The case describes Argentina's struggle to establish a credible monetary system under populist pressures and the recurrent use of exchange rate stabilization plans. It focuses on two episodes where there was "too little money" in the economy: during the hyperinflation episodes during the late 1980's-when money demand collapsed and the early 2000's when the supply of money collapsed under a hard currency peg.

Excel spreadsheet for instructors.

Michael Lewis’s book Flash Boys, published in 2014, revealed to the public numerous controversial Wall Street trading practices made possible by advances in technology as well as regulatory changes that were (ironically) intended to improve pricing fairness in the financial markets. Lewis’s story focused on the man who blew the whistle: Brad Katsuyama, a Canadian banker who ran the New York trading desk for the Royal Bank of Canada. In 2010, he had noticed some odd system responses to his trading requests and began to ask questions. The answers he discovered, and publicized, about high frequency trading set off a firestorm regarding the moral integrity of the financial markets. Very few people understood what was happening, and fewer still comprehended the central role played by information technology.<br><br>Questions remain: How does information technology influence our concept of wealth? Why do “flash crashes” occur? Are the markets rigged? Will the next disruption to the financial markets involve technology?

In the early 1980s, the Swiss watch industry was near collapse after failing to adapt to Japanese competition from battery-powered quartz technology. In 1982, Jean-Claude Biver purchased Blancpain, a watch company that had been out of business since 1961 but had once made mechanical watches, for $16,000. After successfully reviving Blancpain, Biver sold the company to Nicolas G. Hayek (Chairman of the Swatch Group) for $43 million a decade later. Hayek agreed to have Biver stay on and gave him responsibility to revive the once venerable, but ailing, watch company Omega. Between 1995 and 1999, Biver led another turnaround effort that increased Omega's revenues from $350 million to $900 million. While it was presumed across the industry that Biver would be the next CEO of Swatch Group, in early 2000 Biver began to sense that he may not receive the top position when Hayek retired. At the end of the case, Biver must decide whether he should leave the Swatch Group and retire himself, or possibly start over yet again and take the reins of a small but struggling watch company, Hublot. The case examines the actions that Biver took to transform Blancpain and Omega, and how his broad vision ultimately transformed the entire Swiss watch industry. It presents Biver as a complex leader who at times could be very harsh on his employees, but whose passion and vision engendered fierce loyalty from those who worked with him.

In 2014 The Alta Gracia clothing factory in the Dominican Republic was doing something quite unusual in the industry; it was paying its employees a living wage, which was 350 percent higher than the country's minimum wage. Knights Apparel, which owned the four-year old factory, also provided benefits, health care, and allowed the workers to unionize. Most apparel factories paid employees a minimum wage, which in some places was not enough to pay for workers' basic needs and the needs of their families. Knights Apparel founder and CEO Joe Bozich, the driving force behind Alta Gracia, came to this decision from both business and personal motivations. Knights Apparel was the number one provider of licensed collegiate logo apparel, and Bozich saw the opportunity presented by the growing number of college students unhappy with the working conditions of the people making their schools' branded apparel. Personally, Bozich said he wanted to provide "hope and a pathway out of poverty for generations to come." However, Alta Gracia's production costs were 20-30 percent higher than at Knights' other factories, and Alta Gracia was losing over half a million dollars a year. Knights was able to keep Alta Gracia open only by subsidizing it with funds from its profitable business units. Knights was a private company, but Bozich was still accountable to his board and the company's large multi-billion-dollar institutional investors. Over time, Bozich had convinced many of them to back Alta Gracia, but he needed to pull the factory into profitability soon in order to prove it was a viable business model. If Alta Gracia was successful, Knights would have to decide if it should be expanded. There was also the question of whether Knights would be able to replicate Alta Gracia, and if it could, should it? Other companies had tried and failed to offer a living wage and become profitable. Would Knights be different?

This industry note covers how new players in cloud file sharing and storage (such as Dropbox and Box) are reshaping the overall enterprise content management (ECM) software industry in 2014. The note presents the major incumbent firms in the ECM industry in 2014, and then describes in depth 1) the latest technology, market and business model changes that potentially enable a disruption of that industry, and 2) the key new industry players. It also discusses the implications of the convergence between two industries: Small and medium business (SMB) file sharing and ECM. In addition, the note considers the strategic challenges facing these two categories of players in shaping the future of the converged industry.

