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The Himalaya Drug Company is interested in obtaining insights into how the lifestyle of consumers is associated with the use of face washes, especially of its own brand. As the population of India, which is primarily under the age of 35, becomes more affluent and self-conscious, personal grooming has become more important. Several brands have positioned themselves in the market according to various attributes and benefits. Himalaya wants to understand the impact of values and lifestyles both on the category of face washes and on the brands in this category. The case makes use of a consumer survey conducted in December 2011 that investigated the lifestyle of consumers and connected it to various face wash brands through the concept of laddering. Were the attributes and benefits of the brands associated with the lifestyles of the consumers? How were values associated with brand association? Himalaya hopes to obtain insights through these questions to discover how it can effectively compete with its competitors through branding association.

This case considers the hedonic goals that motivate consumers to make choices among various options that offer them unique experiences. As a birthday gift to his girlfriend Danielle, Jack presented two game-day options to watch the Denver Broncos. Option 1 offered seats with excellent views close to the action while Option 2 offered a more diverse experience including tailgating, souvenirs and concessions, but with seats more removed from the action. As a passionate Broncos fan, Danielle struggled to choose an option that would maximize her "Broncos experience." Through class discussion from the point of view of both consumers and management, students will be encouraged to think more about what hedonic elements are important when making buying choices.

Jim Bush, Executive Vice President of American Express (Amex) World Service, was confronted with a challenge in the mid 2000s: After working for Amex for 24 years, he began to worry that the company was focusing too much on cost reduction. Customer service was eroding as the company strove to stay competitive during hard economic times. In response, he led the organization in a large-scale reinvention of its customer service strategy with an initiative called Relationship Care. By empowering employees with technology and information, Amex greatly improved its customer service and profits. Moving forward, students must help Amex address the challenges of taking "Relationship Care" global.

Cheick Sanankoua is an MBA student who believes that he has found the perfect investment property, a small, independently-owned hotel, on the Ivory Coast. However, he has had trouble raising money for the investment beyond friends and family. Through contacts in the private equity industry, he has one last opportunity to pitch the deal to Asdar Capital. If unsuccessful, the time on Sanankoua's exclusivity agreement with the owners will run out.

In mid-2012 Lit Motors had created both engineering and design prototypes and conducted initial customer tests on less than $750,000 of investment. Lit Motors' founder, Daniel Kim had started the company to design and manufacture an efficient electric 2-wheeled vehicle. The company had refined the designs for the key technologies required and had a working prototype, an understanding of the manufacturing processes to be used and a list of the components required. They also had a design prototype that they had used to conduct customer tests and establish reactions to pricing levels. At this point, management was aiming to raise $15M to get closer to manufacturing prototypes, but had they sufficiently proved out both the manufacturing feasibility and the market demand? How could they address the next hurdles in terms of partnership building, supply chain management and go-to-market strategy?

On a mission to give "hope, chance and choice" to underprivileged students, Erwin Huang started the social enterprise WebOrganic to sell quality computers and internet services to students at below-market prices. In its first year of operation, the company had already served more than 7,000 low-income families, and had expanded from being a technology distributor to becoming a provider of a full-fledged service surrounding online learning. Now entering its second year, WebOrganic continues to face resistance from parents and educators in e-learning adoption as it introduces tablet computers to its product mix. This case is about creating a blue ocean in the overlapping zones of the computer and internet services retail market and a growing e-learning market. It explores ideas pertaining to the design and execution of a blue ocean strategy; including such topics such value innovation, the four actions framework and tipping point leadership. The case also touches on concepts of strategic relationship management and social entrepreneurship.

