In April 2013, Kassatly Chtaura, a family-owned producer of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages headquartered in Chtaura, Lebanon, faces a dilemma. It is doing very well in terms of revenues and market share and has succeeded in building a strong cash flow. However, the past year's figures show little growth, and the family is concerned that sales of its syrups, juices, ready-to-drink beverages and wines have reached a plateau. Should the company expand its distribution network or build a new factory and move some operations to Saudi Arabia or Angola? These are promising markets, but they are in distant locations with different cultures. Or should it stay put and expand its operations by introducing a new product, beer? Adding to its successful portfolio will complement its business strengths in Lebanon, especially when bolstered by one of its highly successful advertising campaigns, and accomplish a family dream. Given the uncertain political situation in Lebanon, is it time to invest in international markets?
In April 2013, Kassatly Chtaura, a family-owned producer of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages headquartered in Chtaura, Lebanon, faces a dilemma. It is doing very well in terms of revenues and market share and has succeeded in building a strong cash flow. However, the past year’s figures show little growth, and the family is concerned that sales of its syrups, juices, ready-to-drink beverages and wines have reached a plateau. Should the company expand its distribution network or build a new factory and move some operations to Saudi Arabia or Angola? These are promising markets, but they are in distant locations with different cultures. Or should it stay put and expand its operations by introducing a new product, beer? Adding to its successful portfolio will complement its business strengths in Lebanon, especially when bolstered by one of its highly successful advertising campaigns, and accomplish a family dream. Given the uncertain political situation in Lebanon, is it time to invest in international markets?
Aqua Logistics Limited, one of India’s leading logistics and supply chain management companies, suffered from poor financial management and was witnessing slowing demand in the industry. The company had significant financial debt to banks and financial institutions. Owing to such difficulties in managing its operations in a largely fragmented industry, the firm — with its strong network in multimodal transport and in the third-party logistics model of delivery — was a good target for companies seeking to consolidate their position in the industry. An acquiring firm, however, would want to answer several questions. What were the possible value drivers of Aqua Logistics Limited? From where would the synergistic gains be realized through an acquisition? How much should be offered for the acquisition?
Although the Toronto Blue Jays didn’t make it to the 2015 World Series, they clearly didn’t lack character — and this wasn’t a fluke. As departing General Manager Alex Anthopoulos explained, team management had made a concerted effort during the off-season to focus less on “talent and tools and production” and put more emphasis on player “character, make-up, quality of the human being, what kind of teammate they are.” This article uses research on 11 character dimensions that drive performance to examine how the team members came together to contribute to one of the team’s best performances in decades. The focus on character that Anthopoulos put in place did much more than make the Blue Jays popular with fans — it was what turned the team into an outstanding baseball club. And that’s something that the next GM should take note of, along with managers and directors responsible for hiring and promoting individuals in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. After all, as Ivey research shows, giving character the attention it deserves leads to “home runs” in performance outside the baseball stadium as well.
This case discusses the evolving strategies in the mobile chipset industry in 2014, focusing on Qualcomm, the dominant technology company in the mobile industry and the leading chipset manufacturer. The case begins with the evolution of Qualcomm's communication technology, highlighting the company's consistent ability to lead the market in modem performance by deploying the latest, fastest communication technology. The case then details the competitive dynamics of Qualcomm's strategy, including its technology adoption strategy; its "whole product strategy" (products and services); its mobile carrier strategy; and its modem and CPU (central processing unit) integration strategy. The company decided early on not to sell a "modem-only" chipset, but rather to build an entire mobile chipset solution, eliminating the need for handset manufacturers to incorporate a separate CPU chip, which reduced their costs and improved Qualcomm's competitive position. The case also discusses the transition the mobile market was going through in 2014, driven by several technological and marketplace changes. Those changes included slowing radio link improvements (as the technology approached a performance limit), which could potentially give Qualcomm's competitors an opportunity to catch up to its technology. Other industry changes included the eroding power of mobile carriers and the growth of mobile subscribers in India and China, where demand was dramatically increasing for low-cost handsets. This made room for Taiwanese-based MediaTek to emerge as a strong player in the mobile chipset industry. Qualcomm also faced emerging competition from application processing and graphical processing players such as Nvidia. The case concludes with a discussion of a potential path for Intel to become a rising contender in the mobile chipset industry through its new low-power Atom microprocessor.
