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Can an online, direct-to-consumer pharmacy both improve the quality and speed of care for patients who need branded drugs and stabilize profits for pharmaceutical manufacturers? UpScript, after years spent achieving legal and regulatory compliance and simultaneous technological innovation has developed a direct-to-consumer (DTC) channel that could upend the standard model of pharmaceutical insurance and pharmacy benefit manager channels that dominate the industry. But UpScript's reliance on self-investment constrains it from access to the capital it now needs to grow and remain at the forefront of its ability to provide pharma with this sales channel. With whom should UpScript invest to maintain growth and market leadership? And as it grows, how will UpScript be challenged by the deeply entrenched pharmacy benefit managers that currently cover most American lives? And how does UpScript stay ahead of the other online pharmacies or telehealth businesses offering a DTC sales channel, mostly for lifestyle generic drugs? This case is suitable both as a general business case for undergraduate and MBA students of any level, focused on strategy, entrepreneurship, DTC pharmaceutical strategies, the pharmaceutical sector, regulation of pharmaceutical marketing and advertising, pharmaceutical benefit managers, and the healthcare industry.

In the fall of 2022, boot maker UGG and its parent company, Deckers, were working to position the brand in the nascent but fast growing metaverse. The metaverse, the online realm that individual users could navigate as digital avatars, was becoming more commercialized, as a range of brands started offering digital products for sale to users. Given the importance of how physical UGGs felt on wearers feet, how should the company think about its metaverse operations?

The case presents the founding vision and early days of a young startup that seeks to empower delivery drivers with tools and transparency. The company's flagship mobile app has been taken up by tens of thousands of delivery drivers across major U.S. cities who use it as a single-point to accept or reject gigs from multiple sources and map their routes. At the same time, the app has sparked the ire of major delivery services, who are concerned Para disintermediates drivers from their platforms. Para's founders look to the future and believe that there is a win-win outcome.

In fall 2021, André Bolduc was contemplating retirement and passing down his maple syrup farm, or "sugar bush," to his children. David Bolduc, the youngest in the family of three siblings, was the only family member who wanted to continue the generational tradition of the family's maple sugar farm, which was located in Saint-Jacques-de-Leeds, a municipality close to Montreal and Quebec City. David and his wife had three children under the age of ten. David was evaluating the option of expanding the family's maple syrup business in order to reach greater profits from production so that he could continue his family's traditional legacy and also be able to support his family. While the 2021 maple syrup season was over, David would have to make a decision well before spring 2022.

On June 25, 2021, Professor Pratik Modi, chairperson of the postgraduate program at the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), attended a meeting with the director and chairpersons of different academic areas and programs, where it was decided that the upper limit on the number of elective courses offered by each area should be done away with, considering the requirements of students and faculty members. Although the decision to remove the upper limit seemed to be beneficial to all parties, it would pose a challenge in terms of scheduling classes, given the number of constraints involved. Modi was determined that a solution could be found using the tools and techniques of operations research, which was taught as one of the core subjects at IRMA.

In July 2022, a portfolio manager for an investment company was considering adding the Coca-Cola Company (Coca-Cola) stock to its flagship global blend fund, which invested in firms with neither predominant value nor growth characteristics. Her initial task was to develop an investment thesis by first gathering qualitative and quantitative information related to Coca-Cola and its peers. Her thesis would consider what long-term trends might play out in the industry, as well as any short- and medium-term considerations related to the economy, the industry, and Coca-Cola itself. She wondered whether an analysis of recent financial performance coupled with expectations of future performance could provide any clues as to the suitability of current investments. Recognizing that further analysis would follow (such as an in-depth discounted cash flow analysis), the portfolio manager needed to know whether the fund should consider investing in Coca-Cola's stock based on her preliminary analysis.

The sports events agency Maïenga, owned by two French women, operates off-road motor rallies in the Sahara Desert of Morocco. Its flagship event, the annual Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles du Maroc, is the foundation on which Maïenga has, over 30 years, built a reputation for being a socially and environmentally responsible company operating in a fragile desert ecosystem. Maïenga's unique brand image centers around the Rallye Aïcha participants, who become known as Gazelles, "a tribe of modern women", willing to push themselves to the limit in a challenging physical environment. Students are asked to examine the intersection of key marketing decisions (segmentation, targeting, positioning, company reputation, brand management, and promotion) with considerations about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), corporate charitable operations, and the critical need for environmental protection and responsibility in the locations of Maïenga's rallies. National DEI policies and laws in the agency's home country, France, differ from those in the United States and the United Kingdom, which are large parts of Maïenga's target market for recruiting participants. A key issue is whether segmentation based on gender (women) is exclusionary or justified by Maïenga's celebrated Gazelle brand image and its operation as a French company. Students must determine how this positioning might affect the agency's corporate image and options for growth.

