A management consultant has been hired to fix the morale issues at a branch of SkillsForTomorrow (SFT) in Pennsylvania, United States. SFT is a government-sponsored organization tasked with helping at-risk young adults gain vocational training toward preparing them for a successful career in one of several areas, including automotive and machine repair, construction, health care and information technology. The program provides support to students beyond technical training, including the development of interpersonal skills, problem-solving skills and skills in effectively conducting a job search and interview - all towards the goal of graduating individuals that are prepared to live independently and become productive citizens (and taxpayers). Several factors are influencing the morale of the SFT management team, some of which point directly to the sponsor of the consulting project, the executive director at SFT Harrisburg. The consultant must identify the root causes of the management discord and derive a solution that can help solve the various issues. The consultant will need to consider the political and interpersonal aspects of the consulting relationship between herself and the executive director.
The case explores the collateralization of intellectual property in a loan agreement between a highly leveraged apparel company and a large US bank. Leveraging intangibles in the credit market is a new practice that has significantly grown over the past few years. However, estimating their liquidation value is not directly intuitive, since intangibles are highly illiquid assets and have uncertain future cash flows. Can banks reliably secure corporate loans by intellectual property, and how can they alleviate the challenges in estimating a loan-to-value ratio for this collateral?
A management consultant has been hired to fix the morale issues at a branch of SkillsForTomorrow (SFT) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States. SFT is a government-sponsored organization tasked with helping at-risk young adults gain vocational training toward preparing them for a successful work career. Several factors appear to be influencing the morale of the SFT management team. Unfortunately, some of these factors point directly to the sponsor of the consulting project, the executive director at SFT Harrisburg. The consultant must identify the root causes of the management discord and derive a solution that can help solve the various issues. At the same time, the consultant will need to consider the political and interpersonal aspects of the consulting relationship between herself and the executive director in crafting and presenting a solution.
In 2012, an investment banking summer intern in the head office of a leading international financial institution has received some stellar reviews. His manager hints that as long the intern keeps up the good work, his full-time return offer is all but guaranteed. However, the 120-hour work weeks would deprive him of any opportunity to spend time with his family. He must choose between taking advantage of the organization’s Summer Intern Mobility Program, which would allow him to apply to work full time at another office, closer to his family, versus staying put at the head office, where he has already established a good reputation and where a full-time job offer seems imminent.
A retired Swiss banker has decided to bring primary healthcare to Africa by using a cooperative business model that brings together complementary firms. The model has proven successful in the United Arab Emirates, Zambia and Ghana. He now faces the decision of whether to expand into new African countries, and if so, which countries to enter, how to select partners and how to recruit country managers. The case also illustrates the challenges and misconceptions of doing business in Africa.
The managing director of a small- to medium-sized electrical firm faces a major challenge: he realizes that the firm he founded has grown so significantly that information management has become very difficult. For solving issues of data integrity, redundancy, incompleteness and backup, he obtains quotations for implementation of enterprise resource planning from different vendors. Meanwhile, he discusses the issue of implementing the new system with his management team, who respond in different tones, leaving him confused. He also has to ensure that the initiative does not put strain on the firm's finances. He ponders various options such as whether to adopt enterprise resource planning on premise or on cloud and whether to go with the safe but costly option of engaging a well-established firm or to risk dealing with a start-up.
This note discusses and illustrates the concept of party mapping-a useful tool for identifying the key players in a multiparty negotiation or decision situation in order to manage and cope with possible coalitions that might form.
Ben Kaufman founded Quirky in 2009 to enable anyone with a product idea to access an online network of people to help evaluate and improve the idea, and potentially bring it to market. By the end of 2012, Quirky was shipping 74 products, and had many more in development. Its products were sold in 35,000 stores worldwide. Each week, the company took three products into the research and development process, out of more than 1,000 submitted online. It paid 10 percent of third party sales, and 30 percent of direct sales, to its community members based on their participation in developing products-more than $2 million in 2012. Despite these signs of success, the company faced substantial challenges. Margins were low, and had to be dramatically improved before the company would become profitable. The product development model, using both online participants and internal staff, was stressed by the ever-increasing number of products being developed. The supply chain, relying on external manufacturing, had to adapt to a continual stream of new products. And retail partners were not well suited to the Quirky model-retailers focused on a few high-selling products. This case describes the business model used by Quirky, and challenges students to address the unique challenges facing the company.
