Silver Cloud, an industry leader, had acquired the Charles Lake Mill whose management accommodated union demands. As management gave in to union demands, the mill quickly developed a reputation within the industry as a labor-relations nightmare. This reputation was exacerbated by a much-publicized strike. Would all the negative energy and turmoil created by the strike hinder the creation of a new, productive paper mill?
In April 2015, Coromandel International Limited (CIL), a manufacturer of fertilizers based in Chennai, India, requested that the National Bank of India increase CIL’s existing short-term finance arrangement. CIL operated 14 state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities across India with a combined installed capacity of four million tonnes per annum and over 2,000 employees. It sold its products through a countrywide dealer network as well as in its own 800 retail chain stores, with plans for aggressive expansion both at home and to various countries in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa. However, CIL was dependent on government subsidies and, because many of its raw materials had to be imported, was also dependent on a positive foreign exchange rate. Over the previous three years, CIL had acquired four fertilizer companies as part of its growth strategy in inorganics. With extended short-term financing, CIL could integrate these companies and take advantage of the resulting synergy. The country head of the Wholesale Banking Group was concerned that CIL’s request would exceed the bank’s exposure norms on the fertilizer industry as well as the bank’s prudential exposure limits on a single borrower. Should the bank accept CIL’s request for enhanced short-term borrowing?
If you think you know your customers well enough, think again. Every organization, regardless of its earnings and marketing sophistication, can benefit from a better understanding of its customers. Indeed, figuring out how to dramatically improve your customer experience is something to think about right now, if you want your organization to have a future. Coming waves of disruption threaten every established business on the planet. Since these waves are driven by a shift toward consumers, as well as a number of low-cost new technologies, they are unstoppable. Companies like Uber and Airbnb haven’t spent much money on marketing, but are taking over by word of mouth and by creating value through servicing customers in better ways. Established players should learn how to proactively raise the customer service bar and offer a “lights out” experience that can’t be beat. If leaders don’t focus on what it takes to get customers to stick with them, then the cost of customer acquisition becomes forbiddingly expensive. <br><br> Deploying analytics alone can no longer be relied upon as a source of competitive advantage because most analytics strategies are easily replicated. Companies must investigate what customers want before they want it. Knowing where customers want you to take them before they realize it (or someone else takes them there) involves creativity and design thinking. It requires understanding how generational thinking can bias your product or service development. It also requires getting outside of your industry and understanding how the ideal customer experience changes. Don’t be fooled by good surveys, reviews, sales, or market share data. They won’t tell you what’s coming or what weaknesses expose you to eager competitors with a better emotional connection to your market.
In April 2015, Coromandel International Limited (CIL), a manufacturer of fertilizers based in Chennai, India, requested that the National Bank of India increase CIL's existing short-term finance arrangement. CIL operated 14 state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities across India with a combined installed capacity of four million tonnes per annum and over 2,000 employees. It sold its products through a countrywide dealer network as well as in its own 800 retail chain stores, with plans for aggressive expansion both at home and to various countries in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa. However, CIL was dependent on government subsidies and, because many of its raw materials had to be imported, was also dependent on a positive foreign exchange rate. Over the previous three years, CIL had acquired four fertilizer companies as part of its growth strategy in inorganics. With extended short-term financing, CIL could integrate these companies and take advantage of the resulting synergy. The country head of the Wholesale Banking Group was concerned that CIL's request would exceed the bank's exposure norms on the fertilizer industry as well as the bank's prudential exposure limits on a single borrower. Should the bank accept CIL's request for enhanced short-term borrowing?
In February 2015, Premier Explosives Limited (PEL) was preparing for a sudden expansion. The Indian company was the sixth-largest manufacturer of explosives in the country and also made defence products such as solid propellants and pyrogen igniters. PEL had many prominent customers in the mining industry and defence business, and exported bulk explosives to a number of countries. PEL signed a joint venture agreement with the well-regarded Kalyani Group, to manufacture additional defence products. To fund the expansion, PEL approached the Commercial Bank of India for a preferential allotment of equity shares to mobilize ₹510 million and an enhancement of working capital limits from ₹460 million to ₹740 million. The Central Bank of India's president of the investment banking group perused the proposal, but was presented with a dilemma due to the recent slowdown in the mining and infrastructure sectors -- the main industries that used PEL's products. Given the decline and the associated risks, should the banker reject the funding proposal for PEL to expand?
This case has been set in June 2015, ten months after Unilever had re-launched Lifebuoy soap in Myanmar. The brand had performed exceedingly well, particularly in the metro and urban areas of Myanmar, and Unilever was on-target to achieve its goal of changing the handwashing behaviour of 20 million people in Myanmar by 2020. Despite the challenges of operating in a country where little or no data was available, the Unilever Myanmar team had put together a number of initiatives to make Lifebuoy the number one brand in its category in Myanmar for the future. But was it enough? Did the Lifebuoy proposition resonate with the population? And were Unilever's Sustainable Living Plan initiatives the right activation strategy?
It is September 2013. The new Chinese President Xi Jinping will soon launch his tour in Central Asia. On this tour, the President is deciding whether to launch a grand investment strategy, which he calls "One Belt One Road" (OBOR). Through this plan, he hopes to achieve a range of economic, domestic, and geopolitical goals. Economically, China needs to transition into a growth model that is sustainable but still delivers high growth rates. Domestically, Xi needs to boost the popularity of the Communist Party and consolidate his power relative to other factions. Geopolitically, China is seeking to gain political leverage in Central Asia. Critics of the plan have raised a variety of concerns, including the profitability of the investments, its impact on the government's efforts to transition to a sustainable growth model, and the potential for backlash to the plan's geopolitical ambitions.
