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This case describes the deterioration of the relationship between three people in an organization. Ramesh, Learning and Development Head, Chrysalis Pharmaceuticals, undergoes a couple of bitter experiences at his office. He tries to speak to his boss, Kamla, regarding the matter, in vain. He feels that he is being eased out of the company and being replaced by a new, young, and very competent woman employee, Gargi. Part A of the case ends on a confused and unhappy note. It is unclear whether Ramesh is going to leave the organization or stay on.

It is October 2007 and competition in the fast-moving consumer goods space is heating up in the developing markets. Vietnam is no exception and Unilever believes it can seize greater market opportunity through innovative and environmentally sustainable product offerings. Nguyen Van Linh, head of marketing at Unilever Vietnam is concerned. Back in April, Unilever launched Comfort One Rinse, a fabric conditioner designed to reduce water use for rinsing hand-washed laundry by 66%. However, consumers are sceptical of the product's efficacy and do not believe that this new fabric conditioner will work as advertised. To complicate matters, P&G just launched their own nearly identical product, Downy One Rinse. In part A of this case series, Nguyen addressed the new product's credibility issue while contending with P&G's challenger product. Will she secure Comfort's market leadership and reach 50% market penetration before Downy?

Bayer Group needed to reassess its strategies regarding intellectual property, as well as its emphasis on research and development. The Indian government had ruled against Bayer by granting a compulsory licence to a local generic drug manufacturer that allowed them to distribute a copy of Bayer's blockbuster cancer drug at a fraction of the original price. This ruling demonstrated that pharmaceutical innovation could not be effectively protected by conventional intellectual property rights in emerging markets. As a result, the core of the pharmaceutical industry's business model was called into question: If ideas and inventions could not be protected, was the there any incentive for firms to innovate? Would this victory for generic drug manufacturers trigger similar rulings elsewhere? Would the prevailing patent-centric IP strategies need to be adapted to emerging markets? Or would innovator companies finally have to withdraw from markets with weak IP protection?

In late 2013, Bloomberg LP, the financial information powerhouse, was challenged by a competing messaging service owned by a consortium of banks, many of whom were Bloomberg's customers. This development came when growth was slowing and news was emerging that Bloomberg's business practices may have compromised the privacy of its customers. Did these events serve to open fissures in the company's ability to maintain industry dominance? This case asks students to consider Bloomberg's business model and the industry's competitive landscape to assess the company's market position.

Axis Bank is India's third largest private sector bank. In April 2009, Shikha Sharma, an outsider, was appointed as its CEO. She took over from a person who had overseen ten years of rapid growth at the bank. The selection of an outsider as the new CEO surprised many inside and outside the bank. Sharma changed the bank's hierarchical culture, strengthened the core team by appointing new talent where needed, sought to build its core processes and infrastructure, and filled several gaps in its business portfolio. Despite these changes, the stock market continues to undervalue Axis Bank compared with its chief rivals. In light of this, Axis Bank needs to figure out what more it needs to do to ensure that the market values the franchise correctly.

The recently appointed commissioner of insurance for Arlandia, an emerging-market country, is determined to do everything possible to minimize insolvencies and their potential destabilizing effects on the country's financial system. The commissioner has an urgent need to quickly get up to speed on the Polaris Life Insurance situation. The minister of finance has already fielded inquiries regarding the company's soundness, and the Arlandia Insurance Authority's on-site inspectors have expressed deep concern about the company's investment portfolio. The commissioner now needs to brief the minister of finance about the situation, develop plans for how the insurance authority should proceed and consider recommending additional regulatory changes.

Can corporate social responsibility plans avert the tragedy of the commons? Or is selfishness an inherent part of business? Coca-Cola has long been criticized for its extraction of water from water poor communities. Faced with protests at the University of Michigan, Coca-Cola has agreed to an independent assessment. This case tells the story of what happened after the report gets back and asks students to decide if Coca-Cola has lived up to its stated principles. Or is Coca-Cola just green-washing?

Sogeti, a global leader in providing technological services chooses to invest in a social collaboration platform for its employees with a view towards bringing about business transformation. Partnering with IBM, the company launched "TeamPark." After the implementation, the company's central challenge was to encourage employee engagement levels and how to increase utilization of the platform. A further issue: Should the platform be opened up to clients and other stakeholders? There was a lot of deliberation around the way the community should be created - should it be restricted or open? If the company decided to open its information-sharing platform with its clients, how should it manage the issues of security and trust?

Inaash is a Lebanese non-profit organization that supports the development of Palestinians in refugee camps. Inaash has created jobs for thousands of women in the camps through the production of traditional Palestinian embroidery items such as shawls and dresses, which the association sells in its shop and at exhibitions. The organization has also been successful in creating valuable social infrastructure in many camps through offering medical support to the elderly and sponsoring children's education. Major changes in the macro environment have resulted in diminishing sales and an increased dependence on donations. Inaash must rethink its strategy and consider improving its performance measurement, using social media to connect with stakeholders and raise awareness, and professionalizing its donor management. How can Inaash bridge the chasm between social purpose and financial viability?

