Structurally almost identical to the Sally Soprano role simulation, KSL Communications is a two-party, non-scorable negotiation between a communications consultancy and a streaming content service provider over the terms of a potential service contract. Lisney is one of the world's largest entertainment content producers with plans to launch its streaming service in South-east Asia. The consultancy that was supposed to handle the launch, Rattlemen, was forced to withdraw because of a "no competition" clause it had with Lisney's closest competitor. Lisney is now eager to sign a service contract with KSL, a reputable but financially troubled consultancy considered to be only second in the market to Rattlemen. Indeed, Lisney headquarters has authorized its Asia-Pacific Vice-President for Communications to offer KSL up to $5 million per year for the contract, though Lisney would like that figure to be lower if possible. KSL desperately wants this contract, which would attract additional clients and give the company certainty about its future, including the ability to acquire the third largest consultancy in the market. The contract is so important that KSL would almost be willing to work at cost (S$300,000 a year) except for the impact on the company's professional reputation and pride.
This case is used to demonstrate the acquisition method in the accounting for business combinations using the SGX-listed firm Medinex, which made three acquisitions in 2019. These were reported in its FY 2020 annual report. Medinex's expansion-through-acquisition strategy resulted in Medinex reporting high goodwill amount. The Securities Investors Association (Singapore) (SIAS) had raised queries regarding Medinex's acquisitions and the possibility of overpayment due to aggressive assumptions used in their valuations. How valid were SIAS's concerns about aggressive assumptions and overpayment? If goodwill was a significant element of each acquisition, were there enough disclosures for shareholders to understand what the goodwill represented? The primary learning objectives are to: 1. Understand the significance of the acquisition date in the acquisition method; 2. Understand how consideration transferred is determined; 3. Apply the requirements of the standard to determine the goodwill; 4. Identify the key assumptions needed for the goodwill impairment test; and 5. Assess the adequacy of the disclosures on goodwill.
Established in 2020, Nurture.farm was a digital platform that focused on reimagining the next generation of sustainable technology-based solutions for agriculture. In June 2021, Nurture.farm’s chief executive officer Dhruv Sawhney and his team recognized a grave problem in northern India. Environmental hazards were being created from mass rice stubble burning, which was an inexpensive and quick way for farmers to clear their field for the next crop cycle. In response, Sawhney and his team conceptualized and executed India’s largest crop residue management (CRM) program. The organization’s initial success in providing its services to over 25,000 farmers and curbing the stubble burning problem gained international recognition and helped Nurture.farm earn several new partnerships within a year of operations.<br><br>By March 2023, Nurture.farm was hoping to scale up its CRM program and expand into over 800,000 hectares (2 million acres) of land, primarily in India’s rice paddy fields. In this mission, Sawhney and his team found themselves facing some difficult questions. Could they efficiently scale this mission-driven campaign to additional states? How could they convince and garner organic trust from farmers? Modern technologies helped Nurture.farm facilitate its operations, but what challenges could the company face in the future? What sustainable practices could help the company drive its CRM program?
In July 2019, 15-year-old Charli D’Amelio posted a dance video on the relatively new social media platform TikTok and became a TikTok sensation, soon becoming the first person to reach 50 million followers on the app and earning her a spot in the Guinness World Records. TikTok’s meteoric rise, however, was at risk of being short-lived. In 2020, the US government was concerned about the app’s rapid expansion and threatened to ban it in the United States. Even if the ban announced by the US government failed to materialize, the D’Amelios and numerous other up-and-coming celebrity TikTokers had to contend with many other issues that threatened to compromise their growing social media influencer business. There was growing public concern about TikTok’s lack of content moderation policy, which resulted in the routine posting of questionable content on the platform. The company was also slow in developing a monetization scheme to incentivize, remunerate, and retain its most influential creators. How could the D’Amelios best “future-proof” their fast-growing but fickle business against potential risk?
In June 2021, the head of the information technology department at Ka Shui Group, a Hong Kong–based original equipment and original brand manufacturing company, was asked by the group’s chief executive officer to evaluate whether Ka Shui Group should discontinue the Industry 4.0 program it had been using as road map for digital transformation. Ka Shui Group had launched the program in 2016 with the goal of creating a cyber-physical, connected workplace featuring digitized data transparency and connectivity, smart manufacturing and research and development, and self-monitoring and error-correction capabilities. However, the i4.0 initiative had yet to progress beyond this first stage over the last three years. The program’s cascading progress within Ka Shui Group was stagnant, and results were meagre. At the same time, stakeholders were getting restless. All these problems, along with lukewarm reactions from employees and questions from investors about the benefits of Industry 4.0, were forcing Ka Shui to consider whether it was necessary to discontinue the program and, if so, what direction it should take next.
