Whaling was a prominent global industry in the nineteenth century and the United States was dominant. By 1850 there were about 900 whaling ships in the world and 700 of these were American. Rates of return on capital were high compared to benchmark investments, at least in the early years of the nineteenth century. The whaling industry was one of the earliest to grapple with complex issues in relation to the provision of high-risk investment capital, syndication, organizational form, ownership structure, incentives, team building and principal-agent tradeoffs. It represents an important starting-point for exploring the origins of American entrepreneurship and venture financing.
Considers the decision faced by state pension fund manager Rod Calhoun as he decides whether to invest $200 million in Bain Capital's eleventh global buyout fund: Bain Capital Fund XI. For the fund, Bain was offering its limited partners a choice between three different fee structures: first, a "conventional" fee structure of a 1.5% management fee with 20% carried interest and a 7% preferred rate of return; second, a 1% management fee with 30% carried interest and a 7% preferred rate of return; or third, a 0.5% management fee, 30% carried interest, and a 0% preferred rate of return. Should Calhoun invest in Bain? If he should, which fee structure should Calhoun choose?
Slater & Gordon (S&G), a midsized Australian law firm with a high-growth consolidation strategy, had an initial public offering (IPO) scheduled for May 2007. Due to a series of regulatory changes in Australia in recent years, the IPO provided an opportunity for S&G to become the first publicly-traded law firm in the world. The firm and its underwriters had just issued a prospectus and were now in the process of lining up investors for the offering. Gloria Rosen, a portfolio manager at Freemantle Securities, was trying to decide whether to buy the stock for her small-cap growth fund. With only a few days left to place an order for the offering, she had to decide whether to invest and, if so, how much to invest. To make her investment decision, Rosen had to understand the value implications of the firm's business model and its growth strategy, as well as the relevant risks.
Global Unichip Corporation (GUC) is a design services company that acts as a front-end to TSMC, the world's largest semiconductor foundry. In so doing, it masked the complexity of the latest process technologies and reduced the entry barriers for small firms to utilize the latest technology. In acting as an aggregator, it was also able to capture scale benefits. But it saw a change in the market coming as a major systems house customer came to GUC directly. Did this mean that it was enabling competition with TSMC's most important customers? Was it fostering disintermediation, and what did this portend for the future shape of the industry?
The management team at Predilytics, a healthcare analytics firm, must decide whether to accept a Series A venture capital financing deal. The company provided analytic services to healthcare plans, typically Medicare Advantage plans, in efforts to draw conclusions from massive amounts of patient data. The company still had enough funding from a seed round to operate on a low-key basis for a few more months, but the team hoped to move forward aggressively and scale its business. They also needed to make business choices about next steps.
Supply Chain Planning: Practical Frameworks for Superior Performance is a six-chapter book written by Matthew J. Liberatore, the John F. Connelly Chair in Management and Director of the Center for Business Analytics at the Villanova School of Business, Villanova University, and Tan Miller, the Director of the Global Supply Chain Management program in the College of Business Administration at Rider University. The book was published in October of 2012 by Business Expert Press. Intended for supply chain managers and executives as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students, the book presents frameworks and techniques used by the authors to support supply chain operations management and planning. These frameworks describe supply chain strategic planning and project selection techniques, integrated manufacturing-distribution planning and scheduling approaches, performance measurement and balanced scorecard methodologies, customer logistics and inventory development decision support systems, and other well-tested management frameworks. Building upon the integrated framework introduced in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 outlines the supply chain strategic planning process. The authors begin by discussing fundamental components of supply chain strategy, then explain the three phases of planning covered by this framework using a detailed case example. The authors focus at length upon a framework they call the (MOS) approach, a well-known planning scheme that helps users to develop the mission, objectives, and strategies of a firm's supply chain functions.
