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In 2017, Farm Harvest Pvt. Ltd., a company that produced and marketed fresh corn and ready-to-eat corn products, was facing distribution problems. The owner and managing director of the company, was worried about the sales of his company’s products. During a discussion with his core management team about the non-availability of their products in the market, the owner realized that declining sales could be due to distribution network problems. In order to revamp their distribution network, the team considered pursuing direct distribution rather than going through distributors. The team also had to look at the financial aspects of the direct distribution model versus that of distributors in order to make a decision.

By May 2018, the owner of 30 FiLLi Café outlets across the United Arab Emirates had come a long way from helping out in his father’s a small cafeteria in the Mamzar area of Dubai in 2004. With his innovative FiLLi tea and FiLLi Zafran tea, he had successfully created a tea brand in the United Arab Emirates. After the company’s success there, he aspired to take the brand global using the franchising model. The path ahead, however, had to be navigated carefully. New entrants had emerged and were competing for market share. In the changing market scenario, how would FiLLi Café manage to retain customer loyalty locally and successfully manage global expansion? Was this plan too aspirational? Was it the right time to expand the company? Was franchising the best method for global expansion?

In late 2016, the board chair of T-Systems South Africa (TSSA), an information technology outsourcing company, faced a new challenge. As the previous chief executive officer (CEO) of the company, the board chair had moved the company from declining revenue toward growth and increased profitability. She accomplished the company’s culture transformation and remarkable turnaround, in part, by capturing the interest of people with a vision about creating a company with soul. She now needed to assist the new CEO in sustaining TSSA’s culture change in a manner that would not intrude on his own ideas, leadership, and style.

In 2012, Fastjet acquired Fly540, a low-cost airline with operations in Tanzania, Kenya, Angola, and Ghana, and began operating as a low-cost carrier with the goal to become the most successful pan-African low-cost airline. Since starting operations, Fastjet had grown tremendously, achieving strong market acceptance and a reputation for reliability and punctuality. Although yield per passenger had increased over its first two years, Fastjet had continued to report operating losses due to its poorly performing operations in Kenya, Angola, and Ghana. In September 2014, Fastjet had the opportunity to expand into other African regions, and the company’s chief executive officer needed to consider his options to successfully grow the company’s operations.

TokenFunder Inc. (TokenFunder) was a Canadian blockchain start-up focused on developing a platform to help companies perform token offerings in a legal and compliant way. The Ontario Securities Commission had granted the firm a sandbox that permitted it to bypass certain securities regulations for a brief window to test out its business model. TokenFunder's chief executive officer and chief operating officer knew that potential partnerships with various accounting firms, legal firms, incubators, and venture capitalists could be incredibly beneficial to the business. TokenFunder thus had to decide whom to partner with and how to get firms into its ecosystem.

In mid-2015, the managing director of Feed Green Ethiopia Exports PLC (FGE), one of Ethiopia's leading export companies, faced a pivotal decision. FGE specialized in herbs and spices, and the price of one of FGE's major products, paprika, had skyrocketed in the past six months. As a result, FGE had sustained a massive loss. This problem had taken a toll on FGE's profitability, and the company's future was on the line. The managing director needed to mitigate this problem and prevent it from occurring again. He saw three alternatives: FGE could maintain the status quo, operate its own farm in one of two locations, or purchase its spices directly from local farmers. Maintaining the price and quality of the products and providing excellent customer service were the company's main priorities, regardless of which option it chose.

In May 2017, the owner and operator of Master Decker, a deck restoration business, had an opportunity to expand his business by adding to the company’s current service offerings. His three expansion alternatives were offering deck building, marketing an exclusive line of stains, and manufacturing deck cleaning chemicals. He planned to analyze the costs and benefits of each alternative. He wanted to continue growing the business but wondered which of these options, or combination of options, would provide the best return on investment for his company. Because he had no set timeline, he wanted to move forward with at least one of the options immediately.

