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In November 2006, Chris Michel left Military.com, which he founded in 1999, to start Affinity Labs, a global network of online communities. That month, Michel raised a Series A round of venture funding and established a partnership with Monster, which he had sold Military.com to. Within its first year of operations, Affinity Labs launched eight vertical portals including PoliceLink, NursingLink, TechCommunity, and IndiaOn. While the company was well ahead of its original plan to release four portals in 2007, Michel still faced a number of challenges. He had learned a great deal from Military.com and Affinity Labs' first launches, but in the case of each new community was faced with how best to construct the vertical and attract a sufficiently large audience. While the model seemed highly scalable because each vertical used the same core technology, every sector had its unique features. In the fall of 2007, executives from Monster opened up a dialogue with Michel about selling the company or expanding their relationship. Michel wondered if the time was right to sell or if he should grow Affinity Labs further with the hope of creating a company that could command the high valuations seen recently by a number of social networking concerns.

This case considers the return and liquidity effects of leverage on investment returns for novice investor, Daring Dave, in a single equity security. Through a play-by-play description of Dave's investment experience over a single week, students are introduced to the mechanics of trading on margin, margin calls, and the value of liquidity for risky, levered positions.

This case is taught at the University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce in the fourth year course, ""Corporate Restructuring."" The case is suitable for advanced undergraduates or MBS students that have already completed a course in corporate finance or valuation. The material would fit well in a second Corporate Finance class, particularly if the instructor would like to devote some time to discussing financial distress and restructuring. It could also work well in a business reorganization class at a law school. Danfurn LLC is a U.S. manufacturer and retailer of high-end furniture that is in financial distress following a 2007 LBO and subsequent declines in profitability in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007-08. The nearly 50-year-old company has recently blown through cash flow covenants on its $100 million senior financing facility and is seeking a restructuring of its capital structure that will allow the company to survive. Although Danfurn's lenders are hopeful that a consensual decision can be reached on how to restructure the company without resorting to a bankruptcy filing, filing for bankruptcy or even liquidating the company are very real possibilities. This case is an exercise in negotiating a consensual restructuring of a financially distressed company when stakeholders have varied incentives, legal rights, potential remedies, and interests in how the company will be managed going forward. The case discussion works best if students are divided into groups representing the different stakeholder groups-the senior lender, mezzanine lender, board, private equity owner, and founder interests-and are asked to think about how best to maximize their positions while recognizing the costs of failing to reach a negotiated outcome.

MuMate, a fictional cult beverage company, requires capital to fund national expansion. Its cofounders, who have bootstrapped to this point, are now negotiating with venture capital firms to raise a $3 million funding round. The case describes MuMaté's inception, early history, business model, and factors that have fueled its rapid recent growth. As the case ends, the cofounders are debating whether to raise funds from VCs, angels, or asset-based lenders. The cofounders share their concerns about valuation and whether investors will seek to change the company's strategy and organizational culture.

Arthur Rock was known as one of the country's first venture capitalists and was instrumental in launching major Silicon Valley firms, such as Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel Corporation, Apple Computer, Inc., Scientific Data Systems and Teledyne Incorporated. He was the first venture capitalist to be featured on the cover of Time magazine. Rock was adamant that his success was due to luck and being in the right place at the right time. Others argued differently, emphasizing in particular his unique style of investing and his focus on selecting the right people. Was this a case of luck or a classic example of the principle: back the right people?

In September 2012 Walmart became the first multinational retailer to announce entry into India. The company would need to invest heavily in processing, refrigeration, storage, and information systems to open and operate stores in the country. The International division's executives had thought that similar investments would pay off when they invested in retail stores in China, only to experience early missteps. This case provides background information about the retail environment in both China and India and summarizes Walmart's experiences in both countries, asking students to suggest a plan for Walmart's expansion into India that aligns well with its global strategy and proven business strengths.

The e-payments landscape in Singapore was previously dominated by two major card issuers with non-interoperable cards. The Infocomm Development Authority launched an initiative to develop an innovative standard that would provide an interoperable platform in order to boost local micropayments and open up e-payment services for consumers. The result was a pioneering ISO standard - the Contactless e-Purse Application Standard (CEPAS). This open standard, with unique security and high-performance features, enabled multiple payment applications offered by different issuers to be on a single smart card, which consumers could use for bus, taxi, and rail transport, car park and road usage charges, and retail micropayments. The case examines the significant challenges and trade-offs in the development and deployment of this platform innovation - such as orchestrating the efforts of multiple stakeholders and balancing various stakeholders' legitimate interests; incentivising investment in supporting infrastructure and complementary innovations; as well as promoting the adoption and diffusion of the cards by consumers and merchants. The CEPAS platform was also being leveraged for the next generation of e-payment innovations, such as payments via Near Field Communication-enabled mobile phones.

Books for Change (BfC), a small publisher, produces books that focus on the social sector. The company's purpose is to raise awareness about specific development issues among academia, researchers and policy makers. BfC was started in 1998 by ActionAid, an international non-governmental organization working in the field of social development. Like other small publishers, BfC faces various challenges, including a lower demand for its books and difficulty in distribution and marketing. ActionAid has provided financial support to BfC by covering its operating losses; however, it now needs to allocate greater funds to its own development activities and, therefore, has asked BfC to become financially independent. BfC needs to prepare the strategy and plan for making BfC profitable.

