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This case focuses on Black Canyon Coffee, as it begins to develop its strategy for the firm's second decade. Founded in 1993, Black Canyon had grown to become the largest chain of coffee houses in Thailand in 2003. Over its first decade, Black Canyon grew from a single location to 78 retail outlets, serving a mix of hot and cold coffee beverages, as well as Asian cuisine. The founders had no prior experience in either coffee houses or food services, but were successful entrepreneurs in an unrelated industry. Thus far, the company had been profitable, and had managed the threat posed by both foreign (e.g., Starbucks) and local competitors. The coffee house market in Thailand was an emerging industry segment, and expected to grow rapidly. While the company was in a strong position in 2003, competition in the industry was expected to become more intense in coming years. One key issue in the case involves the goals and markets that the company should pursue in coming years. Managing Director Pravit C. Pong believed the company should aspire to a total of 200 stores in the next ten years, while Michael Holland suggested a more ambitious goal of 1,000 locations. Additionally, the company must consider the relative emphasis of domestic versus international expansion, as well as the potential to diversify into other markets. There are a number of tactical and operational issues that the company must confront as well. For example, access to capital and the supply chain infrastructure are both tied to the level and type of growth targets that the firm will pursue.

This case analyzes the internationalization process of Marcopolo, the leading manufacturer of buses in Brazil, tracking the company's international development and its approach to global growth. In the process it signs various strategic alliances with local partners in the different countries it tries to enter. After a few setbacks, some due to the global financial crisis, the company questions if the process was the correct one and what to do next.

BP CEO Tony Hayward (UK) faced intense public scrutiny from many different constituencies in the US in the wake of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The case focuses on how his words and actions were perceived by the US media and government, and how these perceptions had critical business and personal outcomes.

This case describes IKEA's strategy, aiming to show how the Swedish company has developed and maintained its competitive advantage over decades while expanding its business worldwide.

The founding team at ScoreBig, an event ticketing company, is on the verge of a public launch of their product. The company has made great progress in negotiating access to tickets, designing its interface, and building a proprietary architecture. For consumers, ScoreBig offered the opportunity to buy tickets at below face value. For event managers, ScoreBig helped solve the problem of filling empty seats and recruiting new customers in a way that did not harm other forms of ticket sales. ScoreBig has raised over $20 million in three rounds of financing.

Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, the three founders of Airbnb, an online private accommodation rental market, stared at each other across the kitchen table in their San Francisco apartment. It was March of 2009. A single sheet of paper sat on the table in front of them. The three founders were on the verge of finishing the three month program at YCombinator (YC), a business accelerator located in Mountain View, CA.

A Chinese company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange is accused of fraud by a hedge fund.

No abstract available.

This case describes how Cold Stone Creamery created the business model of the premium customized ice cream experience. The case allows the instructor to develop the details of the key factors that have allowed Cold Stone Creamery to deliver the values that its customers desire.

William Cheung entered the fashion industry in a different manner than Vivienne Tam and Shanghai Tang. He started by working for a modest wholesaler known for its garment and apparel industries. He sharpened his design instincts by creating hit apparel items for the wholesale company. To ensure business, he needed to learn about the entire supply chain, from acquiring raw materials to manufacturing, sales and delivery. The business was flourishing but was not immune to the shortcomings of creative businesses. While working on hitting the mass market and ensuring a large output, Cheung also tested his creativity by opening his own boutique shop. After initial success, he needed to source trendy but affordable fashions to feed customer demand. Chance brought him to South Korea, and together with a local designer, they made a name for themselves and decided to attend an exhibition in Paris. Unfortunately, the experience brought them nothing but despair. Their products and image were not on par with other European brands. By that time, Cheung's boss had sold the wholesale business and the manufacturing plant to him. The setback in Paris caused him to rethink his business. He decided to focus on product innovation and brand-building, and with much effort gained the recognition of Galeries Lafayette - a Parisian department store famous for trendsetting. This case shows how Cheung, in moving his company forward, was able to overcome the weaknesses of being an apparel wholesaler and a fashion retailer. It affords a discussion of how Cheung was able to exploit and grow the wholesale business and move into branding and franchising. Research related to creative industry and ambidexterity is also covered in the case. While Cheung's success was commendable, he faced a number of challenges as Koyo Jeans strove for international success.

