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The founding partners of this small company must decide whether to use a distributor to sell their products or continue to be their own sales representatives. The company sold a variety of environmentally friendly pens made from recycled paper, often used for fundraising efforts or company promotions. The partners had little access to capital, so they needed to consider the profitability and cash requirement of the alternatives and financing options.

In February 2011, the senior associate deputy minister of Industry Canada was appointed as the Canadian prime minister's personal representative to the bi-national team charged with developing the "Beyond the Border Action Plan" to both improve security and streamline cross-border commerce and travel between Canada and the United States. He was immediately faced with a range of decisions on how to proceed - whom to consult, which Canadian team members to hire, which of many possible priorities to pursue in discussions with his U.S. counterparts and which steps to take to manage a complex process involving a multiplicity of large and powerful Canadian government departments and agencies as well as private sector interests. While he didn't yet have strategies to address these issues, he knew that he would have to formulate them rapidly. Both the prime minister and the U.S. president had made clear their desire to move quickly - ideally, an action plan was to be in place within six months.

In 2005, the police service in London, Ontario is faced with growing complaints about street-level prostitution in a neighbourhood trying to make an economic recovery. At the time, all Canadians are following the shocking case of Robert Pickton, a serial killer charged with the murder of over 20 prostitutes in Vancouver. The deputy chief asks the superintendent of Operations to devise a plan to deal with the local issue, including current news reports about the failure to solve a 10-year-old murder of a street worker. The latter recommends assigning an officer to begin a proactive approach to prostitution by monitoring and helping women to get free of the drug addictions that have led them into the business instead of arresting them. Is the superintendent overreacting to public pressure and sensational reports of events in Vancouver? Is this really a job for police? Can they sell this plan to their chief?

In 2012, a highly controversial bill was passed that called for major reform and restructuring of Britain's government healthcare system, the National Health Service. Public opinion of the reform was both highly polarized and volatile. The Secretary of State for Health faces two tasks: addressing key issues to ensure successful implementation of the reforms and developing a plan to ensure both long-term and short-term success.

At the time when Dr. Ganesh Natrajan took over as the CEO of Zensar Technologies Ltd in India in 2001, the company was in a state of turmoil. Staff morale was low and the company was essentially a staffing agency sending IT professionals to work at client sites abroad. As Natrajan started to implement across-the-board changes at Zensar, the company had grown from 850 employees in 2001 to 4,000 employees in 2007 with the number of clients increased from 57 in 2001 to 273 in 2007. Revenue increased from US$42.8 million in 2001 to US$179.57 million in 2007. This case covers the detailed strategies implemented by Natrajan that resulted in Zensar's explosive growth.

Darden Restaurants is an $8.6-billion company with eight brands, more than 2,100 restaurants, and over 200,000 workers, serving more than 400 million meals a year. The company has a solid diversity and sustainability track record. Still, in this case, the protagonist is seeking ways to improve upon Darden's practices in these areas to cement the company's place in the public's collective mind as a diversity and sustainability leader while bolstering its bottom line. Students are asked to place themselves in Darden President and COO Andrew Madsen's shoes and develop strategies for executing and improving on existing practices that will allow the company to save money, ensure a steady flow of resources, improve financial performance, and create shareholder value.

A leading cement producer in southern India, Madras Cement is having trouble controlling costs due to its disorganized reporting processes. This case documents the company's two attempts to resolve these issues with the implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. The company's first attempt fails. After a company leader takes the bold step of admitting he made mistakes during this effort, Madras is ready to dig in and make the necessary changes to make the second attempt a success. The case initially seems to be about software implementation, but it is really a story about change management, transformation through transparency, business centric approaches, and the creation of a new social architecture. The company uses innovation to develop new processes that can ultimately be applied to other organizations, allowing the merger and acquisition process to begin.