This case presents complex managerial challenges that stem from the institutional context in emerging markets, particularly in relation to the intellectual property regime and its impact on business strategy. The case centres around a multinational pharmaceutical firm, Novartis International AG (Novartis), that is waiting on a major court decision regarding patent policy as it pertains to one of the firm's products. The case takes students through the company's journey in marketing a promising anti-cancer drug that had global sales of US$3.9 billion in 2009. Novartis' global success with this drug is being challenged by the changing institutional environment surrounding innovation and pharmaceutical patents. The company's decision to patent the drug in India and challenge the institutional system of patent law is meeting significant resistance from those who argue that the drug is neither novel nor affordable for most patients. With key domestic players staking their claim to the large pool of patients who could benefit from the drug, the case focuses on a controversial patents law. Given the uncertainty of the court's final decision on these matters, students are asked to develop an action plan for the company's future.

In 2008, EADS, the European aerospace group that owns Airbus, was faced with the decision of how best to hedge a large and growing mismatch between its dollar revenues and its euro manufacturing costs. Specifically, the company needed to decide if it would continue hedging primarily with forward contracts, but in much higher volumes and at increasingly unfavorable rates, or to break with past practice and begin using foreign exchange option contracts. The decision would have consequences for EADS' profitability, cash flow, and its ability to fund strategic investment programs crucial to its ability to remain competitive with Boeing. Students must address questions concerning the proper way to measure foreign exchange exposures, the objectives of a rational risk management policy and program for a company like EADS competing in a duopoly with Boeing, the differences between hedging with FX options versus FX futures, counterparty risk, and hedge accounting, among other considerations.

In 1980, the city of Kunshan was mere countryside, registering neither on the Chinese government's nor the international business community's radar. By 2010, Kunshan had become the richest city per capita in China and a global technology powerhouse, home to companies such as Foxconn, Compal Electronics, and Wistron. Kunshan's entrepreneurial, self-starting development combined with strategic location and high levels of local government support had been responsible for Kunshan's tremendous growth and success. How could it continue to grow at a rate to maintain its leadership among Chinese entrepreneurial cities? And would the founding of an international, joint-venture campus with Duke and Wuhan University keep the city of Kunshan innovative and ahead of the curve?

This teaching case focuses on a collaborative project between a major software and services outsourcing company in China (VanceInfo Technologies) and one of its major Western clients (Microsoft Inc.). VanceInfo and Microsoft had been engaged in a long-term client/vendor relationship since 1997 and the project had been the result of this long-term partnership arrangement. The project was deemed quite successful and innovative; hence it provided an opportunity to determine how collaborative innovation could work between two remote and culturally different supply chain partners and how the lessons from this project could be used to inform SSO providers of ways in which they could move up the value chain to more client-focused value added services. The case looks in-depth at the actual working practices that enabled the distributed Microsoft/VanceInfo team to produce a market-led innovative product. Agile methods were highly integral to the functioning of those work practices and are quite carefully scrutinised from the point of view of how they were adapted for use in a distributed, cross-cultural environment. Users of the case study will be asked to formulate answers to several questions geared towards providing general guidelines that SSO providers can follow to achieve similar successful outcomes.

In 2011, The Walt Disney Company and other content owners aggressively lobbied Congress to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The intent was to prevent unauthorized copying and transmission of copyrighted materials. This had been largely eliminated on U.S.-based websites, but some copyright owners claimed it was prevalent overseas. SOPA (and its companion legislation "Protect IP Act," or PIPA), would allow the government or private companies to request court orders to bar any U.S. company from "enabling" alleged infringing sites. SOPA initially had bipartisan support, and previous efforts to strengthen copyright protection had faced little opposition. The bill supported the commercial interests of Disney and other content owners. However, many of the specifics of SOPA and PIPA had the potential to stir powerful opposition from a wide variety of sources. The case discusses copyright law and the impact of technology advances on protection of copyrighted materials. It also describes SOPA and aspects of the proposed law that might attract opposition. The case concludes by asking students to consider SOPA from the perspective of both Disney and potential opponents.

This case is set in April 2013, and discusses the key elements that have contributed to the success of Infosys Ltd's Campus Connect Programme (CC) in developing India's Information Technology talent over the past eight years. The CC programme is an industry-academia initiative that re-constructs the education experience of engineering students. The programme was launched in May 2004 with 70 colleges. By December 2012, the model had been successfully scaled up to cover 400 colleges, and more than 180,000 readers and 8,300 faculty members across India had benefited from the programme's technical and soft skills training, and exposure to industry practices. Since CC's launch, Infosys has experienced a measurable improvement in the quantity and quality of their new recruits. Infosys understands the value of creating a talent ecosystem, and this case explains just how, and why, Campus Connect has worked as a successful example of industry-academia partnership in the talent management space.

iLinko is a small-to-medium enterprise (SME) based in Hong Kong. It has two major lines of business: providing business-to-business sourcing and procurement services for its customers (mainly medium-size companies located in the United States and Europe), and distributing babies and children products under the brand name Bloom. Simon May, the protagonist of the case, is the founder and CEO of iLinko. Given the rapid growth of the company, the existing ERP system can no longer satisfy the operational needs and requirements at iLinko. Simon has to choose whether to upgrade the existing ERP system or replace it with a brand-new system altogether.

After a massive storm hit the northern Illinois service area of electric utility Commonwealth Edison on July 11, 2011, more than 900,000 customers were left without power during a hot, humid summer. ComEd crews and reinforcements from more than a dozen other states worked for days afterward to restore service. Meanwhile, the company's months-old social media strategy faced its first major test. The eChannels social media team, part of ComEd's customer operations division, worked around the clock to respond to posts from customers on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. At a time when the company faced public debate and criticism over its plan to raise electricity rates, in part to invest in smart-grid upgrades, engaging directly through social media was a way to strengthen relationships with customers and the general public, consistent with an important corporate goal: "Keep the lights on and information flowing."