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The case presents a multilayered story of long-term cultural transformation taking place within a large enterprise and an increasingly strategic industry sector. Global developments, including Europe's energy crisis, have placed renewable energy high on policymakers' and business leaders' agendas. They herald green energy as a catalyst that can accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels, intensify the fight against climate change, and lead to the creation of entire new industry sectors. Statkraft is Europe's largest producer of renewable energy. From its roots in hydropower, it has expanded into solar, wind, offshore wind, hydrogen and biofuels. In recent years, Statkraft has repeatedly ramped up its production targets, continued its ongoing spate of company acquisitions, and penetrated new geographies on several continents. It has also reorganized its general management into four market-oriented business units. To tackle this unprecedented complexity while living up to its ever-growing aspirations, Statkraft has had to redefine and invigorate the way its employees collaborate, particularly across silos. "We grow together" has now been upheld as one of the organization's core values. The stakes are high, and so are the obstacles - chief among them the deep-seated resistance to change, especially within the business areas that are accustomed to a high degree of autonomy. To date, Statkraft has begun shifting its governance model towards a matrix. It has explored a number of avenues that lead to empowering people, encouraging experimentation, and instituting rewards that are linked to improved collaboration. Nonetheless, there are powerful hurdles to overcome and tradeoffs to be made as the company implements and deepens the collaboration agenda.

Entrepreneur François Randin was successful, but searching for his next venture, wanting to build something sustainable. Suddenly he sees an all-electric sports car and decides to create an electric vehicle (EV) charging station company, even though the number of EVs on the road at the time is minuscule. He starts with software, moves to hardware, and launches... And then grows slowly until the day he discovers a new business model. He is successful in funding the start of the scaleup, but realizes that to really get to hyperscale (and fund his next idea), an adjacency, he needs really deep pockets. Raise more money, go for an IPO or accept one of the three acquisition offers he has in front of him?

Early in 2020, la Fundación Delirio (Delirio), a salsa dance, music, and circus arts show from Cali, Colombia, faced the abrupt and indefinite suspension of its presentations because of lockdowns associated with COVID-19. The general director and the staff who remained had to find new ways to connect with their audiences, relying on the strength of the brand, which help them stay afloat despite restrictions on live performances. However, when considering some of the alternatives to live performances, the general director also wondered about brand management: What impact might these short-term survival strategies have on the brand? What was going to happen to the artists?

James Urdang, founder of Education Africa, registered the non-profit organization (NPO) in 1992. While the dismantling of apartheid laws and legacies began in the early 1990s, the systemic impact of centuries of oppression required more than just a change in political leadership. The education system, challenged by the historical injustices of apartheid (and its colonial precursors), had been deeply impacted. Urdang set up Education Africa with the objective of contributing positively to the goal of equitable and quality education and aligned with the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goal of quality education for all. One of Education Africa's flagship programs was the South African Model UN (SAMUN). As an NPO, Education Africa relied on donor funding for its projects. A corruption scandal in 2010 left the organization severely financially compromised. While most of the NPO's projects, such as the Early Childhood Development project, had sufficient funding to be sustainable, SAMUN had not been able to run since 2017 due to a lack of funding. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in much of the organization's funding coming to an end in 2020. The pandemic's effect on global travel further exacerbated the sense that it would be difficult to reinstate SAMUN. How could Urdang source funding for SAMUN in the global pandemic context and financial constraints to ensure the long-term financial sustainability of Education Africa?

Hillel International was founded in the United States in 1929 as a non-profit organization, with a mission to enrich the lives of Jewish students so that they may enrich the Jewish people and the world. By 2021, it had grown into the world's largest Jewish college campus organization with over US$50 million in revenue and had achieved international recognition by connecting students at colleges and universities around the world. In August 2021, the newly appointed brand director was challenged with developing a new digital marketing strategy in the throes of rising antisemitism. Her campaign had to be educational and engaging, and should empower Jewish students on campus to act: involving other Jewish students and fostering a feeling of inclusivity for all. The brand director had much to prepare and needed to outline how Hillel International should embark on a marketing campaign during the fourth quarter of 2021.

