Terranola is a wildly successful company with a market cap of $8.1 billion. Its product, the Express granola-bar-making machine, is on kitchen counters across North America, and market analysts suggest that household penetration of Express machines could triple. Then Jeremiah Hughes, a well-known hedge fund manager and short-seller, starts making public comments suggesting that the company is overrated. Its managers debate how best to respond. This fictional case study is written by Suraj Srinivasan and features expert commentary by Guy Gresham and Dan Mahoney.

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on overcoming gender discrimination in the legal profession, building rapport and consensus with her colleagues, being a "mother hen" to her clerks, and the lessons she learned growing up on a ranch.

Terranola is a wildly successful company with a market cap of $8.1 billion. Its product, the Express granola-bar-making machine, is on kitchen counters across North America, and market analysts suggest that household penetration of Express machines could triple. Then Jeremiah Hughes, a well-known hedge fund manager and short-seller, starts making public comments suggesting that the company is overrated. Its managers debate how best to respond. This fictional case study is written by Suraj Srinivasan and features expert commentary by Guy Gresham and Dan Mahoney.

Terranola is a wildly successful company with a market cap of $8.1 billion. Its product, the Express granola-bar-making machine, is on kitchen counters across North America, and market analysts suggest that household penetration of Express machines could triple. Then Jeremiah Hughes, a well-known hedge fund manager and short-seller, starts making public comments suggesting that the company is overrated. Its managers debate how best to respond. This fictional case study is written by Suraj Srinivasan and features expert commentary by Guy Gresham and Dan Mahoney.

This case is based on Kingfisher Airlines, the brainchild of Dr. Vijay Mallaya. It made a grand entrance into the Indian aviation industry as a single-class, all-economy air carrier in 2005. The company soon turned its focus to becoming a premium service operator offering high-class in-flight services and unrivalled luxuries. Subsequently, it took a number of steps to differentiate itself from other airlines, while also embarking upon an ambitious expansion plan. Its acquisition of an ailing airline, Air Deccan, combined with rising fuel costs and a rapidly changing business environment made its survival difficult. The company's bank accounts were frozen several times by the Income Tax Department and the Service Tax Department because of defaults on tax payments, leaving it cash dry. The battered airline had to temporarily suspend its operations from several cities and cope with a staggering debt load that had reached Rs. 7,000 crore by March 27, 2012. The staff was demoralized and some employees left the company due to the non-payment of salaries. There was also widespread anger among passengers owing to last-minute flight cancellations. The challenge facing its CEO, Sanjay Agarwal, was to make Kingfisher Airlines bounce back from its precarious position. The company had to tackle the issue of raising funds to meet its day-to-day expenses, maintain the current number of flights and perhaps also conduct a thorough review of its past policies and strategies and try to learn from the competitors that had managed to weather the storm and still remain profitable in the most unfavourable of business environments.

Caterpillar Tunnelling Canada Corporation, a Toronto-based subsidiary of the U.S. company Caterpillar Inc., specializes in the custom design and manufacture of tunnelling boring machines used in the construction of transportation and utility tunnels such as subway, sewage and telecom cable tunnels. After the acquisition by Caterpillar, the company was chosen as one of the sites to undergo enterprise resource planning (ERP) transformation. After over a year of localization effort to adapt the corporate ERP template to the subsidiary’s business processes, the project was called off due to both the strained local resources and the significant gap between the parent company’s repetitive manufacturing model and the subsidiary’s concurrent engineering/project-based model. Moreover, the lack of executive buy-in and a mandate in establishing company-wide performance metrics and consistency in business semantics led to sporadic user adoption of business intelligence tools and the creation of sometimes irreconcilable reporting. The business resource manager and head of finance has to rethink the management of business intelligence technologies and come up with a strategy to achieve coherent data analytics for effective business decision making.