In July 2019, 15-year-old Charli D'Amelio posted a dance video on the relatively new social media platform TikTok and became a TikTok sensation, soon becoming the first person to reach 50 million followers on the app and earning her a spot in the Guinness World Records. TikTok's meteoric rise, however, was at risk of being short-lived. In 2020, the US government was concerned about the app's rapid expansion and threatened to ban it in the United States. Even if the ban announced by the US government failed to materialize, the D'Amelios and numerous other up-and-coming celebrity TikTokers had to contend with many other issues that threatened to compromise their growing social media influencer business. There was growing public concern about TikTok's lack of content moderation policy, which resulted in the routine posting of questionable content on the platform. The company was also slow in developing a monetization scheme to incentivize, remunerate, and retain its most influential creators. How could the D'Amelios best "future-proof" their fast-growing but fickle business against potential risk?
Established in 2020, Nurture.farm was a digital platform that focused on reimagining the next generation of sustainable technology-based solutions for agriculture. In June 2021, Nurture.farm's chief executive officer Dhruv Sawhney and his team recognized a grave problem in northern India. Environmental hazards were being created from mass rice stubble burning, which was an inexpensive and quick way for farmers to clear their field for the next crop cycle. In response, Sawhney and his team conceptualized and executed India's largest crop residue management (CRM) program. The organization's initial success in providing its services to over 25,000 farmers and curbing the stubble burning problem gained international recognition and helped Nurture.farm earn several new partnerships within a year of operations.<br><br>By March 2023, Nurture.farm was hoping to scale up its CRM program and expand into over 800,000 hectares (2 million acres) of land, primarily in India's rice paddy fields. In this mission, Sawhney and his team found themselves facing some difficult questions. Could they efficiently scale this mission-driven campaign to additional states? How could they convince and garner organic trust from farmers? Modern technologies helped Nurture.farm facilitate its operations, but what challenges could the company face in the future? What sustainable practices could help the company drive its CRM program?
After being named the "best bank in the world", DBS set its sights to be "the best bank for a better world" in its third wave of transformation. This meant concerted organizational efforts towards responsible banking, responsible business practices, and creating social impact. The bank leveraged its digital capabilities (now a key competitive advantage) to drive these wider social changes around sustainability and to seize new market opportunities for growth. Yet, a host of VUCA factors (e.g., economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, hybrid work, Web3 & DeFi, and next-gen AI) continue to emerge on the horizon. How can DBS aim to do good and do well in this new wave of transformation? Even as DBS continues to pivot towards a new agile and AI-augmented way of working, what are some strategic next steps it should consider, as it ponders the future of banking?
This case study begins in October 2022, two years after Sophia and Eileen Goh, who were sisters, rebranded the footwear company to expand its customer base from baby boomers and Gen X to millennials and Gen Z. The footwear brand was originally positioned as a workwear brand, specifically to cater to women who had wide feet and suffered from bunions. Growth was steady in the first 20 years and was primarily driven by word-of-mouth. However, by 2020, the brand had lost its appeal to the millennials and Gen Z. In September 2020, the sisters embarked on an initial rebranding strategy by repositioning DMK as shoes for every occasion and milestone across a woman's lifetime journey. The rebranding effort was further strengthened by focusing on five pillars including supporting the female community, product diversification, reintroduction of DMK Care to enhance comfort of the shoes, introducing a new retail experience to provide immersive customer experience at the outlets and strengthening of DMK's digital capabilities. The Singapore footwear market was worth US$870 million in 2020 and was expected to grow to US$1,270 million by 2025. What else could DMK do to further elevate the brand and future prooffuture-proof the business?
In June 2021, the head of the information technology department at Ka Shui Group, a Hong Kong-based original equipment and original brand manufacturing company, was asked by the group's chief executive officer to evaluate whether Ka Shui Group should discontinue the Industry 4.0 program it had been using as road map for digital transformation. Ka Shui Group had launched the program in 2016 with the goal of creating a cyber-physical, connected workplace featuring digitized data transparency and connectivity, smart manufacturing and research and development, and self-monitoring and error-correction capabilities. However, the i4.0 initiative had yet to progress beyond this first stage over the last three years. The program's cascading progress within Ka Shui Group was stagnant, and results were meagre. At the same time, stakeholders were getting restless. All these problems, along with lukewarm reactions from employees and questions from investors about the benefits of Industry 4.0, were forcing Ka Shui to consider whether it was necessary to discontinue the program and, if so, what direction it should take next.
This exercise stages a data-analysis task within the world of US men's college basketball. The National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Division 1 Men's Basketball Championship Tournament, known as ""March Madness,"" begins every March with 68 college teams and concludes in April with 1 champion. It is one of the biggest sporting events of the year in the United States-a multi-billion-dollar endeavor that is wildly popular with fans and that brings tremendous energy to the specific schools involved. The tournament, which is played across three weeks, begins with a ""First Four"" play-in round where 8 teams play four games to bring the field down to 64 teams. Two of the First Four games are played between the 4 lowest-ranked teams, and two are played between the four lowest-ranked ""at-large"" teams. Then a six-round single-elimination tournament is conducted with the 64 remaining teams, with two rounds played each weekend. The last weekend is known as the ""Final Four."" Each year, a selection committee comprising university athletic directors and conference commissioners chooses which teams will participate in the tournament and then seeds the teams-that is, ranks them from best to worst to assign matchups. But how the committee chooses to define ""best"" is imprecise. Students are tasked with examining the provided dataset, which contains information on prior selections and subsequent team performance, and then determining what past committees have prioritized in selecting at-large teams. Students must then take on the role of advising the committee on how to proceed with its next selection round. Does the committee get it right, or should it do things differently going forward?
