When Adaeze Okon was unexpectedly handed leadership of an IGNITEx event in Lagos, Nigeria, with fewer than 3 months to the event date, her first instinct was to build a plan. Within days she had created a comprehensive project tracker: colour-coded, role-assigned, deadline-stamped, and shared with the entire volunteer team. It was, by any project management standard, exactly what should be done. The problem was that nobody read it. Weeks later, a compliance gap the tracker should have caught nearly cost the event its licence. Adaeze was left working out, in real time, what a plan is worth when the people it depends on are not using it.
This teaching case places students in March 2026, when Meta Platforms faced a defining strategic reckoning. Five years earlier, Mark Zuckerberg had renamed Facebook as Meta and declared that the company’s future lay in building the metaverse – a persistent digital environment in which people would work, play, socialise, and transact through avatars in immersive spaces. By early 2026, however, Horizon Worlds had been scaled back on virtual-reality headsets, Reality Labs had accumulated cumulative operating losses exceeding $80 billion, and investor attention was shifting sharply toward Meta’s much larger capital commitments in artificial intelligence and data-centre infrastructure. The case provides the missing business context behind the pivot: Meta’s advertising-driven revenue model, its structural dependence on mobile platforms controlled by Apple and Google, the strategic logic of owning the next interface layer, the competitive landscape in immersive computing and social worlds, and the economics of keeping a future-platform bet alive before consumer behaviour catches up. Students must evaluate whether Meta’s metaverse effort failed because the company misread demand, commercialised too early, framed the opportunity incorrectly, or persisted too long – and then decide how Zuckerberg should allocate capital, narrative, and organisational attention across A.I., augmented reality, and the remnants of the metaverse. The case is designed for use in postgraduate courses on strategic management, digital transformation, technology management, and platform strategy, as well as in executive education programmes.
With the rapid growth of livestream e-commerce in China, digital human hosts have emerged as an innovative business model for brand-consumer interaction. This case explores their application and impact on consumer experience. Faced with a shortage of human hosts and rising operational costs, digital human hosts provide a solution by addressing host shortages while offering stable, 24/7 services and reducing costs. However, consumer acceptance is influenced by factors such as image design and interactivity. Overly realistic images of digital humans may trigger consumer uneasiness, eeriness, or unwillingness to acceptance, while overly mechanical interactions may weaken their appeal. Focus group research revealed that digital hosts resonate with young, tech-savvy consumers, though challenges remain in balancing technological sophistication with humanized design. A hybrid mode combining both digital and human hosts was adopted, with ongoing optimization based on market feedback.
InsideFPV Ventures Pvt. Ltd. was established in 2020 by three second-year engineering students at VIT Vellore with an initial capital of ₹5000. This case study examines hardware entrepreneurship in India’s nascent drone industry. Through its ‘Plug-and-Fly’ product design philosophy, the company addressed critical market failures, including high entry-level costs (₹10,000+), lengthy two-hour assembly processes, and product fragility. By capitalizing on regulatory shifts such as the 2022 import ban on foreign drones and the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, InsideFPV evolved from consumer hobbyist products like the BIR V2 (priced at ₹2800) to defence-grade surveillance systems, ultimately securing a landmark international defence contract worth ₹50 crore with Israel-based UAV Dynamix. By 2025, the company aimed to achieve ₹100 crore in annual revenue, with defence contributing 50%, agriculture 30%, and consumer business 20%. The case illustrates strategic choices relating to vertical integration, multi-segment positioning, and international expansion and raises the key question of whether a bootstrapped hardware startup can sustain its agile, consumer-centric DNA while scaling into high-stakes defence contracts in a complex geopolitical environment.
The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) launched JamDex, its central bank digital currency (CBDC), on July 11, 2022, aiming to improve financial inclusion by providing an alternative to cash, especially for the unbanked Jamaicans. JamDex was intended to replace 5% of physical Jamaican dollars annually and encourage digital payments through initiatives like using JamDex for national welfare payments and requiring banks to offer JamDex wallets. By the end of 2023 adoption lagged, only about 260,000 consumers were onboarded, minimal merchant participation and only one commercial bank offering JamDex wallet. Challenges hampering JamDex adoption included lack of merchant readiness due to technical issues with POS systems and ATM machines, high costs for digital wallet development by various banks, and insufficient public education on JamDex benefits. Natalie Haynes and her team had to grapple with the dual issue of “crossing the chasm,” transitioning JamDex from early market adopters to mainstream success in a two-sided market. To cross the chasm BOJ needs to shift focus. Should BOJ reposition JamDex with a new communications strategy, offer additional incentives to both end users and merchants to accelerate adoption, and offer complementary services that could enhance user experience? Conversely BOJ could consider a major strategic overall by relaunching and rebranding JamDex a tacit admission that repositioning would not accomplish the goal of crossing the chasm. Haynes and her team had to craft a strategy for their upcoming meeting with the finance minister. With international scrutiny and political pressure abandoning JamDex was not an option.