To target the expanding segment of upwardly mobile and upper-income Indians, a pre-eminent organized retailer in India decided to introduce Western-style hyperstores with high-end merchandising. The initial reactions of shoppers were positive, but soon the novelty wore off and store traffic declined. To counter the negative consumer responses, the retailer undertook a year-long test of a new repositioning strategy in its signature hyperstore in a large urban centre. The key challenge was to increase the store's traffic and profitability without jeopardizing its distinctive and high-quality upscale image. The case provides the test results, which include consumer reactions as well as impacts on store traffic and profit margins.

The world's leading documents company is in a transformation mode. From being a provider of cutting-edge technology products for decades, it is moving towards providing product-service combinations. As a person driving this enterprise-wide change, the head of Xerox Innovation Group (XIG) is facing two specific issues. How should XIG become more customer-centric? How should the company build new competencies to provide consistent services across devices and locations for each customer?

Ever since Yasuhiko Shogaki took over Saizeriya Co., Ltd. (Saizeriya) in 1968, the restaurant had aimed to provide healthy and tasty Italian meals at affordable prices for everyone. On 9 December 2008, Shogaki made a stunning public announcement - that the company had incurred a loss of ¥15 billion caused by the use of foreign currency coupon swaps. He further announced that because of such transactions (such as trading in derivatives to hedge against foreign exchange risks), the Italian-restaurant chain operator might fall into the red in terms of group net earnings for that fiscal year through August 2009. Shogaki revealed that Saizeriya had signed derivatives deals with BNP Paribas Securities (Japan) Ltd. in October 2007 to procure Australian dollars (A$) that the restaurant needed to import food from that country. Following the disclosure, Saizeriya's stock price went limit-down on 10 December 2008 as investors rushed to dump the stock. Some directors and shareholders questioned this disclosure. Shogaki then had to decide whether the company should continue hedging (such as with swaps), despite the fact that Saizeriya had just suffered huge losses from similar transactions. If Saizeriya did not arrange any hedging, the company could enjoy yen appreciation merits for the payments in A$.

Naguib Sawiris, CEO of Egyptian Orascom Telecom Holding (OTH), continuously scoured the globe for opportunities to expand his telecommunications empire. In 2005, Naguib looked across the Mediterranean Sea and announced his intention to acquire Italian telecom operator Wind Telecomunicazioni S.p.A. (Wind), one of Italy's leading telecommunication providers in the largest leveraged buyout in European business history.

In April 2003, Dr. Julio Frenk, the Minister of Health of Mexico, prepared for the debate on his health reform bill to begin in the Senate. Since becoming Minister of Health in President Vicente Fox's administration in 2000, Dr. Frenk had worked tirelessly to build support for his vision of health reform and his goals of re-structuring the health care system in Mexico and providing universal access to care for 50 million uninsured in Mexico. The Senate debate on his bill was a rare political opportunity to fundamentally transform Mexico's health system. Dr. Frenk had to figure out how to deal with the opposition to his reform and how to get his bill adopted by the Mexican Congress.

The case illustrates the challenges faced by entrepreneurs launching a new product in a highly competitive market with limited resources. The case is set in 2005 and puts the student in the shoes of Michel and Augustin. Copy and paste the url into a browser http://cases.insead.edu/michel-and-augustin/home to access all case support material (videos, related articles and academic papers)

In May 2013 the co-founders and co-CEOs of salaUno, Javier Okhuysen and Carlos Orellana, were encouraged by the results of their fledgling start-up. salaUno was founded as a for-profit enterprise in order to have the capital needed for rapid growth and to fulfill its mission of Eliminating Needless Blindness in Mexico. salaUno had grown from doing 75 cataract surgeries in its first month of operation to a high of 388 surgeries 21 months later. This case explores the challenges in scaling up a healthcare venture within a developing country.

The Clef case focuses on the issue of turnover in a firm's sales force. Students must analyze the factors contributing to turnover as well as the role of the field sales force in Clef's profitable business strategy. Among other things, the Clef case illustrates that managing field marketing requirements entails managing individual people but also a certain aggregate call capacity and a set of sales tasks determined by business strategy. In turn, that analysis of strategy-sales linkages often changes students' minds about what to do about turnover in Clef's sales force.

Despite facing giants like Coke, Pepsi, and Budweiser-with obvious potential sources of competitive advantage-Red Bull had established itself as the U.S. market leader in energy drinks. By 2008, however, Red Bull's dominance was challenged as Monster drinks surpassed it in volume. The case considers judo strategy both from the perspective of a small player (when up-start Red Bull faces Coke, Pepsi, and Bud) and as a large player (when market leader Red Bull faces up-start Monster).

Teach For China was founded in 2008 with the mission of expanding educational opportunity across China. By 2013, Andrea Pasinetti's lofty dream had taken flight: over 300 graduates from top American and Chinese universities were participating in its 2-year teaching fellowships in more than 87 rural Chinese schools. The organization had grown from a founding team of three in a shoebox office to an 80-person operation headquartered in Beijing with teams in six other locations across China. Teach For China adapted the model pioneered by Teach For America to meet the needs of the educationally under-resourced of rural China. Led by an American, could Teach For China reshape its international identity and become an enduring Chinese institution? Could Teach For China manage regulatory risks and challenge public and government skepticism of the still-nascent and highly volatile nonprofit sector? Would Teach For China be able to sustainably scale its model to truly end educational inequality in China?