Jay Williams, cohead of the Nashville office of the William Morris Endeavor (WME), must decide how to respond to an incident involving Morgan Wallen, one of the talent agency's fastest-rising country music stars. Wallen, a white singer, was caught on home security footage using an ethnic slur with a group of white friends after a night of drinking. The following day, the footage was released to the public, and Wallen was swiftly disavowed by his record company, the two largest country music institutions, and hundreds of country radio stations. Williams faces pressure from executives in WME's Beverly Hills corporate office, because Black A-list clients are lobbying the agency to drop the enormously popular Wallen from the WME client roster. In this A case, Williams considers several complicating factors: (1) Dropping Wallen would hurt WME's bottom line, which was already damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Williams does not want to be responsible for more layoffs. (2) The social justice movement from the summer of 2020 is still fresh in Williams's mind, and he knows that companies like WME need to take swift action after a racially charged incident or risk public backlash. (3) Wallen's agent is Austin Neal, the son of a WME partner, and forcing Neal to drop Wallen could permanently damage the company's relationship with this rapidly rising agent. (4) WME's parent company is preparing for an IPO, so there is extra pressure for the Nashville office's finances to look good, as well as to avoid controversy. This case set can be applied to a range of relevant topics: ethical decision-making, corporate responsibility, cancel culture, business and political polarization, employee (talent) representation, public relations and scandal management, and leadership.
Jay Williams, cohead of the Nashville office of the William Morris Endeavor (WME), must decide how to respond to an incident involving Morgan Wallen, one of the talent agency's fastest-rising country music stars. Wallen, a white singer, was caught on home security footage using an ethnic slur with a group of white friends after a night of drinking. The following day, the footage was released to the public, and Wallen was swiftly disavowed by his record company, the two largest country music institutions, and hundreds of country radio stations. Williams faces pressure from executives in WME's Beverly Hills corporate office, because Black A-list clients are lobbying the agency to drop the enormously popular Wallen from the WME client roster. In this A case, Williams considers several complicating factors: (1) Dropping Wallen would hurt WME's bottom line, which was already damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Williams does not want to be responsible for more layoffs. (2) The social justice movement from the summer of 2020 is still fresh in Williams's mind, and he knows that companies like WME need to take swift action after a racially charged incident or risk public backlash. (3) Wallen's agent is Austin Neal, the son of a WME partner, and forcing Neal to drop Wallen could permanently damage the company's relationship with this rapidly rising agent. (4) WME's parent company is preparing for an IPO, so there is extra pressure for the Nashville office's finances to look good, as well as to avoid controversy. This case set can be applied to a range of relevant topics: ethical decision-making, corporate responsibility, cancel culture, business and political polarization, employee (talent) representation, public relations and scandal management, and leadership.
Jay Williams, cohead of the Nashville office of the William Morris Endeavor (WME), must decide how to respond to an incident involving Morgan Wallen, one of the talent agency's fastest-rising country music stars. Wallen, a white singer, was caught on home security footage using an ethnic slur with a group of white friends after a night of drinking. The following day, the footage was released to the public, and Wallen was swiftly disavowed by his record company, the two largest country music institutions, and hundreds of country radio stations. Williams faces pressure from executives in WME's Beverly Hills corporate office, because Black A-list clients are lobbying the agency to drop the enormously popular Wallen from the WME client roster. In this A case, Williams considers several complicating factors: (1) Dropping Wallen would hurt WME's bottom line, which was already damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Williams does not want to be responsible for more layoffs. (2) The social justice movement from the summer of 2020 is still fresh in Williams's mind, and he knows that companies like WME need to take swift action after a racially charged incident or risk public backlash. (3) Wallen's agent is Austin Neal, the son of a WME partner, and forcing Neal to drop Wallen could permanently damage the company's relationship with this rapidly rising agent. (4) WME's parent company is preparing for an IPO, so there is extra pressure for the Nashville office's finances to look good, as well as to avoid controversy. This case set can be applied to a range of relevant topics: ethical decision-making, corporate responsibility, cancel culture, business and political polarization, employee (talent) representation, public relations and scandal management, and leadership.
This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Peru. It highlights Peru's economic transformation in the decades leading up to 2023 in the context of its history, culture, and politics. The case gives an overview of some of the main obstacles faced by businesses operating in the country, contrasting these with the efforts undertaken by the government to improve the country's business climate. This is illustrated through the discussion of a fictional business dilemma.
This note offers a comprehensive exposition to subscription revenue models and aims to explain their recent rise. It covers the advantages to firms of employing a subscription-based approach to monetization (as opposed to "one-off" upfront payment), as well as the benefits to consumers from the arrangement. The note further provides a typology of the different subscription models used in practice, and outlines the various considerations involved in designing an effective subscription service. Also covered are the key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics companies should use in order to track the performance of the subscription design they have elected to follow. Lastly, common challenges firms may face when implementing a subscription model are highlighted. The note is replete with examples that illustrate the concepts and ideas presented.