Cancer Care Ontario, the organization that oversees cancer treatment in Ontario, is challenged with establishing an innovative approach to reducing wait times for breast cancer and prostate cancer therapy across Ontario after wait times increased to more than two months. The special advisor on cancer issues to the Ontario Minister of Health and Long-Term Care needs to report his recommendation to Cancer Care Ontario's board of directors, who manage all regional cancer centres in the province. The major challenge is to balance the needs and values of all the various stakeholders, while developing short-, medium- and long-term solutions to the wait list dilemma.

Thompson Asset Management (TAM) is a small investment advisory and asset management firm in Jacksonville, Florida, with about $100 million in assets under management in two different funds. Since starting the firm in 2009, the CEO and founder Allison Thompson has had a proven track record of beating benchmarks and managing the portfolio's downside risk. The firm's typical clients were high-net-worth individuals, and in 2014, Thompson is looking to expand her business by taking on institutional clients as well. She recently met with the investment officer of her alma mater and is considering taking on the university's endowment fund as a client. For her bid to manage the entire endowment of $20 million, Thompson must create a presentation that outlines her investment strategy. The case is ideal for an MBA-level or undergraduate finance course that covers asset management and/or portfolio theory.

More than a decade after the high-profile failures of several early online grocers, grocery remains the largest single U.S. retail category and one of the few that has not yet migrated online. Amazon began testing its grocery-delivery service, AmazonFresh, in Seattle, in 2007; five years later, the company has made significant progress. The case traces the evolution of AmazonFresh's business model and describes the operating capabilities necessary to compete with brick-and-mortar supermarkets like Wal-Mart and Safeway and with new digital grocery startups. Now Amazon needs to decide on AmazonFresh's next step. Should the company continue refining its business model in Seattle or expand to another city? What factors should it take into account when planning its next move?

Tata Cummins Limited (TCL), a leading manufacturer of diesel engines in India, faced a variety of challenges in meeting the October 2010 deadline for new automobile emissions standards. These standards are identified as Bharat Stage (BS) standards ranging from BS I to BS V. The subject of this case - the BS III standard - was introduced in 2005 for just 11 cities across India and then made mandatory for the entire country by October of 2010. At that time, the BS IV standard had already been implemented in a few large cities and it was this standard that was expected to exist nationwide by 2017. Reflecting on their successful experience with the transition to the 2010 automobile emissions standards, the vice-president of TCL hoped to make this next transition a smooth one by identifying the issues that the company would face in the near future.

OOCL is one of the world's largest integrated international container transportation, logistics and terminal companies, with a network covering Asia, Europe, North America and Australasia. The company is well respected in the industry with a reputation for providing customer-focused solutions, a quality-through-excellence approach and continual innovation. It has been listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since 1973. In a volatile industry, it has to compete and form alliances. It has a history of investing widely with variable results.

Firms in Korea's securities and brokerage industries have experienced fierce competition in the domestic market, which has led to international expansion being considered a popular strategic alternative. The chief executive officer of Hyundai Securities Co., Ltd., a Korean securities firm, envisions his company becoming the "pan-Asian market leader." As a result, he is pursuing an international expansion strategy in Hong Kong and Singapore. However, given the popularity of international expansion in these areas, the markets are highly competitive. Has the CEO made an appropriate strategic decision?

A job candidate at Visa Inc., the technology payments company, prepares herself for her interview by considering what she can uncover about the company's marketing from the published accounts. She analyzes what the company spends money on and how revenue is generated. She considers how marketing is accounted for - specifically, how marketing assets, such as brands, are dealt with on the balance sheet. She considers the relationship between values in the accounts and the market value of the firm, and the problem of brand valuation is discussed. Finally, she tries to understand the impact of accounting treatment on common financial ratios.

In December 2011, the co-founder of Unbounce, a Vancouver-based software services start-up, is considering expanding into the enterprise user space. Unbounce got its start providing turnkey landing pages - web pages specific to current advertising campaigns - to the small and medium-sized enterprise market. Within 18 months, the company has achieved thought leadership in this space, has a list of paying customers and has built its support team from six to 25 people. The challenge is that since the entire company is focused on its core market segment, entering the enterprise user space means that different capabilities will have to be developed. Will developing the enterprise user market prevent the competition from invading this space or will it mean alienating and perhaps losing its current customers? What is the best plan for going forward?

