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T Education is a leading educational science and technology enterprise in China with technology-driven, talent intimacy and quality leadership as the core development objectives. Since its inception, it has been committed to creating better learning experience for children. As the predecessor of T-education, X-education was founded in Beijing in 2003. At first, it mainly provided after-school math counseling for school-age children. Over the past 10 years, its business has been expanding, covering almost every aspect of school-age education. This case studies accounting issues and business ethics challenges that firms may face when they transform from a single (traditional education) line of business to a multiple channel business.

This case describes the evolution of an entrepreneur's venture-capital fund-raising from seed-stage financing through later-round efforts. The case focuses on where the “action” is in venture finance: the exploitation of social capital by an entrepreneur and investors. Much of the teaching materials on venture finance focus on the economics of financing; while these materials provide useful information about the mechanics of valuation and how to structure venture-capital agreements, they miss the social side of venture-capital investing. The case illustrates the theoretical concept that social capital (i.e., a person's relationship to other people in society) influences venture finance. The case can be used in a class on entrepreneurship or venture finance.

Rendering digital services have taken centerstage in the current ICT for development discourse. E-Government services are mostly under this discourse with the aim to provide citizen centric services in the public domain. Business and development organizations alike are also investing in developing their own digital infrastructure for rendering services to its stakeholders. This case describes scenario in which a cooperative organization wishes to use digital infrastructure and provide digital services to its farmer members. The cooperative continued investing in ICT since the last couple of decades and constantly upgraded it to ease the transaction and bring efficiency and reduce information asymmetry. This had greatly benefitted the members. However, the cooperative is aware that its communication network built on the wireless medium has its own limitations in introducing new services and integrating its databases and applications. The cooperative took note of “Digital India (DI)” initiatives to provide digital services to rural areas and build an ecosystem to empower the citizens in its governance set up. This DI policy has implicit provisions of better networking protocols with improved bandwidth. The organization has a dilemma to continue with investing its own resources or explore possibility of piggybacking on the DI initiative. The cooperative wished to examine the total cost of ownership in either case and assess the feasibility of converging with the infrastructure created by the government.

The Government Information Technology Policies are increasingly favouring citizens and in favour of shared infrastructure and services. It is worth the examination to evaluate strategies to deploy IT infrastructure and services with optimized cost and better returns in an enterprise. This is far more important for a social enterprise like AMALSAD cooperative (user-owned firm) that has deployed its own IT infrastructure and ITeS. AMALSAD cooperative deployed its IT assets long back and in the meanwhile, the Government policy is in favour of providing services over the internet.

The case serves to help students to understand the theoretical concept of Enterprise information systems infrastructure and services. It brings to the students understanding: the drivers of IT infrastructure to provide digital services; challenges that would make the social enterprise (in this case user-owned firm) to understand the opportunities and challenges of deploying the right digital infrastructure and get services on demand. The case presents the scenarios for the students to deliberate and find answers to the right approach for estimating the total cost of ownership (TCO).

The case situation presents a scenario for digital government services. Most of the customer-facing enterprises including social enterprises are also providing digital services. It is important that such services converge at an optimized TCO.

Masters in Business Administration with a concentration in Information Systems.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.

The case illustrates an entrepreneurial voyage and venture creation and through it helps in identifying the reasons and causes for that venture's failure. It also enables discussion on the importance of planning a venture, more importantly; financing, managing, growing, and ending a venture and on how to avoid the pitfalls that befall such enterprises. This case can be used in Entrepreneurship courses as well as MBA, PGP and Executive Education programmes on Entrepreneurship.

The case describes the launch of Twiga Hosting Ltd, a company providing information and communication technology (ICT) services to the underserved small and medium enterprise (SME) sector in Tanzania and in a many countries in Africa.

This case targets a range of audience from undergraduate students taking both Bachelor of Commerce and those taking Bachelor of Business Administration; and Postgraduate students taking business-related courses. Nonetheless, the case may be used by all other learners of advanced studies in entrepreneurship and innovation management.

The case addresses a number of issues including:

• Issues to be considered when starting an ICT enterprise.

• Strategic management.

• Business revenue models.

Issues to be considered when starting an ICT enterprise.

Strategic management.

Business revenue models.

To impart/inculcate entrepreneurial insights in ICT and related areas.

To make learners aware of the business growth opportunities in ICT ventures.

The success factors for fruitful ICT ventures.

To enable learners to identify challenges facing entrepreneurs in ICT ventures and the ways to overcome them.