Why couldn’t a Norwegian e-health firm replicate a successful digital application across two hospitals with similar functional needs? This teaching case follows TechCo, a mid-sized Norwegian e-health provider, as it works with two hospitals on a similar digital blood sampling workflow. Hospital E partnered closely with TechCo to co-develop the system. Hospital W, despite a comparable starting point, chose to develop the system internally. The case invites students to examine how digital service providers engage public-sector customers who hold deep workflow knowledge but rely on external partners for technological depth. As TechCo’s CEO prepared a strategic review, he questioned whether the company’s current way of engaging with customers still fit how public-sector hospitals wanted to work with digital suppliers. Through this contrast, the case asks why customers with similar functional needs may want to engage suppliers in fundamentally different ways, and how a digital service firm should adapt its customer engagement and delivery approach. The case draws on interviews with TechCo employees across organizational levels and with hospital representatives, supplemented by industry reports, tender documents, and company materials.
This case is about a cyberattack on a software publisher where the intruders created and consumed a lot of cloud computing capacity in a very short period of time. It was strongly suspected the purpose of the intrusion was crypto mining. There were no observed traces of any other malicious activity. A professional forensic investigation was inconclusive because of lack of evidence – it did not find any proof of data compromise, nor did it prove there was no data theft. In such situation, the CEO and the leadership team had a tough decision to make. They might be contractually bound to disclose this event to their customers, but there was serious misalignment on the interpretation of contracts. The potential penalties of a wrong judgement were high, and so were the consequences of voluntarily disclosing the incident to the customers. The CEO must decide what to do next – to disclose or not, and manage the risks in either case.
Public sector organizations in remote and sparsely populated regions face persistent barriers in adopting digital innovation, from limited broadband and human capacity to rigid bureaucratic processes. This teaching case examines how peripheral public sector contexts can build innovation readiness for digital transformation by using the INNOCAP framework – a model developed under the Interreg Northern Periphery and Arctic (NPA) Programme. Derived from an empirical analysis of 32 real-world digital initiatives across NPA regions, the INNOCAP framework identifies four critical dimensions for capacity-building: Digital Solutions , Procurement of Innovative Solutions , Delivery Models , and Skills . The case explores each dimension through evidence from the 32 case studies, highlighting common challenges (e.g. fragmented pilot projects, inflexible procurement rules, skill shortages) and successful strategies (e.g. co-creation with citizens, adaptive contracting, investment in training) observed in these communities. Comparative insights illustrate how different countries emphasize different aspects of innovation depending on their local context. By analysing this case, students in graduate or executive programs will gain a nuanced understanding of how technology-driven public sector innovation is not just about digital tools, but also about governance readiness: the structures, processes, and skills needed to turn isolated experiments into sustainable, public value-creating transformations. The case is designed to support classroom discussion and individual assignments on digital government, innovation management, and policy implementation in challenging, resource-constrained environments.
SwiftRide, a fast-growing mobility platform in Lagos, has introduced an algorithmic scheduling system to optimise rider utilisation, reduce idle time, and improve profitability. From a data perspective, the rollout is a success—dashboards reflect strong performance, and executives hail the system as a leap forward in operational discipline. But beneath the numbers, riders describe a different reality: erratic shift patterns, unsafe driving conditions, physical exhaustion, and the constant fear of deactivation. As reports of accidents and absenteeism quietly rise, Aisha Bello, the company’s Lagos Head of Operations, finds herself caught between data that signals success and workers whose wellbeing is visibly deteriorating. With pressure mounting to scale the system nationwide, Aisha must decide whether to adjust the algorithm, enforce stricter compliance, or reintroduce human oversight—knowing that each option carries risks to margins, morale, or managerial credibility. The case examines the tensions between algorithmic control and human judgement, and the ethical, strategic, and organisational dilemmas that surface when digital optimisation collides with lived experience.
