Fuda Cancer Hospital is an early private entrant, specialized cancer hospital in China. Since its establishment 11 years ago, it has grown from a little-known private hospital to a well-known, specialized cancer hospital that has nearly 400 beds and attracts patients from more than 70 countries and regions. As China's healthcare care has long been dominated by public hospitals, Fuda Cancer Hospital was able to survive and grow by pursuing a differentiation-oriented strategy and a modern hospital management system. The hospital adheres to the strategy of "differentiated development" in the following aspects: Patient positioning - therapy of cancer in middle and advanced stage; Market positioning - Mainly overseas cancer patients in early stage Service; concept positioning - patient-centered, etc. To further expand operation, Fuda Cancer Hospital started to make preparations for IPO in 2011, planning to use the raised funds for hospital relocation and technical reform projects, scientific research and training center construction projects, and brand and market system restructuring projects. However, the hospital is faced with numerous setbacks in its endeavor to go public. From 2011 to 2013, the net revenue of the hospital has been declining, with a decrease of 47.80% in 2013. The cancer therapy, which the hospital is proud of, is challenged in the industry as it brings a negative impact on the IPO of the company. Moreover, since the national government has lifted policy restrictions on private capital in the medical market, many listed companies have invested in private hospitals, and Fuda Cancer Hospital will be confronted with fiercer competition. However, China's IPO market was frozen for nearly two years and Fuda experienced major roadblocks in its IPO journey.
In 2012, Pactera, a China-headquartered IT service firm, went public on the NASDAQ. In 2014, it was taken private by a consortium led by the U.S.-based global investment and advisory firm Blackstone. This accelerated the firm's expansion in the U.S. market and its plans to move up the value chain. Pactera's executive vice-president must formulate and implement the right strategy in order to continue its success in the U.S. market, gain access to cutting-edge technology and talent, and better compete against sophisticated American and Indian rivals. Failure to apply the correct strategy to its operations in the U.S. market could restrict its growth and negatively impact its performance in the global market.
In 2012, Pactera, a China-headquartered IT service firm, went public on the NASDAQ. In 2014, it was taken private by a consortium led by the U.S.-based global investment and advisory firm Blackstone. This accelerated the firm’s expansion in the U.S. market and its plans to move up the value chain. Pactera’s executive vice-president must formulate and implement the right strategy in order to continue its success in the U.S. market, gain access to cutting-edge technology and talent, and better compete against sophisticated American and Indian rivals. Failure to apply the correct strategy to its operations in the U.S. market could restrict its growth and negatively impact its performance in the global market.
By 2015, technological innovations-the smartphone and the advanced data connectivity that enabled it-created new opportunities for people to move around cities quickly and conveniently without owning a car, via car-sharing services like Zipcar or new ride-sharing services. Uber, a five-year-old startup, enabled users to order private rides via a smartphone app. In mid-2015, the company had achieved pre-IPO market valuation of $50 billion, with operations in 311 cities in 58 countries. Despite its scale and success, Uber often found itself embroiled in controversy, with resistance from a broad range of unhappy stakeholders-regulators, competitors, drivers, and even some customers and partners-across the U.S. and the world. Could Uber continue on this route?
Marie Jackson becomes chief executive officer of Renfield Farms during a period of sluggish growth and an organizational crisis. Jackson develops a new vision statement and begins to experience some success but is met with some skepticism from internal employees because the company's structures and systems do not seem to support the new vision. This case focuses on how Jackson engages and leads a senior team in formulating a vision during a period of change.
This case focuses on how Johan Pienaar, Valent Biosciences Corporation (VBC) Global Business Manager for Plant Growth Regulators, should manage growth of one of the company's most successful products - ReTain. When applied to apples, ReTain reduces fruit drop, provides more consistent premium fruit, and aids in harvest and storage management. Large, sophisticated orchards realized a five to twenty-fold return on their use of ReTain, and as a result ReTain had a market share of roughly 65% of the Total Available Market in the U.S. apple industry. Further, ReTain could be applied to other fruit crops to aid growers. Johan's challenge was how to prioritize the various opportunities to grow revenues from the ReTain technology based on its application to other fruit where ReTain was known to be effective (e.g., peaches, pineapples, almonds) and in international markets (e.g., China, Europe). At the same time, he sought to defend ReTain from several threats (e.g., a much cheaper legacy technology, disagreements about its classification as organic) to its strong market position in the U.S. apple industry. Johan must also decide whether to invest some of these limited resources into R&D in an effort to establish whether ReTain could be effective on a heretofore untested crop.
