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On April 12, 2022, a devastating mudslide covered 87 hectares of the Toyota South Africa Motors factory located in Durban, South Africa. The company's president and chief executive officer was facing various immediate issues including mud flooding of the plant, employees stranded within the plant, growing concerns over electrical shorting and possible electrocution due to rising water levels, and the plant's closure in response to the flooding. As a result of the flooding, the plant had to shut down for five months, which deeply impacted the entire supply chain of original equipment manufacturers and dealers who depended on Toyota South Africa Motors for their sustainability. The consequences of a prolonged plant closure could affect multiple stakeholders, including 8,000 employees and the larger South African economy. Toyota South Africa Motors contributed approximately 130,000 Toyota vehicles per year for the local market and for global export. The company's president needed to contain the immediate crisis and work with Toyota South Africa Motors stakeholders to lead a substantial recovery from the disaster.

This exercise stages a data-analysis task within the world of US men's college basketball. The National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Division 1 Men's Basketball Championship Tournament, known as ""March Madness,"" begins every March with 68 college teams and concludes in April with 1 champion. It is one of the biggest sporting events of the year in the United States-a multi-billion-dollar endeavor that is wildly popular with fans and that brings tremendous energy to the specific schools involved. The tournament, which is played across three weeks, begins with a ""First Four"" play-in round where 8 teams play four games to bring the field down to 64 teams. Two of the First Four games are played between the 4 lowest-ranked teams, and two are played between the four lowest-ranked ""at-large"" teams. Then a six-round single-elimination tournament is conducted with the 64 remaining teams, with two rounds played each weekend. The last weekend is known as the ""Final Four."" Each year, a selection committee comprising university athletic directors and conference commissioners chooses which teams will participate in the tournament and then seeds the teams-that is, ranks them from best to worst to assign matchups. But how the committee chooses to define ""best"" is imprecise. Students are tasked with examining the provided dataset, which contains information on prior selections and subsequent team performance, and then determining what past committees have prioritized in selecting at-large teams. Students must then take on the role of advising the committee on how to proceed with its next selection round. Does the committee get it right, or should it do things differently going forward?

This exercise examines three different family enterprise scenarios to open a conversation on what makes them successful. We look at how there is no strategy that fits all for family businesses, but there are strategies that can influence both the business and the family in positive ways in order to establish and cement legacies.

In March 2023, two strawberry producers in Ontario, Canada had to decide how many acres to plant with each of four strawberry varieties at Xanadu Farms. They had committed to providing 275,000 pounds of berries to a local independent grocery chain and also required some of their berry crop to make strawberry preserves. Complicating this decision was the impact that weather had on the yield of each type of berry. If the weather reduced the yield, the two producers would need to make up for the loss by sourcing berries from several nearby farmers. However, if the weather was favourable, they would be able to sell any excess berries at their own storefront. What current decision should the two strawberry producers make to ensure they achieve the best outcome one year later?

In March 2023, two strawberry producers in Ontario, Canada had to decide how many acres to plant with each of four strawberry varieties at Xanadu Farms. They had committed to providing 275,000 pounds of berries to a local independent grocery chain and also required some of their berry crop to make strawberry preserves. Complicating this decision was the impact that weather had on the yield of each type of berry. If the weather reduced the yield, the two producers would need to make up for the loss by sourcing berries from several nearby farmers. However, if the weather was favourable, they would be able to sell any excess berries at their own storefront. What current decision should the two strawberry producers make to ensure they achieve the best outcome one year later?

This annually updated exercise assesses one’s exposure to the rest of the world’s peoples. A series of worksheets require respondents to check off the number and names of countries they have visited and the corresponding percentage of world population that each country represents. The summary of a group’s collective exposure to the world’s people will inevitably be the recognition that together they have seen much, even if individually some have seen little. The teaching note provides discussion questions that consider why there is such a high variability in individual profiles, the implications of each profile for one’s business career, and what it would take for respondents to change their profile.

This annually updated exercise assesses one's exposure to the rest of the world's peoples. A series of worksheets require respondents to check off the number and names of countries they have visited and the corresponding percentage of world population that each country represents. The summary of a group's collective exposure to the world's people will inevitably be the recognition that together they have seen much, even if individually some have seen little. The teaching note provides discussion questions that consider why there is such a high variability in individual profiles, the implications of each profile for one's business career, and what it would take for respondents to change their profile.

In January 2021, Indigo Paints Limited launched an initial public offering of ordinary equity shares to list the company on a stock exchange. It was one of the most subscribed public offers in recent times in India. The company was in the business of manufacturing and selling decorative paints. A retail investor from Mumbai, India received an allotment of Indigo shares and wondered if the grey market premium indicated a fair value for the stock. He understood that initial public offerings were generally underpriced, but wondered what the company's intrinsic value actually was. He sought input from his friend, who was an independent financial advisor, to help him understand the value proposition that the initial public offering would bring to Indigo Paints Limited. The two friends consulted all relevant financial statements and began their calculations.