While the Gilead: Hepatitis-C Access Strategy (A) case (515-025) poses questions on what the company should do with respect to hart hit countries like Egypt and India, this (B) case provides the answer. In both cases, the company chose to pursue a proactive strategy to enable access at affordable prices.

The National Football League (NFL) was both the most popular spectator sport in the U.S. and a major economic entity, taking in roughly $10 billion a year in revenue. However through the early twenty-first century, an increased understanding of the long-term effects of head injuries on NFL players indicated a serious threat to the long-term viability of the game. Particularly concerning was the indication that some deceased professional football players had developed chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)-a neurodegenerative disease which had a strong influence on a person's mental and physical health-most likely as a result of repetitive hits sustained during their football careers and which may have contributed to their deaths. Over 4,000 retired players had jointly sued the NFL over the head injuries they had sustained during their time in the NFL and the resulting health problems they attributed to these injuries. In part, the lawsuit alleged that the NFL had not been forthcoming with players about the health risks of head injuries. The two sides had reached a tentative $765 million settlement in 2013, the bulk of which would go to compensating retired players suffering from such diseases as Alzheimer's or dementia. While this settlement compensated retired players, it was not applicable to current or future players. Could the NFL preserve the sport by making it safer through new rules or equipment changes, or was football an inherently physical game that no amount of new rules or equipment could make completely safe? Were current and future players, now knowing full well the potential long-term health implications of football, tacitly accepting the risks involved? As a team owner, is now the time to sell while franchise value and fan support are at their peaks, or will the business of the NFL be viable for years to come?

With four outlets of Taco Bell opened in Bangalore, India by December 2013, the managing director of Yum! Restaurants India, the parent company, felt eager to expand. The company took pride in providing the best Mexican-inspired fast food at a low price in a friendly atmosphere. Its target market was young people with global aspirations and/or experiences who were aware of the brand and willing to try something new. India appeared to be a large and fitting market for this quick service restaurant: a population of more than a billion people, the majority of whom were under 35, growing income levels and increasing tastes for international cuisines. Yet, despite a record-breaking launch in 2010, its retail foot traffic was declining. The addition of vegetarian items to the menu had limited success in luring customers to repeat visits. Were the price changes on the new menu reasonable and consistent with the brand promise Taco Bell had made during its launch? What could be done to sustain the company’s survival in India?

With four outlets of Taco Bell opened in Bangalore, India by December 2013, the managing director of Yum! Restaurants India, the parent company, felt eager to expand. The company took pride in providing the best Mexican-inspired fast food at a low price in a friendly atmosphere. Its target market was young people with global aspirations and/or experiences who were aware of the brand and willing to try something new. India appeared to be a large and fitting market for this quick service restaurant: a population of more than a billion people, the majority of whom were under 35, growing income levels and increasing tastes for international cuisines. Yet, despite a record-breaking launch in 2010, its retail foot traffic was declining. The addition of vegetarian items to the menu had limited success in luring customers to repeat visits. Were the price changes on the new menu reasonable and consistent with the brand promise Taco Bell had made during its launch? What could be done to sustain the company's survival in India?

Michael Lewis's book Flash Boys, published in 2014, revealed to the public numerous controversial Wall Street trading practices made possible by advances in technology, as well as regulatory changes that were (ironically) intended to improve pricing fairness in the financial markets. Lewis's story focused on the man who blew the whistle: Brad Katsuyama, a Canadian banker who ran the New York trading desk for the Royal Bank of Canada. In 2010, he had noticed some odd system responses to his trading requests and began to ask questions. The answers he discovered, and publicized, about high frequency trading set off a firestorm regarding the moral integrity of the financial markets. Very few people understood what was happening, and fewer still comprehended the central role played by information technology.

After a series of strikes in its Manesar manufacturing plant in 2011, Maruti Suzuki India Limited is beginning to recover from the after-effects of the strike. Amid this tense atmosphere, a minor brawl breaks out between supervisors and workers, then escalates into full-scale violence and arson, which results in the death of the plant's general manager of human resources. The company locks down the plant, and law enforcement agencies initiate criminal proceedings against the workers. The incident raises serious questions about industrial relations at the plant and, in particular, the suitability of the Japanese management style in the Indian context.

