In October 2011, noted hedge fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital delivered a presentation at an investors' conference analyzing the business and accounting quality weaknesses of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Until then Green Mountain had exhibited rapid business and stock price growth. He questioned Green Mountain, the maker of Keurig single-serve coffee machines and their famous K-Cups about their growth prospects, their handling of acquisitions, their plan for the expiration of an important patent, accounting practices and other issues. Following Einhorn's presentation Green Mountain's stock experienced a significant decline despite claims by many analysts that Einhorn had not presented any new information. The case presents Einhorn's argument and the counter claims by the analysts. Students are charged with assessing the merits of Einhorn's arguments and the counter claims. The case exposes students to a detailed strategic, financial and accounting analysis of a business and provides an example of how a thorough business and accounting analysis using primarily public information can change market's perception of valuation of a company.

Bio-Vert is a leading Canadian brand of eco-cleaning products manufactured by Quebec-based Savons Prolav. Run by a brother and sister team, Savons Prolav bases its products on their vision, which includes eco-friendliness, affordability and effectiveness. Demand for Bio-Vert's phosphate-free detergents has increased dramatically since the 2007 blue-green algae bloom outbreaks in Quebec's waterways and subsequent legislation restricting phosphate use in cleaning products. However, now that "green" cleaning products have become more mainstream, Savons Prolav faces the issue of how to adapt and grow in an increasingly crowded marketplace. This discussion considers how Savons Prolav can remain competitive in this difficult industry segment while maintaining its environmental focus. This case highlights the pressures that an SME with strong environmental values faces in a competitive market. It includes a portrait of the cleaning products industry, consumer patterns with regards to eco-friendly products, and a background of the provincial socio-environmental event that triggered increased demand for green cleaning products in Quebec. Savons Prolav's history, business model and core values are discussed along with potential growth options. Details on related industry, societal and marketing perspectives are provided to guide the reader through the advantages and disadvantages inherent to each opportunity.

The Roaring Dragon Hotel (RDH), a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE), was under pressure to become a profit generating 5-star hotel due to the continued development of the Chinese market economy. As for many SOEs, the RDH was overstaffed, filled with archaic work practices, internal cliques, unsystematic production systems and a dysfunctional motivation system unrelated to performance. During modernization, a number of human resource management problems became increasingly evident; solving these problems had become a priority. In 2000, the RDH's provincial government and stakeholders made their first attempt at modernizing the hotel by hiring a globally renowned company to undertake the upgrade. The disastrous outcome caused the provincial government and stakeholders to lose heart, momentum and motivation until six years later. A new joint venture owner and the RDH board recovered enough confidence to attempt modernization for a second time. They contracted Premium Hotel Services (PHS) to undertake the second attempt at improving operations. The PHS found the quality of older employees, increasing turnover of new staff and policies emerging from the continuing evolution of the Chinese economy were now presenting problems never confronted before at the RDH. How could the stakeholders solve these problems and have the RDH emerge as an internationally recognized five star, commercially viable hotel?

The 2012 U.S. presidential election between President Obama and Governor Romney gave both sides reasons for optimism. As such, it was popularly thought to be anyone's race to win. The election generated a wide range of polling at the state and national level. Despite the abundance of data, it still was not clear to many people whether the race was "too close to call" or whether one candidate had a decisive lead. On the evening of the election, two friends discuss why the result may or may not be a close one and decide to wager on the outcome.

The Trunk Club case begins with a description of the company's business model and the path that led the main protagonist, Brian Spaly, to the CEO post. Four vignettes compose the main body of the case. The first vignette outlines a series of challenges faced by Spaly during his first ninety days running the business, most notably a situation in which Spaly's top salesperson threatens to leave with the company's top five sales reps to start a competing venture if she is not promoted to the vacant COO role. The second vignette presents a delicate situation where the venture capital firm leading Trunk Club's Series A round of financing lobbies for the inclusion of another investor. Spaly receives a strong negative review of the second investor and must decide how to approach the lead investor. The third vignette follows Spaly as he tries to court a highly coveted veteran COO with limited means at his disposal. The fourth vignette details an employee stock grant proposal pitched by Spaly, as well as Spaly's subsequent negotiations with the company's board of directors.

