Zenoti was a software-as-a-service (SaaS) unicorn based out of Bellevue, Washington. Zenoti’s SaaS was focused on back-office resource allocation and enabling multi-location spas and salons to digitize the consumer experience. After the latest round of funding, Zenoti’s chief executive officer, Sudheer Koneru, was keen to invest in artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies to deliver an Uber-like experience to consumers. Other options .....more

The India-based company Baobab Clean Technologies was founded in September 2011 with a business model based on the premise of safety and sustainability for electronic waste. The company facilitated the disposal of computers and electronic products for consumer and trade channels. It refurbished and sold products with a bundle of services like point-to-point delivery, installation, warranty, and support. Sales had started improving during the COVID-19 .....more

The COVID-19 pandemic changed many aspects of consumers’ lives and transformed the industries serving them. This note examines the impact of the pandemic on the fast-food industry and details four main ways in which the sector was affected. First, the pandemic led to an increased reliance on technology. Second, it pushed forward new restaurant designs. Third, it accelerated the rise of “ghost kitchens,” which prepared food for consumption off the .....more

In December 2019, the founder and chief executive officer of Nnergix, a struggling Barcelona-based renewable energy analytics provider, came home from work excited. He had just finished a very successful meeting with Holaluz Clidom SA about the potential of a new product idea: Sentinel Solar. Nnergix had been in business for almost seven years but had only recently become profitable. This new business idea could generate increasing recurrent revenues .....more

Agricola Himalaya was a family-owned Colombian company, the national leader in the tea industry, and the owner of the only tea plantation in the country, located in the middle of a mist forest. In Colombia, owing to the labour costs involved in tea production, importing tea was less expensive than producing it locally, but if Agricola Himalaya decided to import the tea, what would be the environmental and social impact of closing the plant and plantation? .....more

When it was founded in Hefei, China, in 2001, Jiujiu Xiyanghong Group (JX) started as a single private nursing home with fifty beds. Over its eighteen-year history, JX had maintained rapid growth; as of 2019 the company had 1,531 elderly people living in its facilities, and Xie Qiong estimated that elders residing at JX represented 36 per cent of all 4,205 people living in Hefei eldercare institutions. However, the Hefei eldercare market was witnessing .....more

By October 2021, the US social media giant Facebook Inc. had been dominating the social media market globally with the highest number of active users. It owned four of the biggest social media platforms—Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. However, the company’s history was marked by controversies ranging from ethical matters to social issues. The various crises it had faced to date included thousands of internal documents leaked by whistle-blower .....more

On March 26, 2020, Singapore Airlines was reeling from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. To raise badly needed capital, it announced that its shareholders would be offered S$5.3 billion worth of rights shares and S$3.5 billion of rights mandatory convertible bonds, both of which would be reflected as equity on its balance sheet. Should shareholders take advantage of this offer or not? To make this decision, investors had to analyze the airline’s .....more

In May 2021, the founder of Yardstick Educational Initiatives Private Limited, a provider of experiential learning programs in India and the United Arab Emirates, was facing various business challenges. The company was started in India in 2008 but had been increasingly focused on the more profitable Middle East market since 2012. Attempting to stay current with technology advancements in educational products, it made considerable investments to develop .....more

Carlsberg Breweries A/S (Carlsberg) had developed from a local to a global player in the brewing industry, having focused on growth in emerging economies in Europe and Asia. This growth path was against the background of economic transition and political change in Russia—from optimism about opportunities in the new market economy in the 1990s, to increasing regulatory obstacles, political authoritarianism, and increasing local competition in the 2010s. .....more