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SparkPlace is a two-year-old business with a hot new product: software that manages and measures the effectiveness of permission-based marketing campaigns for social media. The company is in the process of deciding on which of two customer segments to focus its strategy. Each segment has demonstrable advantages, but developing the product for and marketing to both segments simultaneously could pose big challenges. Is the argument against being "all things to all people" a valid one? If so, which customer segment should SparkPlace target? Or is there a single strategy that can capture the potential value of both types of customers without draining the company's resources? These questions are at the heart of this fictionalized case by Jill Avery, of the Simmons School of Management, and Thomas Steenburgh, of the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Expert commentary comes from regular HBR contributor Roger Martin, of the University of Toronto, and from Mike Volpe, chief marketing officer at HubSpot, the company on which SparkPlace is based.

SparkPlace is a two-year-old business with a hot new product: software that manages and measures the effectiveness of permission-based marketing campaigns for social media. The company is in the process of deciding on which of two customer segments to focus its strategy. Each segment has demonstrable advantages, but developing the product for and marketing to both segments simultaneously could pose big challenges. Is the argument against being "all things to all people" a valid one? If so, which customer segment should SparkPlace target? Or is there a single strategy that can capture the potential value of both types of customers without draining the company's resources? These questions are at the heart of this fictionalized case by Jill Avery, of the Simmons School of Management, and Thomas Steenburgh, of the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. Expert commentary comes from regular HBR contributor Roger Martin, of the University of Toronto, and from Mike Volpe, chief marketing officer at HubSpot, the company on which SparkPlace is based.

David Liniger, cofounder of RE/MAX, LLC., wondered if his business was prepared to exploit the next wave of business opportunities in the real estate market. This industry had moved from one in which broker/owners controlled all of the consumers' access to information, to an industry in which the agents were empowered as independent contractors with a fee-based obligation to the brokers, to an industry in which the buyer and seller have direct access to and control of information. Could RE/MAX use the next wave of IT to support its agents while also reaching out to today's well-informed and tech-savvy home buyers and sellers? Would a shift towards direct consumer support jeopardize RE/MAX's franchise sales and agent recruitment and retention?

As Boston's Mayor Thomas Menino had repeated many times before many audiences, between his widely noted 2010 address and May 2012, "There has never been a better time for innovation in urban settings than now and there should be no better place than in Boston."

The GOLD Group, an international for-profit Italian holding company, has long fostered an entrepreneurial tradition of entering into new markets with innovative business models. GOLD launched Goldlake, a mining industry investment company, through its subsidiary Eurocantera in Honduras. Goldlake considered its organizational goals to be commercial viability and the environmental and social impacts of its business decisions on reputational and financial value. This case focuses on how Goldlake developed values based on principles of human and environmental sensitivity, and how it turned the social innovation of community inclusiveness into a competitive advantage. The case demonstrates how social responsibility applies to organizational practices by placing environment and people at the center of a business model and how sustained competitive advantage depends on stakeholder involvement in the supply chain. The case reveals the organizational complexity and rewards of social innovations and suggests a strategic perspective for social and commercial value generation.

The management of Germany's Brainlab AG, a leading provider of software-driven oncology and surgery solutions, needs to evaluate strategic options for proceeding without an exclusive hardware partner in its most profitable business segment.

Danshui Plant No. 2 in southern China has a one-year contract with Apple Inc. to assemble 2.4 million iPhones. In the first three months of the contract, the plant is unable to assemble as many phones as expected and is operating at a loss. The plant manager must analyze the budget and prepare a summary of monthly operations to help identify the source of performance problems. The plant has had difficulty hiring enough workers despite raising wages over 30%. In addition, the assembly process for an iPhone is complicated, with 140 steps involving over 100 components. The plant manager considers whether a flexible budget would be more useful for uncovering problems than the static budget currently being used. Students must perform break-even and flexible budget analyses and calculate price and usage variances as they consider solutions for the plant's problems with the iPhone contract. This case, which explores the challenges of outsourcing manufacturing, can be used as an introduction to managerial accounting.

This case is used in Darden's required EMBA first-year Marketing course. It can also be used in course modules covering Pricing or Brand Management. In the case. a financial analyst considers a presentation by an investor in J. C. Penney and the implications of the company's turnaround strategy. This case provides an alternative approach to the market positioning discussion in the two-part case, "J. C. Penney: Reinventing Fair and Square Deals (A and B)" (UVA-M-0835 and UVA-M-0836). It includes the views of the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, who holds more than 18% of the company's stock and believes the company is poised for a major turnaround.