Karen Wonders founded Maple Tree Cancer Alliance (MTCA) in 2011 as a non-profit organization in Dayton, Ohio, to improve cancer patients' quality of life through an individualized exercise program. By early 2020, MTCA had enjoyed significant growth, crossing the geographical and administrative boundaries of several hospital networks in the United States. Funding from hospital networks was contingent upon the efficacy of MTCA's exercise program, which could be established only through ongoing, rigorous data analysis. However, the old way of collecting and processing client data could not adapt to MTCA's current size; as such, MTCA needed a new solution, and Wonders found herself reviewing four options.

Nykaa E-Retail Private Limited (Nykaa), an Indian e-commerce start-up catering to the beauty and personal care segment, was preparing for its IPO amid the uncertainty presented by the nationwide lockdown in India during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since only retailers selling essential goods were allowed to remain open during the strictest lockdown phase, Nykaa was not able to operate during the first three months of 2020. Nykaa had adopted an omnichannel retailing strategy and made good use of digital marketing activities to ensure customer satisfaction, but its existing business model appeared to be insufficient to overcome the pandemic-related hardships. Nykaa needed to decide on potential strategy changes and the timing of its stock market debut, knowing that by postponing the highly anticipated IPO, the company could be risking its reputation.

Rollins Inc., a listed pest control company on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: ROL), and former CFO, Paul Edward Northen, were charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with improper earnings management. The charges were based on the company's financial reporting between 2016 and 2018. The SEC alleged that Northen waited the preliminary earnings results were ready, and adjusted the company's accounting reserve accounts to align with the research analysts' consensus EPS estimates, without following U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP), and failed to properly document the basis for his adjustments. Rollins was known for boasting about its EPS record. In late 2020, the SEC's Enforcement Division detected irregularities in the company's EPS results through data analytics. On 18 April 2022, the SEC found Rollins to have violated the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Despite not admitting or denying the SEC's findings, Rollins and Northen agreed to pay civil penalties of USD8mn and USD100,000, and to stop any future violations of their previous misconduct. The SEC investigators, Carolyn Winters and Tonya Tullis, uncovered the series of Rollins' misconduct. What steps could they take to avoid similar situation for at Rollins and other U.S.- listed enterprises going forward?

In the fourth quarter of 2021, South Africa's unemployment rate rose to 35%, the highest since 2008. Though some of the job losses could be attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic, the country had already been experiencing high unemployment due to a slow growing economy. The news was worse for the country's youth. Of the 20.6 million people aged 15 to 34 years, 44.7% were neither employed nor in an education or a training program. South Africa's 2030 National Development Plan called for the creation of 11 million jobs between 2010 and 2030. This meant adding 600,000 jobs per year, but the country's economy had only produced 250,000 jobs per year, on average, between 2010 and 2020. In South Africa, young, first-time, job-seekers faced multiple hurdles to finding employment. Youth often lacked job-readiness skills-the behavioral and personal readiness to find and keep a job-and had low formal educational attainment, causing employers to be wary of hiring. In addi-tion, the country's minimum wage was a high proportion of average occupational salaries, providing further disincentives for employers to hire inexperienced workers. Also, workers in South Africa enjoyed significant legal protections to prevent unfair terminations, so employers risked incurring high costs associated with retaining workers later found to be unsuitable. Employers often tried to lower their risk by recruiting over-qualified or over-educated workers, which entrenched exclusion. During its first ten years, Harambee worked to match youth to jobs. The organization analyzed a job to define the specific competencies required, recruited excluded young people and tested them to determine if they possessed those competencies and if so, effected a match. If they did not have the competencies, defined the gap and determine the fastest, most efficient way to train them and move them into the job. This approach led to the organization's initial success but by 2016, its leaders recognized that it was imperative