Partners in Nunavut Iron Ore Acquisition Inc. (Nunavut), an entity that had been set up to bid for control of Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation (Baffinland), are forced to respond to a rival bid. Baffinland owned the Mary River project, one of the most significant iron ore reserves in Canada, and had been trying to develop the project since 2004, but the number of prospective mining and financing partners declined following the onset of the global financial crisis in 2007. Baffinland’s share price tumbled as a result of its inability to move the project forward, falling from over $4.68 in October 2007 to $0.17 cents in 2008. In September 2010, sensing an opportunity to pick up an asset at a distressed price, Nunavut, backed by a private equity firm in the United States, had sparked a bidding war for Baffinland against ArcelorMittal, a Belgium-based steel company.

The Roaring Dragon Hotel (RDH), a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE), was under pressure to become a profit generating 5-star hotel due to the continued development of the Chinese market economy. As for many SOEs, the RDH was overstaffed, filled with archaic work practices, internal cliques, unsystematic production systems and a dysfunctional motivation system unrelated to performance. During modernization, a number of human resource management problems became increasingly evident; solving these problems had become a priority. In 2000, the RDH’s provincial government and stakeholders made their first attempt at modernizing the hotel by hiring a globally renowned company to undertake the upgrade. The disastrous outcome caused the provincial government and stakeholders to lose heart, momentum and motivation until six years later. A new joint venture owner and the RDH board recovered enough confidence to attempt modernization for a second time. They contracted Premium Hotel Services (PHS) to undertake the second attempt at improving operations. The PHS found the quality of older employees, increasing turnover of new staff and policies emerging from the continuing evolution of the Chinese economy were now presenting problems never confronted before at the RDH. How could the stakeholders solve these problems and have the RDH emerge as an internationally recognized five star, commercially viable hotel?

Peninsula Investment Group is deciding wether or not to recapitalize an equity investment in a Residencial Los Andes, a residential project in Santiago, Chile, or take a substantial loss. The project did not met its sales goals and the bank pressured the investors to liquidate the construction loan. Early on, Peninsula had identified Chile a target market, however, in investing in Residencial Los Andes, it had made several exceptions to it's investment strategy. The case addresses what went wrong in the evolution of the project, what measures need to be taken if Peninsula did increase it's capital committment.

From modest beginnings as a cashew trader in Nigeria, Olam, founded by Indian nationals in 1989, has grown into a leading global agricultural trading company, with annual revenues of $14 billion. The company recently has begun investing in farms and in the production of packaged goods, shifting from its traditional focus on the midstream of the value chain. The case raises questions involving competitive positioning, corporate strategy, sustainable development, and the management of business and political risk.

The case focuses on issues involved in managing the direct multilevel marketing sales consultants who sell R+F skin care products. The company is trying to better manage the inconsistent and highly variable recruitment behavior of the sales force i.e., the degree to which existing consultants recruit new consultants. The company utilizes a range of periodic incentives for recruitment, but hopes to build a system of salesforce compensation and management that relies more on intrinsic rewards and less on these periodic incentive programs. The case forces students to address principles of compensation system design, as well as more fundamental issues around what they believe motivates this "volunteer" (i.e., non-employee) sales force.

Telefonica, one of the largest telecommunication companies in the world and headquartered in Spain, has been issuing a corporate sustainability report since 2002. In its 2011 Sustainability report, the company included a "materiality matrix," and was one of only five of the 97 companies in Spain that produced a sustainability report that year. The case describes the purpose of the materiality matrix, how it was developed, and the opportunities the company sees for improving it.