This case features the challenges of a startup in the crowdfunding space in 2015 as its leadership assesses potential sources of growth for the company's future. Founded in Israel in 2012 by a renowned venture capitalist, OurCrowd was a venture capital crowdfunding platform that strove to connect high-growth startups raising capital with accredited private investors from around the world. Its value proposition was to democratize an inefficient market for private equity that had historically been dominated by a small number of highly connected venture capital firms (VCs). The case asks students to put themselves in the shoes of OurCrowd's head of investor community as he prepares for a meeting with the company's board of directors to discuss potential strategies for growth: Should the company partner with the incumbent VCs it initially sought to disrupt, emphasize marketing its Portfolio Reserve fund, strive to provide its investors and investees with higher value-added services, target a broader swath of investors by aggressively marketing the platform in international markets, or attempt to go up-market and pursue increasingly larger deals with later-stage companies? Through assessing these options and discussing this case, students will learn about incentive problems in two-sided markets as well as how different types of crowdfunding platforms create value for users.
The case is set in November 2013, when Siam Park City - one of Thailand's biggest Amusement Park and Water Park - was celebrating its 33rd anniversary. Siam Park City was born out of the vision of Chaiwat Luangamornlert, a successful businessman who wanted to build an amusement park and water park for the people of Thailand that was of international standard, but yet available to the average Thai at an affordable price. With affordability as the cornerstone of the business philosophy, the park's entry fee was pegged at 'a reasonable price', with heavy discounts offered to Thai residents. Visitors also spent very little inside the park. This pricing strategy proved unsustainable for a business that had high set-up and operating costs, and the park suffered financial losses for more than two decades, ultimately leading to its bankruptcy. The financial loss was further aggravated by reputation loss, following two accidents in the park. Understanding that the park required a leadership change, Chaiwat stepped down from the helm in 2008 and handed over the reins of the business to his children. The new management team revamped internal operations and worked to diversify the park's customer base. The changes ushered in a new era for the amusement park - business improved and the company even earned a modest profit in 2012. Looking ahead, the new management faces the challenge of making the business financially viable over the long term, keeping in mind his founder's principles to keep the park affordable and accessible to locals.
Ed Claiborne is a newly hired corporate vice president of procurement for DRW Technologies, a company that produces advanced military systems with 21 plants in the United States. Claiborne was hired from another company from within the industry, and the news of his arrival was announced in an email to corporate executives and plant managers and in the company newsletter. Before he has even met the procurement team, Claiborne is assigned his first task of cutting procurement costs and messaging the news to the company. Claiborne decides to send the message via email, and the message is met with unexpected results. This case is appropriate in courses in leadership, human resource management, organizational behavior, general management, and management communication. The short length and plain language make this case suitable for students who are new to the case method.
Citibank reshaped considerably its e-business program after the financial crisis of 2008 focusing on leveraging its geographical reach, rolling out global initiatives to maintain its leadership in treasury and trade services, and becoming even more customer-centric. Citi restructured its R&D centers and its marketing strategy to assist customers in finding solutions rather than selling products. Citi's execution was fast-paced, but the landscape for treasury and trade services was changing rapidly after the financial crisis. Multi-banking became a must and a new solution marketed by SWIFT allowed to multi-bank on the internet at low cost and with greater efficiency than previous solutions. While adoption was slow, the change in the competitive landscape was significant. The data of any bank could now be seen and manipulated through the internet portal of any other bank. Internet portals continued to evolve offering new features and functionalities at product level: Citi updated its CitiDirect BE and TreasuryVision platforms to offer what the market asked for. But seamless bank-corporate integration at technology level was not evolving at the same pace. Corporation and bank data exchanges were inefficient, making a number of treasury tasks labor-intensive. Corporations came to prefer multi-banking platforms after the financial crisis, and were demanding automated integration of bank data into their ERPs. An e-business transformation was on the way. Internet banking portals became multi-banking portals, as did proprietary bank-corporate EDI links like CitiConnect. But it was cloud computing that promised the definitive technological solution for the bank-corporate integration model. The ERP vendor SAP was the first to experiment with a private cloud model and allow direct straight-through processing of each financial transaction sent from the ERP directly to bank middleware. Citi was the first bank to sign up with the project, but its competitors followed.
