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In August 2014, La Société Energies Nouvelles & Environnement (ENOVE), a subdivision of Groupe Bismuth, was developing an expansion strategy in the unstable political and economic environment of Tunisia, the company's home country. Tunisia was the birthplace of the Arab Spring, a series of political revolutions that started in 2010 and swept the Mediterranean region for five years. Tunisia was also quickly moving toward a democratically elected government, but the transition was not an easy one; the country experienced a setback of about 10 to 15 years, in regards to economic development. Years of functional corruption under the long-time president, Ben Ali, were followed by sustained economic growth in manufacturing, tourism, and education. This led the economy into a governmental vacuum. For the first time, workers began exercising their rights to demand better conditions. There was little governmental oversight on customs, labour, or taxation. The threat of terrorism, whether real or perceived, was always present. Under these conditions, ENOVE's president had to make a decision: Should ENOVE expand within Tunisia, or move their manufacturing operations to a more stable country, perhaps nearby Morocco?

Amul Dairy, the market leader in the Indian milk industry, held its market position by pioneering several progressive initiatives and responding to consumer trends with continuous product development. Camel milk, a relatively new health-oriented dairy product, was being hailed as "white gold" and touted as a superfood in Australia and in some Western countries. Amul Dairy had an opportunity in 2015 to take advantage of changing consumer preferences and move ahead in the growing dairy market by launching the sale of camel milk in India. Should Amul Dairy enter the promising camel milk market? Given that Indian consumers were unaware of camel milk as a market product, how should Amul Dairy promote this unique product? How should the company leverage its substantial brand presence to overcome the challenges faced in the launch and distribution of camel milk?

In 2014, an inquiry was filed against a member of the Indian Police Service who had engaged in his duties as a police officer with the utmost integrity. As the director general of police, the highest administrative position in the police service, he had acted with independence and honesty in pursuing several high-profile cases. Consequently, the state government retaliated by filing a First Information Report (FIR) against him in a matter that was more than 10 years old. Although there were some ambiguities pertaining to the technical details of the case, the director general was proud of his reputation and trusted the judicial system. Would the High Court agree with the director general that this inquiry was unwarranted and exonerate him by quashing the FIR filed against him?

In 2009, two young entrepreneurs created Convene, a New York-based company with an innovative business model that catered to an underserved segment of the local meetings industry. They were in the unique position of having no real direct competitors and a tight grip on a niche market within a US$15 billion industry. However, to achieve their growth ambitions for the company, the duo had to deftly navigate the changing competitive landscape, identifying which players could become real competitors and which could be co-opted into becoming partners and clients. They also needed to adapt their business model to capture these opportunities. Over time, their expensive expansion standards and operating costs began to present a nagging concern: With only so much capital available each year, just how quickly could Convene really grow? Would the capital intensiveness of their current model stymie the rapid growth that they so desperately wanted (and needed) to achieve in order to establish a nationally recognized brand?

APLO was a reputable supplier of LED lighting systems for diverse countries from Taiwan to the United Kingdom. In 2015, APLO signed a contract to supply and install 30,000 pieces of 60-watt ecological street lights in several towns within one of Indonesia's provinces. With over 250 million inhabitants, Indonesia was in dire need of modernizing its infrastructure as it expanded economically. Having already been contracted for street lighting in several parts of Jakarta, Indonesia's capital city, APLO was eager for more projects across Indonesia. Would APLO be able to make this its showcase project and win many more contracts throughout Indonesia's 34 provinces?

This case traces the development of a live entertainment company, Sofar Sounds, from a conversation among three friends about their frustrations with live music events, through early success and now to a point where the CEO, Rafe Offer, has to make important decisions about its future growth. Sofar Sounds' business model is to organize small sized music gigs with unknown artists, trying to recapture the 'old days' of the intimacy and atmosphere of small venue music shows. It progressed from being a "hobby" in 2009, with occasional gigs in London and New York, to a venture-capital backed venture in 2016 with two hundred gigs a month across more than twenty countries. The case describes the challenges of rapid growth in today's digital economy, and it opens up important issues for debate about 'platform' business models, growth trajectories, balancing social and financial goals, and building the capabilities needed for long-term growth.