A manufacturer of building products and specialty chemicals, W. R. Grace & Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001 in response to a flood of lawsuits alleging that its products contained asbestos, and had caused hundreds of thousands of people to contract asbestos-related diseases such as mesothelioma and lung cancer. Nine years later, Grace is poised to emerge from bankruptcy with a plan of reorganization that provides for the establishment of two special purpose trusts through which all current and future asbestos claims will be channeled, allowing the company to survive as an ongoing business. However, the company and asbestos claimholders' committees materially disagree over the size of the company's liability for asbestos, and have hired experts to value the liability. Grace's expert argues the liability is worth between $83 million and $173 million, while the plaintiff's expert argues the liability could be as high as $6.2 billion.

The young CEO of a venture-backed startup needs to figure out his go to market strategy and the right profile for his first key sales hires. Should he develop partnerships with channels that would provide leverage or build out a direct sales force? And should the sales team be led by an experienced senior sales executive or a scrappy, mid-level sales manager?

Building Successful Information Systems: Five Best Practices to Ensure Organizational Effectiveness and Profitability is a 10-chapter book published by the Business Expert Press in 2012 and written by Michael J. Savoie, the Director of the Center for Information Technology and Management in the Naveen Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas, Dallas. To optimize the use of computer systems for management purposes, the author advises managers to first understand their own business processes and information flows - then the company can apply the author's model, the "five rights of data," to build an effective system: the right data, in the right place, at the right time, reaching the right person, in the right format. By creating a strong system aligned with a company's specific information flow, managers can use information systems to support competitive strategy. The author illustrates this process through real-world examples and provides practical tools for corporate leaders. In Chapter 1, Where Do We Start? (10 pages), the author describes the computer as one component of an information system that should also include tools, methodologies, processes, and people. He argues that many companies run into problems when they rely on their computers as the center of the system and forget the importance of employee interaction. For example, a computer cannot determine if the data it is given is correct and up-to-date. Many companies also believe that automating a system will automatically solve their problems. The author states that managers must start with an understanding of the problem and evaluate the possible solutions before using computer-based resources to enhance the chosen solution. The author presents an illustrative example of how a faulty inventory control system caused problems for a company.

Building Successful Information Systems: Five Best Practices to Ensure Organizational Effectiveness and Profitability is a 10-chapter book published by the Business Expert Press in 2012 and written by Michael J. Savoie, the Director of the Center for Information Technology and Management in the Naveen Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas, Dallas. To optimize the use of computer systems for management purposes, the author advises managers to first understand their own business processes and information flows - then the company can apply the author's model, the "five rights of data," to build an effective system: the right data, in the right place, at the right time, reaching the right person, in the right format. By creating a strong system aligned with a company's specific information flow, managers can use information systems to support competitive strategy. The author illustrates this process through real-world examples and provides practical tools for corporate leaders. In Chapter 2, The Information Ladder (8 pages), the author focuses on decision-making and human interaction. He outlines four levels of information to demonstrate where employees fit into the system. While computers work at the first two levels: data (simple facts) and information (data organized with a shared meaning), the two higher levels on the ladder, knowledge and wisdom, require employee interaction. Knowledge, the author says, involves acting on information and wisdom involves experience based on that action.

Building Successful Information Systems: Five Best Practices to Ensure Organizational Effectiveness and Profitability is a 10-chapter book published by the Business Expert Press in 2012 and written by Michael J. Savoie, the Director of the Center for Information Technology and Management in the Naveen Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas, Dallas. To optimize the use of computer systems for management purposes, the author advises managers to first understand their own business processes and information flows - then the company can apply the author's model, the "five rights of data," to build an effective system: the right data, in the right place, at the right time, reaching the right person, in the right format. By creating a strong system aligned with a company's specific information flow, managers can use information systems to support competitive strategy. The author illustrates this process through real-world examples and provides practical tools for corporate leaders. Chapter 3, What Constitutes the Right Data? (10 pages), takes a closer look at the first step in the model of "data rights," getting the right data. Instead of trying to capture all imaginable data ("big data"), businesses need to be smart about identifying what data will actually help them achieve their strategic goals. Managers can begin to determine how to access the right data by creating a map to document how information flows in an organization, which will show any breakdowns that currently require human "workarounds." He provides a real-world example of a company whose information map exposed an inefficient system.

