How do you maintain relationships with companies that serve a majority of people, but upset an outspoken minority? Winner of the 2011 Oikos Casewriting Competition, this case explores a tenuous relationship between the University of Michigan and the Coca-Cola Company. Pressured by an activist group, the university decided to cut its contract with Coke until the company satisfied the environmental and labor demands of the activists. Students will learn about student activism in a university setting and how the university seeks to satisfy student requests.
MacroMarkets co-founder and CEO Samuel Masucci III is meeting with a strategic partner for his firm. Co-founded with Yale University Professor Robert Shiller, MacroMarkets' main innovation is the "MacroShare," which allows investors to take long or short, levered or unlevered, positions based on the value of any index. Both Shiller and Masucci are hopeful that MacroShares can help investors hedge all kinds of macroeconomic risks, including exposure to residential housing. The firm has 'battle-tested' two products-- one linked to oil, and one linked to housing -- with mixed success, and is evaluating its strategy going forward. Specifically, Masucci wonders whether the MacroShare structure might come to replace the ETF as the predominant technology for index trading.
The literature on change and transformation mostly focuses on for-profit organizations, even though not-for-profit organizations offer a richer context for study, and social entrepreneurs are most often at the forefront of large-scale change. The case is an attempt to examine the evolution of a development organization. It centers on a medical professional and his thirty-year struggle in ushering in social transformation in the BR Hills of Southern India, working for tribal and forest development based on a foundation of ethics, self-organization and the assertion of human and individual rights. In 1994, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award (also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize) for his efforts. This case can teach the evolution of a) a social entrepreneur into a leader; b) an amorphous service entity into an institution with a network of organizations and c) a low-profile, undemanding clientele with no voice to a demanding clientele expecting choices and rights. The case can also be used to explore the growth of a social enterprise (in terms of objectives, service delivery, roles, scale, etc.); concepts of change and social transformation; and the organizational life cycle and evolution of systems over the cycle. The case highlights the path civic service organizations (CSOs) and social actors tread over time in undertaking to provide public service.
This note outlines how leading professional service firms operating in China revise their standard hiring practices to fit local challenges and customs. Based on interviews with professionals in a number of established accounting, strategy consulting, and executive search firms presently operating in China, it explores best practices they use to hire exceptional professionals who will succeed in building high quality client relationships, delivering appropriately innovative thinking, and helping their firms grow and improve performance - all within China's unique political and cultural context.
Cambridge Sciences Pharmaceuticals (CSP) expects final approval for its revolutionary weight loss drug, Metabical. Metabical will be the only weight loss drug with FDA approval that is also clinically proven to be effective for moderately overweight people. Barbara Printup, Senior Marketing Director for CSP, must develop the positioning strategy and marketing communications plan in preparation for the launch of the new drug. Printup must consider the consumer decision-making process and the interaction between the consumer who purchases the drug and the health care provider who prescribes the medication. Despite promising medical studies and consumer research, poor positioning of the drug in the highly competitive market for weight-loss solutions could spell disaster. Students analyze market research data and consider the optimal positioning strategy and marketing communications program.
The best hiring practices help professional firms attract successful employees, equip newcomers with critical support networks, increase the firm's diversity and enhance its reputation. This Note delineates how leading firms manage these multiple objectives throughout the entire process of forecasting, sourcing and onboarding top talent. It also expands on potential misalignments that can arise and tradeoffs firms face in building and executing an integrated hiring strategy.
Zensar is a rapidly growing, mid-sized Indian IT services company with a collaborative management philosophy and innovative HR policies. One of its practices, Vision Communities, is an inclusive forum for innovation and strategy formulation. As the company grows, managers must decide how to scale the Vision Community process so that it retains its spirit of employee involvement and engagement while encompassing a larger, more geographically dispersed group of participants.
The manager of customer service and operations at a branch of financial services institution is considering his options following the third cash shortage, totalling almost $5,000, within a two-month period. His career and anticipated promotion depended on effectively handling this situation.
The founder of a new online news site, The Mark, has launched his venture at a time of unprecedented turmoil in the newspaper industry. While he believes that his advertising-based business model is the future face of the industry, he is yet to attract much of a readership. The founder must now decide what strategies are needed to establish his business in the competitive Canadian news landscape.
