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In early 2014, recent Stanford University graduate Tyler Shultz was in a quandary. He had been working at Theranos, a blood-diagnostic company founded by Elizabeth Holmes, a Stanford-dropout wunderkind, for almost a year. Shultz had learned enough about the company to realize that its practices and the efficacy of its much-touted finger-prick blood-testing technology were questionable and that the company was going to great lengths to hide this fact from the public and from regulators.

Theranos and Holmes were Silicon Valley darlings, enjoying positive press and lavish attention from potential investors and technology titans alike. Just as companies like PayPal had revolutionized the stagnant payments industry and Uber had upended the for-hire transportation sector, Theranos had been positioned as the latest technology firm to substantially disrupt yet another mature sector: the medical laboratory business. By the start of 2014, the company had raised more than $400 million in funding, and had an estimated market valuation of $9 billion.

Shultz's situation was exacerbated by the fact that his grandfather, the highly respected former US Secretary of State George Shultz, was on the Theranos board and was one of Elizabeth Holmes's biggest supporters.

But Tyler Shultz worried about the customers he was convinced were receiving highly unreliable and often inaccurate blood-test results. With so much at stake, Shultz wondered how he should proceed. Should he raise his concerns with the firm's investors? Blow the whistle externally? Report to industry regulators? Go away quietly?

This case and its subsequent four brief follow-up cases are based largely on interviews with Tyler Shultz, and outline the dilemma he faced and the various steps he would take both to extricate himself from his unsavory position and let the public know the full extent of the deception at Theranos.

Five optional handouts are available to instructors to further discussion after the case has been debriefed. The handouts serve as additional decision points for the students if your class time permits.

This case was developed from interviews the author held with Nathan Baumeister, the protagonist in the case and Towny CEO; Hannah Franzen, a Towny marketing employee discussed in the case; and Mallory Franzen, Hannah’s sister-in-law and the company representative for Boomn, the digital marketing agency discussed in the case. In addition, secondary research on the USA retail industry was performed by the author. The case was class-tested four times by the author, with Hannah Franzen and Mallory Franzen initially visiting as case protagonists. This resulted in the case of refinements based on student discussion.

Towny: A new business model for a mobile economy shares the context and issues surrounding CEO Nathan Baumeister in the spring of 2018 at Towny, a unique business helping local businesses connect with their consumers over mobile devices. The company began going to market based on the vision of its owner and Nathan’s boss, Don Shafer. It had quickly approached local business clients and consumers in five key markets. The purpose of the case is to allow students the opportunity to discuss key new venture creation concepts and scenarios such as customer value proposition, competitive advantage and digital marketing.

This case was developed to be used in an undergraduate course in entrepreneurship. The particular course, new venture finance: the entrepreneur’s perspective, teaches the general subject of entrepreneurial finance through financial models such as free cash flow and valuation, case discussions with entrepreneurs visiting as facilitators and protagonists and business concept planning and forecasting. This case helps train students on how to incorporate online marketing costs into their business concept plans. Relevant courses and topics also include small business management and entrepreneurial financial management.

EuroPet S.A. was a multinational company operating gas stations in many European countries. There was a growing propensity for supermarkets to attach gas stations to their retail operations, which was developing into a major threat to EuroPet. As a result, in the mid-1990s, the company began to develop and brand its own convenience stores co-located with its gas stations. However, the company was spending much more on advertising the convenience stores than its competitors did. Management now had to decide if the increase in sales attributed to advertising efforts justified the advertising spend by analyzing the market data from one large metropolitan area: Marseille, France.

Students will learn: how to use cross-tabs and other marketing research tools to identify segmentation descriptors; how to analyze data and interpret results; and how these research results could guide new product development and positioning strategies in order to effectively target relevant customer segments.

This case study exercise highlights the importance of food supplier selection and forecasting to minimize food cost and maximize profit for a hotel restaurant. The importance of data analytics in supplier selection is emphasized. The case exercise provides students with a more comprehensive understanding of spoilage and the calculation of food cost percentage, which should save the hotel restaurant under study significant dollars, help the environment, and strengthen the operation. The events described in this case are based on real world experiences.

This research uses a data driven problem-solving approach to accurately forecast food requirements and minimize spoilage.

Because of its focus on restaurant operations, the case exercise is appropriate for senior-level undergraduate courses or graduate courses in Operations Management, Restaurant Food and Beverage Management, Hotel Management, and Data Analytics.

It is January 2017, and Nikki Tyler, market access advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development's Center for Accelerating Innovation and Impact, must recommend an actionable strategy for how to use the $10 million contributed by global donors and foundations to scale up the use of chlorhexidine in Nigeria. It was clear that chlorhexidine, a substance applied to newborns' umbilical cord stumps to prevent infection, could reduce infant mortality significantly. However, changing behavior would be an enormous challenge. This case gives students an appreciation for the importance and complexity of global health issues, along with an understanding of key analytic techniques for approaching a complex market situation. Students quickly learn that there are no easy answers to encouraging chlorhexidine's greater use. To develop a plan, it is essential to complete detailed analyses, study insights and motivations, and ultimately compare different possible solutions, considering efficiency and efficacy.