On January 31, 2012, The Associated Press released what would soon become a major news story, writing: "The nation's leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is halting its partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates creating a bitter rift, linked to the abortion debate, between two iconic organizations that have assisted millions of women. The change will mean a cutoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly for breast exams." The article cited "newly adopted criteria barring grants to organizations that are under investigation by local, state or federal authorities" and referenced a congressional investigation of Planned Parenthood as the key reason for the change. Planned Parenthood accused Komen of "bowing to pressure from anti-abortion activists." Planned Parenthood's president Cecile Richards said, "It's hard to understand how an organization with whom we share a mission of saving women's lives could have bowed to this kind of bullying. It's really hurtful." The controversy roiled the nation, drawing politicians, activists, the press and supporters of both organizations into a painful battle that pitted one venerable women's health organization against another. Each organization appealed to its constituents-using the mainstream press and social media outlets-to support their position: Komen leaders emphasized the importance of administering high quality grants to direct service providers; Planned Parenthood claimed that women's health was being jeopardized for the sake of political expediency. Social media outlets were flooded with messages largely supporting Planned Parenthood and castigating Komen, which capitulated after four days of social and mass media criticism and reversed its funding decision. This case explores the power of social media to drive social change by asking students to consider the effect of a well-managed social media campaign as well as the cost of inaction in a social media driven environment.

In January 2011 senior Indonesian officials were contemplating the results of a new travel survey that showed that the number of trips in the Jakarta metropolitan area was growing steadily while the share of trips made on public transportation was falling rapidly. Jakarta had a reputation as one of the world's most congested cities, and the situation was getting worse because the population and average incomes in the metropolitan area were growing rapidly. This case is designed for use in a course or executive program that deals with the challenges facing rapidly growing cities in developing countries. It is intended to illustrate the various causes of congestion in a city like Jakarta and to encourage participants to think about the advantages and disadvantages of alternative strategies. Case Number 1976.0

A four-year-old cosmetics company is experiencing the typical difficulties of a company evolving from a mom-and-pop operation to a scalable, systems-driven organization. The CEO and founder recognized a problem and opportunity with foundation makeup. She developed a self-adjusting, hard-powder makeup for use on any skin tone. Following an appearance on a reality TV show for entrepreneurs and numerous other promotional measures, the company's sale grew to nearly $800,000. The recent acquisition of chain store clients requires the company to raise capital to finance the required inventory. Additionally, the company has consolidated its operations into a 4,000 square foot facility to improve logistics, quality control and management efficiency. Ambitious sales projections include a doubling of sales for the next two years. To support this projected growth, the CEO must ensure the appropriate systems are in place. She also needs to finance a marketing program to drive growth.

HealthCraft's three founders are about to craft their founding agreement and split the equity among themselves. Uncertainty lingers over each member's future contributions, though-how is the team to devise a durable and effective split? Ever since consultant Kevin Rumsfeld conceived of the idea for HealthCraft, he had worked resolutely to begin building the company by recruiting a talented colleague to help with marketing and fundraising, and a junior member of one of his project teams to help him build the product. All three had been enthusiastically working on HealthCraft part-time for the last few months, contributing from personal savings to build a prototype. But now the pressure is on to discuss and finalize a founding agreement. What should they include in the agreement, and how should they structure their equity split?

Jefferson County, Alabama, faces an EPA mandate requiring sewer system upgrades. How will they finance the upgrades? What consequences will follow?

Corporate Head of Agriculture Hans Jöhr's mind raced in anticipation of the executive board meeting that afternoon. Jöhr recognized the meeting as a key opportunity to strategize far into the future, reexamining how his team's efforts in sustainable agricultural sourcing supported Nestlé's position as the world's leading nutrition, health and wellness company. The company had undertaken to impact three of the world's most urgent challenges - nutrition, water and rural development - and Jöhr's team was fundamental to each of these pillars. Yet the forces changing the global food system were formidable: unprecedented levels of hunger, obesity and chronic disease; land degradation, frequent natural disasters, and critical threats to water supply; population growth by the billions in the coming decades, along with increased urbanization; and a volatile and tentative world economy. In the face of such threats and complexity, how could Hans Jöhr ensure that Nestlé's agricultural raw materials were safe, high quality, of consistent supply, and sustainably and ethically and economically produced? How can the procurement process enable the small scale producer to become a viable partner in the milk production models that Nestlé has developed in the developing world? Further, how could his team excel beyond the company's day-to-day business and enable Nestlé's visions for the future?

