Case Studies

By late 2025, Beazley PLC (Beazley) had become one of the world’s leading cyber insurers, but growing exposure to systemic cyber events raised concerns about cyber accumulation risk. Traditional reinsurance capacity remained limited, prompting Beazley to pioneer the use of cyber catastrophe bonds (cat bonds). Senior management had to determine whether to expand the company’s use of cyber cat bonds, rely more heavily on traditional reinsurance, retain more risk internally, or slow the growth of its cyber portfolio.

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This note provides an overview of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), digital forms of sovereign money issued by central banks. It examines the motivations driving CBDC development, including monetary sovereignty, financial inclusion, payment system efficiency, and cross-border payments, while also analyzing key risks, including weak adoption, bank disintermediation, privacy concerns, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and geopolitical fragmentation. Drawing on examples from China, the Eurozone, India, Nigeria, the Bahamas, Australia, and the United States, the note compares alternative CBDC designs and implementation strategies. It concludes by exploring how CBDCs, stablecoins, and other forms of digital money may shape the future.

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In 2021, The Financial Times disclosed that a leaked internal report circulated among top Nestlé S.A. (Nestlé) executives acknowledged that over 60 per cent of the company portfolio was junk food. Since then, Nestlé had found itself embroiled in controversies over the proportion of unhealthy food sales in its portfolio. In subsequent years, criticism proliferated across multiple countries all over the world. In 2024, ShareAction, a non-governmental corporate watchdog, filed a resolution at Nestlé’s annual general meeting, heaping pressure on its top management to set concrete targets to increase the proportion of its sales from healthier products. That resolution was opposed with nearly 88 per cent of shareholder votes. In April 2025, as they prepared for their annual general meeting, Chair Paul Bulcke and his management faced a pressing decision. Should they Immediately adopt explicit health-sales key performance indicators and reporting, maintain the current reporting and portfolio-transition trajectory for another year, or adopt a phased or selective transparency approach?

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In October 2024, Shanghai Baolong Automotive Corporation (Baolong) faced a critical escalation: During pre–mass production testing of its electronically controlled air suspension, a top-tier automaker detected an unacceptable abnormal noise. With a vehicle launch at stake and others potentially affected, Baolong sent a cross-functional task force to the customer site. After nearly two weeks, leaders weighed two paths: a short-term containment fix (tighter supplier controls and design tweaks) to meet schedule, or a fundamental design change requiring longer validation to remove the root cause. Set against Baolong’s lean growth and the Baolong Production System rollout since 2008, the decision highlighted speed versus quality trade-offs, uneven lean maturity, capability transfer challenges, and the need to align digital transformation.

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As the end credits to The Gift of Time rolled at a private screening in Tokyo in October 2024, Mr. Akio Naito, president of the Seiko Watch Corporation, reflected on the themes of the short film and their implications for the Grand Seiko brand of luxury watches. Originally a domestic Japanese brand, Grand Seiko had evolved into an international luxury brand that appealed to collectors and connoisseurs with its design philosophy expressing Japanese aesthetics, quality, and craftmanship—“quiet luxury”—as opposed to ostentatious status symbols. Although Grand Seiko had seen healthy growth in its sales in recent years, Naito was concerned about its future prospects. A shift in Grand Seiko’s customer base toward a younger, more international audience would eventually be necessary to sustain its growth. Could Grand Seiko compete with the established luxury watch brands and appeal to younger consumers without diluting the very philosophy that differentiated it?

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Aier Eye Hospital Group Co. Ltd. (Aier) grew from a local Chinese provider into a global ophthalmology hospital chain, supported by a split leadership structure separating the hospital chief executive officer from the medical president, a Partner Incentive Program, and a plan-do-study-act style of management. The case reviewed the management team and operating model of Aier and introduced three management approaches: value-based health care (VBHC), time-driven activity-based costing, and the balanced scorecard. By 2026, Chen Bang, Aier’s founder, must decide how to institutionalize a VBHC model to shift Aier from scale-driven growth to high-quality, innovation-driven development while continuing to expand access to eye care and deliver attractive returns to shareholders.

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Circle Internet Group Inc. (Circle) debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on June 5, 2025, reaching a $63 billion valuation. As the issuer of USDC, Circle managed $65 billion in digital dollars, generating revenue primarily through interest on US Treasury reserves. However, the company faced a fundamental dilemma: high interest rates drove profits but increased the opportunity cost for users, while falling rates squeezed margins. Additionally, Circle had to navigate a complex revenue-sharing pact with Coinbase Global Inc. and competition from Tether Limited. Using Circle's financial statements and accounting for the impact of the GENIUS Act and the operational risks highlighted by the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, a financial analyst had to assess the sustainability of Circle's business model and the risks it faced.

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Kenedix, Inc. (Kenedix) was a Japanese financial institution that managed real-estate funds. Recent turbulence in the economy and market had impacted the company adversely. In light of Kenedix’s medium- and long-term goals, its president and chief executive officer (CEO) was meeting in March 2020 with the company’s management to come up with a viable plan to address these challenges. Over the past several years, Kenedix had worked to shift its business toward an asset-light model and had introduced innovative solutions such as crowdfunding. The CEO believed that more could be done to leverage emerging technologies into the company’s core business of real-estate fund management. He and his team needed to consider whether adopting blockchain technology in finance, or real-estate tokenization, would enable the company to thrive in a saturated real-estate equity market. Could tokenization act not only as a solution to the company’s current plight but as a strategic competency for the future?

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In October 2022, Adidas Group faced a significant public relations crisis involving its long-standing partnership with Kanye West, by then legally known as Ye. After terminating the partnership, Adidas was left with a substantial inventory of Ye-designed Yeezy sneakers and uncertainty about how to manage it. At the same time, Adidas was dealing with a shareholder lawsuit, with investors claiming the company failed to adequately disclose the risks associated with its Yeezy business. Adidas must now consider its options in dealing with the Yeezy inventory, the financial consequences for reporting how it dealt with the inventory, and any obligations it has considering the pending shareholder lawsuit.

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This case follows the Republic of Indonesia as it considered issuing its first blue bond to support its sustainable marine initiatives. The case puts students in the role of a team evaluating three potential markets for the issuance: US dollar (USD), euro (EUR), and Japan’s samurai bond market. Indonesia had built a strong track record in the USD and EUR markets, with multiple successful green and SDG bond issuances since 2018. Meanwhile, the samurai market presented a less conventional but potentially strategic opportunity. However, Japan’s conservative investor profile, which preferred plain-vanilla structures, and its limited secondary market liquidity presented trade-offs. The team faces a complex task to evaluate whether, how, and where Indonesia should launch its first blue bond.

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