Doing business abroad can mean navigating a regulatory minefield. "One thing that is peculiar about doing business in [emerging] markets is that the governments strictly regulate certain aspects of commerce," says Ashish Bhardwaj, group credit manager for the Asia-Pacific region for Microsoft.

But successfully doing business in unfamiliar locales is the name of the game for winners of the Alexander Hamilton Awards in the category Best Practices in Restricted/Emerging Markets. And this year all three winning projects demonstrate the unique challenges—and opportunities—of doing business in the emerging markets' rapidly evolving behemoth: China.

At Microsoft, Chinese regulations on data management led to the development of a new credit and collections solution. To deliver its global cloud services in China, Microsoft partnered with a local data center provider. However, because of how the joint venture is structured, government regulations prohibit Microsoft from having any kind of relationship with the end customers of the cloud services.