, Amtek's stock plummeted by 50 per cent within two days as nervous investors worried about the company's ability to make its scheduled debt payments. Tensions were high as the company faced mounting pressure over its liquidity issues, and after reporting a net loss for the first time in two decades. With rumours of bankruptcy on the horizon, what steps could the company take to decrease its debt burden at a time when the automotive industry was in a slump? Should Amtek consider selling off some of its assets to raise the needed cash, or should it look to banks and investors?

Swedish camera manufacturer Hasselblad was founded in 1841. The brand reached new heights in 1969, when astronaut Neil Armstrong used a Hasselblad camera to take the first photos on the moon. For decades, Hasselblad was renowned for making the world's best high-end, medium format cameras for professional photographers. Faced with the paradigm shift from film-based to digital imaging, the company launched digital cameras and also diversified into the luxury digital camera market through a strategic partnership with Sony. On November 5, 2015, Hasselblad announced a minority stake investment by Shenzhen-based DJI, a global market-leader in aerial camera photography. Changes to Hasselblad were inevitable. Was Hasselblad poised to take its core competency in medium format photography to the next level?

The Boeing Company, one of the dominant players in the aerospace industry, aimed to construct a supply chain architecture that was effective both domestically and globally, while simultaneously building its capacity to enter into agreements with small and diverse suppliers. A top executive at Boeing, who was responsible for both corporate supplier relationships and small business liaisons, needed to determine the approach that would yield the most optimal results for the company. Should she adapt supply chain principles to incorporate diversity, or should she view supply chain management as one element in an overall drive to increase diversity at the company?

In 2015, the new chief executive officer of Wichita County Health Center (WCHC) was evaluating his organization's strengths and weaknesses in light of a changing environment for health-care delivery in rural Kansas. WCHC faced three key issues: whether to sign a service agreement with Colorado-based Centura Health; whether to hire additional full-time nursing staff instead of paying high fees to an external staffing company; and identifying opportunities to grow its patient base. To assist with these three decisions, WCHC needed to conduct a strategic planning process using the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) framework.

In 2011, after decades of the eye-care needs of India's semi-urban and rural population being largely ignored by both government and commercial enterprises, the corporate team of Drishti established two eye hospitals to address these unmet needs. However, Drishti faced some tough challenges in expanding its operations. Given that Drishti's hospitals were located in semi-urban and rural areas, attracting and retaining highly-trained professional staff was very difficult. Drishti also needed to consider the implications of accessing equity capital to pursue its social goals. With its business model showing positive results, should Drishti opt for rapid growth or achieve slower growth by using internally generated funds? In the pursuit of financial goals, would Drishti need to compromise on any of its social goals?

In early 2009, Shailesh Naik founded MatchMove, a Singapore-based online entertainment service provider. Naik and his business partner had identified a gap in the Asian online gaming market and their vision was to plug this gap with a company-specific platform that incorporated casual gaming, social networking and e-commerce capabilities. MatchMove signed up global technology giant Yahoo! as its first large client. The company also contracted with game developers to create its own store of quality games that it could offer to its clients. MatchMove's key value proposition was to act as a conduit between game companies with a high content and low web traffic profile, as well as companies like Yahoo! and Microsoft with a high traffic and limited content profile. It eventually visualised itself as a closed e-commerce system to accept payments for services on its clients' websites, as well as an open payments portal for all users for multiple merchants. By 2012, MatchMove had further ventured into 'gamification', a domain related to its core business. Fast-forwarding to January 2014, Naik sees an opportunity in the market to create the next technological disruption to e-commerce. His vision is that of an open network which taps into the current trend of catering to the 'unbanked' and 'un-carded'. Will this work? Can he do it alone, or should he look for a partner? How should MatchMove evolve its business model to seize this next big opportunity?

In February 2015, zulily co-founder CEO, Darrell Cavens faced a major challenge in his business, a Seattle-based daily deals site that catered to moms. The more he spent to acquire new customers, the less he retained them in the form of repeat purchases. This was an entirely new conundrum in the company. Up to that point, customer repeat purchase rates had been incredibly consistent. Cavens and his executive team had just discovered this adverse dynamic and needed to resolve it as soon as possible. What was causing the decline in repeat purchase rates? How should Cavens resume new customer acquisition in order to return to the company's previously higher level of growth?

