Four managers at Jones Schilling, an Asia-based retailer, are preparing to coach their Gen Y employees on how they can better contribute to the firm’s performance. Each of these managers needs to coach an employee with distinct issues.
If the company refuses to sign the case release, can I disguise material and use it in my business case? Is it okay to use part of this quote in my case under the 10% rule? Without attention to questions like these from the start of the case-writing process, the brilliance of having written a good business case study may well be rewarded by the embarrassment-or worse, humiliation-of a publisher pointing out copyright infringement or accusing you of having lifted the material from somewhere else. In the Internet era, you are writing for a global audience and face a set of global expectations with regard to copyright, permissions, case releases, and citations that authors must understand in order to succeed. Reading this note will help keep you clear of any possibility of plagiarism charges or running afoul of copyright restrictions.
This case demonstrates the growing importance of water policy and water scarcity on key business decisions. It uses the merger of two drip irrigation companies to show how the business models of multinationals were shifting to accommodate current and expected water crises in many parts of the world. In 2012, Jain Irrigation Systems, a multinational founded in India, became sole owner of the Israel-based NaanDan Joint Venture, a privately held, well-respected irrigation technology firm. The creation of NaanDanJain evidenced the increasingly visible role of India as a global player whose multinationals acquired high-tech companies from more advanced economies. But more important for this case, when considering demographic and economic variables for each country, the merger illustrated the challenges of providing irrigation to small farmers. This case situates the formation/establishment of NaanDanJain within the divergent water policies and water practices of both Israel and India.
Longview Investments, an investor in alternative asset classes, had recently developed a new investment thesis to take advantage of several emerging macroeconomic themes. The strategy was premised on the belief that inflation and interest rates were likely to accelerate in the future and that digital real estate was likely to offer a superior return due to developing trends in technology and IT management. Specifically, the firm noticed greater utilization of cloud-based applications and mobile devices; the increased need for ubiquitous access to digitized data, as well as the explosion in the amount of electronic data generally; and the shifting of firms away from the use of small server closets and toward larger datacenter environments. The net result was a heightened interest in REITs specializing in digital real estate. The case is meant to demonstrate the sum of the parts valuation methodology as a capstone exercise for an introductory finance class in a first-year MBA setting. It follows an investment professional as he develops a hypothesis related to Digital Realty Trust (DLR), a publicly traded REIT specializing in digital real estate.
Julien Levy, the case protagonist, is product manager at SOTARG France in charge of printers and related accessories. SOTARG is an international manufacturer of printers, print-related products and other electronic devices. He has been approached by a direct marketing firm offering its services in developing and implementing a sales promotion campaign to help boost SOTARG's end-of-year sales. The suggestion is to launch an in-store promotional campaign in 10 hypermarkets at a certain price per day per booth. Julien is interested, but has to evaluate how many new customers the campaign must generate in order to break even on the cost of the promotion or even be financially more interesting.
In late 2011, SAP, the German leader in the enterprise software industry, announced a major investment plan for expanding in China and also acquired a leading American firm in cloud-based human capital management software. At first glance, these investments seemed rather unconnected. A closer look at SAP’s strategy, however, revealed a closely connected and coordinated network of strategic decisions and investments for which alignment and finding the right balance were key challenges. Hence, it was crucial to ask: What were the principal challenges for SAP in aligning its innovation and sourcing strategies? Compared to its key competitors — Microsoft, IBM and Oracle — how was it aligning its innovation strategy with its sourcing strategy?
The founder and CEO of Dialogue in the Dark (DID) had a very unique background with long-term professional experience. She developed a passion for working with the blind and, through this passion, she brought DID to China. DID was a social enterprise aiding the disabled through awareness. Social entrepreneurship was a fairly new concept that had only recently been introduced in China.<br><br>The CEO needed to figure out how to introduce this idea of social franchising to China and how to make it successful. Further, she faced the challenge of developing and executing a successful business plan for future growth and investment for DID. Marketing and revenue outlets were limited and needed to be expanded for future growth and success.
North Sails is the world's leading sailmaker. The company commands a global market share of more than 50% and is largely responsible for the rapid technological progress in the sailmaking industry over the past 30 years. CEO Tom Whidden needs to consider how to best defend the company's leading position. Specifically, North currently uses neither patents nor copyright to protect its technology. The company even allows its designers to use its software when they do independent work. The case encourages a discussion of the role of intellectual property rights in safeguarding technology and know-how. By highlighting the costs and benefits of patents and copyright, the case points to a challenge that is common across many companies: Their most valuable assets are largely intangible, and these assets cannot easily be pinned down and protected. North's solution to this challenge is highly unusual and creative.