This case examines the contexts and outcomes of Bright Food Group's eight overseas merger and acquisition (M&A) initiatives in the food industry in Australia, Europe, New Zealand and the United States from 2010 to 2012. The case provides an opportunity to examine a Chinese state-owned enterprise's overseas M&A strategy, including reasons for M&A targets and challenges in its first steps in global M&A deal making.
Science Fiction World (SFW) was set up in 1979 as a publishing unit of China's state-owned Science and Technology Organization to promote science and technology. For more than three decades, this leading science fiction publisher had survived China's tightly regulated publishing industry. However, with the accelerated technological and social changes sweeping across China, SFW faced new challenges and had to assess how the changes could impact the future sustainability of its print-based book and magazine publishing business.
The Pioneer Academies case looks at the founding and growing of a South African campus of private schools that offered preschool through secondary, and walks through the different considerations as the founder considers potential merger opportunities.
An increasing number of global corporations have experienced negative publicity over complicated tax structures established to minimize their tax burdens. In the case of U.S. companies, there has been a growing outcry over "inversions," a means of restructuring the business so that the U.S. parent was replaced by a foreign parent entity in a nation with lower corporate tax rates. Apple CEO Tim Cook was called to testify regarding Apple's tax strategies by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in April 2013, and executives from Apple, Google, and Microsoft faced an Australian senate inquiry into their alleged tax avoidance in April 2015. Criticism of corporate tax planning-also called tax avoidance-was dubbed "tax shaming," and even prompted consumer boycotts. Some analysts have suggested that companies begin considering tax policy as an aspect of corporate social responsibility, rather than simply a fiscal decision. Even though many companies are affected by this "tax shaming," a 2014 Ernst & Young survey of 830 tax and finance executives in 25 jurisdictions revealed that most had "little appetite" for directly engaging the media, with 65 percent agreeing (or strongly agreeing) that "engaging with the press on tax issues is a no-win proposition for business" and only 13 percent disagreeing. Results of the study notwithstanding, some companies did indeed respond to public pressure regarding their tax planning; this case describes some of these responses.
ESSA is a Colombian electricity utility company. Its origins date back to the late nineteenth century in the Department of Santander. Its history and evolution comprise various stages. After a first State-owned phase managed by Colombian government, the regional business group Empresas PuÌblicas de MedelliÌn (EPM for its acronym in Spanish) acquired ESSA. EPM was characterized by a sound and successful corporate governance model. ESSA has always showed a deep-rooted sense of attachment to its local community (Santander), has therefore played an influential role and has had major engagement in the development of the Department of Santander. Its acquisition by a group from another Colombian region, Antioquia, confronts ESSA with a series of corporate governance dilemmas, visibly affecting daily management. The case offers the possibility of analyzing and discussing the decisions a general manager must make and the risks he must run when his personal criterion diverges from those of majority shareholders and the perceived interests of his stakeholders (critical dimension in a public utility company). Carlos Alberto GoÌmez, General Manager at ESSA (the leading character in this case), must analyze the outcome of a bidding process methodology he believes in, yet does not have the approval and full support from the parent company, EPM. He will also need to assess how to obtain financial support from ESSA to sustain and recover a regional icon: the Santander Theatre. The decision is not autonomous, as he must seek the approval from its parent headquarter located in a different department.
Suncor, Canada's largest producer of "oil sands," faces a host of issues involving prices, costs, and the environment. The Government of Canada recently put an explicit limit on carbon emissions from oil sands, and a price on carbon. Suncor, which produces more than 400,000 barrels per day of bitumen and synthetic oil must reduce its emissions at the same time that crude oil prices have been dropping. Reduction of cash operating costs, therefore, becomes key. Yet environmental organizations in the USA remain adamantly opposed to the production of oil sands and its movement into the USA by either pipeline (e.g., Keystone XL) or railcar. The concrescence of this issues poses immense challenges to Suncor management.
The case chronicles the development of Temasek Holdings, an investment company owned by the Singapore government from its inception in 1974 to 2015. It describes the different roles undertaken by the company in Singapore's economic transformation. Temasek functioned by the philosophy that its portfolio companies' decision-making process had to demonstrate transparency and accountability, which were brought about by institutionalizing good corporate governance practices, and not through its own participation in the management of the entities.
In January 2015, Jennifer Carolan, who had served as the managing director of the NewSchools Venture Fund Seed Fund ("Seed Fund"), spun off from the nonprofit venture philanthropy firm to create a for-profit social impact fund focused on education technology (edtech). Through a unique joint venture with NewSchools Venture Fund ("NewSchools") called NewSchools Capital, the new venture fund, Reach Capital, would allow Carolan to not only raise more funds and scale more effectively than it otherwise could have as a nonprofit, but also support portfolio companies as they matured. Having invested $9 million across 39 for-profit and 4 nonprofit companies for the Seed Fund, and with the support of such renowned anchor donors as the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Sobrato Foundation, Carolan felt confident in Reach's ability to invest successfully in scalable, high-growth edtech companies that prioritized social impact. Still, Carolan was challenged with executing an efficacious spin off, establishing a compelling philanthropic value proposition, and finding a way to effectively measure performance focused on the double bottom line. This case describes the challenges faced in the formation of a sustainable for-profit impact venture capital fund. It covers the origin of the fund, a background of the education technology industry, fund terms, as well as a discussion of performance measurement.