An analyst is assessing Demand Media’s accounting policies in the face of media scrutiny around its capitalization of media costs as well as some of its non-GAAP disclosures. She has to decide whether it is appropriate to capitalize these costs. In order to do so, she must evaluate whether the costs meet the definition of an asset. After analyzing the company, its business model and its strategy, she can compare its content costs to various other companies that create content (intellectual property); competing accounting policies are also examined. The analyst can then determine the appropriate accounting treatment and whether any adjustments are warranted. With respect to non-GAAP earnings, she can decide whether the metrics proposed by the company are appropriate in order to measure performance.
Coca-Cola has announced the opening of its first bottling plant in Burma in almost 60 years. Since 1962, Burma has been a closed and isolated country and under military rule. As a result of the military’s steady relinquishing of control over the government, Burma has begun opening its doors to international trade and investment. However, political instability is still very high and economic development is far from secure. Furthermore, although a framework agreement between the U.S. and Burmese governments has been signed, a bilateral investment treaty to provide protection for Coca-Cola’s direct investment is not yet in place. How should Coca-Cola pursue its strategy in Burma?
SEMRI is the first not-for-profit public private partnership (PPP) arrangement in the healthcare sector in India. From its modest beginnings of providing emergency response services with 15 ambulances in a single city, EMRI grew its operations across 8 states to 1,550 ambulances serving 366 million people, free of cost. But the company now faces a major crisis as its chairman has resigned and been arrested for fraud. The CEO takes the reins of the organisation and adeptly manages the crisis. EMRI is then taken over by GVK Power and Infrastructure Limited. With a new sponsor, the CEO must decide whether to continue expanding EMRI's operations across India or offer other services in states where it already has a presence. Can the organisation obtain further funding and modify the PPP model whilst preserving the values that EMRI was built upon?
In 2005, CapitaLand announced the sale of the hotel business under its subsidiary Raffles Holdings Limited for US$1.45 billion. This included the sale of landmark Raffles Hotel as well as 40 other hotels, including the Swissôtel international hotel chain. The case focuses on the financial and the strategic aspects of the sale from the perspective of CapitaLand and includes the following: • What should be an appropriate valuation for Raffles Holdings? • How should the value of intangible assets such as brand name be incorporated? • Was there strategic justification for CapitaLand to pursue a divestiture that would translate into loss of the iconic Raffles Hotel - a national monument of Singapore?
This case examines the development of AXA, from a small mutual insurance company to one of the top 3 companies in the world. The case focuses more particularly on the period 2000-2012 and the CEO's efforts to change the culture of the organization to make it more customer- and employee-focused.
Ockham Technologies' three founders are about to craft their founding agreement and split the equity among themselves. Uncertainty lingers over each member's future contributions, though - how is the team to devise a durable and effective split? Jim Triandiflou and Ken Burows worked resolutely to plan for the launch of their sales management software company. Soon they recruited a third member, Mike Meisenheimer, to lead product development. Each founder had contributed significantly to bringing the Ockham concept to life. The trio had provided the seed capital of $150,000, contracted a development team to build their product, garnered serious interest from a potential investor, and readily agreed on their roles within the company (Jim was CEO, Ken was COO, and Mike was Head of Product Management). But as Ockham entered its initial phase of product development, pressure began mounting for the team to discuss and finalize a founding agreement. What should they include in the agreement, and how should they structure their equity split?
An analyst is assessing Demand Media's accounting policies in the face of media scrutiny around its capitalization of media costs as well as some of its non-GAAP disclosures. She has to decide whether it is appropriate to capitalize these costs. In order to do so, she must evaluate whether the costs meet the definition of an asset. After analyzing the company, its business model and its strategy, she can compare its content costs to various other companies that create "content" (intellectual property); competing accounting policies are also examined. The analyst can then determine the appropriate accounting treatment and whether any adjustments are warranted. With respect to non-GAAP earnings, she can decide whether the metrics proposed by the company are appropriate in order to measure performance.
Coca-Cola has announced the opening of its first bottling plant in Burma in almost 60 years. Since 1962, Burma has been a closed and isolated country and under military rule. As a result of the military's steady relinquishing of control over the government, Burma has begun opening its doors to international trade and investment. However, political instability is still very high and economic development is far from secure. Furthermore, although a framework agreement between the U.S. and Burmese governments has been signed, a bilateral investment treaty to provide protection for Coca-Cola's direct investment is not yet in place. How should Coca-Cola pursue its strategy in Burma?