This case chronicles the growth and evolution of Revital, the bestselling vitamin and mineral supplement in India. The Indian nutraceutical market was booming, as the growing economy and increasingly demanding job requirements were pushing young Indian consumers to look for products like energy drinks, energy candy and health supplements. Stressful work conditions and lifestyle changes were resulting in an increased incidence of chronic disorders, and more and more consumers were taking nutraceuticals as a preventive measure. No company had launched an energy candy in the Indian market and imported brands were of limited availability. The case explores the possible options for Ranbaxy — one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in India —with brand expansion opportunities for Revital through introducing Revital energy candy. Should Ranbaxy introduce an energy candy in the Indian market? If so, should it be a brand extension of Revital or a new brand altogether?

This case chronicles the growth and evolution of Revital, the bestselling vitamin and mineral supplement in India. The Indian nutraceutical market was booming, as the growing economy and increasingly demanding job requirements were pushing young Indian consumers to look for products like energy drinks, energy candy and health supplements. Stressful work conditions and lifestyle changes were resulting in an increased incidence of chronic disorders, and more and more consumers were taking nutraceuticals as a preventive measure. No company had launched an energy candy in the Indian market and imported brands were of limited availability. The case explores the possible options for Ranbaxy - one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in India -with brand expansion opportunities for Revital through introducing Revital energy candy. Should Ranbaxy introduce an energy candy in the Indian market? If so, should it be a brand extension of Revital or a new brand altogether?

Caterpillar Tunnelling Canada Corporation, a Toronto-based subsidiary of the U.S. company Caterpillar Inc., specializes in the custom design and manufacture of tunnelling boring machines used in the construction of transportation and utility tunnels such as subway, sewage and telecom cable tunnels. After the acquisition by Caterpillar, the company was chosen as one of the sites to undergo enterprise resource planning (ERP) transformation. After over a year of localization effort to adapt the corporate ERP template to the subsidiary's business processes, the project was called off due to both the strained local resources and the significant gap between the parent company's repetitive manufacturing model and the subsidiary's concurrent engineering/project-based model. Moreover, the lack of executive buy-in and a mandate in establishing company-wide performance metrics and consistency in business semantics led to sporadic user adoption of business intelligence tools and the creation of sometimes irreconcilable reporting. The business resource manager and head of finance has to rethink the management of business intelligence technologies and come up with a strategy to achieve coherent data analytics for effective business decision making.

An owner was concerned about the condo she bought in Mont Tremblant, Quebec in 2006 as an investment property and for occasional use by her family. A beautiful, five-bedroom unit with a panoramic view over the La Bête golf course, it was close to the ski area, the village of Tremblant, shopping, spas, restaurants and a casino. It was fully furnished with many upgrades. However, by 2010, the number of rentals was disappointing, and the unit was operating well below expectations. Something had to be done to increase occupancy or she would have to sell the property. She considered changes in all aspects of marketing: her target, positioning, product features, pricing, distribution and promotion. She needed to assess the situation and determine what could be done to generate more bookings and make the venture profitable.

The case serves as an illustration of organizational behavior when it comes to the issue of silence in organizations. It describes a critical leadership situation that requires speaking up against the orders of a superior in a hierarchical structure - in this case, the armed forces. When the protagonist, a young Israeli officer leading a special-forces platoon, receives an order that would put his platoon in extreme danger, he has to make a decision. The case is not concerned with combat situations, but rather with how to act as a responsible leader. Given the setting of an army unit governed by command and control, the initial case discussion is likely to focus on typical leadership issues, such as motivation and followership. However, the more interesting aspect concerns the dual roles that leaders typically have to fulfill, that is, they may be both leaders and followers. The protagonist of the case is a captain who receives an order from a major that will have consequences for the captain's platoon. The core issue of the case is the decision to reject the order in question. Participants will discuss why speaking up is an issue in organizations and usually does not occur. The case also allows us to look at situations in high-risk organizations that allow open communication.

An owner was concerned about the condo she bought in Mont Tremblant, Quebec in 2006 as an investment property and for occasional use by her family. A beautiful, five-bedroom unit with a panoramic view over the La Bête golf course, it was close to the ski area, the village of Tremblant, shopping, spas, restaurants and a casino. It was fully furnished with many upgrades. However, by 2010, the number of rentals was disappointing, and the unit was operating well below expectations. Something had to be done to increase occupancy or she would have to sell the property. She considered changes in all aspects of marketing: her target, positioning, product features, pricing, distribution and promotion. She needed to assess the situation and determine what could be done to generate more bookings and make the venture profitable.