Kaps Foods India Private Limited (Kaps), a privately held company, was one of the leading manufacturers of ice cream in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, in Central India. The company’s manufacturing unit had the capacity to produce 20,000 litres of ice cream per day in 65 different stock keeping units. In December 2016, Kaps was dealing with an issue of demand and supply mismatch. Seasonality in the demand of ice cream created an imbalance between demand and supply for some variants of ice cream, and this situation has created dissatisfaction among customers. The shortage of some ice cream variants has resulted in a loss of sales and goodwill. The company’s sales and marketing head became aware of the issue while reviewing customer feedback forms. He needed determine how the problem was affecting Kaps’ performance and what needed to be done to solve it.

In early 2017, Jill Nadison, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the REED Foundation for Autism (REED Foundation) and executive director of REED Academy in New Jersey, was faced with the difficult decision of selecting among three alternatives to support the academy’s next venture, REED Next. REED Academy, a non-profit school for children with autism, provided innovative, highly individualized education based on principles of applied behaviour analysis and was supported by the REED Foundation.<br><br>REED Next was intended to support students who, at age 21, had aged out of REED Academy. The selected option would have to provide long-term, self-sustaining funding for students. Choices ranged from a less-risky option, expanding fundraising, to increasingly entrepreneurial ideas such as opening and operating either an event space or a vertical farm. The CEO was under pressure to make the decision in time for the initiative to begin operations before the 21st birthday of a REED Academy student who would need ongoing therapy to continue to enjoy a good quality of life.

Chatar Patar was a quick service eatery in India that prided itself on serving tasty panipuri that was prepared hygienically from healthy ingredients. The venture was started in 2012 with the plan to first develop a popular and established brand, and then to expand to a multi-store outlet in 2018. The team had prepared expansion plans, favouring franchising as the mode of expansion. Despite their research, in 2016, the team was still undecided about which expansion route to take. The managing director wondered whether it was too soon to expand, and whether the team and the company were sufficiently prepared. Should the company proceed with expansion? And if so, how should the managing director and his team proceed?

In April 2017, an entrepreneur in the tour operator industry faced a potential investment decision. Her company, Extraordinary Journeys (EJ), created custom luxury African safaris for a US-based clientele. While EJ had enjoyed dramatic growth since its founding in 2009, the entrepreneur worried that competitive pressures were increasing, as resource-rich companies had entered the market, drawn by the industry's rapid growth. In response to this growing competition, Gordon considered taking on one of three possible strategic opportunities: a public relations campaign, a direct marketing campaign, or a firm-optimization campaign that would use custom-built software to enhance employee productivity.

In December 2017, the managing director of Nipponply Distributors Private Limited (Nipponply) planned to expand his firm geographically. Nipponply provided plywood products to household consumers, architects, interior designers, and original equipment manufacturers. The company already operated in Gujarat, India, but the managing director had found an opportunity to expand into the western Indian states of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh, where there were large volume requirements in housing, corporate, and industrial projects. The managing director completed a market survey to determine cost- and market-related information. On the basis of his initial analysis, he decided to start an expansion project, but he first wanted to ascertain its feasibility using a cost–volume–profit analysis.

Naked Retreats, a hotel management company that adhered to a localized brand positioning strategy, made its debut in the Chinese hotel market in 2007. To allow customers to experience the restorative effects of closeness to nature, it launched Naked Stables, the first resort in China to have obtained a Leadership in Environmental Energy Design (LEED) Platinum certification. The founder of Naked Retreats, Grant Horsfield, was a South African who felt deeply connected to nature. Horsfield subsequently launched a series of explorative projects related to holistic living, including catering, education, and a co-working space. While the brand had success in some areas of its brand extension, it experienced failures in others. In 2018, Naked Retreats must decide whether to continue its horizontal extension or to focus on its most successful projects.