Kamal Patel and Tushar Thumar, co-founders of Khedut Feeds & Foods Private Limited (KFFPL), were contemplating whether to accept the proposal from Royal Exporters Private Limited (REPL) to become one of its contract manufacturers. REPL was a leading peanut exporter in India that shipped premium peanuts to the European Union (EU) and other markets. Patel and Thumar had invested INR 134.8 million to establish a cutting-edge peanut-processing facility for exporting peanuts to the EU. However, despite producing high-quality peanuts, they could not find buyers in the EU willing to pay a reasonable price. This happened for two reasons. First, they started at a time when the EU was considering a ban on Indian peanuts because of the presence of aflatoxin in them. Second, many EU importers were unwilling to take a chance on a new exporter from India. By accepting REPL's offer, KFFPL could benefit from gaining access to its production capacity and obtaining a guaranteed return on investment. However, the downside would be losing autonomy in decision-making, brand-building potential and international recognition.

Longevity Wines was a family-owned urban winery and certified minority-owned business based in the Livermore Valley wine region of Northern California. Founders Phil and Debra Long opened Longevity Wines in 2008 when their winemaking hobby outgrew their garage. By that time, they had spent years visiting tasting rooms and had identified a need to increase inclusivity in the wine community. The wine industry had a history of exclusion in terms of race, gender, and class; how could Phil Long make the wine community more inclusive and his wine brand more accessible to BIPOC consumers?

In May 2022, an interactive brand activation for Insomnia Cookies (Cookies), called CookieLab, celebrated its one-year anniversary. Insomnia enjoyed strong brand-name recognition for its late-night snack of freshly baked cookies and offered a strong unique selling point (USP), especially among college students. But there were still many questions about the company's next steps, including whether a growth strategy through CookieLab was the most suitable strategy for Insomnia. Specifically, should Insomnia expand CookieLab to other locations, locally, in the north east region of the United States, or across the United States? If yes, what marketing strategy and tactics should Insomnia use to grow that expansion?

Hemant Gaur, managing director of Siddhi Vinayak Agri Processing Pvt. Ltd. (SVA), had to approve the marketing mix for Carisma, a global retail potato brand. Known for its great taste and low glycemic index rating, the Carisma product was available to SVA through its joint venture partner. If the launch of Carisma was successful, SVA could significantly increase its revenue and profitability, as well as its market value. However, the launch would consume precious resources that could otherwise be used to grow current revenue sources and SVA capabilities. Thus if the launch was unsuccessful, SVA would have wasted its resources and lost the confidence of its investors. The decision was critical for SVA, and Gaur had to make it soon to allow the full financial year's revenue to be included in the SVA valuation.

Going through a dynamic market change with increased user growth and competition, the digital fitness scale-up Freeletics GmbH (Freeletics) found itself at a crossroads in September 2020. Equipped with fresh funding of US$25 million, the chief executive officer and the business development lead discussed the path forward for the company. Its current successful offering, a digital fitness coaching app, promised continuous growth. However, changing market conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic, new user behaviours, and emerging technologies offered new opportunities-and new competition. Consequently, Freeletics had to diversify its business model with new offerings to strategically renew its competitive advantages while keeping the existing successful business growing. The chief executive officer and business development lead had to find an organizational approach that would allow them to start a new entrepreneurial journey without neglecting what they had already built.

In July 2022, Ashley Sudjianto, a partner at Adelaida Technology Capital (ATC), had to make a recommendation to ATC's investment committee on how much money ATC should lend to CarboCaptor Inc., an emerging chemical-manufacturing start-up that had a patented, cost-effective solvent that captured carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air. In late 2021, CarboCaptor had been well on the way to launching a new vertical: chemical compounds to aid CO2 storage in concrete. Now, CarboCaptor's CEO had reached out to ATC for $6.5 million in debt financing, $2.3 million of which was to fund equipment purchases, and $4.2 million of which was to finance CarboCaptor's growth strategy and working capital needs. ATC was a perfect partner to reach out to. An East Coast venture leasing investor, the fund specialized in small-scale biotech and manufacturing equipment financing. It typically acquired these tangible assets and leased them to companies, receiving in return a promise of scheduled payments as well as warrants to purchase start-up stocks. CarboCaptor's equipment needs were exactly what ATC aimed to finance. There was just one catch: CarboCaptor's board of directors had decided to offer ATC its two core patents as collateral for the financing. The patents had 13 years of useful life remaining and were crucial for CarboCaptor's ability to produce its most popular product, CO2 solvent. But ATC had never used patents as collateral for a venture leasing transaction before. On all accounts, CarboCaptor's two core patents were valuable. Could Sudjianto convince her partners to use patents as collateral in exchange for funding the full $6.5 million CarboCaptor had requested? And if she could, what terms and deal structure would be the best to account for the riskiness of the venture?

