Martha Rinaldi has been an assistant product manager at leading beverage company Potomac Waters since graduating from business school. Rinaldi is frustrated by her relationships with her boss and a close co-worker. Even though she works hard to please her manager, she has received a negative performance evaluation for her first four months. Should Rinaldi leave Potomac for a standing job offer at a company she previously interned with or try to improve her current situation?

In May 2011, Alan Joyce, chief executive officer of Qantas Group, needed to think about the future strategy of the airline group. Over the past few years, it had launched a number of strategic initiatives to defend its current position and penetrate new markets and segments. Qantas had discontinued its first-class service on many flights, opting to bolster its business-class service instead. Its forays into the budget travel segment through Jetstar proved to be successful and contributed to the overall financial performance of the group. Qantas had also placed a bet on emerging economies such as China, despite experiencing adverse performance in its international routes. However, the financial performance of the company was far from healthy. Qantas was fighting hard to retain its Australian position in the face of attempts by Virgin Blue and Tiger Airways to compete aggressively and gain market share. Analysts wondered whether Qantas was trying to do too much and, in the process, spreading itself too thinly. Would the Qantas Group be better off simply prioritizing across its various alternatives, or did it have sufficient resources (financial as well as managerial) to pursue all the initiatives? And if a narrow focus was better, then which strategic alternatives should Qantas pursue aggressively?

The president of Zeus Strategic Investments Inc. was reviewing an acquisition opportunity related to a spin-off of a division of Maxim Automotive. This opportunity was exactly the type of thing that excited the president — a non-strategic business unit within a large industrial organization that faced significant challenges in forming into a standalone business. The president felt that it provided an excellent opportunity to create significant value in a very short period of time with a very small amount of equity. <br><br>He was particularly concerned about getting a clear grasp on the historical and projected financial statements provided by Maxim. Historical financial information would need to be extracted from the Maxim corporate records and adjusted to reflect the anticipated transaction, including removing some corporate allocations and reflecting the potential additional costs of operating the business on a standalone basis. The president was also concerned about the accounting for liabilities and potential liabilities in the division statements, as most often these liabilities were carried at the corporate level, rather than at the division level.

This case invites students to grapple with the dilemmas faced by Laura Lopez, the new Executive Director of a Puerto Rican educational advocacy NGO called Sapientis. Six months ago, Sapientis gained national visibility when its national coalition for educational reform and excellence (CECE) achieved a breakthrough by gaining government support for major educational reform. But, in the ensuing months, a variety of events have raised questions about how serious that commitment will be in practice.

This note is an introduction to Solver in Excel and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Solver is a Microsoft Excel tool that determines variables and objective function values of linear, integer, binary, and non-linear optimization models. These models are used in insurance, finance, operations, logistics, engineering, and medicine. This note uses screenshots to help demonstrate various examples of the use of Solver, including assembling a portfolio of ideal stocks and assigning the location of fire stations in cities.

Netflix, Inc. was a fast-growing U.S. DVD-rental and video-streaming service that had just entered the Canadian market. This case covers the period immediately following its entry into Canada with a low-price monthly subscription service through which viewers could get video content streamed to their TVs or multimedia devices. Netflix’s entry threatened to change the way video content was viewed in Canada and, as such, it had the potential to heavily impact a number of incumbents in Canada, such as Blockbuster. Netflix’s streaming-only model in Canada created a new service for customers that was not necessarily as strong as the offering in the United States; for instance, the range of titles was relatively limited. The Netflix entry also provided potential benefits for some players, such as Rogers, who could profit from increased Internet usage. This meant that the reaction from players was not immediately obvious.

Salesforce.com recently implemented an innovative social enterprise business model whereby the Salesforce.com Foundation funds its operations and grant budget by selling discounted salesforce.com software licenses to nonprofits and education clients. The case recounts the development and initial stages of this project and the tradeoffs inherent in mixing social and business goals. Furthermore, as background the case also provides detail on Salesforce's 1-1-1 business model, whereby the company contributes one percent of product, one percent of equity, and one percent of employee hours back to the communities it serves.