This teaching case addresses the core challenge of why 95% of internal cybersecurity breaches stem from employee error despite massive technology investments. Leveraging behavioral psychology, and featuring cybersecurity consultants Elsa and Maya, the case analytically structures the problem by identifying and examining four key behavioral factors contributing to breaches: Emotional, Cognitive, Negligence, and Diffused Responsibility. It then presents ‘employee conditioning' as a strategic intervention, requiring students to analyze its ethical and operational perils. Ultimately, the case frames a critical strategic decision: developing a resilient cybersecurity posture through the optimal integration of Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) and Human-Out-of-the-Loop (HOOTL) systems. Students are prompted to move beyond awareness training to design an integrated security mindset that systematically addresses human irrationality and the complex interplay of these behavioral risk factors.
This teaching case focuses on Tesla’s entry into the Indian electric vehicle (EV) market in July 2025, outlining strategic, regulatory, and competitive hurdles the company faced. Tesla launched the Model Y at around $70,000 (₹59.9 lakh) from a showroom in Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex and managed to retail a mere 225 units for entire calendar year, emphasizing a gap between brand vision and market reality. The case places Mr Sharath Agarwal, Tesla’s recently appointed India country head, at an important strategic crossroad: Should Tesla strengthen its premium differentiation strategy by increasing local manufacturing investment or follow a path towards retrenchment? Against the backdrop of India’s ambitious target for 30% EV penetration by 2030, policy frameworks such as Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) and Scheme to Promote Manufacturing of Electric Passenger Cars in India (SPMEPCI), entrenched competition from Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra, and an embryonic charging infrastructure this case provides rich material to explore market entry strategy, behavioural strategy, competitive dynamics, and policy-industry interaction. It is intended for use in postgraduate courses on strategic management, international business, and technology management as well as in executive education.
On a stormy morning in London, NSA analyst Maya and NCSC operative Elsa are thrust into a crisis: a sophisticated ransomware attack has crippled a UK energy grid subsidiary. The payload bears traces of code from state-sponsored North Korea’s Lazarus Group, Conti-style double-extortion tactics, and the speed of LockBit, a hybrid attack suggesting a terrifying convergence of geopolitical threat actors and organized cybercrime. The subsequent investigation unveils a detailed look at the modern Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) ecosystem, revealing a highly specialized criminal franchise operating from geopolitical safe havens like Russia and North Korea. This teaching case analyzes the structural actors, Operators (like LockBit), Affiliates, and Initial Access Brokers (IABs) and explores the complex, evolving dynamics, including the rise of North Korean “laptop farms” as espionage covers and the fragmentation of the Russian-linked Conti group post-Ukraine invasion. Learners will grapple with the technical, operational, and geopolitical limitations that hamstring law enforcement and national security agencies in combating this transnational threat. The case forces students to address the central dilemma: How can government agencies effectively coordinate across conflicting national sovereignties, combat decentralized and AI-accelerated cybercrime, and strike back against an enemy that is both everywhere and nowhere?
The case examines Nvidia’s rise during 2020 and 2021 as it moved from a graphics chip specialist to a dominant force in data center computing. The analysis focuses on Nvidia’s software moat built through CUDA, its acquisition of Mellanox, and its attempt to acquire Arm. These moves supported its push into accelerated computing and its launch of the Grace CPU. The case contrasts Nvidia’s trajectory with Intel’s manufacturing delays, loss of competitive position, and its strategic shift under the IDM 2.0 plan. The document presents the competitive dynamics among Nvidia, Intel, and AMD, and outlines the strategic dilemmas facing Nvidia as regulatory pressure and renewed competition altered the structure of the semiconductor industry.
In an era defined by digital immediacy and heightened public expectations, social media platforms have become indispensable for crisis communication. Universities, governments, and humanitarian organizations increasingly rely on integrated dashboards to monitor conversations, disseminate information, and engage stakeholders in real time. This teaching case traces the evolution of crisis communication models, highlighting the strategic shift from traditional press offices to dashboard-driven approaches. Drawing on examples such as universities adopting dashboards during public health emergencies, it explores the organizational, technical, and social dimensions of this transformation, including challenges of misinformation, cultural sensitivity, and governance complexity. By situating social media dashboards within broader debates on transparency, trust, and ethical responsibility, the case provides a framework for evaluating their role as both enablers and disruptors of crisis management. Learners are invited to critically assess trade-offs between speed and accuracy, centralization and inclusivity, and short-term responsiveness versus long-term resilience. Ultimately, the case underscores how strategically governed social media platforms can empower institutions to navigate crises with agility, credibility, and accountability.
