To weather the 2009 financial crisis, Eden McCallum's cofounders must renegotiate partners' compensation, attract independent consultants to meet different client demands, and reassure their Advisory Board that their network-based consulting model remains sound. The case outlines decisions taken and financial results through the end of fiscal year 2010.
This note will examine the regulatory framework for hedge funds in the United Kingdom (UK) before and after the financial crisis of 2008. First, it will discuss European Union (EU)-level regulation that applies to the UK as an EU member state. Second, it will discuss UK-specific regulation. Finally, this note will cover anticipated changes to regulation, both at the EU-level and within the UK, resulting from the financial crisis.
The manager of the Japan Equities Fund is faced with an increase in "hot money" moving quickly in and out of the Fund. This short term trading is an attempt to take advantage of the difference between the closing times of the Tokyo and New York Stock Exchanges. The CFO of the fund manager considers the various strategies available to limit such short term trading, which will be presented soon to the Fund's board of directors.
The board of Babbitt Ranches had officially adopted a constitution to guide the future of the family business. Babbitt Ranches was a fourth-generation, 122 year old family firm with extensive landholdings in Arizona. The firm's board recognized responsibility and obligation to organizational, ecological, economical, and community values through multiple bottom-line criteria in the new constitution. In addition, the constitution reinforced the family's heritage by outlining a philosophy designed to direct processes, interactions, and critical decisions. Several business opportunities were being considered by the board that could be evaluated using the framework provided by the constitution. The challenge for Billy Cordasco, the firm's president, was to operationalize the constitution to evaluate the current set of opportunities and to ensure the constitution was used as a "touchstone" for firm decisions on an ongoing basis.
This case describes a small nonprofit organization called The Backyard Harvest (BYH). The focus of BYH was to collect excess produce from individuals and small farmers and make the produce available to local food banks. Amy Grey had started BYH as a program of a local environmental nonprofit but had recently created a separate and independent BYH organization. Because of recent national press on the organization, Amy had received several requests for help from a handful of people around the country interested in setting up their own version of BYH. Amy's dilemma was how to continue to serve the needs of her local community and help other people around the country set up equivalent organizations. Amy wondered if she should take BYH national, and if so, when and how to do it.
The ACE Venture Fund case is a 501(c)3 social venture fund that hopes to invest in projects that help the poor around the world. The donors of the fund, 15 Boston-based high-tech entrepreneurs, were interested in backing social entrepreneurs who had innovative and unique approaches to solving social problems. The case provides opportunities for students to: understand how to develop a cohesive strategy for a venture focused on maximizing social value; explore the range of approaches available to evaluate the social impact of investments in the nonprofit sector as well as in the field of corporate social responsibility; appreciate the importance of defining the metrics, especially in the field of social value creation, since there are no standardized definitions for even the commonly used metrics; understand the specific data needs under various approaches; and understand the implications of the data requirements of various approaches on project selection for funding.
This case describes the process of launching and developing a U.S.-Belarus joint venture that produces wood pellets in Belarus for sale in countries in the European Union. The combination of high demand for biofuels in EU countries and the potential for producing a good product at a low price in Belarus, provides a compelling business opportunity for brothers Victor and Aleksey Kruglov. Victor, who lives in the U.S., had experience in business in the U.S., and has access to capital. Aleksey, who lives in Belarus, has experience in wood-products production in Belarus, and has access to qualified workers. Having a well organized operation and continuous demand for its products, the company grew quickly. However, growth put the company in jeopardy in state-controlled Belarus. Local institutions (city and regional governments) perceived successful firms as sources of revenue for solving city infrastructure problems. Central institutions viewed successful firms as potential parts of their system of the larger government-controlled economy. Government involvement would most likely require the firm to follow specific directives, implement specific procedures for export operations, and share revenue. To avoid the threat of government control, the partners saw three options. Staying its course, their company could continue to grow and accept the role of major donor for the city's needs, and become a part of the larger government-managed wood-processing industry. Alternatively, it could control its growth by slowing down or splitting up into several smaller firms located in different regions and still stay considerably invisible. A third option was to relocate operations entirely, to a country that provides a friendlier environment for business operations, yet has similar cultural and economic advantages.