The owner and CEO of Adaptive Engineering was facing an important decision: should he focus on rebuilding its core professional services business which had generated significant revenue and cash flow over the past several years, or should he focus on developing and marketing licensed software which had been under development for several years but had yet to become profitable.

In 2011, Haier, China's leading appliance manufacturer, had over $20 billion in worldwide sales and had just been named the leading refrigerator manufacturer worldwide. This case describes Haier's rise over three decades, from a defunct refrigerator factory in China's Shandong province to an international player with $5.5 billion in overseas sales. Haier had followed a nontraditional expansion strategy of entering the developed markets of Europe and the United States as a niche player before venturing into Middle Eastern and neighboring Asian markets. Looking ahead to the next decade, Haier CEO Zhang Ruimin saw opportunities for Haier to grow through product diversification and additional market penetration in both developed and emerging markets. He and his colleagues would depend on their experience of acquiring numerous companies, entering and retaining new markets, restructuring the organization, and managing hundreds of subsidiaries around the world. They would need to determine which of the lessons learned from Haier's international operations should be implemented in China and which skills learned at home could best be applied abroad.

Comprehensive health care insurance reform was a perennial goal of the Democratic Party. Although reform efforts had persistently ended in failure, proponents of reform saw a new window of opportunity after the 2008 Presidential election. Barack Obama had campaigned on the promise of reform and was elected by the largest margin of victory for any Democrat in decades. In Congress, Democrats held large majorities in the House (257 of 435 seats) and the Senate (58 of 100 seats, plus two independents who caucused with Democrats). Soon after his inauguration, President Obama held a forum assembling representatives from Congress, the health care industry, and unions to launch his pursuit of health care reform. This case reviews the public, legislative, and political battle that ensued. It follows the interest groups with a stake in health care policy, and the strategies that they, as well as politicians, used to promote their objectives within the context of U.S. policy making institutions.

This case covers the electric vehicle industry, starting with the history of the electric car and then moving on to the forces driving the twenty-first century automotive industry toward electrification. These include: Government incentives for buying electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, the economic and political problems related to oil dependency, the effect of oil prices on consumers' car buying habits, carbon dioxide emission and pollution awareness, and the effect of current and upcoming worldwide emissions regulations. The case then discusses the challenges to mass electric vehicle adoption including: the relatively higher price of certain electric vehicles; consumers' fear of "range anxiety" - the term for batteries running out of power in the middle of the road; and the narrow demographics of traditional hybrid buyers - which could be mirrored in the demographics of electric car buyers. Other challenges include: competition with internal combustion engines that were becoming more fuel efficient, time limits for government incentive programs, the new competitive market of small, more fuel efficient cars being produced and sold in China and India for less than $3,000, and the question of carbon footprint - the concept that coal is the major source of electricity production in the United States and China, and therefore electric vehicles may simply create a shift in carbon footprint from oil to coal. The case provides specific data about electric car and plug-hybrid brands, price, all-electric driving range and release dates. It also details government programs to promote electric vehicles, as well as current and future mandated miles per gallon for various countries. In addition, it provides data about worldwide and U.S. car sales, how far Americans drive and for what purpose, and psychographics of hybrid vehicle owners.

A publicly traded mining company has an opportunity to develop a mine containing gold, cobalt, and bismuth in Canada’s Northwest Territories and must determine the financial viability of doing so. In order to gauge the attractiveness of the project, the company needs to evaluate the net present value of the opportunity, given volatile and uncertain variables, such as commodity prices and foreign exchange rates. The company must also consider a number of qualitative considerations that may affect the project, such as relations with First Nations communities.

This case depicts a financial analyst trying to make sense of Starbucks’ finances and drawing from recent projects of the IASB and FASB to identify lease accounting as a key issue for the firm. The case underscores the importance of having a full picture of a company’s obligations in order to understand its overall performance.<br><br> In reviewing the case, students examine Starbucks’ extensive use of leases and use spreadsheet tools to understand the full extent of the corporation’s indebtedness. Although heavy users of leases such as Starbucks have argued that lease accounting is complex, an estimation of lease indebtedness can be made using relatively simple tools that are easy for students to understand. The case allows issues of high-level accounting standards to be elucidated, using a well-known company with which students identify. The case illustrates the real-world consequences of accounting policy choices.

