In 2002, Worldclass Lighting launched an initiative to introduce the balanced scorecard into the Asia Pacific and Greater China regions, in order to provide a new management tool for its lighting business covering four perspectives-financial, customer, process, and learning and growth. The balanced scorecard ran successfully for a period of time until implementation issues surfaced that undermined its benefits, such as unquantifiable measures in target setting and the over-measurement of indicators. In 2009, a plan to terminate the balanced scorecard was presented to the Asia Pacific Chief Executive Officer ("AP CEO"). The AP CEO must now make a decision about whether to continue using the balanced scorecard.

Instead of adopting more commonly used standards that appeal to consumers' taste, Sony's traditional focus on its own technologies has trapped the company in the state of "Galapagos-ization" (garapagosu-ka) that segregates the company from global competition. Since the mid 1990s, the company has been struggling with unstable profit and sales in its core electronics business while it aggressively expands into the entertainment content sector. A number of restructuring strategies had been implemented, but the effect was not sustained due to various internal conflicts within the company. In mid 2005, a non-Japanese, Sir Howard Stringer, was appointed as the first Western CEO and chairman of Sony. Stringer pushed forward a series of operational restructurings and placed a greater focus on software and content development than on Sony's traditional business, hardware technology. Even though Stringer's change efforts had brought a blink of hope for Sony's comeback, the situation turned sour in early 2009 when the company announced its first operating loss in 14 years. While different voices about the problems of Sony arose and the leadership of Stringer was questioned, another round of restructuring attempts was pushed forward by Stringer. How could Stringer overcome the deep-rooted internal resistance that his predecessor had failed to overcome? What had gone wrong with the iconic electronics giant? Were all those restructuring and change efforts necessary and useful to Sony's turnaround?

When IBM shifted from a traditional territory-based multinational organization to what it called a globally integrated enterprise, it established its headquarters for "Growth Markets" in Shanghai and "Established Markets" in New York. This positioned its China Development Labs (CDL) in Shanghai as a key platform for serving growth markets including the BRIC countries and other rapidly developing regions. Though quite young, CDL Shanghai had grown to become one of IBM's largest labs. The case examines IBM's early-mover establishment of its corporate research lab and CDL, and through the examination of three product development vignettes looks at the systematic approach taken to the development of lab personnel and capabilities.

An executive must estimate the demand for Kodak Express outlets in various developing countries based on socioeconomic and demographic data about the countries. The case requires students to think about how to transform data on a national scale (GDP per capita, population, income distribution) into a form that is meaningful for a managerial decision — here, the number of outlets that could be supported by a country’s market demographics. In this instance, doing so can be accomplished effectively through modeling on a spreadsheet.

A student is trying to incorporate various analytical tools to assist in selecting National Hockey League (NHL) players for a fantasy hockey pool, using individual player data from the 2006-2009 NHL seasons. The student must come up with a strategy in which 16 players are selected for the 2010 season.

In this supplement to Student Plays Fantasy Hockey (A), the student is faced with an additional constraint regarding the total salary of the players selected. The student must come up with a strategy to select 16 players and not exceed $45 million in total salaries.

The president of Oakville Hydro Energy services needed to make a decision on the installation of an electricity-generating engine at the regional municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant in Burlington, Ontario. This engine installation was in support of the production of green power, and the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) had introduced a feed-in tariff that paid a premium for the generation of this type of green power. One of three specific engines would be purchased and installed to generate electricity from the combustible gases produced during wastewater treatment. The president had to decide which engine generator would produce the most favourable output and the best return for Oakville Hydro and the municipality. The president also needed to decide whether or not to integrate the existing on-site gas storage tank into the controls of the generator system.

This case presents the challenge faced by Nokia India in 2007. Nokia had built a strong brand reputation over a ten-year period and was a market leader in Indian mobile devices. India, incidentally, was also Nokia’s second-largest market, next only to China. Suddenly, what corporate headquarters considered a routine product advisory for a defective battery resulted in panic in customers after the Indian media widely publicized the potential dangers that defective batteries could pose. Over a three-month period, Nokia India had to recall a few million batteries and replace them with new ones.<br><br>The case provides an opportunity for students to develop practical knowledge of the role of operations management in a product recall situation, particularly in an emerging market context. Product recalls are an integral part of supply chain management (SCM). Companies inevitably face a question of when, not if, a recall will be necessary. These recall situations combine the complexity of operations with the time-urgency of a mission-critical task. The case also provides a rich context to learn about the interaction of SCM, information systems and reverse logistics, and to understand the marketing, logistics, and communication challenges faced by a multinational company operating in an emerging market such as India.