7 Days Inn, a leading hotel group in China, was established in 2005 and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2009. It now operates more than 1,000 hotels in 168 major Chinese cities and has enrolled more than 30 million customers in its membership club. Its success is largely due to its innovative business model and operations strategy, which includes designing product services with the vertical cutting approach, enhancing customer loyalty through a membership system and direct sales, managing a hotel chain with different governance structures and expanding a hotel chain with an innovative franchised-and-managed model. In particular, the case introduces the company's shepherd management philosophy. However, as the company expands, it has become difficult for headquarters to manage and supervise all the hotels. In addition, the resignation rate of hotel managers has gone up to 30 per cent in the past few years. What should 7 Days Inn do to deal with these challenges? Does the company need to break the rules again and innovate its business model, operations strategy or operating model - or all of them?

he case considers the necessity for rebranding the city of Orlando, Florida, which has a brand known worldwide as a destination only for tourism and sunshine. However, the Greater Orlando Area not only houses many other promising industries including technology, defence and simulation but also has a diverse community and a trade scene with vast potential. Yet, why has Orlando not been recognized as a great place to conduct business? Why is its reputation tied only to tourism? How can the city be marketed as a vibrant business destination in addition to a tourist destination? Many variables affect the brand and, therefore, perception of the city. What can be done to make Orlando more attractive and, through this, become a world city?

Rebeca Minguela hopes to create an arbitrage platform, similar to Rocket Internet, that can bring start-up ideas and opportunities to Spain. However, Blink Booking, her first venture and proof of concept, is rocked by a co-founder's breach of confidence and departure. Minguela must repair the damage to Blink's management team, restore investor confidence, and continue Blink's rapid growth to deliver on the venture's initial promise. The case explores management team roles, equity splits, and related entrepreneurial challenges that Minguela must navigate. Minguela must also decide whether her long-term goal of an incubator-like platform for Spain is really feasible. The case describes how her vision differs from Rocket Internet-a large German incubator that also provides its entrepreneurs with ready-made business models from existing companies-allowing students to compare the models and discuss the ethics of cloning.

Since opening to the global economy in 1979, but especially since entering the WTO in 2001, China's economy grew at rates around 10% annually by attracting FDI and promoting exports. After the financial crisis that began in 2008 and depressed demand in the United States and Europe, China's growth began to slow, and vulnerabilities in its economy came to light. It became clear to many in China that the growth strategy that got China from 1978 to the present was unsustainable and that the country needed a new strategy to resolve the country's regional inequalities, stimulate domestic consumption, and create growth less vulnerable to global contractions in demand. At exactly this time, between 2007 and 2012, the provincial municipality of Chongqing in China's mountainous southwest became the fastest growing city in China with GDP growth averaging over 15%. Chongqing's growth was the result of a suite of economic and social policies that had been dubbed the "Chongqing Model," a controversial bundle of reforms that promised public and private sector growth with benefits more equitably shared by all citizens. Yet critics found the model politically suspect and over reliant on state-owned enterprises and debt-driven investment. When the city's preeminent leader was publicly fired following a sensational murder scandal, the region's new leaders-and indeed China's new leaders-had to weigh in on the "Chongqing Model." Would it signal a new path to prosperity for post-WTO China?

Bristol Myers Squibb, a multi-national pharmaceutical company, is seeking to globalize its R&D strategy while managing costs. It has formed a joint venture with an Indian company, which has worked well, but now faces a strategic decision on how and whether to continue.

This case presents a trading situation arising out of the acquisition of Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited, an Indian pharmaceutical firm, by Daiichi Sankyo, Inc., a Japanese pharmaceutical firm, in 2008. After buying out the Ranbaxy's founding family's stake in the company, Daiichi Sankyo made a partial tender offer bid for the remaining shares of Ranbaxy. The uncertainty as to whether or not the deal would go through and what the eventual acceptance rate would be resulted in a special situation investment opportunity. In the case, a risk arbitrageur needs to evaluate this potential opportunity and determine an appropriate trading strategy. Key decisions include whether to buy or sell the target stock and when to implement this purchase or sale. In this way, the case presents an unfolding situation augmented with a rich set of relevant secondary data such as news and stock prices, so that students are exposed to a real trading situation. The case requires students to understand market mechanisms and perform detailed analyses to justify their decisions.