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This case describes the introduction of a regression analysis model for forecasting guest arrivals to Caesars Palace hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The company will use the forecast to staff the front desk in the hotel. The staff is unionized and the company has little flexibility to change staffing levels on a short-term basis. The case is set in the context of industry overcapacity and lower customer demand. The case describes several models that could be used to forecast guest arrivals, including a moving average technique and a multiple regression model. The multiple regression model includes over 40 independent variables, including dummy variables (e.g., to represent day of week, month, year, holidays, paydays) as well as continuous variables to represent customer segment and average daily room rate. The case contains tables showing the output of the regression model, and compares the fit of the moving average and regression models. The case allows students to understand how such a model is developed within an organization and to evaluate the models presented. Students may work with a data file with several years of historical data or they may work with the model description and output results in the case.

Yamato Transport Co., Ltd. innovatively used the field cast model of housewives as part-time employees to meet the increasing delivery demands of morning peak-load hours. The housewives provided Yamato with a cost-efficient source of human resources and the nimbleness to adjust its staff deployment to respond reliably and quickly to customers' needs. A series of recruitment, training, and compensation and appraisal processes was designed for the field cast model.<br><br>The case outlines the challenges with the implementation of the field cast model and the decision facing Yamato's managers of whether to expand it throughout the company's Japanese operations. Yamato's managers were largely satisfied with the progress of the field cast model; although field casts made up less than 2 per cent of the delivery manpower at Yamato, they played a crucial role in improving customer satisfaction levels and lowering parcel delivery costs. However, the implications of the expansion plan were multi-dimensional. At an operational level, the inconsistency in the field casts' performance could be magnified as the number of field casts continued to increase over the coming months. As well, the sales drivers might struggle to cope with the additional responsibility to train and supervise field casts. More broadly, the sustainability of the field cast model was unknown because of Japan's changing social structure. In addition, with the improvement of the global economy since 2010, the supply of part-time employees was threatened by competition from alternative employment opportunities.

This case describes the entrepreneurial process of an Argentinean Canadian who created a new international venture based on the demand of Vancouver firms for international human resource management services and of Argentinean nationals for overseas internships and vocational training. Students will learn about the entrepreneur's background and how it influenced his opportunity recognition and organization of resources. They will also learn about business model evaluation and financial, personal, and social changes driven by entrepreneurship.

Anna Amphlett, a financial analyst with Southern Cross Capital LLC, spent the first days in her new job gathering information about ADT Corporation, a company whose shares Southern Cross was considering acquiring for its Business Services portfolio. Amphlett graduated with an MBA in accounting and finance, and had spent a summer as an intern with Southern Cross specializing in the service sector before joining the company. On September 28, 2012, ADT became an independent publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, after Tyco (TYC) split itself into three independent companies. ADT generated revenues by charging customers monthly subscription fees for commercial and home security services. Southern Cross's portfolio manager had asked Amphlett to pay close attention to the company's accounting methods, and particularly to its policy of capitalizing and amortizing cash outlays on sales commissions, instead of expensing them immediately. Southern Cross had become wary of companies such as Pre-Paid Legal Services, PolyMedica, and Excel Communications, which experienced significant stock price declines after popular press articles discussed their policy of boosting earnings by capitalizing and amortizing indirect costs. Such companies also experienced significant stock price declines when it was disclosed they were under investigation by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).

SCHSA is a self-financing social enterprise and charitable organisation in Hong Kong that provides quality self-funding services at a low cost to empower the elderly to live independent, healthier and rewarding lives and with dignity, in their communities. It accomplishes this through the smart use of partnerships and information technology. But is this a tenable model to meet Hong Kong's ageing needs, and if so, could it be replicated elsewhere?

This case uses the story of IT-Ration, a small firm based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to enable students to conduct an in-depth analysis of the founding manager, the firm, and the industry so as to make a strategic growth decision. The story unfolds in 2009 at a time when IT-Ration was at a crossroads - should it continue to focus on the Quebec market or go into the U.S. in order to grow? Remaining in Quebec meant that the business would face problems related to limited market size. However, a move to the U.S. would also bring its share of challenges. The entrepreneur had to weigh the pros and cons in order to make an informed decision.

The 2014 Ukraine crisis once again exposed the mutually limiting knot-a web of commercial relationships and oil and gas pipelines-that historically tied the European Union and Russia closely. In this crisis, a familiar conundrum preoccupied minds in the corridors of power in Western capitals: how to compel Russia to respect the Western geopolitical preferences without harming European allies? The answer, as in the past, pointed to the lack of viable short-term solutions and the longer term need for gaining energy independence without sacrificing energy security in the EU. The case chronicles latest efforts, and its unintended consequences, by all-union authorities in Brussels to untie the Russian knot by implanting American inventions in the European soil: liberalized, transparent natural gas markets and shale gas production. Executives of European and Russian energy companies present their views.

In 2011, Aegon adopted integrated reporting - a corporate reporting approach that sought to present company performance in a holistic light by considering medium- to long-term issues, stakeholder opinions, and the relationship between material financial and nonfinancial data. By 2013, Aegon had reduced the page count of its annual corporate reporting documents, helped stakeholders gain a more thoroughgoing understanding of its strategy, and begun the transition from being a product manufacturer to a customer-centric company. Still, the company's integrated report was separate from its regulatory filing. Although work in an area where there was not much regulatory or legislative guidance assuaged the Disclosure Committee's fears of accidentally violating regulations or taking on extra liability by reporting on non-financial information that was difficult to verify by a third-party, some felt the report's status meant it had not driven some of the organizational change it could have. Could Aegon benefit from publishing its integrated report as the official regulatory document? How could Aegon create a more interactive, real-time integrated reporting website that was connected to the core of their strategy? How should Aegon Asset Management include the integration of EGS factors in its investment processes and engagement with portfolio companies? What should the next step be?