In December 2011, the world-renowned SMRT train system in Singapore suffered a series of commuter disruptions that shattered public confidence in the system. SMRT Corporation Ltd. is Singapore's multi-modal public transport operator, with train, bus and taxi services across the island. This case recounts the train breakdowns, resulting in commuter frustration and SMRT's response. Not only does SMRT management need to restore confidence in the reliability and safety of the system, but they also need to restore good faith with the public that they are committed stewards of a public system integral to daily living.

In mid-April 2013, the chief executive officer of Tesco PLC, the world’s third largest global retailer headquartered in London, United Kingdom, must explain to shareholders his decision to close down the operations of the fully owned subsidiary, Fresh & Easy Neighborhoods Market Inc., in the United States. Following a December 2012 strategic review that reported that the subsidiary was not delivering acceptable returns, operations have already been discontinued and a buyer is being sought. Although the focus on fresh food to ameliorate the health care costs of obesity in the United States was a driver for establishing the subsidiary, the effects of the 2008 recession discouraged consumers from paying the higher costs of fresh food. Is exiting the United States the right decision for Tesco? How should the process of exit be managed? Are there any takeaways from the U.S. operations that Tesco can apply elsewhere in its global strategy?

Multinational corporations and wealthy individuals often use so-called tax havens to establish subsidiaries or holding companies in order to rebalance profits across borders with the primary purpose of lowering their effective tax rate. This note describes the use of tax havens, the implications for the financial sector in tax havens, as well as the debate around the effect of tax havens on welfare in other jurisdictions.

In mid-April 2013, the chief executive officer of Tesco PLC, the world's third largest global retailer headquartered in London, United Kingdom, must explain to shareholders his decision to close down the operations of the fully owned subsidiary, Fresh & Easy Neighborhoods Market Inc., in the United States. Following a December 2012 strategic review that reported that the subsidiary was not delivering acceptable returns, operations have already been discontinued and a buyer is being sought. Although the focus on fresh food to ameliorate the health care costs of obesity in the United States was a driver for establishing the subsidiary, the effects of the 2008 recession discouraged consumers from paying the higher costs of fresh food. Is exiting the United States the right decision for Tesco? How should the process of exit be managed? Are there any takeaways from the U.S. operations that Tesco can apply elsewhere in its global strategy?

This note provides a primer on paid search advertising, which is an important component of digital marketing. The mechanics of paid search is explained using the Google search engine platform. The note covers metrics for evaluating the performance of paid search, the strategic objective of paid search, the relationship between customer lifetime value and search ads, how to overcome sparse data problems using keyword clouds, and the nature of Google AdWords's enhanced campaigns.

One vote in June, 2012, decided the fate of President Barack Obama's crowning first-term achievement: universal health insurance. Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court cast the deciding vote to uphold the keystone of the reform: the mandate to purchase insurance. That mandate had a convoluted history. Though born in a conservative think-tank and originally adopted by Republican leaders as a necessary component of reform, it was rejected by Republicans when taken on board by the President and Democrats. Roberts' decision rested on an interpretation of the mandate as a tax. Instructors may also obtain a Teaching Note, written by this case's author, that provides suggestions for using this case effectively in the classroom.

The unelected Federal Reserve Chairman exerts exceptional influence over the U.S., in fact global, economy. As Janet Yellen prepared to take over the position, she would look back on Chairman Bernanke's tenure during the Great Recession. During that time, Bernanke was attacked by critics from both the left and the right for guiding monetary policy into dangerous territory. Their criticisms echoed arguments Bernanke himself had made with regard to past downturns in Japan and Europe. Were the critics right, or was the Bernanke Fed charting a wise middle course? Instructors may also obtain a Teaching Note, written by this case's author, that provides suggestions for using this case effectively in the classroom.