Teaching notes.

Information Technology Security.

The case adds value for management students at all levels, as well as for practitioners. Work experience is not a requirement, as the case will expose some of the fundamental concepts pertaining to the scenario described. Assignment questions are designed from the perspective of teaching this case to a business student audience. The case could certainly be adjusted to fit the needs of students in more technical disciplines.

Set in October 2008, the case begins with the dilemmas facing Mr Ramanuj as he and his team from E-Infra Solutions prepared to address the damages caused by a major virus attach at OrangeInc headquarter at Bangalore, India. The virus attack destroyed all the important organizational documents residing on the computer systems and brought its business to a standstill. The catastrophe indicated the need for a comprehensive information technology (IT) security solution which was earlier overlooked by OrangeInc's management.

To teach the basic concepts of information security, in particular malware, and its impact on the business. To introduce the concepts and the importance of security awareness program. To teach the importance of IT infrastructure technology, process and procedures.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

A second-generation, multi-billion-dollar Asian family business, run for decades by six brothers, faces issues of ownership, family employment, management, leadership, governance, and succession as it transitions to the third generation of siblings and cousins.

To examine ownership and leadership succession strategies and the preparation for next-generation leadership of a family business; study the relationship between business governance and family ownership; illustrate the dilemma of concentrated family ownership control vs. dispersed family ownership; and explore stewardship leadership as a burden and as an opportunity challenging the next-generation leader.

This case discusses Qihoo 360's free business model, how it used this free model to overpower competitors, and how the model evolved over time. Qihoo 360 is a company that took just six years to become a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange (with a market value of over US$ 2 billion). At Qihoo 360's Initial Public Offering (IPO) at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Qihoo's founder Zhou Hongyi reflected on how Qihoo's free business model had brought its current success and speculates on its future challenges.

The authors used both secondary data and field interviews when preparing this case. After reading through various company reports, competitor information, and financial filings, the authors interviewed five top manager team (TMT) members of Qihoo 360, three TMT members of its competitors, and two partners of venture capital investors who have invested in these companies in Beijing or Shenzhen during the last three years. The authors collected 347 media reports related to these companies in Chinese covering seven years of history. This long span of data collection improves the interpretation of the company and helps construct the storyline of the case.

This case is suitable for an MBA course or an advanced undergraduate course in strategic management or a technology-oriented entrepreneurship course, focussing on the topic of the free business model, business model innovation, disruptive innovation, and evolution of the business model during the entrepreneurial process.

Through this case, students will not only learn about the latest development of this emerging industry, IoT, but also gain a systematic understanding of “ecosystem strategy” and get to know a new corporate growth model called “co-creation”.

This case describes why and how Advantech Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Advantech) has transformed in the age of the Internet of Things. Aware of the ecosystem attributes of the IoT industry and committed to the company’s principle of “altruism”, Advantech strategically positioned itself as an “IoT platform provider” and an “enabler” for IoT applications. After carrying out a reform in terms of internal management, external cooperation, and development model, Advantech has evolved from an industrial computer maker to an IoT solution provider. Since the launch of the “co-creation model” at the end of 2016, Advantech has drawn attention from many excellent companies in traditional industries. With the Internet of Everything close at hand, Chairman KC Liu is well aware there are many challenges to overcome as Advantech strives to build an industrial IoT ecosystem, the “evolution” continues.

MBAs, EMBAs and senior executives.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 11: Strategy

Strategic marketing/marketing management.

Undergraduate and post graduate courses in the principles of marketing, strategic marketing, strategic management, services marketing and hospitability management.

This case focuses on the critical success factors of “Scandic” hotel chain by highlighting its road to becoming the leading hotel chain in the Baltic region. This case covers a wide range of situations in which strategic marketing decisions were made, for example, the Scandic Sustainability Fund, supporting initiatives to promote sustainable social development. Special attention is devoted to how the case company's business philosophy is implemented to identify and differentiate its customers, in order to sustain a customer centric strategy and develop long lasting relationships.

Following analysis of the case students should be able to: first, understand how marketing strategies can be utilized to effectively differentiate organizations from their competitors by capitalising on distinctive strengths, leading to the delivery of better value to stakeholders; second, understand how marketing strategy deals with the interplay of “the strategic three Cs” (customer, competition and corporation) in better satisfying customer needs; third, appreciate how companies operate within a given environment and the benefits of developing an environmental strategy.

Teaching note including lecture plan.