The case focuses on Hand in Hand Eastern Africa (HiH EA), a member organization of Hand in Hand (HiH). HiH is a global group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) cofounded by Percy Barnevik, a renowned Swedish business executive and Dr. Kalpana Sankar, a nuclear physicist. HiH consists of network partners in India, Southern Africa, Eastern Africa, Afghanistan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Their model focuses on enterprise development and job creation. However, they also have a strong microfinance program aimed at serving those nascent entrepreneurs at the very bottom of the pyramid who have limited funding options in the mainstream market. Through HiH EA's Enterprise Incubation Fund (EIF), nascent entrepreneurs are able to access loans up to US$233. Various organizational stakeholders (entrepreneurs/ clients, HiH EA's field officers) have begun to call for an increase in the EIF loan cap. This presents a challenge for Ms. Pauline Ngari, HiH EA's chief executive officer. Ms. Ngari questions whether raising the EIF lending cap will benefit all stakeholders as well as the organization itself given its long term strategic plan, its model, and core mission of serving those at the very bottom of the pyramid. Ms. Ngari is facing internal pressure to keep the organization financially sound, but she also faces external pressure to meet the short term needs of HiH EA's clientele and conform to current microfinance industry lending standards while at the same time avoiding mission drift. HiH EA's Board of Trustees will be meeting soon to consider the EIF loan cap decision and have asked Ms. Ngari to provide them a balanced and informed recommendation regarding whether or not they should raise the EIF loan cap.

After five years of working at the Mountainview Country Club, Sandi Lane must decide which of several courses of action to take in response to financial improprieties committed by her supervisor and some co-workers. The Club's general partner has refused to act on Lane's concerns. Her supervisor's wife who also worked at the Club has just threatened Lane: "I'll see to it that you don't work here anymore!" As Controller of the Club, Lane was responsible for all aspects of the accounting functions -- but, with no staff. She handled payroll and tax preparation, human resources, budget and financial statement preparation, membership tracking, and cash flow forecasting. She spent much of her time at the Club trying to implement basic accounting procedures. Cash flows were precarious with one of the partners in the Club making expenditures of $20,000 and more without regard to budgets or cash availability. The food/beverage area had losses of $60,000 annually and inventory shrinkage in the Pro Shop was more than $100,000 each year.

In November 2004, as presidential hopeful John Kerry conceded the presidential race to George W. Bush, husband and wife team and Democratic supporters Tom Steyer (MBA '83) and Kat Taylor (JD/MBA '86) found themselves at an impasse in their political endeavors. The lost presidential bid was not only disappointing but left the couple seeking out new avenues to benefit from their time, passion, and energy. For Taylor, the idea of a beneficial bank was not new; in fact, the notion of starting a bank to help underserved communities had been suggested to her almost 20 years earlier when Taylor sought career advice from then-economic advisor to Governor Jerry Brown of California, Michael Kieschnick. At the time, the idea seemed implausible but now, with their newly unleashed resources, the idea of community banking as a leverage point in both communities and the overall financial system seemed almost compulsory. Specifically, they wanted to create a triple bottom-line bank that produced social justice and environmental well-being while also being economically sustainable not just in the community but across the financial system. Still, determining how best to structure the organization in order to ensure the fulfillment of its intended benefits presented a significant challenge to the couple. This case describes the founding vision and organizational structure for a triple bottom-line bank. It covers governance issues, regulatory considerations including Dodd-Frank, a discussion of the bank's business model including competitive strategy and the importance of human capital, and measures of impact.

China's digital market is on the rise at an exceptional pace, and giant digital players, such as Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, have already surpassed some of the U.S. industry's most successful names in terms of market capitalisation. When competing in China's digital market, local Chinese digital players have an advantage over foreign newcomers as access to this market is restricted, and some international digital and social platforms are banned in China due to Internet censorship. However, while the hurdles created by censorship might have opened the gates for local companies to imitate Western innovations without international rivals - the internal competition within China is never easy. Chinese digital companies have to face tough local competition to win users and maintain a high retention rate. This requires them to constantly innovate and improve their products and services to stay ahead of the competition, which vigorously accelerates the development of China's digital markets. The question to ask is: Are Chinese digital companies merely imitating their Western counterparts, or are they also innovating?

The BreadTalk Group was a leading Singapore-based bakery and restaurant chain, consisting of eight different brands that were sold across 15 countries in Asia. In a span of 12 years, it had become a premier lifestyle bakery brand in Southeast Asia, China and the Middle East, as well as a cherished household name in its native Singapore. BreadTalk prided itself on having a culture of "creative differentiation". The company strived to stay "fresh" by continuously changing and adapting to consumer demand; and "relevant" by offering localised and customised products to its customers. Although the company could boast of many past successes, there were new challenges ahead. With the number of new players growing rapidly, the marketplace was becoming increasingly competitive. New markets offered both opportunities and challenges. And customers had come to expect a constant stream of innovative products from the bakery chain. As BreadTalk enters its mature stage of growth and comes head on with the challenges of international expansion, is its business model equipped to identify and address the risks associated with global brand management? Is the brand positioned well to seize future opportunity? Should it focus on its core competency and brand, or should it be looking to develop and aggressively promote other brands?