To accelerate Bigbelly's sales growth and its "smart cities" positioning, its CEO planned to shift his company from equipment sales to a subscription service. Jack Kutner hoped to re-position Bigbelly's solar-powered trash compacting stations beyond trash and recycling and use them also to provide public space Wi-Fi, advertising, and urban intelligence sensors. "One year from now we will no longer sell any machines," Kutner planned to tell the company's board of directors. Would they buy his subscription-only pitch? And if they did, would Bigbelly's still-reluctant purchasers?
Golf over the years emerged as a global, cash-driven property development industry with nearly 4.4 million registered players in Europe alone in 2014. It developed as a business relying on a dense network of small- and medium-sized enterprises steeped in tradition. The combination of high growth and low brand value led to the golf industry lagging significantly behind other industries in terms of sustainability and social and environmental responsibility. With the downturn of 2008, things started to change, reluctantly at first then more proactively. Sustainability emerged as a hot topic on greens around the world. Bert Stadhouders knew more about it than anyone else. Freshly appointed in January 2014 as project manager for the Sustainable Golf Project, he was himself a dedicated golfer and a sustainability specialist. He had witnessed firsthand the disdain with which the sport was treating its sustainability footprint, as if oblivious to the CSR higher callings. In fact, beyond its green image and vocabulary, the game generated massive environmental and social challenges. Bert wondered how he could help drive sustainability to the top of the agenda in a reluctant industry steeped in conventions and history. Were the economic difficulties of the time a bounty or a boon for sustainability as a cause? To address sustainability on a global scale in golf, how could he factor in the huge differences between upcoming markets in Asia and more mature markets in Europe and the United States?
You are the CEO of an e-cigarette company that has just been acquired by a major tobacco company. Your company operates in the European market. The July 2013 draft of the EU Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) recently has been crafted by the European Commission, but it has not yet been examined by the EU Parliament and its Council. The draft proposes that all e-cigarette products be classified as medical devices, regardless of nicotine content. This is the strictest available mode of regulation. If the directive goes into effect as written, e-cigarettes would have to undergo costly and lengthy clinical trials to receive approval and face much stricter marketability restrictions. The case details the state of the e-cigarette industry in 2013, including consumer data, distribution, competition from similar products, and public health concerns. Students will analyze the current regulatory environment, determine what outcome would be most favorable to the e-cigarette industry, and identify the ways to achieve that goal.
Amitabha needs to define the market strategy for IDEI, an NGO selling low-cost irrigation products to the bottom of the pyramid, to ensure sustainability (to make it as independent as possible of funding). The fundamental questions are how to set up the supply chain and what price to charge for the products.
Amitabha needs to define the market strategy for IDEI, an NGO selling low-cost irrigation products to the bottom of the pyramid, to ensure sustainability (to make it as independent as possible of funding). The fundamental questions are how to set up the supply chain and what price to charge for the products.
An MBA graduate is asked by the CEO to look at Clarks' strategy in Africa. To achieve growth on a large scale makes entering new countries inevitable. The case describes the firm, attempts by various other shoemakers to enter the market, and the MBA's effort to frame the challenge.
Algramo is a company whose objective is to improve the lives of those living below the poverty line. Using a revolutionary technology tailored to "bottom of the pyramid" customers, Algramo's products can save families on average 40%, while the company's return is around 20%.
The Banco EspÃrito Santo (BES) case covers issues related to bank strategy, safety and soundness, the role of conglomerates, and problems related to family control. The setting is Europe, following the financial crisis of 2007-09, and its efforts to create a single banking market. It illustrates the lack of transparency inherent in conglomerates that have banks 'embedded' in them, the additional opacity associated with family control, the problems of tracking cross-border risk exposures even under market integration funds in the EU and the Eurozone, and the associated systemic risks.
The Bob Franklin case series portrays four critical incidents in the life of Bob Franklin, allowing students to explore both the role and development of the lead character throughout his career. Although there are choice points, attention is directed at who you are and why you are and who you are becoming as revealed in the choices made.