Strategy maps are designed to help execute strategy and bring predictive qualities to key performance indicators by linking them according to perceived cause-and-effect relationships. However, in our experience strategy maps are often extrapolations of past performance and are seldom sufficiently linked to possible future states. In this article, we argue that scenario analysis could play an important role in the design of strategy maps, as it is an effective method to look at the future. Through the development of scenarios, organizations can think creatively about possible discontinuous future states and can prepare themselves for multiple plausible futures, not only the one they expect to happen. Therefore, scenario-based strategy maps could enable organizations to face strategic uncertainty in a more effective way and make them more sustainable in the longer term. This article highlights the strengths and weaknesses of strategy maps and scenario analysis, and outlines a method to develop scenario-based strategy maps both in theory and by presenting a significant example.
Being more market oriented-in other words, getting closer to customers while keeping a wary eye on competitors in order to respond quickly and effectively to changing market conditions-has long been viewed as a key way of improving competitive advantage. However, there is still a lack of understanding about how to optimize the implementation of market oriented business strategies, particularly in the service sector. This article addresses that gap by investigating how customer and competitor focused practices can be fine tuned to create differential advantages. An in-depth qualitative study of professional, financial, and business service firms in New Zealand suggests that how well market oriented practices are implemented is much more important than the range of practices that are adopted.
A relatively inexperienced professor struggles with managing a case discussion in a class based on numeric analysis. The class is lethargic and time is tight; she considers both a number of possible reasons for their disinterest and different teaching strategies to stimulate discussion and learning.
A professor teaching a case discussion based on numeric analysis is pleased that a student finally "cracks" the case-but the numbers differ from her own. The instructor has to decide how to handle the discrepancy.
After two successful years of consulting work, Sonya lands a job at a US-based petroleum company. She thrives in the firm's corporate culture and is soon promoted and transferred abroad to a developing country. However, she discovers that her firm has budgeted $5 million for "legal" consulting - in essence, a payment to the local government. When Sonya pursues the issue with her manager, he suggests that she leave her post and get more experience back home. Through an analysis of Sonya's experience, this case explores about how one might navigate the challenges presented by such an ethical dilemma.
Parker Petroleum's board has given a special task force 24 hours to come up with solutions to trouble on several fronts. Plans for investing $4 billion in a new petroleum refinery in Jumandia are at risk after local residents rioted, alleging environmental damage. Political pressure is also heating up after Jumandia's opposition candidate claimed Parker's CEO was complicit in a $5 million bribe paid to the country's current regime. At the same time, an activist hedge fund has bought 15% of Parker's stock and is pressuring the company to exit its Jumandian investments. In this case students take on the special task force's challenge to make recommendations on how the board should deal with the crises.
Six vignettes drawn from decided cases explore legal and business issues in hiring, firing, promoting, and demoting employees, with an emphasis on protected classes, pretext, and anti-discrimination laws in the setting of start-ups and privately held companies.
The regulations in the home care industry are changing. The industry is moving toward consolidation and favoring large companies. Closing the Gap, a small home care provider in Ontario, reaches a crossroad. The company has three strategic options to choose from: (1) sell the company, (2) buy another company, or (3) grow organically. Given these conditions, students will be asked to conduct an industry analysis and help the chief executive officer (CEO) of Closing the Gap make the appropriate decision. In the (B) case, students will be asked to evaluate an acquisition possibility and advise the CEO whether the acquisition will be a successful one or not.
This is a supplement to Closing the Gap - The Changing Home Care Environment (A) case, product #910M51. The regulations in the home care industry are changing. The industry is moving toward consolidation and favoring large companies. Closing the Gap reaches a crossroad. In this (B) case, students will be asked to evaluate an acquisition possibility and advise the chief executive officer whether the acquisition will be a successful one or not.
The media frequently report on the high cost of various health-related treatments. As there is a limit to the resources available to public and private health plans, they are not able to make all new treatments available. This raises questions about how to determine which treatments should be offered under a health plan. Cost effectiveness analysis has emerged as a powerful tool to help determine priorities and guide these policy decisions. This note is intended as a background reading for a first class on pharmacoeconomics or cost effectiveness analysis.
Detailing, or visits from pharmaceutical sales representatives to medical offices to provide details about a drug's purpose and side effects, has become the pharmaceutical industry's most costly direct-to-physician marketing effort, with an estimated $20 billion spent annually. Research studies offer conflicting conclusions on the effectiveness of this approach. One study found every dollar spent on detailing resulted in incremental sales of $1.72 and another concluded it offered only a modest impact. In this case students generate a regression analysis to consider the impact of detailing and sampling on a physician's prescription rate.