In late 2005 As Shawn Warren the head of biscuits at Kraft for Asia Pacific, surveys the China market for Oreos he knew he had to make changes, and fast. The company's flagship brand was falling far short of expectations in the world's most populous country. This meant that the turnaround had to be quick to avoid the complete disaster of pulling the product from the shelves altogether. Oreos were first launched in China in 1996, yet sales had been flat since then while the rest of China had been setting record growth in the biscuit industry. The Oreo case illustrates the dilemma faced by a successful multinational brand when entering an emerging market, namely China. It covers the complexity of dealing not only with differing consumer tastes, but also the challenges of local competition and distribution systems. The case provides a rich historical account of Oreo's entry into China and the problems facing Kraft and its management as it strives to reach its full potential in a large and fast-growing emerging market.

Valuation of a pre-revenue biotech company at IPO using probability trees and real option techniques. Company is based in Massachusetts and lists in London on AIM. Products are genetically-modified fast-growing salmon for fish farmers and disease-prevention drugs and diagnostic kits for farmed shrimp.

This case presents a 20-year history of the evolution of corporate governance and corporate reporting in South Africa starting in 1992 with a focus on the three King codes of corporate governance (King I in 1994, King II in 2000, and King III in 2009). From a reporting perspective these reforms culminated in the "apply to explain why not" mandate for integrated reporting by all companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

How should Eli Lilly further develop and market a new indication of its highly successful erectile-dysfunction (ED) drug, Cialis, without confusing Cialis's hard-won brand equity with physicians and patients? With the final stages of clinical trials for the new indication, benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), soon to be carried out, the team had to make a decision soon. On its face, the market opportunity for a BPH indication, and its synergies with an ED drug, seemed enormous: both ED and BPH were age-related conditions, and data showed that half of men with ED had BPH symptoms. Moreover, the BPH indication would be taken in the same frequency and dosing as the once-a-day version of Cialis. However, market research had revealed significant challenges in introducing the BPH indication under the Cialis name. For example, although ED and BPH often co-existed, men perceived them quite differently. Some physicians also reacted negatively to the BPH indication. Impending competition from low-price ED generics, given that Viagra would soon be going off patent, underscored the importance of the BPH opportunity.

The case presents the unique business model of Inkaterra, a leading eco-tourism organization in Peru, and the different strategies the company can pursue to grow. Through the experience of Inkaterra the case studies two general issues. First, it discusses the potential barriers that exist for the development of the tourism sector. Second, it presents the debate of whether governments may want to use tourism as an engine of growth, and if so, what is the best strategy to preserve the environment.

Three years had passed since Blackstone's investment in Intelenet Global Services, their third largest investment in India. Great progress had been made, but now a new challenge loomed. Globank, a large global bank, was Intelenet's largest customer. Intelenet's contract with Globank was set to expire in the next seven months, and all of Intelenet's assets and people working on the account, would move to Globank. Amit Dixit, managing director at the Blackstone Group, estimated that in the next four years this would result in Intelenet losing $160 million of revenue and $48 million of EBITDA. Blackstone could either channel large amounts of capital and human resources towards renewing the contract, or focus on growing third-party business at Intelenet. Dixit had to firm up his strategy quickly in order to begin negotiations with Globank.

Flibe Energy is a startup in the nuclear power space seeking to find a safe way to enable nuclear energy using a technology previously dismissed by the US government since it could not be used for making material for nuclear weapons. The founders believe they have found a way to create safe, clean energy using a proven but forgotten technology. The challenges are steep, however, as proof of the technology will require hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.

Following the revelation of a US$2 billion loss on trading at JP Morgan's chief investment office (CIO) in London, the company's board of directors is tasked with recommending changes to its risk management practices and corporate governance structure. The case provides background on JP Morgan's well-respected risk management infrastructure and discusses how the CEO focused on its historic strength in risk management to argue against the need for the United States to implement the strict regulations contained in the Dodd-Frank Act and the associated Volcker Amendment. The role of regulation is significant. As a result of trying to meet the tighter requirements of these U.S. standards as well as the new Basel III accord, the CIO took on significant derivative positions that were not well understood and, rather than decreasing the firm's risk exposure, actually increased it. Of further interest is the concurrent change in JP Morgan's method of calculating risk, which allowed for a significant reduction in risk measurement and thus an improvement in the firm's level of risk-weighted assets.

Uber, which began operations in 2010, provided a service that allowed customers to call for a limousine using their mobile device. A car would arrive within minutes, and the fee for the trip (including gratuity) would be charged to the customer's credit card. The service was more expensive than a taxi, but cheaper and more responsive than a conventional limousine service. Uber did not own limousines, but contracted with existing, licensed, limousine owners and drivers. By mid-2012, it had service in 16 cities, mostly in the United States. Taxi and limousine operation are heavily regulated at the city and/or state level. Uber's business model did not fit into the conventional regulatory framework for either taxis or limousines, and the company faced intense opposition by taxi drivers and regulators in some cities. The case focuses on Uber's regulatory challenges in Washington, D.C. In July 2012, the Washington D.C. City Council was preparing to vote on a measure that would legitimize Uber's existing operations, but prevent it from offering a planned lower-priced service. The case explores how the company dealt with regulators as part of its corporate strategy.