Update on Cycle for Survival's 2012, 2013, and 2014 events. Kotkins and Cycle for Survival continued the event's strong growth, and underwent the first phase of a two-year rebranding effort.
After the successful launch of their virtual grocery stores in South Korean metro stations, Tesco UK is trying to determine whether the virtual grocery store concept should be launched in their home market. In order to make this decision, Tesco needs to determine the role of the virtual store(s), the location(s) of the store(s) and the product range. At the same time, Tesco needs to compare the Korean and U.K. markets in order to determine whether the virtual store concept is viable.
During the summer of 2013, the company founder and operations manager of Hockley Valley Brewing Co. Inc., a microbrewery situated in rural Ontario, were reviewing the company's product mix. Sales at a recent summer festival showed a strong demand for light beers, rather than the dark ales that made up the majority of Hockley's sales. Not only did the company compete with large multinational brewing companies, but they faced stiff competition from the established and new microbreweries that were springing up all over Ontario to meet consumer demand for fresh, local and unique beers. They had to decide whether the company should launch a new lager to further penetrate the light beer market; if so, they also had to make recommendations on pricing, distribution and promotional strategies for the new brand.
In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the not-for-profit sector in Ontario was forced to shift from a provider of social needs to a creator of social opportunities for communities doubly hit by rising unemployment and falling social supports. The Ontario Trillium Foundation moved to fund innovative, collaborative programs involving not-for-profit organizations, businesses and governments in creating viable social enterprises. Ottawa, London and Sarnia were three communities faced with different, but still difficult economic times, and each had responded to the crisis by proposing alternative models of social transition. In 2013, representatives from the not-for-profit sector in these cities joined with the Richard Ivey School of Business to present a proposal that promised they would work collaboratively, learn from each other, document the entire process and develop tools to prepare and guide many others. Would the Trillium Foundation support such a creative and ambitious project?
Dicore, the third largest supplier of drilling services in the world, must increase its profitability. To do so, the executive committee is considering an expansion into the southwestern United States. The senior vice-president and general manager must create a plan that outlines whether or not Dicore should enter the southwest drilling market and, if so, if it should enter this market organically or through an acquisition.
More than one-third of India remained without electricity or received less than eight hours of electricity per day. To fight energy poverty, Boond was in the business of providing lighting solutions to the low-income population in rural India. By 2013, it had created a network of four hubs (energy centres) and impacted the lives of more than 50,000 people across two states in India through its solar energy systems. It had forged non-traditional partnerships with regional rural banks and community-based organizations and its plan was to shift from the inception phase to the growth phase in 2013-2014. The aim was to set up 30 hubs covering more than 50 districts in the states of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh by 2015. This required evaluating the transformational challenges and creating an action plan to address them without losing sight of the social mission. Key obstacles included attracting social investors, extending its reach, and finding and retaining skilled employees willing to operate in small towns and villages.
EADS N.V. (EADS), Europe's leading aerospace and defence company, is reviewing its strategic positioning. EADS had planned to merge with a British company to form the world's largest aerospace company, but the merger failed mainly due to resistance from government shareholders. As a result, the firm cannot achieve its major strategic goals that were tied to the merger. In the highly competitive aerospace industry and despite also facing production issues and a corruption investigation, the firm's management must revise both its short-term goals and future action plan.
Narayana Health (NH) had been successfully delivering affordable high quality tertiary care to the masses in India through its chain of hospitals for over a decade. To encourage the adoption of the NH affordable care delivery model worldwide, Dr. Shetty, Chairman of NH, was keen to establish a hospital in the western hemisphere and believed that it was important to demonstrate the model to the US. Thus when the Cayman Islands Government was interested in developing the island as a medical tourism hub during 2008-09, Dr. Shetty agreed to develop the Health City Cayman Islands (HCCI), a 2,000 bed conglomeration of multiple super-specialty hospitals within a single campus located on the Grand Cayman Island. The first phase of HCCI, a 104 bed hospital focused on cardiac care and orthopedics, was developed jointly by NH and Ascension, the largest non-profit hospital system in US. The hospital was inaugurated in February, 2014 but there were open questions related to pricing of the procedures and the related target patient segment and volumes. Also, HCCI senior management realized the need to adapt the NH model developed in and for India to fit the new environment at Cayman and was open to experimentation in coming months.
Whenever an investment is made, there are always costs and benefits. This case set in 2013 explores, based on quantitative and qualitative factors, a decision that a typical student at university might face. The decision to rent a house or purchase one in order to rent out the additional rooms is a difficult one. All of the pros and cons of each option need to be carefully considered. An Excel spreadsheet is available for students (see 7B14E013).