The case describes the situation of over a hundred years old, family-owned, and male-managed business group - Qadri-Group (QG). QG was facing challenges in family's interplay with the group's business. Meanwhile QG also foresaw several new business opportunities and challenges in domestic and international markets that required greater focus and harmony among the family members and group companies. QG's Board of Directors (BoD) felt that a unanimously formulated Family Constitution was needed to manage the increasing complexity in the family and ownership, as the group ventured out to benefit from the emerging business landscape. Rizwan, a third generation family member of the BoD, initiated and advocated the idea of developing a family constitution as soon as possible to address the complex and lingering matters that the family faced. Rizwan appreciated that the challenges related to involvement of the family's fourth generation in the business and ownership would complicate the situation in subsequent years, during which more challenges related to QG business were also anticipated. He took on the responsibility to provide suggestions on how to govern increased family complexity (in terms of diversity of educational backgrounds, allocation of incentives to family members according to their profiles, involvement of daughters and their in-laws in QG's business etc.) and business complexity. Rizwan Qadri hoped that his suggestions related to the formulation of the family constitution would help address the following issues: 1. clarity on the issue of employment of daughters and daughters-in-law in the business 2. involvement of in-laws (unrelated by blood) in the family business 3. compensation for family members; competitive and merit based career planning Also he had to give suggestions for the process to be followed for arriving at a mutually agreed family constitution.
This case discusses the digitalization strategies of a leading bank in Turkey, Akbank, and how to position its digital banking products going forward. The Turkish banking industry was undergoing a transformation prompted by the demands of the country's digitally savvy, young population, and by new regulations on consumer banking that threatened banks' profitability. Akbank had a legacy as the best financial services company in Turkey, but bank leadership knew it needed to innovate to maintain that reputation in the digital era. The bank's chairman, CEO, and EVP of digital banking unit were evaluating their options. Should they have a separate P&L for the digital banking unit? Should they create a separate brand for digital banking? How should they structure digital banking so Akbank would remain profitable while achieving the vision for innovation and growth laid out by the bank's chairman?
Global ventures are those that weave globalization into their businesses from the start. Technological advances and emerging markets are enabling entrepreneurs to extract more value than ever before from setting up in multiple countries. At the same time, The emergence of new kinds of competitors and threats makes it even more important for founders to seize the advantages of globalization early on. As a result, many founders purposefully embed globalization into the core of their venture, rather than becoming global as the business matures. This Reading provides insights and best practices to help founders avoid pitfalls and create a truly global strategy. The author offers a framework for early ventures based on what they are globalizing: products and services; people, ideas, and technologies; or finance. It also differentiates between the venture that is seeking to globalize the best the company has to offer and the venture that are harnessing the best the world has to offer. After founders determine what they hope to gain from globalization, they must choose the best locations, decide how many countries to enter, adapt their business models to each location, and navigate the unique operational and managerial difficulties facing young global ventures. The Reading does not consider international entrepreneurship in its traditional sense, such as how establishing a domestic-market-oriented company in Brazil differs from starting one in Japan, or how established companies might open their first facility abroad or enter their 90th country. The insights in this Reading can inform managers in such companies, but does so through the lens of ventures that were born global. The focus of the Reading is on young global ventures and the specific resource constraints, opportunity costs, and founding-team challenges of new and early-stage ventures. Focusing on these businesses helps identify key business model traits related to globalization.
This case features San Francisco-based financial technology startup, LOYAL3. Founded in 2008, the company seeks to disrupt the capital markets and democratize access to those markets for retail investors. By the fall of 2014, LOYAL3 had three products. In the first, the Social IPO Platformâ„¢, LOYAL3 acted as co-manager of an issuing company's initial public offering (IPO), enabling individual investors to purchase IPO shares at the same price-and the same time-as institutional investors. The second product, the Social Stock Planâ„¢, allowed investors to purchase stock in publicly traded companies they liked. The third product, Stock Rewardsâ„¢, enabled companies to grant free stock to customers in lieu of promotional discounts or in recognition of brand loyalty. LOYAL3 CEO Barry Schneider viewed 2014 as a watershed year. The company had participated in 10 initial public offerings to date. In the case he contemplates the product roadmap going forward.