Daren Kemp, a partner at leadership consultancy and executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles, is responsible for the firm's relationship with Standard Chartered Bank (Standard Chartered). Standard Chartered is one of 94 companies in Heidrick's strategic partners program (SPP). The purpose of the SPP is to build strategic, value-based relationships with clients. Kemp joined Heidrick in 2008 and by 2010 has successfully built a strong relationship with Standard Chartered. The case describes how Kemp and his team grew this relationship and raises questions about what can be learned from this experience and applied to the other accounts in the SPP.
Pricing is one of the most difficult decisions marketers make and the one with the most direct and immediate impact on the firm's financial position. This toolkit will introduce the fundamental terminology and calculations associated with pricing and profitability analysis. Users will learn how to produce and interpret demand curves and calculate the price elasticity of demand. The concepts of revenue, costs, and contribution margin, gross margin, and net income will be introduced to inform profitability analyses. Finally, retailer profitability metrics including retailer margin and penny profit are discussed. The note gives students a foundation for analyzing marketing cases, as well as providing an analytical structure and process for completing a marketing plan. The note is accompanied by a free Excel worksheet which contains sample problems, prebuilt Excel models to calculate demand curves, price elasticity, and profitability metrics for firms and their channel partners, and charts and graphs which help visualize the results.
Likened in his native China to a rock star of entrepreneurship, Ma had risen from humble beginnings to the pinnacle of modern Chinese business in less than 20 years. How did a former English teacher who had not even been exposed to the internet until the end of the 1990s become iconic among internet multimillionaires? Was there something special about Ma that helped him stand out among an increasingly well educated class of Chinese entrepreneurs?
The case discusses the entrepreneurial paths taken by two men, a father and son team, who created a highly successful business venture in regional marine offshore industry in the first decade of the 21st century. The factors that contributed to venture's rapid growth are examined as well as the challenges they faced in taking their company, Ezra Holdings, to the next level of fast growth. Started in 1992, the entrepreneurs leveraged on their knowledge of the regional oil and gas (O&G) and marine engineering businesses to grow the firm into a global offshore support services company with market capitalisation of US$1.2 billion by the end of January 2010. The firm began as a small company managing and operating supply vessels supporting offshore O&G activities in the region. From managing small vessels, they moved on to build the essential capabilities needed to operate efficient offshore support services for O&G exploration and production projects of major global firms. To drive growth, they embarked on a series of asset acquisitions and joint ventures with other players. In a highly capital-intensive business, they were successful in prospecting for funds needed to secure the operating assets of their business. As they moved up the value chain in their segment of the industry, they also kept a lookout for industry veterans or specialists and technical staff from acquired companies to build their human resource pool. Ezra's decade of rapid growth is examined from several perspectives: • Entrepreneurship as the dynamic process of structure and action. • Capability building as an essential condition for new venture success as reflected in Ezra's resource acquisition strategies for funds, human capital and technical knowhow.
Pricing is one of the most difficult decisions marketers make and the one with the most direct and immediate impact on the firm's financial position. This toolkit will introduce the fundamental terminology and calculations associated with pricing and profitability analysis. Users will learn how to produce and interpret demand curves and calculate the price elasticity of demand. The concepts of revenue, costs, and contribution margin, gross margin, and net income will be introduced to inform profitability analyses. Finally, retailer profitability metrics including retailer margin and penny profit are discussed. The note gives students a foundation for analyzing marketing cases, as well as providing an analytical structure and process for completing a marketing plan. The note is accompanied by a free Excel worksheet which contains sample problems, prebuilt Excel models to calculate demand curves, price elasticity, and profitability metrics for firms and their channel partners, and charts and graphs which help visualize the results.
Mekong Capital, a private equity firm specializing in investing in Vietnam, had grown dramatically since its inception in 2002 and faced numerous organizational issues in 2007. There was a shortage of qualified middle managers, an overall lack of leadership, and a culture of making excuses for performance shortfalls. These issues not only plagued Mekong, but also the portfolio companies that they took positions in. The case recounts how the founder and managing partner of Mekong undertook a process to profoundly change the culture, leadership, and accountability within the company to try to transform it so that its people would align and come together as a team, holding themselves responsible to deliver results and committed to the long-term future.