This case deals with the revitalization of Tata Chemicals Ltd. (TCL) by way of significant international acquisitions in the first decade of the new millennium. Set in 2011, TCL has a decision to make on the potential acquisition of a stake in a North American early stage potash development company. This acquisition could allow TCL to set up a fertilizer plant, which might give the company a jumpstart just as earlier acquisitions had helped the company to be ranked number two in the world in soda ash production. As backward integration can be a risky strategy, the acquisition needs to be carefully considered in terms of when to integrate and when to rely on market-driven contractual arrangements.

Gilead had come up with an innovative drug for Hepatitis C, which affected 180 million people worldwide. The drug was priced at $1,000 a pill for the US market. Gilead had to decide how to price and market the pill in developing countries that bore the brunt of the disease. The company had earned accolades for its work in HIV/AIDS, where its innovative medicines now accounted for 60% of all patients on Anti-Retroviral (ARV) medicines. Much of this was accomplished through generic licensing, which brought a $10,000/year treatment regimen down to $100! Should the company replicate that strategy for Hepatitis C? If so, how would its US Healthcare customers, who were paying $84,000 per patient, react? On the other hand, Gilead had to balance the interests of its shareholders, who paid $11 billion for an acquisition that led to the new Hepatitis C drug.

MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga was investing significant time and attention to increase financial inclusion among individuals with historically no access to banking or financial services in countries around the world with large underserved populations. The effort included partnerships with governments and banks to issue MasterCard branded debit cards to millions of individuals. Financial inclusion could potentially help these individuals by increasing financial literacy, building credit records, improving savings rates, providing access to loans and other financial products, and, in general, by increasing the economic opportunities for these newly banked consumers. And by adding more customers, MasterCard potentially could also grow its bottom line. Financial inclusion raised questions for MasterCard. Was the management time and attention well spent given the low returns expected from adding millions of mostly very poor customers? What risks might MasterCard encounter-particularly in some countries where citizens resented their government partnering with and providing personal data to a large U.S. company.

CEO Dave Cote spent six years turning around an ailing Honeywell and in 2008 Cote and his team face a new challenge: how to respond to the Great Recession. Cote does not want to give up the gains he made in transforming and unifying Honeywell. With a fall-off in demand, Cote and the team must decide how to enact spending cuts in all parts of the business. They face choices in whether to employ layoffs or furloughs (unpaid leaves) for any needed workforce reductions, and whether to enact hiring freezes and other cost-saving changes to employee and executive compensation programs and benefits. Each of these choices is hard, and together they may derail the company's momentum if not handled carefully.

Five years after the Great Recession, Honeywell's CEO Dave Cote and his executive team reflect on the choices they made to manage costs and earnings forecasts during that uncertain time. They discuss which cost cutting measures they decided to take and their personal decisions of whether or not to accept bonuses in 2009. Cote also discusses the challenges Honeywell faced implementing unpaid work leaves (furloughs) in different parts of the world and how he believes the choices they made during the recession positioned Honeywell to respond to the economic recovery.

After a series of strikes in its Manesar manufacturing plant in 2011, Maruti Suzuki India Limited is beginning to recover from the after-effects of the strike. Amid this tense atmosphere, a minor brawl breaks out between supervisors and workers, then escalates into full-scale violence and arson, which results in the death of the plant’s general manager of human resources. The company locks down the plant, and law enforcement agencies initiate criminal proceedings against the workers. The incident raises serious questions about industrial relations at the plant and, in particular, the suitability of the Japanese management style in the Indian context.<br><br>See A case 9B13C009.

This case deals with the revitalization of Tata Chemicals Ltd. (TCL) by way of significant international acquisitions in the first decade of the new millennium. Set in 2011, TCL has a decision to make on the potential acquisition of a stake in a North American early stage potash development company. This acquisition could allow TCL to set up a fertilizer plant, which might give the company a jumpstart just as earlier acquisitions had helped the company to be ranked number two in the world in soda ash production. As backward integration can be a risky strategy, the acquisition needs to be carefully considered in terms of when to integrate and when to rely on market-driven contractual arrangements.