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In January 2013, John C. Liu, New York City's comptroller, wrote to the residents of the city about his audit of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR). Liu summarized his office's findings: "The audit found that DPR was not carrying out and overseeing capital construction projects in a timely and cost effective manner." To investigate the existence of the "planning fallacy" in organizations, information from nearly 1,800 capital projects undertaken between 1998 and 2008 was obtained from the office of the chief engineer of the New York City DPR. In light of the data, how severe was the planning fallacy during this time and could it be used for overcoming the planning fallacy?

Whole Foods has successfully rolled out a new store in a low-income neighborhood of Detroit and company leaders are looking to scale the model to Chicago's Englewood neighborhood and beyond. Chicago would offer $11 million in incentives, but the neighborhood lacks the hospital and university of Detroit's Midtown, whose employees frequent the grocer during lunch and after work. The brand many know as "Whole Paycheck" must find a way to make itself relevant to low-income populations and address issues of food access and poverty. Students will be asked to evaluate the business decision to enter low-income areas, considering both the "business bottom line" versus "business triple bottom line" debate.

One Acre Fund (1AF) is a nonprofit organization in rural western Kenya that helps farmers lift themselves out of poverty by providing a bundle of products and services that support farmers with quality inputs, training on farming techniques, access to credit, and assistance in achieving optimal prices. Since the organization's founding nearly a decade ago, it has grown to serve over 180,000 farm families annually as of July 2014. This high level of penetration into rural Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania makes 1AF a potential distribution channel for rolling out new products and technologies that could benefit farmers and their families. The organization prides itself on its innovative culture, and always strives to offer new products and methods to its farmers. In 2011 1AF realized that it needed to formalize its innovation process to ensure it was confident in new products before rolling them out across its entire farmer network. It therefore created a robust, multistep evaluation framework to assess new innovations on four criteria: impact, adoptability, simplicity, and operability.

This case is intended to illustrate to readers the challenges faced in 2011-2013 by Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, as he guided his company into the exploding tablet market. Faced with the tough decision between focusing on the e-reader market-which Amazon had come to dominate with its Kindle product line-and making a foray into tablets-for which it had no expertise-Bezos chose the latter. Amazon sought to combine platform assets to create an end-to-end experience that would let users find a "sweet spot" in the mix of features and services. This strategy involved critical decisions such as selecting a customer segment to target and a positioning for the new product, dubbed the Kindle Fire, as the tablet market rapidly evolved. The Kindle Fire was designed to put the full Amazon experience right into the laps of customers, and Bezos was betting that his customers would see the Kindle Fire as the physical manifestation of all things Amazon. To achieve this, Amazon was willing to heavily subsidize the Kindle Fire hardware device. The key assumption was that the superior end-to-end experience Amazon had carefully created would lead to incremental purchases of content as well as physical products and services, and the margins thus gained would outweigh the hardware subsidy.

Eikon Device Ltd, a tattoo equipment and supplies firm, has to choose between several alternatives. Their core business is the production of tattoo needles and the power supply that makes tattoo machines operate, selling primarily into the United States and Canada. With increasing international demand however, should they consider establishing a distribution facility abroad? Alternatively, since much of their success is derived from catering to the specific needs of tattoo artists, should Eikon expand its product line for the North American market? At the same time, competition from China has emerged to push Eikon out of its core markets. Eikon management has to prioritize their initiatives.

Ethiopian Airlines plans to expand its African market base to become a leading airline in the continent. As part of the airline's multi-hub strategy, the vice-president of alliances and corporate strategy and his team must identify a suitable hub location and decide on the appropriate mode and level of ownership. Success in the first hub is essential as it will both validate the viability of the multi-hub strategy and set the tone for the establishment of subsequent hubs throughout the continent. The vice-president and his team need to resolve three issues: location of the first hub, entry mode and ownership level.