Brightcove, a technology and services provider to content owners in the Internet television field, aimed to become a media distribution company in its own right. On October 30, 2006, it relaunched its Website-and, in effect, its business. With its new, consumer-facing home page, and with new offerings for advertisers and affiliates as well as video publishers, Brightcove sought to build a four-sided business (or "platform") around the rapidly expanding online video industry. Simultaneously, CEO Jeremy Allaire was completing a major funding round that would enable the company to make strategic investments in some or all of several categories: technology, media distribution infrastructure, international expansion, and acquisitions. As Allaire and his fellow executives weighed those options, they confronted competitive threats in multiple quarters, but particularly from YouTube, a hugely popular video-sharing site that online search giant Google had recently acquired. Covers Brightcove's vision for its multi-sided business, its technology offering and early business model, its efforts to shift to a new model based on media distribution, and its chief competitors in that market space.

In 2005, Ganesh Natarajan, CEO of Zensar, a Pune, India-based software company, and his senior management team are considering consolidating staff and resources at the firms. Natarajan proposes an additional, possible controversial business unit to the proposed new structure. The additional unit would explore new markets for the firm's promising innovation-Solution BluePrint (SBP). While he knew that some on his team would resist his proposal, he was eager to get the new technology into the field, and felt he had the right manager to lead the proposed group. Natarajan felt sure a group dedicated to SBP led by one of the firm's most respected technologists would help spur adoption.

The French government is considering mandating a gender quota for corporate boards. Other countries have approached the question of gender equity in corporate governance in various ways. Which model might best work for France?

Samir Kaul, a Partner at Khosla Ventures, looked out his office window. It was late June, 2011, and like almost every day in Menlo Park, the sun was shining. Kaul was reflecting on what had been a very positive 10 months in the venture capital business. Over that span, he had helped three of his portfolio companies through IPOs, and helped Khosla Ventures raise its third fund, bringing the total outside capital raised by the group to more than $2.1B.

No abstract available.

As a second generation business leader, Chairman Dhanin Chearavanont took over the family agribusiness company and built it to become a major diversified conglomerate in Thailand and expanded the business in SE Asia and China. While growing the business, he and his brothers created a holding company to both maintain and separate the interests of the family with the growing business units. As a third and possibly fourth generation of Chearavanonts enter the company, how has Chairman Dhanin created a business culture that maintains the closeness of a family business with the strategic vision, innovations, and transparency of a professionally run company -- especially given the fact that many business units are public companies? This case seeks to outline the balance of a family business with the needs of a growing and competitive international conglomerate.

In April 2011, the management team at Expatica Communications B.V. was reviewing the progress of the company and the opportunities for future growth. The management team had to take stock: the external environment was rapidly changing, and threats from competitors were on the rise. Expatica was founded 11 years earlier to provide English-language information and news to the expatriate community in Europe, delivering its services primarily over the Internet. One of the central issues Expatica faced was how to make its core business model effective across multiple markets. Recent launches of the online platform in new countries were not as successful as hoped and the performance of traditional 'bricks and mortar' offerings was also mixed. The company made tremendous progress over the years but needed to re-evaluate its position and decide which new opportunities for growth, if any, should be pursued.

An investor is reviewing his investment in Air Canada to decide whether or not to sell his shares in the company. Recent weakness in the airline industry and a three-day strike by service staff has caused the investor to reevaluate Air Canada's long-term prospects. In particular, the investor wants to consider the company's pension plans in his analysis. A proposal to move new hires to defined contribution from defined benefit pension plans was a key point of contention between the company and striking workers. The investor knew the company's pension plans were underfunded and he wanted to assess what impact the underfunding would have on the company's future. Finally, the investor wanted to understand the impact that the change to International Financial Reporting Standards would have on Air Canada's pension accounting.

The co-founder of CardSwap.ca sat at his desk in the Toronto office from which he managed the company. CardSwap was an online service that provided consumers with the opportunity to convert unwanted gift cards into hard cash. The co-founder felt convinced that his small Canadian company created great value for its customers. After all there were around a billion dollars of unwanted gift cards entering circulation every year. People who owned these unwanted gift cards would surely want to use the CardSwap service. CardSwap could offer a strong value proposition to consumers while ensuring a healthy return through commissions on every transaction. Problems remained however CardSwap was a relatively small company and had no access to the multi-million dollar advertising budgets that might be needed to get a message out to consumers through an extensive multi-media strategy. How much should the company be willing to spend to acquire a customer? How best could this new company use its limited resources to communicate to customers the benefits that CardSwap had to offer?