The case covers an Agile transformation initiative that was undertaken by a large enterprise. The case highlights various aspects of the transformation including the importance of leadership commitment and their decisions, transformation timelines, and handling changes. The case also touches upon certain key aspects of the transformation that significantly impact the initiative, like identification of the team of coaches and the tools used during the transformation. The content does not push the readers into any conclusion about whether the transformation strategy was right. However, it tries to provide sufficient insights for readers to draw informed conclusions of their own.
This postgraduate-level teaching case explores the governance challenges that arise when artificial intelligence becomes embedded within enterprise cybersecurity and operational decision-making. Set in a mid-sized European IT services firm, NovexTech Solutions, the case examines how a ransomware incident affecting AI-enabled analytics systems exposes limitations in existing governance arrangements. While the organisation successfully restores services using established incident response and business continuity procedures, post-incident reviews reveal deeper concerns related to AI model integrity, accountability, and oversight across the AI development and operational lifecycle. As regulatory expectations intensify under frameworks such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Network and Information Systems Directive 2 (NIS2 Directive), and the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act (EU AI Act), NovexTech faces growing pressure from clients, partners, and broader societal stakeholders to demonstrate coherent and defensible governance. Students are invited to analyse governance fragmentation, evaluate trade-offs between control and innovation, and assess how organisations can structure responsible and resilient governance in AI-enabled environments. The case culminates in a board-level governance dilemma requiring senior leadership to determine whether to maintain parallel cybersecurity and AI governance structures or redesign governance into an integrated framework capable of managing AI-enabled cyber risk while sustaining innovation and regulatory accountability.
This teaching case examines AquaTech’s critical decision to overcome the ‘black box’ dilemma of open-ocean aquaculture – a traditional industry reliant on veteran farmers’ tacit knowledge for feed management in highly volatile environments. This subjectivity created severe financial and environmental risks, including costly resource waste and crippling downstream supply chain inefficiencies due to low inventory accuracy. The case details the implementation of an innovative AI system that fuses computer vision, sonar, and IoT sensors to provide real-time, empirical data on fish satiety and biomass. The AI pilot demonstrated decisive operational superiority, leading to a substantial increase in Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR) efficiency, which simultaneously drove down feed costs, significantly increased harvest yield, and reduced environmental impact. This digital transformation illustrates the profound potential for traditional industries to solve persistent challenges by adopting new technology.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the e-commerce sector, enabling online retailers to create intelligent, adaptive, and highly personalized shopping experiences. This article explores how AI-powered webshops are transforming online shopping, their adoption, benefits and challenges, and the implications for future retail considerations for consumers and businesses.
It was late November 2020 and the tension in the Google Research office in Mountain View was palpable. Dr. Timnit Gebru, co-lead of the company’s small Ethical AI team, received an urgent email from the leadership team regarding the paper’s review. Her team had spent months developing a paper that raised uncomfortable questions about bias, environmental costs and the concentration of power in large language models—technologies that underpinned Google’s business strategy. The findings, co-authored with internal and external collaborators were accepted at a top-tier AI conference. But now, leadership had concerns. The email asked her to withdraw the paper or remove Google-affiliated authors citing potential conflicts with business interests. For years, Gebru had advocated for transparency and inclusivity in AI systems. She had always believed that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) were not peripheral values but central to ethical innovation. Yet the more visible her work became; it placed her in conflict with one of the world’s most powerful technology companies. Now the question arose: Should Gebru protect her career by complying with Google’s request, or should she stand by her research that reflected her convictions on DEI—even though it exposed critical concerns about the company’s approach to AI fairness?
This case examines Veepee, the French pioneer of online flash sales, as a platform business. Students will analyze how the company disrupted the clearance and outlet retail sector through its online flash sales model. It explores how founder Jacques-Antoine Granjon used digital technologies to transform traditional fashion clearance industry and further expanded beyond. The case traces Veepee’s evolution from 2001 to the present day as a dominant European platform, highlighting how this organization navigated technological changes and the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores platform mechanisms and ecosystem features.
