Asia Case Research Centre

What Asia Case Research Centre does

Asia Case Research Centre (ACRC) is an academic research center operated within the Faculty of Business and Economics at The University of Hong Kong. ACRC is devoted to advancing business education through the development of Asia-Pacific case studies, producing a proprietary library of over 2,000 cases spanning disciplines including Accounting, Finance, Marketing, Strategy, HR Management, ESG, Operations, DEI, and Public Policy. Each case is packaged with teaching notes and student materials and is offered in multiple languages including English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Spanish, and Japanese. The center is headquartered in Hong Kong, has approximately 7 employees, and operates as a nonprofit academic unit owned by HKU rather than a venture-backed or publicly traded entity.

ACRC's commercial core is a self-serve e-commerce platform built on a case study content management system, through which educators and institutions search, preview, and purchase cases on a per-copy basis with quantity selectors for classroom distribution. Supporting offerings include Case Labs (interactive Jupyter Notebook, Jupyter Notebook GPU, Orange, and R Studio computational companions to selected cases), video-based online courses covering business frameworks such as VRIN, Product Life Cycle, and Business Model Canvas, and case-method workshops and seminars for educators. The flagship brand extension is the annual HSBC/HKU Business Case Challenge, a co-branded global competition that draws cases from ACRC's library and engages student and faculty audiences across multiple regions.

ACRC's customer base is universities and business schools worldwide, with case subjects drawn from companies across Greater China, India, Japan, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and North America. The go-to-market motion is sales-led but executed through a self-serve web channel rather than a field sales force. ACRC's strategic partners include HSBC (flagship co-branded competition) and the HKU Jockey Club Enterprise Sustainability Global Research Institute (ESG case series sponsorship). No external funding, acquisitions, or M&A activity are present, and the center carries no app, no public API, and no disclosed revenue.

Name

Asia Case Research Centre

Legal name

Asia Case Research Centre

Website

https://acrc.hku.hk

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Asia Case Research Centre is an academic center within HKU's Faculty of Business and Economics that develops and sells a proprietary library of 2,000+ Asia-Pacific business case studies to universities and business schools worldwide via a self-serve e-commerce platform.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Educational Content - Business Case Studies

NAICS

Newspaper, Periodical, Book, and Directory Publishers (5131), Book Retailers and News Dealers (459210)

SIC

Books: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2731)

akta.pro primary industry

Business, Economics, Accounting & Management (EDAGABAC)

akta.pro secondary industry

Educational & Academic Publishing Distribution (Textbooks) (CRAOALAC)

Keywords

• Business case studies
• Asia-Pacific education
• Teaching case library
• Academic case writing
• Business school resources

Headquarters

HQ city

Hong Kong

HQ country

China

HQ region

Asia

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Case Study Sales: ACRC generates revenue by selling case studies to universities, business schools, and educators worldwide. Cases are priced per copy with quantity-based purchasing options through their e-commerce platform. Each case includes teaching notes and student materials available in multiple languages.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

ACRC develops, curates, and sells a comprehensive library of Asia-Pacific business case studies (over 2,000 cases spanning Accounting, Finance, Marketing, Strategy, HR Management, ESG, Operations, and more) to educational institutions worldwide via its website-based e-commerce platform. Each case includes teaching notes and student materials available in multiple languages, sold on a per-copy basis with quantity options for classroom use.

Product overview

Asia Case Research Centre (ACRC) operates as an educational resource center affiliated with the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Hong Kong. Its primary offering is a collection of Asian business case studies available for purchase by educational institutions. The portfolio includes over 2,000 case studies spanning multiple business disciplines (Accounting, Finance, Marketing, Strategy, HR Management, ESG, Operations, and more), organized by discipline, region, and content type. Supporting offerings include the HSBC/HKU Business Case Challenge competition, online courses covering business frameworks, case method workshops, and Case Labs with interactive computational components. Cases are available in multiple languages and include detailed teaching notes for educators.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• HSBC/HKU Business Case Challenge: Annual business case competition organized by ACRC in partnership with HSBC

Products and services

• Asian Business Case Studies

Named customers1 record

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered flagship and core.

• HSBCflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerHSBC partners with ACRC and The University of Hong Kong to co-organize the annual HSBC/HKU Business Case Challenge. This flagship competition engages university students globally to solve real-world business cases from the ACRC library, promoting business education and the use of Asia-Pacific case studies.
• HKU Jockey Club Enterprise Sustainability Global Research InstitutecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerACRC is associated with the HKU Jockey Club Enterprise Sustainability Global Research Institute, which sponsors case series focusing on ESG and sustainability topics in business education.
• The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Business and EconomicscoreOthersACRC operates as part of the Faculty of Business and Economics at The University of Hong Kong, providing institutional affiliation and academic rigor to its case development and distribution activities.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Stanford Graduate School of Business Cases: Stanford GSB publishes a large case library used across global MBA programs. Comparable to ACRC in the academic case publishing business model and educator customer base.
• Darden Business Publishing: Darden Business Publishing (University of Virginia) sells case studies for business education worldwide, including cases on global companies. It shares ACRC's academic-publishing, single-institution-distribution model.
• CEIBS Case Centre: CEIBS (China Europe International Business School) maintains a case centre producing China-focused business cases for MBA programs. It is a direct regional peer to ACRC in the Asia-focused academic case publishing niche.
• MIT Sloan Case Studies: MIT Sloan publishes case studies for management education with broad discipline coverage. It is comparable to ACRC as a peer institution publishing single-school-branded business cases for global academic use.
• INSEAD Case Studies: INSEAD distributes case studies with strong global and emerging-market coverage across its European, Asia (Singapore), and Middle East campuses. Comparable to ACRC in distributing academic case content to business schools worldwide.
• Kellogg School of Management Case Studies: Kellogg (Northwestern) publishes cases via Kellogg Publishing and distributes them to instructors worldwide. It is comparable to ACRC as a single-institution academic case publisher serving business school faculty.
• Ivey Publishing: Ivey Publishing distributes Western University (Canada) case studies globally with a focus on emerging markets including China and India. It is the most directly comparable peer to ACRC in case-based business education publishing for universities.

Others

• The Case Centre: The Case Centre is a UK-based distributor and registry that aggregates case studies from multiple business schools globally. It overlaps with ACRC's distribution role for academic cases and could be a channel partner or competitor for case discoverability.

Emerging players

• Coursera for Business: Coursera partners with business schools to deliver online courses and case-based content to global learners and corporate training buyers. It represents an emerging digital-distribution channel that competes for the same educator and corporate training budgets as ACRC.

Broad incumbents

• Harvard Business Publishing: Harvard Business Publishing is the dominant global publisher of business case studies for MBA and executive education, with the largest case library and deepest institutional adoption. ACRC competes for the same educator budget but differentiates via Asia-Pacific focus.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/asia-case-research-centre-acrc

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Asia Case Research Centre