In March 2022, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Auchan Retail Group (Auchan), a top French retailer, faced a serious dilemma. As head of a €30 billion, privately held company, the CEO had to choose between staying the course and leaving Russia, one of Auchan’s top three markets, in the aftermath of the business turnaround and explosive geopolitical tensions that followed within two weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Public backlash had .....more

Nord Stream 2 was an offshore pipeline project of the Russian energy company Gazprom to transport natural gas to Europe. The US government was skeptical about this project as it believed that Russia would use the pipeline to increase its influence in Europe. The Russian annexation of Crimea and reported Russian support to the secessionist groups in Eastern Ukraine further complicated the situation. The events in Ukraine resulted in the United States .....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

A critical question facing a company's ability to grow its business internationally is where it should go next. One company facing that decision was GENICON, a U.S.-based firm that manufactured and distributed medical instruments for laparoscopic surgeries. Although the minimally invasive surgical market in the United States had long been the largest in the world, international markets were anticipated to grow at a much faster rate than the U.S. .....more

In late January of 2020, Hratch Jabrayan of Homeland Foods contemplated international expansion into North America and increasing exports to Russia. Would potential customers appreciate and pay a premium for the high-quality, organically-produced dried fruits and nuts. Was the product line’s brand name (“Vozni” was Armenian for “hedgehog”) culturally transferrable? Was it financially feasible to bring the product to Canada and the United States? How .....more

In 2018, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Zashita Inc. (Zashita) was contemplating the future strategic direction of his security and electrical contracting firm based in Irkutsk, Russia. The company had experienced outstanding sales growth since its founding in 2013, and this trend was expected to continue into 2019 with the existing business. Despite this, the CEO had identified a new, untapped opportunity in Irkutsk—smart home technology installations—and .....more

By January 2015, OJSC Transaero Airlines (Transaero) was the largest Russian open joint-stock airline and the second-largest airline carrier in Russia and Eastern Europe combined. Tracing its history back to 1990, Transaero was the safest airline in Russia and was ranked 17th in the world in 2015 in terms of safety. In September 2015, the public learned that Transaero had serious financial troubles, which could lead to bankruptcy for the firm. The .....more

In June 2015, Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) India was considering its future in the Indian telecom market. MTS India, a global telecommunications (telecom) brand, had been operating in the country since March 2009. It had gone through difficult phases marked by India’s regulatory regime and the global economic crisis. Although the Indian telecom market had immense potential, MTS India’s success was stifled by a lack of telecom resources and in the inability .....more

In 2006, Sophia Tannis, a 36-year-old professional with the U.S.-based multinational company CPA Solutions (CPA), who had worked internationally for many years, was asked by an influential leader at corporate headquarters in the United States to inject herself into a business-critical situation in Moscow. An established local competitor had been using various methods to damage CPA’s reputation in Moscow, and Tannis had to decide between employing .....more

Uralkali, the giant Russian potash producer, decided to stop export sales through the Belarusian Potash Company – an export cartel it had formed with Belaruskali. Uralkali planned to increase potash production and export it independently through its own trading company. This move threatened to reduce global potash prices by up to 25 per cent. Immediately, the stock prices of major potash producers around the world plummeted. This set of three cases .....more