In this exercise, students are required to match eleven unidentified companies to the relevant industry group in which they operate, based on the Global Industry Classification Standards (GICS). Students are provided with a description of the eleven GICS and the financial information of the eleven companies. Each company is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). While the exercise has an Australian focus, international students should be able to correctly match the companies to their industry due to the generic nature of the industry characteristics.

In December 2022, Shariq Nomani had been living with his family in a rented apartment in Lucknow, India. Even though they liked the place, which had all the necessary amenities, they were thinking of buying a unit in the same community. After collecting all the necessary information, Shariq sat down to figure out the best alternative between two options: buying and renting. He needed to undertake a comprehensive quantitative analysis by applying the concept of time value of money to make the optimal decision.

A financial consultancy analyst received an assignment to assess the long-term performance of Reliance Industries Ltd., a multinational conglomerate based in India. The assignment had resulted from a share price rise for Reliance Industries. On April 27, 2022, the company’s share price reached its peak of ₹2,776. Consequently, a few of the financial consultancy’s clients had requested information regarding the long-term performance of Reliance Industries. The analyst was therefore tasked with calculating the economic value added in order to evaluate the company’s performance.

This exercise is a way for facilitators to make in-the-moment adaptations to existing scripting exercises, in order to address questions and scenarios that arise during Giving Voice to Values (GVV) sessions. In a GVV program, participants are invited to practice scripting responses to and creating action plans for a values-challenging scenario. Sometimes, a participant's values challenge starts to dominate the conversations in the room, or participants find themselves doubting whether the GVV approach will work in their own circumstances. The Barry case in this exercise outlines how to adopt (with permission and care) the new, authentic values challenge brought up by the participant. This exercise adaptation is designed to occur after the GVV approach has been introduced and participants have worked through the role of purpose and the reasons and rationalizations we all face in voicing our values. It can be run at any point between the introduction of these elements and the final scripting and action-planning stage and will naturally adapt itself based on how much GVV content the participants have already covered. The exercise aims to demonstrate to GVV participants that the toolkit they have begun to develop is adaptable and personalized, and that the GVV approach is fit for use in "real" settings.

A financial consultancy analyst received an assignment to assess the long-term performance of Reliance Industries Ltd., a multinational conglomerate based in India. The assignment had resulted from a share price rise for Reliance Industries. On April 27, 2022, the company's share price reached its peak of ₹2,776. Consequently, a few of the financial consultancy's clients had requested information regarding the long-term performance of Reliance Industries. The analyst was therefore tasked with calculating the economic value added in order to evaluate the company's performance.

White lies (inflated claims) cost the insurance industry billions of dollars every year. After investing heavily to automate workflows (from policy subscription to claims processing), digitization has ironically made fraud easier to commit and harder to catch. To an industry drowning in data and paying out millions per day for fraudulent claims, artificial intelligence and machine learning offer new hope. The case introduces what it calls "explainable AI" seen through the eyes of a senior operations executive at Shift, an insurtech unicorn company whose algorithm is used by global insurers such as Generali France and Mitsui Sumitomo to fight fraudulent claims. The focus is on strategy making (following a private equity funding round) and algorithm-level decisions. With an anonymized dataset of more than 10,000 claims and a guided coding exercise in statistical computing softwares R and Python, students are able to backtest their strategies on historical data. Beyond the exercise there is ample material to drive case discussion. https://publishing.insead.edu/case/to-catch-a-thief

In January 2021, the co-founder of Mystery Books Co. (Mystery Books) was evaluating the company’s 2020 performance under the leadership of his daughter as the new chief executive officer. His daughter had ambitions of securing Walmart Inc. as a key client, so the co-founder had promised her an additional performance bonus of 5 per cent of his 30 per cent ownership of common stock if she grew the company’s net income by 20 per cent over the previous year. Throughout his thirty years of managing the company as chief executive officer, the co-founder had maintained very conservative accounting policies, some of which had been modified under his daughter's management. After reviewing the 2020 financial information, the co-founder harboured several concerns: Should he have specified more conditions for his daughter's performance incentive? Would the accounting policy changes pass the scrutiny of the company’s external auditors? And how should he proceed with regard to the suspicious sales activity he noticed? With these questions at the front of his mind, the co-founder of Mystery Books thought that perhaps he should have somehow left more reporting guidance for the company prior to leaving.

This case is a 2-party deal-making negotiation regarding the sale and purchase of IT solutions involving hardware, software and maintenance services. The focus is on the practical application of interest-based negotiation theory and concepts. The facts of the case provide multiple opportunities for generating creative solutions and employing strategic communication techniques. The case is also designed to illustrate the use of alternatives and BATNA as objective and realistic measures of negotiation success.

This case is a 2-party deal-making negotiation regarding the sale and purchase of IT solutions involving hardware, software and maintenance services. The focus is on the practical application of interest-based negotiation theory and concepts. The facts of the case provide multiple opportunities for generating creative solutions and employing strategic communication techniques. The case is also designed to illustrate the use of alternatives and BATNA as objective and realistic measures of negotiation success.