In September 2013, Alex Leong, co-founder of Rainmaker Labs, considers where to invest the limited resources available to his technology start-up company in order to grow the business. Earlier that year, Rainmaker Labs launched ShopGuru, a mobile shopping application that enables users to earn and redeem loyalty points for browsing or shopping at select retail outlets. The ShopGuru application works hand-in-hand with Rainmaker's proprietary iSenze hardware, which sends signals to the ShopGuru mobile application and captures information about each customer using the application. Keenly aware of the valuable customer data the company is collecting, Leong wants to further explore how this could be converted into a revenue opportunity. However, it has been a challenge to find investors, and after two and half years the company is still cash negative and operating on slim margins. Leong faces a common tech start-up dilemma - whether to focus their limited resources on expanding the business, or to strengthen their back-end systems and develop a stronger technology base to position future business growth. The flip side of this argument is equally relevant - good technology is only as good as its commercial application. This case also discusses the role of strategic business planning in commercialising a cutting-edge technology.

This case describes the second home market strategy of Tata Communications Limited (TCL) and its evaluation of Russia as a new market opportunity. Ahead of a July 2012 board meeting, TCL's Chief Strategy Officer had to decide whether to pursue an acquisition opportunity in Russia. The case traces TCL's transformation from an Indian public sector monopoly to a global challenger in the telecommunications market, its previous acquisition history and its foray into South Africa as a second home market. The latest opportunity - to create a third home market in Russia - was the possible acquisition of a Russian Internet Service Provider (ISP) which had a business-to-business (B2B) focus and product mix similar to TCL.

Paramount Equipment, Inc., based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is a large manufacturer of cranes and compact construction equipment, aerial work platforms, and food service equipment. Founded in 1987, Paramount now had manufacturing operations in 24 countries. However, it lost its competitive position because it took on too much debt in the form of bank borrowings relative to the risk level of its business. Now the company must seek funding and guarantees in order to restructure its debt. Paramount's future depends on whether existing lenders, management, and the government of Ontario-where the company employs more than 7,000-can reach a feasible restructuring and refinancing plan fast and whether Paramount was able to secure a capital injection from new investors. Students must determine the optimal capital structure policy consistent with competitive risks and assess available tools for financing a company in financial distress. The case requires students to perform only limited quantitative analysis and is ideal for use in first-year MBA courses in financial strategy or corporate finance. It would also work well in advanced undergraduate finance courses that cover capital structure and financial distress.

KaraikalPort Private Limited (KPPL) was a special purpose vehicle created by MARG on February 18, 2006 to develop Karaikal port. According to the concession agreement signed for a period of 30 years, KPPL was given rights to Karaikal port on a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis. It was to build the port in three different stages, based on short term, midterm and long term demand. By August 22, 2011, it has completed construction of phase I and phase II of the port. Though the project had not faced any major problems in its development, there were issues such as restriction on availability of land for any future expansion, limited scope of hinterland businesses, small scale environmental issues and others that needed to be addressed for a positive future development of the port.

Biosensors International Group (BIG), a biotechnology company listed in Singapore Exchange, acquired JW Medical Systems Ltd in 2011. This resulted in a significant increase in reported goodwill and other intangible assets. On 2 July 2012, Matthew Tay, an analyst with MMB Ltd (an equity research company in Singapore), sat staring at the balance sheets of BIG. The sum total of intangible assets and goodwill constituted 62% of total assets compared to 4% the year before. He knew that the huge increase was due to the acquisition of JW Medical Systems in 2011. He wondered what these intangible assets and goodwill represented, how they were accounted for and how they should be interpreted. This case study deals with the valuation and the impairment testing of intangibles (including goodwill) reported in the financial statements of BIG, and describes the acquisition transaction and BIG's post-acquisition financial position.