The organizers of a music festival may use video from the Friday concert to create a DVD to sell to those who come to the Saturday concert. Attendance on Saturday is uncertain, as is the percentage of those who attend on Saturday who will buy the DVD. Is this a good project? If so, what number of DVDs should be burned early Saturday morning and offered for sale at that evening’s performance? By that time, Friday attendance is known, as well as whether it rained on Friday, and there is a forecast for whether it will rain on Saturday. Historical information on these variables may help us predict Saturday attendance using multiple regression; together with the results of a marketing survey, such analysis will help us make better purchasing decisions. This case series (see also the B case, UVA-QA-0708) can be used to illuminate a multitude of concepts that are covered in basic decision-analysis courses. The series starts by examining the role of uncertainty in decision-making, proceeds through the estimation of probability distributions from sample data with multiple regression, culminates in the development of a full decision model, and ends with a qualitative and quantitative analysis (with a tornado diagram) of how to add value and reduce risk. Key pitfalls for students are failing to recognize both limits on sales (supply and demand), incomplete reasoning in the determination of the attendance probability distribution, and oversimplifying the full forecast model.

East Texas Oxygen (ETOX) delivered high-pressure cylinders of gases such as oxygen and nitrogen to twelve wholly-owned branches scattered throughout East Texas and Louisiana. Employees loaded and unloaded individual high-pressure cylinders off of and onto trailers manually and the firm had never had a related accident. Robert Jenkins had been challenged to decrease the cost of supplying the branches with cylinders and other supplies. He was considering recommending the palletization of delivery operations which required numerous changes within the organization. This case required students to determine the best routing for the delivery truck(s) and to determine whether or not the number of trucks and drivers could be reduced under palletization. Students were then required to do a capital budgeting analysis and make a recommendation of whether or not to palletize.

Following a discussion of the case, students should be able to analyse competitive dynamics: provide an in-depth critical analysis of Ilco Farming’s microenvironment, using the structure–conduct–performance framework; evaluate strategic positioning: conduct a SWOT analysis of Ilco Farming’s medicinal cannabis business; and develop strategic approaches: propose actionable strategies that would provide effective solutions to the problem of constrained market conditions currently faced by Ilco Farming.

Coenie and Ilse Venter established Ilco Farming, a cannabis farm located in the Viljoenskroon district in the Free State province in South Africa, in 2021. From the beginning, they poured their hearts and souls into their new venture, which soon paid off. A few short months after Ilco Farming began operating, despite the presence of other large competitors, Ilco Farming supplied a large share of the domestic medicinal market with flower heads. But then an unexpected challenge presented itself. In March 2023, Ilco Farming was operating at only 23% (600 m²) of its production capacity of 2600 m² and had considerable room for growth, the local market – at least the local legal market – for cannabis began to show signs of saturation. Coenie and Ilsa found themselves at the proverbial crossroads, grappling with the crucial decision of how to secure their farm’s future in the face of a fast-saturating local (legal) cannabis market and a thriving (illegal) black market. Coenie and Ilse refused to entertain the idea of going the black market route, as they were unwilling to risk losing their operating licence. They calculated that the farm would reach breakeven point within the next two years, with profits unlikely during this period. Should they persist with their current strategy of producing high-quality products and delivering a superior service in the hopes of growing their market share? Or should they consider other strategic options? Coenie and Ilse were sitting at their boardroom table having a cup of coffee and looking out of the window at Ilco Farming’s impressive SAHPRA- and GAP-approved warehouse and tunnels. “What should we do?” they both wondered.

The case study can be used in postgraduate courses in microeconomics (PGDIP/MBA) and agricultural economics (PGDIP/MBA).

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 5: International business.

Jane Barrow, CEO of Caprica Energy, must recommend to the board which of three potential “unconventional ” natural-gas development sites in different parts of the United States the company should pursue. The case takes place in January 2011, when the “low-hanging fruit ” of natural-gas production in the United States had essentially been picked. All three of the potential sites (shale, coalbed methane, and tight sands) would require hydraulic fracturing, a process of removing gas that was formerly considered inaccessible by injecting water and chemicals into the ground. Because of emerging concerns about the potential harm “fracking ” can do to drinking water, Barrow must not only analyze which site might be most profitable but also what the potential risks to the environment and area residents might be.

This case builds on the case "Merck & Company: Product KL-798" (UVA-QA-0582) by providing market uncertainties for the drug (drug quality, the presence of a competitor, market growth, and the time to the drug's release). Student and faculty spreadsheets are provided for the calculation of net present values for the scenarios. There is an additional challenge of how to treat the several downstream decisions (using OptQuest, for example) and how to value the license opportunity. A teaching note is also available to registered faculty members.