A large financial institution has acquired a sizable portfolio of new clients of travel (corporate expense) cards. The bank must decide on the optimal mix of clients to retain in order to achieve the goals of maximizing profitability, entering a new product market successfully, and maintaining reputation. The optimal mix depends on a number of different factors, including annual account spending level, complexity of serving the account, the number of cards in each account, account risk, and account retention level. The selection and number of clients chosen will affect the bank’s future profitability and long-term strategy. The bank is limited by attempting to achieve a three-year payback, and facing costs that can vary significantly and are not in the bank’s control.

This case examines an Israeli firm, B2Bcs, which provides end-to-end services in establishing offshore project development teams and helping firms in their decisions to outsource projects offshore. An interesting aspect of B2Bcs’s work involves cross-cultural partnering, and interfacing Israel-based client organizations with service provider organizations in India and Eastern Europe. However, the recent economic downturn has made B2Bcs’s customers very cautious about the decision to set up offshore development centres. Recently, Israeli firms have been looking for less expensive outsourcing solutions as part of their various cost-reduction initiatives. They expect low-rate quotes from offshore service providers of low-cost destinations such as India and Eastern Europe. However, India has not been hit very hard by the recession, unlike the West, and hence the prices quoted by Indian service providers are still very high.<br><br>Recently, B2Bcs has been facing stiff competition from similar consulting firms. The key to getting business in this area is based on one’s past relationships with key executives in client and vendor firms. Increasingly, other consulting firms have started exploiting these relationships to get new business, thus affecting B2Bcs’s growth plans severely. In such a scenario, two broad questions need to be answered: 1) What is the new value proposition that B2Bcs should now offer to its clients? 2) How can B2Bcs help its clients find the right service provider at a competitive price?

Orascom Telecom Holding S.A.E. (OTH) was established in 1998 in Egypt and grew to become a major player in the global telecommunications market. OTH was among the largest and most diversified network operators in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. Orascom Telecom Algeria (Djezzy) was launched in February 2002 and grew to become the market leader in Algeria in terms of both subscriber numbers and the quality of telecommunications services provided. Djezzy served more than 14.7 million subscribers on its network and had a 62.9 per cent market share.<br><br>Orascom wanted to further expand, and India was considered a great opportunity. In 2006, OTH agreed to acquire a 19.3 per cent stake in Hutchison to penetrate the Indian market. India was a promising market as there were strong complementary similarities between Orascom and Hutchinson Telecom. However, Orascom was not able to enter the market because it did not consider the expenses in an accurate way and ignored many factors. Now, in 2009, the treasury director of OTH was wondering what lessons in the risks of internationalization he could learn from the company’s failure in India and present difficulties in Algeria.

An acquisition decision by Satyam Corporation created discontent among shareholders and led to a series of investigations that revealed fraud of about INR 50 billion, leading to resignations by several board members and the CEO. This episode became a mockery of corporate governance practices, raising questions about the efficacy of well-accepted governance norms.<br><br>This case covers the events that led to the failure of Satyam. The roles of not only the “promoter” but also other parties, such as the managers, board of directors, auditors and bankers, are discussed in detail. The case draws attention to various corporate governance and ethical issues and provides an opportunity to discuss measures that should be taken by regulators, auditors, and other bodies to prevent fraud.

This case examines the family business constitution created by Dawu Group’s founder, Sun Dawu. It was the only such system in China to date, and made it possible for the group to survive near-fatal challenges. The case starts with problems Sun Dawu encountered, such as a salary-rise request from a recently elected board member; managers’ doubts about the constitution system; and the suspicion of external experts and journalists regarding the group’s elections. The case examines the history of Dawu Group, the family business constitution system, and the approach Sun Dawu took to address succession. One of the issues the family business owner faced was whether it was possible to solve the internal challenges and external doubts about family business succession and governance and, if so, how.

<p style="color: rgb(197, 183, 131);"><strong> AWARD WINNER - Supply Chain Management Award, European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) Case Writing Competition</strong></p><br>The case examines the supply chain, managerial, and organizational challenges facing a large European industrial company competing in a mature industry with strong price pressure. Established in the 1930s in Denmark, Danfoss initially produced automatic valves for refrigeration plants. The company has since grown into a major industrial group. Until the mid-1990s, Danfoss had the majority of its sales and production in Europe. This changed, however, with the arrival of a new CEO, who initiated a process to change the company into a global player within all of its main business areas. <br><br>Following this process of internationalization, the company was facing three main issues which top management was concerned about: Danfoss’s manufacturing network; its continued global growth; and its highly engineering-based culture. The first issue stemmed from the fact that Danfoss had followed a strategy of one product, one plant. This had created a situation with a lot of highly specialized product lines and very few common features between them. On the other hand, the internationalization strategy had so far been quite successful in Eastern Europe and China. In the United States, however, the company was still experiencing difficulties despite heavy investments in its manufacturing capacity in Mexico. In China, the company had experienced success and wanted to secure long-term growth in the market. The third issue was the very engineering-based culture of the company, which among other things was manifested in the fact that Danfoss previously developed products at the expense of consumer demand and preferences.