Supply Chain Planning: Practical Frameworks for Superior Performance is a six-chapter book written by Matthew J. Liberatore, the John F. Connelly Chair in Management and Director of the Center for Business Analytics at the Villanova School of Business, Villanova University, and Tan Miller, the Director of the Global Supply Chain Management program in the College of Business Administration at Rider University. The book was published in October of 2012 by Business Expert Press. Intended for supply chain managers and executives as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students, the book presents frameworks and techniques used by the authors to support supply chain operations management and planning. These frameworks describe supply chain strategic planning and project selection techniques, integrated manufacturing-distribution planning and scheduling approaches, performance measurement and balanced scorecard methodologies, customer logistics and inventory development decision support systems, and other well-tested management frameworks. In Chapter 3, the authors further define and explain hierarchical supply chain function-planning frameworks. The rationale for employing hierarchical frameworks is presented, followed by the introduction of a generic framework for hierarchical supply chain planning. A case study discussing one firm's implementation of a hierarchical production and distribution-planning framework is used to explain how individual supply chain functions, such as manufacturing and distribution, can coordinate their planning activities. The authors also highlight the benefits for overall supply chain operations that result when each supply chain function maintains its own hierarchical planning framework.
Supply Chain Planning: Practical Frameworks for Superior Performance is a six-chapter book written by Matthew J. Liberatore, the John F. Connelly Chair in Management and Director of the Center for Business Analytics at the Villanova School of Business, Villanova University, and Tan Miller, the Director of the Global Supply Chain Management program in the College of Business Administration at Rider University. The book was published in October of 2012 by Business Expert Press. Intended for supply chain managers and executives as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students, the book presents frameworks and techniques used by the authors to support supply chain operations management and planning. These frameworks describe supply chain strategic planning and project selection techniques, integrated manufacturing-distribution planning and scheduling approaches, performance measurement and balanced scorecard methodologies, customer logistics and inventory development decision support systems, and other well-tested management frameworks. Chapter 4 builds upon decision support systems (DSS), a broad category of data and analytical tools, ranging from mathematical optimization algorithms to large-scale information technology data warehouses, which facilitate supply chain operations. The chapter begins by introducing the basics of DSS, then, explains their value to an organization and considers strategies for building comprehensive DSS to serve operational requirements. The authors flesh out their presentation by offering several short case studies that illustrate the importance and power of DSS when properly implemented.
Supply Chain Planning: Practical Frameworks for Superior Performance is a six-chapter book written by Matthew J. Liberatore, the John F. Connelly Chair in Management and Director of the Center for Business Analytics at the Villanova School of Business, Villanova University, and Tan Miller, the Director of the Global Supply Chain Management program in the College of Business Administration at Rider University. The book was published in October of 2012 by Business Expert Press. Intended for supply chain managers and executives as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students, the book presents frameworks and techniques used by the authors to support supply chain operations management and planning. These frameworks describe supply chain strategic planning and project selection techniques, integrated manufacturing-distribution planning and scheduling approaches, performance measurement and balanced scorecard methodologies, customer logistics and inventory development decision support systems, and other well-tested management frameworks. In Chapter 5, the authors examine several frameworks for supply chain performance measurement that enable a firm to synchronize its plans and decisions with key performance indicators to monitor the impact of the actions taken. The authors present a general framework for supply chain performance metrics and then introduce the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model. Next, the authors discuss a process for linking the selection of a firm's broader performance measures directly to its supply chain strategy. The chapter concludes with the examination of an innovative methodology by which executives can create a customized management index to monitor their supply chain's performance.
Supply Chain Planning: Practical Frameworks for Superior Performance is a six-chapter book written by Matthew J. Liberatore, the John F. Connelly Chair in Management and Director of the Center for Business Analytics at the Villanova School of Business, Villanova University, and Tan Miller, the Director of the Global Supply Chain Management program in the College of Business Administration at Rider University. The book was published in October of 2012 by Business Expert Press. Intended for supply chain managers and executives as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students, the book presents frameworks and techniques used by the authors to support supply chain operations management and planning. These frameworks describe supply chain strategic planning and project selection techniques, integrated manufacturing-distribution planning and scheduling approaches, performance measurement and balanced scorecard methodologies, customer logistics and inventory development decision support systems, and other well-tested management frameworks. The sixth and final chapter presents a brief summary of the books key ideas and offers the authors' final thoughts and recommendations on how practitioners can incorporate the frameworks and tools presented in this book into their own supply chain planning and management processes.