In 2016, the managing director of innogy Consulting GmbH (iCon), an international strategic consulting firm based in Germany, had many reasons to be delighted. The company had risen to second place in an annual ranking of internal consultancies after successfully expanding into four new countries. He now pondered new challenges and directions for iCon, after having led RWE Consulting—the predecessor to iCon—since 2007. As an internal consulting department within the RWE Group (RWE) in Germany, the consulting unit mainly conducted information technology implementation and project management within RWE. Although the managing director had led the consultancy unit into new geographic markets and toward new external clients, iCon faced many challenges, including tough competition in the external management-consultancy market. How could iCon take steps to compete away from home?

In June 2015, a new president and chief executive officer, Sandip Lalli, was hired by the board of directors of Keystone Excavating Limited (Keystone) to turn the company around and increase its value. In its 35 years of operations, Keystone had failed to articulate a purpose, and for the past five years it had been in double-digit decline. The economic downturn in Alberta from 2014 to 2016 had made the situation dire, and by September 2016 Lalli was going to recommend closing the company. But how should she do this? How should she tell the shareholders of this family-owned business that things were unlikely to improve and that there would be another challenge ahead? How could Keystone cease operations while retaining its legacy?

In August 2017, the Canadian country leader of Red Hat Inc., an open source software company, was reviewing the progress made by the Canadian subsidiary of the American multinational in bridging the gender gap. The subsidiary had met its target of increasing the ratio of women in its sales team from 5 per cent in August 2014 to 40 per cent in July 2017. The country leader was examining ways to leverage the takeaways from the four-year experience in reducing the gender gap in an effort to not only sustain the momentum but also go beyond gender parity.

This case series, set in June 2018, follows a student in a master's degree program in Environment and Sustainability who was invited to lead a waste audit for Innovation Works London, a non-profit organization. Case (A) introduces Innovation Works London and its need for the audits. Case (B) refers to an unforeseen event that arose just a few hours before the actual audit—the bulk of organic waste collected for the audit had been unintentionally picked up by the third-party waste hauler. In Case (C), the waste audit team considers the results of the waste audit. The team has to calculate the waste diversion rate and prepare its recommendations for improvement.

Jugnoo started its journey in 2014 as an autorickshaw aggregator providing ride-hailing services in India. Since then, the brand had grown and expanded to include hyperlocal services and business solutions. By May 2018, Jugnoo had five services under its umbrella that were offered primarily through applications and covered both business-to-consumer and business-to-business markets. Jugnoo found itself in a very different market space from where it had started. A company co-founder wondered how Jugnoo would continue to sustain its strategy of disrupting traditional markets, given the fast-paced growth it was experiencing. How would it manage to build consumers' trust with such diverse business verticals and so much reliance on technology? With the company's growing numbers and opportunities, the co-founder wondered whether Jugnoo's use of word-of-mouth communication would continue to be possible, especially considering the aggressive communication tactics adopted by other players in the market.

The owner of Leisure Gardens, a restaurant and accommodation business in a small town in Ghana, faced problems with his business. Approximately 40 per cent of his restaurant customers were paying on credit and not paying on time, causing cash flow problems. His sole employee was unreliable, often absent when the restaurant was busy. This two-part problem hindered the restaurant's success and owner’s ability to expand the business. Moreover, the owner faced external pressures from competitors in the restaurant market. The owner was considering three options to sustainably reduce bad-debt accounts and ensure profitability in the future: implementing an employee contract, changing the payment options, and expanding the business to generate more revenue. Which option would be the best course of action for the future of Leisure Gardens?

The University Club at the University of Regina was in financial distress. The club had been losing money for several years and was being subsidized by the University of Regina. However, due to budget cuts by the Saskatchewan government, the university was no longer in a position to subsidize the operations of the club. The board of the club had to make some tough decisions at this time. Could the club exist without university subsidy? Should the board increase membership fees, increase the number of members, or simply close the club? To make an informed decision they needed to perform a detailed analysis of the financial statements. An accounting professor, who had recently joined the club’s board, suggested performing ratio analysis to assess the problem areas.