Following a brief summary of Henry A. Kissinger's career, this case describes three of his most pivotal negotiations: the historic establishment of U.S. diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, the easing of geopolitical tension with the Soviet Union, symbolized by the signing of the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty ("SALT I"), and the mediation of the agreement on Sinai disengagement between Egypt and Israel. An appendix lists other important negotiations in which Kissinger played key roles.
This three-part case traces Carrie Wagner's career in a single, large international package delivery company over a 30-year period during which she rose through the ranks from a student's summer job to senior executive positions. Part (A) - Early Career, from Student to Manager (4 p.) - Carrie joins a large multi-national as a summer student when she is 19 years old. Upon graduation, she takes a full-time job in the budget department. After six months in this position she is promoted to manager at the age of 22. Carrie knows nothing about finance and Jim, her Executive Director, is an invaluable ally.
This three-part case traces Carrie Wagner's career in a single, large international package delivery company over a 30-year period during which she rose through the ranks from a student's summer job to senior executive positions. Part (B) - Towards Senior Management (4 p.) - This section details Carrie's career from the age of 30 to 45, where she climbed several management levels up to the position of Executive Director.
This three-part case traces Carrie Wagner's career in a single, large international package delivery company over a 30-year period during which she rose through the ranks from a student's summer job to senior executive positions. Part (C) - Cutting the Cord? (5 p.) - At 46, Carrie is seen as a potential VP, and reluctantly accepts a job as head of Human Resources, reporting to the President and his first VPs. The case describes the challenges of this new position for Carrie and how she finds it difficult to work in an advisory role that is disconnected from operations. After five years in this position, she becomes aware of an opportunity outside the company that piques her interest. This opportunity, combined with several other considerations, including professional as well personal factors, lead Carrie to wonder whether she should not give up on a possible VP position and ""cut the cord"" with the company where she has worked for 30 years.
This case traces the various events that happen in the organizational journey of a newcomer to the corporate world. It is based on the real-life incidents of a new employee in a leading information technology (IT) services company, Xciting, in India. Xciting is one of India’s top IT and IT-enabled services companies, with offices around the globe. With revenues in excess of $6 billion in 2010 and a global headcount of around 100,000, Xciting is a popular and reputable company in the global software services industry.<br><br>The case covers the initial year of the employee’s work with Xciting, following college graduation. She undergoes a training period with examinations in order to determine an appropriate work domain and relocation destination within India. She experiences organizational culture shock and location anxiety, and must respond to difficult co-workers and cancelled projects. In September 2011, with the first yearly review approaching, she reflects on her journey at Xciting and has to decide on what she wants to do with her career. Is there a mismatch between her expectations and those of Xciting?
This technical note proposes some useful strategies for improving spreadsheet design. It urges students to think of spreadsheets as communication tools whose sole purpose is to deliver a clear message to the reader. Thus, spreadsheets should not be seen simply as technical tools but as stories meant to engage the reader and, ultimately, drive a response. To this end, we gather inspiration from writers and journalists – story experts whose processes can be put to use in the creation of “story spreadsheets.” We supply 12 principles of spreadsheet creation that are useful in maximizing effective communication of the message, and we urge readers to use these principles when designing their own story spreadsheets.
In less than ten years, co-founders Brian Sharples and Carl Shepherd had transformed HomeAway from just another Internet startup into the leading vacation rentals marketplace in the world-a global online platform that linked customers seeking vacation home rentals to the property owners and managers who supplied them. The case traces HomeAway's origins through IPO and beyond, documenting the company's acquisition-led growth and the core elements of its subscription-based business model. By 2014, incumbent travel giants and high-profile startups like Airbnb began to take notice of the vacation rentals sector. To stay ahead, HomeAway initiated a pilot collaboration to show some of its listings on Expedia's site. Sharples was also considering a new commission-based revenue model that promised to attract a broader swath of property listers but risked undermining HomeAway's existing business.
In March 2013, Apple Inc. has a very large cash balance and is under pressure to return cash to shareholders. Hedge fund manager David Einhorn thinks Apple can "unlock value" by issuing perpetual preferred stock, dubbed iPrefs. Henry Blodget, CEO of The Business Insider, disagrees, saying "you can't just wave your magic wand and make something of nothing." This short case is designed to support a discussion of "perfect" markets and the Modigliani-Miller capital structure irrelevance propositions. The case focuses on two questions: (1) From a shareholder's perspective, how is Apple's cash different from cash in a bank or money market account? (2) Can Apple create significant value for shareholders by splitting each common share into an iPref plus a common share?
Late in 2013, Novartis CEO Joseph Jimenez was considering how and whether to deepen the company's investment in Arogya Parivar, its profitable program that sold Novartis medicines in rural India, while expanding access to medicine and health information to millions of Indian villagers.
Discovery Ltd. is a South-African based insurance company. Started in the early 1990s, Discovery used behavioral economics and data collection to innovate in the health care insurance industry. Its founder Adrian Gore believed that the company's products needed to not only make money but have a positive impact on society. Using its Vitality Wellness program as its strategic lynchpin, Discovery expanded into other insurance areas and financial services products and also entered new markets abroad. In late 2014, Gore and his team had to decide how to further develop the company and prioritize among many growth opportunities.
Leading fertilizer producer Yara International demonstrates the concept of creating shared value through the Southern Agricultural Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) initiative, which brought together multiple organizations to enhance agricultural development in rural regions.
Cameron Trebbi is a senior executive overseeing accounting policy at a large global auditing firm. His role is to lobby the firm's position with various accounting rule-making bodies worldwide. The firm is close to acquiring as new audit clients a consortium of Chinese state-owned enterprises. The consortium has asked Trebbi's firm to seek an exception for state-owned enterprises on a proposed accounting rule. But Trebbi thinks such an exception is unsound accounting policy. He must decide how he will lobby, knowing that his testimony is highly valued by the accounting rule-making body and is likely to be unchallenged.
This case describes how to champion and implement organizational change from the middle by recounting the experiences of Iz-Lynn Chan at Far East Organization.
The four founding members of Bazaart-a young Israeli company whose sole product was its eponymous mobile application (app) which allowed users to create collages from photographs and other images-face an important strategic decision in June 2014. Since its founding roughly two years earlier, the company had raised very little money from outside investors. Gili Golander, one of the founders and Bazaart's chief marketing officer, utilized a number of "growth hacking" techniques to generate downloads and build awareness at minimal cost. These techniques had proven successful and helped the firm reach 1 million downloads by June 2014. However the four founders debated whether to stay focused on growing Bazaart's user base and worry about driving revenue later, or try and monetize the app (by introducing in-app purchases, native advertising, or moving to a subscription model) and bring in some much needed revenue. Would growth hacking alone be enough to grow the company or should it utilize (and pay for) more traditional marketing? What approach would make the company more attractive to investors?
The case builds on the earlier A case which described the origins of the Turkish business group established by Vehbi Koç before 1988. This case takes the story forward to 2012 as the Koç group was led by Vehbi's son Rahmi followed by his grandson Mustafa. It explores both the professionalization of the management, and a radical restructuring of the business portfolio as the group refocused on five core sectors. The case also examines the start of the group's globalization strategy which was focused on the white goods affiliate Arçelik.