Virtual teams can boost productivity and employee flexibility while reducing the time and cost of travel. However, such teams face disadvantages in terms of developing trust, maintaining morale, monitoring performance, and accommodating different time zones and cultural barriers. Unfortunately, most firms do not adequately train virtual teams or promote the right leadership behaviours. The authors studied 48 virtual teams and 427 virtual team leaders across a range of industries and found that high-performing virtual leaders all share the ability to do four things exceptionally well: build relationships, hold teams accountable, motivate teams and implement effective processes. These attributes and the habits that accompany them fit into a framework known as the RAMP Model — Relationships, Accountability, Motivation and Purpose and Process. In applying RAMP effectively in a virtual environment, firms can employ software for project management, time-tracking, collaborative meetings and shared documents. They can also make use of a variety of practices such as scheduling virtual coffee breaks and birthday parties, practicing active listening, putting results ahead of hours worked, and making leaders available outside of normal business hours.
Tremendous changes in the global competitive landscape threaten Deutsche Lufthansa AG, the largest airline group in the world. Three large Gulf carriers, Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways, as well as Turkish Airlines, now stand to compete with Lufthansa on the traditionally profitable long-haul segment. Chairman of the executive board and chief executive officer has to act quickly if Lufthansa is to keep its top spot. Having ignored the threat from low-cost airlines in the past, Lufthansa must now be better prepared to respond. It is crucial that Lufthansa finds adequate strategic options for sustaining and further expanding its market-leading position.
This case explores the decision-making process that small, private businesses must undertake when considering an expansion and when selling equity to outside investors. In the process, students are asked to complete two exercises: a break-even analysis and a valuation exercise.
The term "conflict minerals" referred to four minerals-tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold-that are mined in countries throughout the world, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These minerals, sometimes referred to as the "3TG" minerals, were used in many industries for a variety of purposes. The electronics industry was a significant user of the "3 T's" and gold. Tungsten, for instance, was used in the screens of cellphones and also created the vibrating alert. Tantalum held the battery charge in a cellphone or tablet, was critical to the exchange of text messages and emails, and was a component of cellphone camera lenses. The conflict minerals issue dated to the early 2000s but public awareness took years to develop, following the efforts of nongovernment organizations such as the Enough Project. Intel began to work on the issue internally in 2008, at the direction of its CEO, and conducted its first conflict minerals supply chain survey in 2009. Intel then pledged to manufacture microprocessors with tantalum sourced from conflict-free supply chains by 2012 and to make the world's first commercially available microprocessor that is DRC conflict free for all four metals by 2013; it achieved both goals. Intel's decision to address the conflict minerals problem head-on was one of the movement's first big successes; the policies Intel implemented to obtain conflict-free minerals went beyond what was required by Dodd-Frank.
This case illustrates the dilemma faced by the president of EGA, a Latin American business school, who chooses to innovate and has to make some controversial strategic, organizational and financial decisions. The case focuses on the challenges posed by product innovation, following the Stage-Gate model and describing its phases, from business case preparation, through protocol definition and product architecture, to identifying operation requirements. It explores the difficulties and dilemmas involved in starting and executing an innovation project.
The systematic analysis of an annual report of a large Canadian public company provides a framework and a set of skills and concepts to determine whether it is worth investing in the company. The detailed examination of the annual report includes an analysis of profitability - including return on capital employed, return on equity, return on sales, gross profit margin and asset turnover - and liquidity measures.
Tremendous changes in the global competitive landscape threaten Deutsche Lufthansa AG, the largest airline group in the world. Three large Gulf carriers, Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways, as well as Turkish Airlines, now stand to compete with Lufthansa on the traditionally profitable long-haul segment. Chairman of the executive board and chief executive officer has to act quickly if Lufthansa is to keep its top spot. Having ignored the threat from low-cost airlines in the past, Lufthansa must now be better prepared to respond. It is crucial that Lufthansa finds adequate strategic options for sustaining and further expanding its market-leading position.
Jack and Jill, first-year MBA students at the Darden School of Business, discovered their mutual interest in entrepreneurship and agreed to consider developing a small start-up during the summer after their first year. After much contemplation, they came up with an innovative idea for creating their own new business venture. Undergraduate students at the University of Virginia were welcomed on campus each fall, and Jack and Jill thought those students presented an untapped opportunity to offer these incoming students ergonomic desk chairs for their dormitory rooms.