Head of Goldman Sachs' Urban Investment Group Alicia Glen will be making the case for creating a social impact bond (SIB) tomorrow. Proposed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as an investment that will decrease adolescent incarceration rates, the SIB would be the first of its kind in the U.S. Goldman would have a first-mover advantage if it chooses to take part in the project, but it carries significant risk - the bank would be operating in an environment that is traditionally government and non-profit territory. Glen wondered if Goldman should invest only if a philanthropy, such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, would secure a portion of the loan. She also wondered if the transaction costs would be too high or if there were any legal or political hurdles on the horizon to stall implementation. Students are asked to gain an understanding of social investments and construct a 2X2 matrix to assess expectations for returns on social and financial impact.

Simon Caufield and Bob Phillips had just put the finishing touches on the business plan for Nomis Solutions, a start-up company that planned to offer price-optimization solutions to financial service firms. Nomis aimed to use advanced analytic techniques to help its clients to set prices for consumer loans and deposits. Was there a market for the products and services that Nomis planned to offer? If so, how large was the market? What would persuade potential clients that Nomis's product and services would add value?

It was June 2011, and Alain Chuard and Victoria Ransom reflected on their history as founders of Wildfire Interactive Inc. (Wildfire). Originally called Promotion Builder, Wildfire had evolved from an in-house marketing solution used by the duo's adventure travel company to a multi-platform software program used by thousands of businesses globally. The Wildfire product enabled these customers to develop customized social-media marketing campaigns composed of video and essay competitions, user-generated contests, quizzes, and coupons. Users could then push these promotions to their websites or social networks, such as Facebook, hi5, and LinkedIn. Through this evolution, the team contended with a myriad of difficulties, including attracting talent, navigating international markets, and building and scaling operations. In particular, obstacles associated with cultural differences and geographical distance made it challenging for the company to maintain effective operations overseas. Moreover, relative to its competitors, Wildfire was substantially under-funded and under-marketed. This made it difficult for the founders to decide when the company should either accept or turn away lucrative-yet demanding-high-profile customers. Chuard and Ransom were now at another critical decision point in the organization's lifecycle. Wildfire had traditionally been a campaign-based product. Under this model, Wildfire was offered to customers for an initial fee plus a per-day charge, the size of which was dependent upon the feature set chosen by the customer. Recent pressures from investors and consumers, however, had pushed the founders to consider a transition to a subscription-based platform that would provide timeline and stream management, analytics, and page-management functionality. Whereas the founders knew that transforming business models could have various positive effects for Wildfire, implementing the change would also inherently alter the company and its product

In May 2013, the founder and executive director of the St. John the Compassionate Mission, a faith-based, non-profit social service organization located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, needs to plan for his retirement. He has been the driving force behind the organization for the past 27 years, and it reflects his vision that meaningful work helps people get off welfare, attaining dignity and a sense of personal value in the process. To that end, the Mission provides opportunities for everyone in the community to work through employment in one of its two social enterprises - a thrift store and a bakery - or through volunteer opportunities. Because its organizational culture emphasizes collaboration and consultation not only with its staff leadership council and board of directors but also with all members of the community, its decision making has been fluid and in response to perceived needs rather than forward planning. Now he needs to ensure an effective succession that protects the organization's culture, values and beliefs and ensures the safety of a vulnerable population.

Set in 2013, this case describes the expansion of car2go, a popular car sharing service developed by Daimler AG. The case addresses the changing commuting preferences among urban residents, the evolution of urban transportation and new service developments in the automotive products market. Unlike traditional models of car sharing or renting, which required advance bookings, hourly billing and returns to the originating location, car2go's business model offered minute-based rates and a free-floating selection of cars that allowed customers to pick up or leave vehicles wherever they liked.