This case describes Johnny Fernandes' new venture, a digital-based, lifestyle and entertainment magazine for the iPad, called iMag. Johnny had always been interested in becoming a player in the international arts scene and now he seems to have the chance thanks to the tablet platform. He has spent the last five months conceptualizing iMag and creating a team of technical specialists to help him develop iMag. While encountering different challenges, (i.e., no secure revenues, uncertainty about the evolution of rich media advertising, limited financial resources) the rapid expansion of the tablet market and its corresponding applications indicate that Johnny has a true business opportunity in front of him. First of all, students have to put themselves in Johnny's shoes and design a detailed action plan that ensures iMag's future in this up-and-coming industry. Secondly, students have to identify the threats and opportunities for iMag in competing globally at an early stage.
Catalina in the Digital Age considers how a company with a dominant market position should evolve its established product lines given the rise of novel digital technologies. Since its founding in 1983, Catalina had enjoyed a distinct position in the world of consumer promotions. Serving both retailers and consumer packaged goods (CPG) firms, the company's core business was distributing "cents off" coupons to shoppers via proprietary printers at checkout registers. This position allowed them to offer coupons that were "personalized" to the purchases that had just been made in the current transaction. The advent of shopper loyalty cards in the 1990s allowed them to expand that targeting to take shopper's history of purchase into account as well. In many ways, they were a successful "big data" firm well before the term became an industry buzzword.
This case concerns the negotiations of a deal by HgCapital, a UK-based private equity firm, to buy Visma, ASA, a Norwegian software company. Visma has received an offer from Sage Group, a strategic acquirer. HgCapital must determine if it wants to bid and how to outbid a potential strategic acquirer. The case concerns bidding and negotiations strategies as well as deal structuring issues. In particular, the cross border nature of the investment, a UK firm investing in Norway, leads to a number of financing issues related to raising the debt for the LBO. The case provides an opportunity to role play both the PE fund perspective and the potential target.
The Philippines, for long a laggard in Asia, is now growing fast in 2012, with a positive current account balance. While it still exports services, it is increasing its assembly of manufactured products and trying to increase mining. For these activities, however, it needs more foreign direct investment. And for that, it needs domestic tranquility and better infrastructure.
Andrea Torres, director of new product development at a high-end chocolate confectionery company, leads her team through a carefully sequenced program of market research to support the development and launch of a new product, healthy dark chocolate with fruit. This is the first time Montreaux USA, an offshoot of a Swiss confectioner, has created a product specifically for U.S. chocolate consumers. The case explains the steps Torres and her NPD team have completed and describes the decisions that lie ahead, a few months in advance of the anticipated launch. A challenging situation is intensified by a competitor also having tested a dark-chocolate-with-fruit product that was likely to be introduced into the U.S. marketplace in the near future. Students must perform a quantitative analysis as part of their work.
Jackson Automotive Systems produces automotive parts for advanced heating and air conditioning systems, engine cooling systems, fuel injection and transfer systems, and various other engine parts, and it supplies them to the automotive industry primarily in Michigan. Like many OEM suppliers for the automotive industry, Jackson cut back production following the financial crisis in 2008. By 2013, the firm is back to operating at capacity. The company experiences a bottleneck in production of some key electronic components and, as a result, is unable to repay its outstanding debt to the bank. In addition, the firm delayed replacing equipment during the downturn and now must replace aging equipment to avoid future production delays. The president approaches the bank for an extension to repay a loan and for an additional loan to cover the new equipment purchase. Before meeting with the loan committee, the president must prepare a presentation on the firm's financial position.
Krohne Inc. of Germany separately established a joint venture, a wholly owned sales company and a manufacturer in China. Unfortunately, although the sales channels were different, the product lines of the joint venture and the wholly owned manufacturer overlapped. The two companies were therefore competing and unsure about which company rightfully represented the parent enterprise. In addition, the two investment parties were battling for control of the joint venture.