De Kuyper Royal Distillers was a 300-year-old family firm in the Netherlands and produced the largest variety of liqueurs in the world. The firm had always been owned and controlled by the De Kuyper family. In 2009, Bob de Kuyper, the 10th generation to own and run the firm, retired from his position as managing director and an outsider was brought in as the interim managing director. In January 2010, Marc de Kuyper, the eldest son of Bob de Kuyper, worked for an outside firm in a marketing position. He had a strong desire to join the family firm and was trying to decide how to convince his father, and the family firm's supervisory board, that he had the capabilities to eventually take a leadership role in the family business. Was there a future for Marc at the family firm? What could he do, if anything, in the succession process?

New York Fries’ president and executive vice president were preparing for the next biannual meeting of domestic and international franchisees. They planned to provide an update on all aspect of corporate strategy and planning for the year ahead, but they only had a few days to formulate a new international growth strategy. The president and executive vice president were hesitant to expand into new territories partly due to poor experiences in Australia and South Korea, yet international franchisees had encouraged them to investigate promising areas of expansion into China and India. Complicating matters was the future development of the company’s chain of premium hamburger restaurants. While New York Fries was a well-received brand in Canada, it had not yet decided if and how to internationalize the brand. How could the president and executive vice president pursue new opportunities while maintaining their premium brands of French fries and hamburgers?

New York Fries' president and executive vice president were preparing for the next biannual meeting of domestic and international franchisees. They planned to provide an update on all aspect of corporate strategy and planning for the year ahead, but they only had a few days to formulate a new international growth strategy. The president and executive vice president were hesitant to expand into new territories partly due to poor experiences in Australia and South Korea, yet international franchisees had encouraged them to investigate promising areas of expansion into China and India. Complicating matters was the future development of the company's chain of premium hamburger restaurants. While New York Fries was a well-received brand in Canada, it had not yet decided if and how to internationalize the brand. How could the president and executive vice president pursue new opportunities while maintaining their premium brands of French fries and hamburgers?

The case deals with analyzing the key drivers of foreign direct investment (FDI) of U.S., Japanese, and European multinational financial services and other service providers investing in the Middle East. In this case, the focus is on investing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. A sample of the foreign companies is interviewed to determine the key factors in their decision process, why they selected the form of operation they did, and what their business model is. The case is in three sections: the first shows how laws, requirements, and regulations have changed and become more receptive to foreign investment in recent years-this is done by comparing several business environmental characteristic indices and their change over time. The second section examines the exchange arrangements and framework for financial and capital transactions in the countries. The third section examines the experiences of several multinational companies in the financial services sector that have invested in the region.

"In October 2005, PPG pioneered a new model for online apparel retailing in China. Targeting low-end men's apparel, PPG's new business model met with great initial success due to its responsive supply chain, lighter distribution channel, and the brand established by costly advertising. However, underlying limitations of PPG's business model led to its eventual failure. Followers learned from both PPG's success and failure. The best practices of VANCL provided a good example of the evolution of a business model, which made VANCL the new leader in the online retail industry. To show the evolving characteristics of the apparel retailing business model, this case describes a successive two-stage story, in which each company made improvements based on other forerunners."

A follow up for Ben & Jerry's Homemade (UVA-F-1364), this case is suitable for MBA, EMBA, and GEMBA programs, and could work as a stand-alone undergraduate introduction to corporate finance and M&A or an introductory strategy class on M&A or post-merger integration. Did the Unilever/Ben & Jerry's merger yield both firms' fundamental objectives? What did the market think? What did each get from the deal? What can students tell about where future value will lay? The case allows students to discuss post-merger integration issues and what makes for a successful merger. The case requires little or no calculations.

To retain competitive advantage in uncertain times, a leading investment bank aligns HR practices with its corporate values and mission through a new 360-degree assessment system. Rolled out among officer-level employees, the Performance Management System is put to the test at promotion time. This case supports the exploration of unconscious bias in decision making.