The case tells the story of Kate Doerksen in her journey as founder and CEO of Ditto, an eyewear e-commerce company that introduced virtual fitting technology. The case covers the period from the founding of the company in 2010 to its situation in December 2012, when the company faced a number of decisions including facing lawsuits from a competitor and a patent troll. This case focuses on the following elements of Doerksen's story: How Doerksen became interested in starting her own company, built a solid foundation of experiences, and made some key decisions to start Ditto. How Doerksen developed and crafted the idea of building an eyewear e-commerce company powered by virtual fitting technology. The dilemmas that Doerksen faced in her quest for the ideal cofounder(s) of Ditto. Doerksen's decision to hire her own father, against investors' advice and how she balanced investors' needs against organizational needs. The lawsuits against Ditto from 1-800-Contacts and Lennon Imaging Technology, including Doerksen's way of dealing with the attacks, her perseverance, and innovative approach to keeping the business alive.

In late 2013, Rajeev Kulkarni needed to decide how best to facilitate the emergence of a broad base of users and content to promote the sale of 3D Systems's consumer-focused 3D printers. As yet, neither the company nor users had identified an indispensable application for 3D printing for consumers, despite a plethora of potential opportunities.

Mara Group is a rapidly growing Pan-African conglomerate run by its entrepreneurial CEO Ashish Thakkar. The case explores Thakkar's decision on which African markets to expand operations into.

Provides the opportunity to value a leveraged buy-out; and to examine the nature and extent of a company's responsibilities to its bondholders. Here, the context is a "going private" transaction in Europe, where the financing plan called for the addition to the company's balance sheet of a significant amount of new debt and a reshaping of the capital structure. While leveraged buyouts had been used in Europe for several years, this was likely the first LBO done with a company that had publicly traded investment grade debt outstanding. The increased debt from the deal would increase the risk to the company and to the existing bonds, and the bonds' prices would fall significantly as a result. Students can use discounted cash flow techniques to value the LBO. They can then consider the wisdom of undertaking the LBO at the offered price, and work out a sensible debt schedule for the company. Students must also evaluate the effect of the transaction on the existing bonds, and understand the principles governing contractual duties (and how they differ from fiduciary obligations) towards bondholders (accounting for a business and social culture outside the United States) in order to determine the best course of action for the private equity buyers.

The Iora Health case looks at a new approach to the management and delivery of primary care. Instead of having a doctor, half a nurse and two accountants, Iora deploys a doctor, a nurse and several health coaches, all operating as an integrated team. Iora focuses on measuring and improving health. They are paid to manage a population rather than on a fee for service basis. They spend twice as much on primary care and hope to save over 20% on total care by improving health and obviating the need for acute interventions. The action question in the cases revolves around a proposed financing for the company at a time when several locations are up and running but the model has not been fully validated.

Strava is a new fast-growing social network for the avid cyclist and runner. The Strava case traces the entrepreneurial journey of two serial entrepreneurs who have been co-founders in a prior venture, and who have co-founded Strava 3 years ago. The protagonists must decide whether or not to accept the Series A investment terms from their venture capitalists.

Taxing corporations is popular, but why? Corporations do not bear the burden of taxes, people do, and the incidence of the corporate income tax burden is likely to be far different from what many of its supporters assume. Instructors may also obtain a Teaching Note, written by this case's author, that provides suggestions for using this case effectively in the classroom.

In 2013, Brigitte Baumann, founder of the Pan-European angel investing provider Go Beyond Investing, reflected on the evolution of her venture and the way forward. Her company, which offered deal flow and training to novice and experienced angel investors and ran investor groups in several European countries, had reached a critical size, and Baumann needed to make a strategic decision to ensure its future growth in an industry that was undergoing rapid competitive and regulatory change. Her options required a decision on whether to keep her venture independent, and use a financing round to grow and scale it to a European leader in early stage investing, or whether to cash out and/or have it evolve more quickly through a partnership or sale. Possibilities included a future sale to a private bank that was looking for ways to expand their investment offerings for high net worth individuals, or joining forces with one of the emerging crowdfunding networks that targeted small investors. All of these options would require adjustments to Go Beyond Investing's strategy, capabilities, financing, and organizational structure.