During Timucin Guler's decade at OPET, a prominent fuel distributor in Turkey, he transformed the definition of marketing in the company. Under Guler's lead, OPET, once a local player in the downstream distribution market, became the second largest fuel distributor in Turkey. As assistant general manager, Guler had paved the way for customer-oriented marketing, which helped OPET differentiate itself in the market and become fiercely competitive. However, starting from 2009, changing regulations in Turkey's highly regulated oil and gas industry limited OPET's marketing tools, forcing Guler to revisit his marketing strategy. He was concerned that more restrictions were on the way and that these could possibly affect OPET's loyalty program, in which the company had invested heavily. How should Guler go about revising OPET's marketing strategy so as to keep up with and possibly foresee further regulatory changes, while trying to stay ahead of the competition? What would be the best way for Guler to optimize the company's investment in its customer loyalty program?

Legendary, the Hollywood studio responsible for such hits as Jurassic World and The Dark Knight, decides to take the marketing of its films in-house, and to market them fan-by-fan. Owner Thomas Tull acquires the big-data-in-sports firm started by Matt Marolda and appoints him to run marketing analytics for Legendary. The methods perform well in the motion picture market. Other Hollywood studios want to lease its services, and firms outside of entertainment express interest. Marolda and Tull consider setting up Legendary Analytics as an independent consulting business. At that point Dalian Wanda, China's largest entertainment and real estate conglomerate, buys Legendary. Should Marolda focus on China or the diversified U.S. market?

Fasten, a new ridesharing start-up in Boston, entered the scene in September 2015 hoping its unique vision of transparency for both driver and passenger and strategy to keep riders' fares low and charge drivers a flat $0.99 fee per ride as opposed to the 20-30% commission charged by its competition, would help differentiate it and gain the necessary traction in an ostensibly concentrated market between Uber and Lyft. Despite both Uber's and Lyft's valuations skyrocketing to $50 billion and $5.5 billion respectively, heavy investment in top notch Silicon Valley software developers and technological innovations such as autonomous vehicles, aggressive marketing strategies, and cutthroat poaching practices-all of which forced number three competitor Sidecar out by January 2016-Fasten's leadership felt confident their 17 years of experience in Russia's car services industry positioned them well to truly understand their customers and ultimately expand to other major cities. But with limited budgets to acquire talented and expensive platform developers, Fasten needed to ensure its core IT services could compete, and that its word-of-mouth approach to attract the essential network of drivers and passengers could get it the vital foothold it would need to grow.

The ConvenientMD case highlights the role of emotion and ambiguity in business interactions. ConvenientMD, led by co-CEOs Gareth Dickens and Max Puyanic, operated urgent care centers (UCCs) in the northeastern United States. UCCs are medical facilities that provide treatment for a variety of injuries and illnesses at a fraction of the cost of hospitals. The case, which examines ConvenientMD in its nascent and high-growth years, is divided into two vignettes. In the first vignette, Dickens and Puyanic had opened a UCC in Hampton, New Hampshire. Although they believed that ConvenientMD could coexist peacefully with the city's largest healthcare provider, Hampton Hospital, it was clear that the CEO of Hampton Hospital felt differently. Wanting to establish a positive affiliation with Hampton Hospital, Dickens and Puyanic scheduled a meeting with the CEO. Hopeful about paving the way for a better relationship, Dickens and Puyanic were stunned when the CEO greeted them with open hostility. In the second vignette, Dickens and Puyanic were trying to find a location for a UCC in Pelham, New Hampshire. After some bad luck, Dickens and Puyanic had a great opportunity. According to a member of the local zoning board, a site that had previously been described as unavailable was now offered to Dickens and Puyanic. According to the board member, the site would be theirs if they "take the right steps." But should they take these steps?

It was May 2016, and Desmond Lim, CEO and co-founder of QuikForce, a moving and logistics company based in Boston, U.S., had just concluded a five-hour long meeting with his team. QuikForce had been founded to simplify the stressful moving process for both the customer and movers, by acting as an intermediary that provided a technology platform which would pair potential customers with suitable moving companies based on their moving requirements. Ten months had flown by since the QuikForce website was first launched, and within two months of its launch, QuikForce was profitable. The meeting left two questions on Lim's mind. First, given QuikForce's initial success, should he begin to establish a presence in his home country, Singapore, or at least in Asia? The meeting with his team saw opinions split among three options-(a) broadening the service offerings in the company's existing U.S. locations (Boston, New York and Miami), (b) expanding to new cities in the U.S., or (c) pursuing expansion into Asia. Lim knew that a decision was looming. Second, was his present team the 'dream team' that would be able to take this company forward to the next level?