This case describes a Chinese software outsourcing vendor's struggle with its market choices, in response to the rippling effect of the global financial crisis. It also introduces Chinese software outsourcing vendors' capability development, market conditions, and idiosyncrasies. ChiITech is representative of Chinese software vendors, in terms of its development history, environment conditions, experience of the financial crisis, and countermeasures. Students can learn about the evolution and current status of the China-Japan software outsourcing industry through this case, and more specifically how vendors make market choices in a highly volatile market.
In a search for an optimized global business service operation, firms set up and relocate shared service centres around the globe. This teaching case examines the migration process of IBM procurement shared service centre from Budapest to Sofia. The teaching case describes the challenges that the teams in Budapest and Sofia faced and the migration methodology applied and later on adapted in order to meet the transition objectives. The teaching case concludes by challenging IBM's migration approach.
In 2003, the FEMSA Corporation -a Mexican company- acquired 100% of the shares of the largest franchise of the Coca-Cola system in Latin America (PANAMCO), and placed itself at the lead of the sales of carbonated beverages and other soft drinks in different countries of South America, including Colombia, which had been struggling with armed groups since the 1970s. This case explores how Coca-Cola FEMSA included different initiatives in its sustainability strategy, aimed at supporting the process of peaceful demobilization that would be carried out by the Alta Consejeria para la Reintegracion (ACR, High-Council for Reintegration) of the Colombian Government. As part of this disarmament process, the ACR offered the demobilized combatants (former combatants that had decided to lay down their arms peacefully and turn themselves in to the proper authorities) different options for social reintegration, such as financing for starting new businesses and connections with companies that could provide jobs, among other things, which were also shared with the business sector to see how it could help support the process. By August 2011, Coca-Cola FEMSA had already been collaborating with the Colombian Government for a little over three years, and had diversified its initiatives to support not only the former combatants, but also the soldiers, victims and general public affected by the conflict. Despite these multiple efforts, however, the actual impact of the company's actions on the solution of the problem of reintegrating more than 50,000 demobilized combatants was still negligible. Therefore, the ACR requested greater commitment from the company in the form of a massive campaign to broadcast the initiatives, in an attempt to motivate and increase the number of participating companies.
DLF was the largest real estate player in India, possessing a strong home market in Delhi and Gurgaon (the National Capital Region, NCR). The Indian real estate market was growing rapidly, and DLF wanted to convert this growth opportunity into a country-wide presence by building significant land reserves. With huge debt on its balance sheet, the company decided to raise finance through equity. The stock markets were on a rise, and the timing was perfect to raise funds from an initial public offering (IPO). The company filed its draft red herring prospectus (DHRP) in May 2006, but soon afterwards the stock market scenario changed, and the company faced complaints from its minority shareholders. The global macroeconomic scenario had become a cause of concern too. DLF was forced to withdraw its DRHP and put its IPO plans on hold. This case is positioned in January 2007, when DLF had resolved its minority shareholders’ issue and had added significant portions to its land reserves. At that juncture, DLF’s management began the process of trying to gauge the circumstances before reintroducing its decision to go public.
It was October 3rd, 2012, and all was not well at Tesco, the UK's largest supermarket chain with revenues of £64.5 billion ($104 billion). CEO Philip Clarke unveiled the first half-year profit drop in almost 20 years and, in the UK, the majors Asda and Sainsbury were closing the market-share gap, while niche players like hard discounter Aldi, with prices as much as 20% below Tesco's, and premium-grocer Waitrose were both growing fast. What did Clarke need to do to restore confidence and get Tesco back on track?