Udaan was an Indian business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce start-up founded in 2016. Initially, it grew at a brisk pace, achieving unicorn status in record time. For the small retailers Udaan targeted, the pre-existing product distribution chain was long, inefficient, and highly fractured. With the arrival of e-commerce, deepening cell phone penetration, and the government's increased interest in digitization, many start-ups emerged in the B2B e-commerce space. While most players adopted a vertical-based business model focused on specific product categories, Udaan pursued top-line growth and attacked the sector's inefficiencies with a horizontal, cross-category business model. As of 2021, the valuation of Udaan's competitors have grown much faster than its own. In face of this pressure, Udaan's founders had to consider revisiting their strategy and exploring other options.

Annie Anthony, the chief financial officer of Liz Motor Corp. (Liz), was attempting to use capital budgeting to evaluate an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) project using all the available quantitative and qualitative information. Anthony had planned an ESG project, which would help the company adopt solid-state battery technology for most Liz electric vehicles and reduce the carbon footprint of electric vehicle batteries by 39 per cent, to improve the company's ESG and sustainability. The technology was so new that Liz would be the first major automaker to use it on a large scale. It would increase sales and the profit margin in the long run but would also require a heavy initial investment to allow Liz to adopt the technology. With all the information needed for a thorough capital budgeting analysis, Anthony believed she was ready to develop a framework to comprehensively evaluate this critical project. She also needed to do ten sensitivity analyses based on ten different scenarios.

James Han, director of strategy and planning at CHINT Group, needed to select the new country manager for the group's branch in Saudi Arabia. The branch was expected to become CHINT's regional hub for the Middle Eastern market, but the incumbent country manager lacked the necessary leadership skills. Han was considering two candidates: Wendy Sun, the country manager in Turkey, and Jack Ma, the country manager in Egypt. Both branches had achieved outstanding business growth under the leadership of Sun and Ma, respectively. Han needed to evaluate their capabilities and decide who was a better fit for the target market and the local team in Saudi Arabia, while also taking into account the cost of replacing them at their respective branches.

In the 2020s, with the emergence of a variety of digital technologies, Prada Group was interested in developing a new digital strategy. The global leading luxury fashion house headquartered in Milan, Italy, was recognized for its innovation and creativity. It sought a strategy that reflected the values and legacy of the company, while considering the sense of exclusivity that consumers of luxury brands desired. Prada Group was considering a digital strategy involving either the Metaverse or Web3 through the launch of a non-fungible token or by offering branded headsets and other equipment for customers to enter the Metaverse. Both the Metaverse and Web3 were relatively new technology concepts, not commonly known for interacting with luxury fashion brands. The company had to decide if it should explore an opportunity involving the Metaverse or Web3, or if it should instead find a way to remain relevant to customers by pursuing another digital strategy.

The case presents the complexities involved in implementing a social project with specific reference to the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP) in Mumbai, India. This project was awarded to the Adani Group, a large business conglomerate in India. Started in 2022, the project is envisaged to be completed over a period of seven years with a return on investment capped at 193%. Its multiple stakeholders include politicians, bureaucrats, Dharavi residents, manufacturing companies which outsource their production to Dharavi, committed non-governmental agencies and motivated press. These agencies with varied interest have been a drag in transforming Dharavi from a slum to a reasonable living place.