Building Successful Information Systems: Five Best Practices to Ensure Organizational Effectiveness and Profitability is a 10-chapter book published by the Business Expert Press in 2012 and written by Michael J. Savoie, the Director of the Center for Information Technology and Management in the Naveen Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas, Dallas. To optimize the use of computer systems for management purposes, the author advises managers to first understand their own business processes and information flows - then the company can apply the author's model, the "five rights of data," to build an effective system: the right data, in the right place, at the right time, reaching the right person, in the right format. By creating a strong system aligned with a company's specific information flow, managers can use information systems to support competitive strategy. The author illustrates this process through real-world examples and provides practical tools for corporate leaders. Chapter 4, How Do We Get Information to the Right Place? (4 pages), presents the second step of the model and outlines problems inherent in providing "24/7" data access. The author highlights significant security concerns, and suggests that a company evaluate its business to determine how essential constant data access is to their operation. A company should consider the sensitivity of the data and the need for verification before disseminating it, as well as setting an appropriate timeframe for employees to use the information. For example, will up-to-the minute information benefit a sales force? Is there an "off-hours" period of time when access is not utilized? Savoie proposes a four-tiered ranking system to help managers decide how to disseminate their information.

Building Successful Information Systems: Five Best Practices to Ensure Organizational Effectiveness and Profitability is a 10-chapter book published by the Business Expert Press in 2012 and written by Michael J. Savoie, the Director of the Center for Information Technology and Management in the Naveen Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas, Dallas. To optimize the use of computer systems for management purposes, the author advises managers to first understand their own business processes and information flows - then the company can apply the author's model, the "five rights of data," to build an effective system: the right data, in the right place, at the right time, reaching the right person, in the right format. By creating a strong system aligned with a company's specific information flow, managers can use information systems to support competitive strategy. The author illustrates this process through real-world examples and provides practical tools for corporate leaders. In Chapter 5, When Is the Right Time? (8 pages), the author explores the third step in his model, the timing of data delivery. While constant and immediate information access is common in today's business environment, it is also expensive, more vulnerable to security breaches, and risks information overload for employees. The author posits that a good information system should provide information as quickly as needed while allowing for system maintenance and data validation. Therefore, some companies may rightly decide not to provide "24/7" access. As the timeliness of data increases, so do the costs associated with data delivery, namely the information infrastructure required to enable faster data transfer and processing and the verification process to ensure accuracy.

Building Successful Information Systems: Five Best Practices to Ensure Organizational Effectiveness and Profitability is a 10-chapter book published by the Business Expert Press in 2012 and written by Michael J. Savoie, the Director of the Center for Information Technology and Management in the Naveen Jindal School of Management at the University of Texas, Dallas. To optimize the use of computer systems for management purposes, the author advises managers to first understand their own business processes and information flows - then the company can apply the author's model, the "five rights of data," to build an effective system: the right data, in the right place, at the right time, reaching the right person, in the right format. By creating a strong system aligned with a company's specific information flow, managers can use information systems to support competitive strategy. The author illustrates this process through real-world examples and provides practical tools for corporate leaders. Chapter 6, How Do We Identify the Right Person? (10 pages), addresses the issue of employee access to data, which is the fourth step in the model. The author discusses the inefficiencies and dangers a company faces when employees have access to data that is either irrelevant or not warranted by their positions. He presents a real-world example of how a CEO's inappropriate remark was leaked via social media when access to his account was inadvertently shared. Savoie recommends that a company avoid these risks by identifying the difference between what it thinks its information system is doing and what the system is actually doing. He demonstrates how to perform this analysis by comparing and analyzing the "rules" (what positions should have access to what information) and the "reality" (which employees actually have access to what information).