The vision of Anand Mahindra, Chairman of the Mahindra Group, in spearheading climate leadership in India, focusing on the proactive steps taken in steel manufacturing by Mahindra Sanyo Special Steel Limited (MSSSPL) through science-based targets is presented. Case set in 2021, when businesses in India and countries around the world were recovering from the unprecedented setbacks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the October 2021 COP26 Glasgow Summit, India had committed to achieve net zero by 2070, further reinforcing the need for corporates to take massive steps in reducing their carbon footprints. Anand Mahindra and Anirban Ghosh, Chief Sustainability Officer at the Mahindra Group, believe that there is an opportunity for the Group to do more to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The case illustrates the risks posed by climate change to businesses and the business benefits of setting science-based targets that can spur increased innovation potential, greater resilience against regulatory uncertainties, improved credibility among the new generation of investors, customers, employees, and other stakeholders, as well as better competitive advantage. Three years after committing to the SBTi, climate-induced challenges had become even more critical, necessitating swifter action to cut emissions across the value chain. The case discusses GHG emissions across 3 scopes, highlighting the value chain activities that contribute to Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions. MSSSPL has committed to reduce their emissions by 35% by 2030. Some of the measures adopted by MSSSPL to meet their GHG emissions reduction commitments to the SBTi such as improvements in raw material usage in various manufacturing processes, energy-efficient technologies to cumulatively reduce specific electricity and oil consumption, water use management, and waste management measures through a circular economy strategy. What more needs to be done by the company to keep up the momentum?

The case, which is set in the period 2014-21, provides an overview of Karma Primary Healthcare's origin and growth story. It also explores the unfolding growth opportunities, some of which emerged as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Karma was founded by Jagdeep Gambhir to deliver quality healthcare to communities in rural India. As of 2021, Karma clinics were present at 25 locations in semi-urban and rural India. Nurses at these clinics used a teleconsultation-based care model to connect the patient with doctors located remotely. The case suggests that Karma has been reasonably successful in progressing toward its original mandate of delivering care to rural communities. However, opportunities for further growth opened up. The case presents the prospects for growing the organization's nascent B2B business, given the broad acceptance of, and high demand for, tele-consultation-based care models across India during and after COVID-19. Further, the case discusses in detail the opportunity for Karma to utilize its experience and capabilities to enter urban India, and touches upon the critical factors that would determine the decision whether or not to enter this market.

Midway through construction, a hotel developer realised that costs had risen too much to be feasible for equity capital. They repositioned the asset as a ResiTel wherein each suite would be sold as a condominium unit to retail buyers. This called for setting up two separate entities: one (PropCo) for asset management and the other (LeaseCo) for operating the hotel. Unit owners would earn a regular share of hotel income. The lenders protected additional sale-risk by more conservative loan terms. The developer must analyse the feasibility of the repositioned asset.

This case reviews Saint Paul Mayor Melvin Carter's decision to involve the community in the process of hiring his cabinet members. Rather than relying on an executive recruiting firm or choosing cabinet heads from his own network, Carter recruited 100 community members and asked them to vet, screen, and interview candidates for ten city directorships, with Carter reserving the right to make final decisions. While his choices aligned with the panels for seven positions, they diverged for the remaining three. In January 2018, as Carter prepared to announce his decisions, he hoped his choices would not undermine belief in the participatory hiring process and his credibility as a mayor who valued community voices.

Fernando Rios, CEO of RIMAC Seguros y Reaseguros (RIMAC), a leading insurance company in Peru, had been driving an intensive digital transformation at the company since 2018. By modernizing its IT infrastructure and support applications across critical business units, Fernando sought to deliver a superior customer experience through faster response times, enhanced security, and improved business continuity and resiliency, especially throughout the pandemic. By 2022, the company had built a strong foundation from which to scale up its advanced analytics and AI capabilities to enhance its value propositions beyond insurance and focus on delivering well-being. This was in line with its newly articulated corporate purpose, "We protect your world; we promote your well-being." Two questions remained uppermost in Fernando's mind: How can RIMAC accelerate the democratization of the benefits of AI and advanced data analytics? / How will AI capabilities drive the company's well-being agenda in the next three years?