For Kai Teckentrup, the owner and co-CEO of the German "Mittelstand" door manufacturer Teckentrup, balancing competitive pressures, demographic realities and values were at the heart of the diversity program that he had started and championed at the company. Beyond this, attracting skilled workers to Germany was a national imperative; as the native population aged and its numbers in the workforce shrank, it would be critical to find new workers to fund and maintain the retirement and social service programs provided by the government. The company had made significant progress, and Kai was a recognized leader in German business for his attention to and success in managing diversity, but he knew there was much more to do.

Gentera, whose largest subsidiary is Compartamos Banco, has been a fantastically successful endeavor since it started in the 1990s. But in 2014, Gentera faces challenges in expanding beyond group-lending and micro-credit into microfinance and beyond in order to fulfill its mission of financial inclusion.

NuScale Power, an entrepreneurial venture in Portland, Oregon, has designed the leading modular nuclear reactor in the United States. This Reactor will be safest and simplest ever built. Started in 2007 as an entrepreneurial venture, the company is now two years away from applying to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a License certification. While the NRC considers their application, the company will finish designing a nuclear plant to use 12 of their modular reactors. If the company can mitigate the substantial risks facing it, 2021 will see their first of several hundred planned sales.

In June 2011, American Express announced the formation of a new group, Enterprise Growth (EG). EG was designed to challenge existing credit and charge business models and extend American Express's leadership into the world of digital and mobile forms of payment through the use of software platforms and mobile apps. Alpesh Chokshi, president of EG, and Wesley Wright, product development leader, were well aware of the magnitude of the potential market that was currently underserved by traditional banking services. They saw an opportunity to do something bigger-to move American Express into debit and checking spending. EG called the initiative Bank 2.0, indicating the application of technology to usher in a "next iteration" of banking.

Alliance Design Concepts provided audio system solutions, which involved installing high-quality sound systems in customer facilities (such as large churches). A major cost component (60-80 per cent) for these systems was the equipment (speakers, amplifiers, etc.), which was sourced from the United States and paid for in U.S. dollars (USD). Alliance quoted prices to customers in Canadian dollars (CAD) by converting equipment costs from USD to CAD based on the exchange rate on the day of the quotation. Since it was often months later that Alliance actually converted cash and paid the supplier in USD, it found that a change in the exchange rate during that time could directly reduce the margin on the sale. The operations manager had to devise a risk mitigation strategy and/or business process change.

The case describes this health and wellness service company and poses the question: should RedBrick stay on the path of building out its product platform or should the RedBrick platform be launched directly to health insurers, ACOs, or directly to customers?

The case describes IDEO, one of the world's leading design firms, and its human-centered innovation culture and processes. It is an example of what managers can do to make their own organizations more innovative. In reaction to a rapidly changing competitive landscape, a team of IDEO designers have been hired by Cineplanet, the leading movie cinema chain in Peru, to reinvent the movie-going experience for Peruvians. Cineplanet wishes to better align their operating model with the needs and behaviors of its customers.

In 2013 Ning Tang, who in 2006 founded CreditEase as a broker of P2P loans to unbanked individuals and small businesses in China, confronts the challenges of rapid growth and expansion in a changing regulatory environment. CreditEase needs to develop technology to manage its growth, address issues related to the company's expansion into products and services for China's growing high net worth (HNW) population, including questions about the suitability of its products and its vulnerability to bad debt losses and a potential leveling off of the growth in China's economy, and adjust to new and more intensive regulatory oversight. What should Tang do to position CreditEase so that it can continue to fulfill its mission of making financial products and services available to millions of underserved Chinese while branching out into other, potentially riskier lines of business and ensuring continuing compliance with evolving laws and regulations? Will its rapid growth be sustainable?

Indus Towers, the world's largest telecom tower company, is a joint venture between three telecom rivals in India. These rivals-Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, and Idea Cellular-combined their telecom towers to provide "shared telecom infrastructure" to wireless telecom operators on a nondiscriminatory basis. The CEO has transformed Indus from a struggling startup with a monopolistic mindset into a customer-centric organization. He now wants to grow Indus. To achieve this, however, he needs to reconcile conflicting objectives among Indus's shareholders. All three shareholders are also his customers; often these dual roles engender different perspectives and lead to different requirements. The CEO needs to determine how to convince the board to take a decision that keeps Indus's best interests in mind while balancing the operators' interests.

Examines factors underlying differences in valuation multiples (price-earnings and price-to-book) across four firms in the airline industry.

After spending a few years in the corporate world, in 2012, a young entrepreneur in India decided to start up his own venture developing mobile applications that supported interactive comic content. Called TodTales, the innovative e-comic would incorporate music, interactive games and augmented reality in a comic book format that would encourage young children to read. He had raised the initial seed funding from his own and his partner's personal resources and an angel investor. The prototype was ready for demonstration and received positive responses from parents during a focus group study conducted in Mumbai. With the hope of going commercial by the end of 2014, the founder knew that he should start the next stage of development by convincing prospective investors that his idea had commercial potential and would quickly find a market not only in India but around the world.