The Arck Systems series of cases describes the dilemmas faced by a senior sales manager in determining a sales compensation plan at an enterprise software company. The existing compensation plan is aggressive and highly rewards "star" performers. The cases track a series of changes the manager makes to the sales compensation plan in response to negative and unintended consequences of the existing system. The cases illustrate the tradeoffs inherent in incentive plans (even outside of sales environments) and presents a framework for the design and management of incentive systems. It also is useful in addressing employee response to incentive system change.

PremiumSoft had been a competitive player in the SQL software market for 10 years. Like many software companies, PremiumSoft's business model required that it continuously evolve its current successful product lines through research and development. At the core of the business was its creative people: they were the company's largest asset. PremiumSoft had created a team-centric, informal work environment that promoted creativity and innovation and attracted the best candidates. As a small company, PremiumSoft had a mix of formal and informal controls when dealing with recruiting, retention, roles, and responsibilities. It had achieved success with hiring, retaining, and managing its current employees and wanted to ensure that it could maintain this success with future growth. In 2010, PremiumSoft's owners were looking to grow the business through the development of new software. This growth required an expansion of its staff by 25 percent and the addition of a new product line.

POSCO is one of the largest and best steelmakers in the world. Since the construction of Pohang Steelworks in 1973, Pohang Iron and Steel Company ("POSCO") has grown continuously in the world's steel industry. But in the late 1990s, when the Asian financial crisis hit the Korean economy hard, the company began paying great attention to innovation as an important source of competitive advantage. Since then, POSCO has made every effort to promote an innovation-friendly environment: in 1999, it embarked on process innovation to build its innovation hardware, and in 2002, it adopted Six Sigma, an infrastructure for innovation, and finalised its manufacturing execution system ("MES") for effective decision-making. Even though the hardware and infrastructure for innovation were in place, the company needed to internalise the innovation in order to maximise corporate performance effectively. In 2008, the global recession and turbulent economic situation spread from America and dealt a serious blow to the company's innovation initiatives. Meanwhile, employees were exhibiting fatigue with the protracted innovation drive. POSCO's chief executive, Chung Joon-yang, is considering what the POSCO way of innovation has achieved since its takeoff in earnest in 2006. He must now make a hard decision on what additional measures the company must take to overcome the looming crisis.

Kitchen Best is a Hong Kong-based electrical-appliance company. The company has a manufacturing facility in China and sells its wares to customers around the world. Henry Chan, the newly appointed CEO, has ambitious plans for the business. However, a series of instances of misconduct and unethical behavior makes him realize that the business is suffering from a lack of internal control. What type of internal control mechanisms should he put in place to ensure the future success of the company?

The founder of the Lakkard Leather Company was proud of his business, and attributed much of its success to his own leadership style, which did not allow for anyone else’s participation in important decisions. When he was badly injured in a car accident, his son stepped in and kept the business going. Without any intention to take over, the son altered the leadership and operations of the company in the space of a few months, so that by the time the founder returned, the company had changed and his role was significantly reduced. The son, in the meantime, grew to like his interim position and believed he did a better job than his father. Both men became locked in a power struggle; yet the company faced several key decisions that had to be taken in terms of expansion, product offering, and sale opportunities.

The project manager of the Partnership for Lebanon (PFL) and Cisco Systems’s regional director of corporate affairs for the Middle East and Africa met in September 2009, three years after the PFL was first initiated. The meeting primarily revolved around the challenge of sustainability and what useful suggestions they could put forward to their partners to ensure that the projects initiated through the PFL were not dependent on the continuous investments of the partners.<br><br><br><br>The PFL, a major partnering initiative in a post-war context, was initiated in September 2006 after President George W. Bush called for the assistance of U.S. companies to help in the relief and reconstruction efforts in Lebanon after the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. The five companies involved were Cisco Systems, Intel Corporation, Ghafari Inc., Occidental Petroleum, and Microsoft. They leveraged their core competence under five main work streams: emergency relief/response, job creation/private-sector revival, developing information and communication technology infrastructure, workforce training/education, and developing connected communities. Cisco took a leadership position within the PFL, establishing a management office in Beirut staffed by five senior full-time Cisco employees, and committed an investment of $10 million in the Lebanese private sector over a three-year period. The PFL’s corporate partners engaged closely with the Lebanese government as well as with various international and local NGOs to develop initiatives under the five work streams and yield a long-term sustainable impact.