This case study tells the story of Ambienta, an Italy-based asset management company that was an early entrant in the field of sustainable investing. From the very beginning, founder and managing partner Nino Tronchetti Provera saw sustainability as a "mega-trend" with broad implications for the national economy. By contrast, Ambienta's competitors - a category that now includes some of the world's largest asset managers - apply ESG-based investment criteria that often present more questions than answers about how environmental sustainability can drive financial returns.

A renowned "short selling activist," Muddy Waters Capital LLC (Muddy Waters) claimed that 90% of YY Live's live streaming revenue was fake. YY Live was one of the live streaming platforms JOYY Inc. (JOYY, NASDAQ: YY) operated. The vast majority of JOYY's revenue came from live streaming, in particular, the YY Live platform. Revenue was in the form of virtual gifts that paying users (PUs) sent to performers (channels). Muddy Waters used various methods to substantiate that most PUs were fake paying users (FUs) under direct control of JOYY itself. Rather than substantiating Muddy Waters's work, students will grapple with questions about how to assess the reasonableness of the 90% fraud estimate from financial and statistical points of view. They will answer the question of how to choose an appropriate reporting period or year for adjustments. Across the balance sheet, profit and loss, and cash flow statement, which financial items should be adjusted and how? Based on the adjusted financial statements, how would various profitability ratios, insolvency ratios, liquidity ratios, P/E, and price-to-book ratio (P/B), and so on be affected?

What started as a FMCG distributor in 1967 in Kenya as Export Finance Company, is now a dynamic global conglomerate across 48 countries and 5 continents - Export Trading Group. ETG was taken over by the then CFO Mahesh Patel after exit of the founding stakeholders. It was then when the company shifted its focus to being a key regional player. In the next 35 years, the company grew systematically. Business focus evolved when Patel saw an opportunity in logistics in remote sub-Saharan Africa. This was followed by business expansion with supply chain diversification and significant infrastructure investments. All the different businesses amalgamated under a single group for better operations and ease of scaling up. They were later divided into six separate verticals for better management. Vamara (FMCG vertical) was launched in 2018 as the company moved towards digitalisation - externally and internally. ETG plans to focus on new business opportunities and continue to diversify across geographies and portfolios.

Kingold Jewelry, Inc. (NASDAQ: KGJI), was one of mainland China's largest gold processors and gold jewelry manufacturers. In 2002, Jia Zhihong, chairman and CEO, founded the company, which was based in Wuhan, Hubei Province. In August 2010, it was listed on NASDAQ using "backdoor listing." It sold gold jewelry, ornaments, and investment-oriented products. Between 2015 and 2020 Jia decided to increase Kingold's reliance on gold as collateral to obtain loans at around CNY20.6bn (USD3.2bn) from 14 Chinese commercial banks and trusts across different provinces, including China Minsheng Trust Co. Ltd., Hengfeng Bank, and Dongguan Trust Co. Ltd. The 83 tonnes gold bars were largely secured physically in bank vaults after independent testing institutions certified them and insurance companies examined them; other financial institutions did not have access to the gold bars. In late 2019, Kingold defaulted on a loan repayment to Dongguan Trust and in February 2020, the bank demanded to liquidate the collateral and discovered the fraud. In June 2020 a Beijing-based financial news outlet, Caixin, published a story about Kingold's counterfeit gold scandal that was initiated by Dongguan Trust and other defaulted loan cases. On 11 August 2020, Kingold filed for voluntary delisting from NASDAQ without filing its overdue financial reports. On 26 August 2021, the Wuhan court began to press charges against Jia and Kingold and detained Jia and other personnel. How could Kingold's corporate governance be improved to disallow such a situation and protect lenders and investors? How could lenders reduce their credit risk in accepting gold bars as collateral when they could not fully rely on their clients, independent testing companies, and insurance companies? Do you consider US regulators' listing and other regulations were adequate for foreign companies? Did Friedman LLP as auditors make a best effort to examine Kingold's assets and present its client's financial information fairly.