"During the five years Southpointe Corporation had used its custom Leadership Development Program (LDP), a significant number of existing and high-potential managers from all the company's functional areas and geographic regions had been through the LDP. Now in response to some ongoing leadership development concerns, Southpointe's CEO, wants to develop a "key experiences" program for a handful of managers viewed as viable executive team candidates. "
By the late 2000s, the law firm Duane Morris had transformed itself from a growing U.S. law firm to a significant global player. The firm's uniquely collaborative organizational culture, which featured a transparent, data-driven compensation system, practice-group integration across multiple offices, and rewards for attorneys who shared responsibility, had contributed to the firm's success as it had expanded into new U.S. and international offices. Yet, amid a shaky world economy and an increasingly cutthroat legal profession, Duane Morris attorneys began to wonder-could collaboration survive as a firm value? Would the firm's culture help it continue to grow in the years ahead and bring in more sophisticated legal work, or would its lawyers inevitably start to keep work to themselves as the firm navigated an ever-more competitive environment?
A portfolio manager for Penhall Investment Funds was reviewing the financial data his team had prepared on Lenovo Group Limited (Lenovo), one of the major holdings in Penhall's Global fund. Lenovo wanted to become more than just the largest manufacturer of PCs by volume. It aimed to become a leader in other devices, such as smartphones and tablets, and it was focusing on innovation as a key capability. The portfolio manager was impressed by Lenovo's results so far; the stock was up 7.5 per cent in a year. However, given the decline in the traditional PC segment, the competitive nature of the industry and global economic conditions, he wondered if Lenovo should continue to be a key holding in the global fund.
Inspired by software development boot camps in New York and San Francisco, Bitmaker Labs has just launched a similar offering but without considering the operational constraints unique to doing business in Canada. The result is governmental scrutiny just as the business is taking off with 42 students enrolled, each having paid $7,000 for a nine-week web development boot camp. Government investigators raid Bitmaker Labs, confiscating financial documents and threatening penalties and possible jail time for running an unregistered career college.
A portfolio manager for Penhall Investment Funds was reviewing the financial data his team had prepared on Lenovo Group Limited (Lenovo), one of the major holdings in Penhall’s Global fund. Lenovo wanted to become more than just the largest manufacturer of PCs by volume. It aimed to become a leader in other devices, such as smartphones and tablets, and it was focusing on innovation as a key capability. The portfolio manager was impressed by Lenovo’s results so far; the stock was up 7.5 per cent in a year. However, given the decline in the traditional PC segment, the competitive nature of the industry and global economic conditions, he wondered if Lenovo should continue to be a key holding in the global fund.
Inspired by software development boot camps in New York and San Francisco, Bitmaker Labs has just launched a similar offering but without considering the operational constraints unique to doing business in Canada. The result is governmental scrutiny just as the business is taking off with 42 students enrolled, each having paid $7,000 for a nine-week web development boot camp. Government investigators raid Bitmaker Labs, confiscating financial documents and threatening penalties and possible jail time for running an unregistered career college.
WestJet Airlines grew from a startup regional carrier in 1996 serving five Western Canadian cities to an international airline with more than 80 destinations and 9,000 employees by 2011. In a strategic move to implement code sharing and several other strategic IT applications to enhance WestJet's competitiveness, the CEO and his executive team hired an experienced and highly successful CIO to bring WestJet up to par with other airlines. The new CIO was asked by WestJet to assess its IT competence as part of a corporate drive to gain competitive advantage by delivering innovative guest services. The executive saw IT as the key to WestJet achieving its ambitions and corporate growth so formulated an ambitious plan to restructure the IT organization. But certain senior IT staff members, some of whom had been with the company since the beginning and had played a major role in developing the existing systems, believed the plan was ill advised and unworkable. The executive had to convince both senior management and the IT group that implementing the new IT governance model was essential if WestJet hoped to achieve its strategic goals.
WestJet Airlines grew from a startup regional carrier in 1996 serving five Western Canadian cities to an international airline with more than 80 destinations and 9,000 employees by 2011. In a strategic move to implement code sharing and several other strategic IT applications to enhance WestJet's competitiveness, the CEO and his executive team hired an experienced and highly successful CIO to bring WestJet up to par with other airlines. The new CIO was asked by WestJet to assess its IT competence as part of a corporate drive to gain competitive advantage by delivering innovative guest services. The executive saw IT as the key to WestJet achieving its ambitions and corporate growth so formulated an ambitious plan to restructure the IT organization. But certain senior IT staff members, some of whom had been with the company since the beginning and had played a major role in developing the existing systems, believed the plan was ill advised and unworkable. The executive had to convince both senior management and the IT group that implementing the new IT governance model was essential if WestJet hoped to achieve its strategic goals.