Having previously raised pigs on his farm with unsuccessful results, a Canadian farmer has always dreamed of reintroducing pigs to his cash crop farm. The decision is particularly difficult, as he must consider not only the financial viability of his options, but also the environmental costs, benefits, and the welfare of the animals and workers - collectively referred to as the "Four Ps" (profits, planet, people, and pigs). Although the market for organic meat remains comparatively limited, it is a growing segment, and one that the farmer wants to tap into to maximize a first-mover advantage. However, the transition poses many risks as well. Will he be able to achieve his dream of re-introducing pigs to his family farm? Or will the attempt to transition to organic pork bury his currently profitable cash crop business?

The chief executive officer of South Africa's Nedbank Ltd. contemplated the dilemma of growing the bank in a mature, competitive market within his own country, and succeeding at expanding outside South Africa's border. Nedbank's extensive investment in Ecobank, with its pan-African presence, was a risk, and required improvement of the capabilities of the leaders to execute Nedbank's strategy. To achieve this, Nedbank focused on building an internal capacity through coaching and mentoring programs for its leaders, in addition to other initiatives to enable employees to execute the bank's strategy. The chief executive officer was proud of his own innovative idea for a new product, and hoped he was setting an example for other leaders. He was equally proud that Nedbank was a values-oriented business that believed in using its influence to positively impact its community and environment. In 2014, despite positive advancements, the economic situation was grim and the chronic lack of skilled workers was a detriment to the country, and to Nedbank in particular. Could Nedbank rapidly increase its capabilities in time to meet the immediate challenges it faced as it expanded into locales where the stakes, and the risks, were higher?

In 2012, All Nippon Airways diversified into Japan's emerging low-cost carrier market by launching two new low-cost carriers: Peach Aviation and AirAsia Japan. After one year, Peach Aviation experienced financial losses and operations failures; after two years, the company announced cancellation of many flights. The second carrier, AirAsia Japan, ended its operations in 2013, and was later restructured as Vanilla Air, a wholly-owned subsidiary of All Nippon Airways. Why was a highly successful flag and legacy carrier unable to successfully run a low-cost carrier in Japan?

Acxiom built the market for personal data, yet sales have been flat for a decade during which marketing's appetite for data has exploded. Will the acquisition of a digital data onboarder, LiveRamp, give marketers what they want from a data broker?

Founded in 1999 in the Boston area, Sentient Jet had become a leading private aviation company in the United States. Its success was built on the introduction of a groundbreaking membership program that offered business travelers the flexibility and convenience of flying on private aircraft for their personal and business needs at an outstanding and unparalleled value. Sentient functioned differently and more efficiently than traditional charter companies; it used an open fleet model, renting jets from a pool of certified charter companies. Thanks to its innovative business model and proprietary technology platform, the firm was providing its clients with all the benefits of owning a fleet of aircraft with none of the associated costs and commitments. Its fares were typically 20% to 30% lower than those of its competitors. In a nutshell, Sentient Jet had invented the Uber of private jets before Uber even existed. With over 15 years of experience, the company was serving more than 5,000 cardholders, and Andrew Collins, president of Sentient Jet, was considering various strategies to double the company's size in the next few years.

In response to the education crisis in South Africa, two young MBA graduates start SPARK Schools, a network of low-fee, private primary schools; however, teacher candidates often lack the skills, knowledge and attitudes required in this innovative schooling system. SPARK Schools has implemented a range of human resource practices that show how an integrated, intensive, systemic approach to human resource policies and practices can help to optimize teachers' performance. The two leaders wonder whether their human resource practices are suitable for scaling up their social entrepreneurship organization from four schools to 60 in their effort to make a positive national impact on education.

In December 2014, the chairman of Agarwal Packers and Movers Limited (APML) prepared for a meeting with his senior management team. APML was a family-managed business and the largest branded player in the fragmented and largely unorganized house-movers segment of the Indian logistics industry. The company was taking advantage of the Indian economy's growth, government infrastructure spending, and goods and services tax changes that would bring beneficial changes to the industry. While the company had achieved sales of US$62.6 million in 2013/14 and had been lauded for its safety practices and achievements, the industry had low barriers to entry. APML was faced with several large, and numerous small, moving companies that were fighting for business. Moreover, many small companies fraudulently co-opted the company's name to steal customers. APML's chief financial officer had put forth a proposal to increase prices for inter-city relocations. The chairman had to consider the proper price strategy to employ, because any price increase could cost the company customers.