In May 2008, the new CEO of Cyworld, a social network company in Korea, had to decide how to create and capture value from his rapidly growing user base. Cyworld was founded in 1999 and in 2003 it was acquired by SK Telecom, a leading mobile service provider in Korea. By 2007, Cyworld had 21 million users and $95 million revenue--$65 million from paid items (music, virtual gifts, etc.), $15 million from mobile networking, and $15 million from advertising. The new CEO had to decide which of these three revenue sources he should focus on in the future and how this choice would influence the target customers, the service offerings and the required capabilities.
Tennessee-based nonprofit Youth Villages had an impressive record of serving emotionally and behaviorally troubled youth and their families, with higher success rates and lower costs than most child services providers. Yet expanding to offer its services on a broader scale proved challenging.
CARE is an international, humanitarian, non-governmental organization (NGO) composed of twelve member countries that manage field operations in over seventy countries offices around the world, reaching more than fifty million poor people. In 2005, CARE started a pilot initiative in Central America to access whether its support of revenue-generating ventures provides sustainable and scalable poverty alleviation outcomes as well as an opportunity to generate excess revenues for the organization. This case focuses on CARE's challenges to explicitly incorporate a market-based approach within its portfolio of poverty alleviation solutions.
This case is designed to present students with the challenges of formulating a discounted-cash-flow (DCF) analysis for a strategically important capital-investment decision. Analytically, the problem is representative of most corporate investment decisions, but it is particularly interesting because of the massive size of the American Centrifuge Project and the potential of the project to significantly affect the stock price. Students must determine the relevant cash flows, paying close attention to the treatment of input costs, selling prices, timing of investment outlays, depreciation, and inflation. An important input is the appropriate cost of uranium, which some students argue should be included at book value, while others argue that market value should be used. Although the primary objective of the case is to focus on the estimation of cash flows, students are provided with a straightforward set of inputs to estimate USEC's weighted average cost of capital. The case is designed for students who are learning, or need a refresher on, DCF analysis. Because of the basic issues covered, the case works well with undergraduate, MBA, and executive-education audiences. The case also affords the opportunity to explore a variety of issues related to capital-investment analysis, including relevant costs, incremental analysis, cost of capital, and sensitivity analysis. The case is an excellent example of the value of a firm as the value of assets in place plus the net present value of future growth opportunities.
In Differences at Work: Sameer (A) HBS Case No. 9-609-053 Sameer, an Indian Muslim, is a summer intern in a small, predominantly Jewish firm. Prompted by a conflict in the Middle East, members of the organization make a number of anti-Muslim jokes. Sameer wonders whether he should surface his discomfort; he otherwise enjoys the firm, and is hoping to be given a full-time job offer following his internship.
In Differences at Work: Sameer (B) HBS Case No. 9-609-054, Sameer leaves the firm at the summer's end without confronting his employer about the jokes and wondering whether he made the right choice. Later Sameer's former employer calls him to apologize for their behavior after discovering an email that Sameer wrote describing how offended he felt by the jokes. Accepting the apology, Sameer decides to take a full time position with the firm but reflects on how his own inaction at the time of the incident was a missed opportunity to educate his fellow colleagues.
The chief executive officer (CEO) of the London Public Library (LPL) had developed and had begun to implement a strategic plan to improve the LPL. The strategic plan was based on a balanced scorecard. The four perspectives measured by the balanced scorecard were: the community perspective, the internal processes perspective, the organizational readiness perspective and the financial perspective. With two years before the deadline to achieve the plan, the CEO had to decide on what she would focus next.
Ann Rothman, newly arrived Executive Vice President of Global Sales at Quantium Technology needs to address the challenges associated with Quantium's implementation of Siebel Sales, a sales force automation (SFA) software solution. Sales representatives were abandoning the system, sales managers were complaining that sales pipeline data in the system were not accurate, and the system did not appear to be increasing win rate or shortening the sales cycle as expected. Rothman needed to decide how to resolve the problems, which meant either fixing the system or abandoning the project altogether.
Wireless technologies and mobile devices have played crucial roles in the evolution of the digital ecosystem. This note looks at cell phones, smartphones, mobile technologies and popular applications noting companies that are positioned to capture the value engendered by them.
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club is a publicly-owned professional soccer team based in London, England. The club's chairman, Daniel Levy, is contemplating a significant investment in physical assets, including the development of a new stadium as well as the acquisition of a new player. The team must decide if the expected cash flows associated with adding the stadium, the player, or both, warrant the considerable required investments in these assets.
In early 2005, Jean-Claude Biver, the new CEO of Hublot, a leading Swiss watch manufacturer, had to come up with a new strategy to eliminate the company's financial losses and revitalize a declining brand. With a turnover of roughly US$ 26 million, Hublot had lost US$ 2.6 million over the past 12 months as some competitors had rapidly imitated some of the brand's unique features in their own products.
The Sat & Co. case demonstrates how market orientation can be achieved and how its implementation can lead to superior business performance in the context of the machine tool industry. Sat & Co. consisted of two divisions: the lathe division that manufactured the lathe machines, and the computer numerical control (CNC) division that assembled CNC machines. The capacity of both divisions was underutilized. The problem was that the lathe division manufactured very basic lathe machines and the CNC division assembled very technologically advanced machines. As a result, both divisions failed to satisfy their customers' needs. The lathe division was poorly market-oriented, whereas the CNC division was overly market-oriented. The chairperson of the board of directors was adamant that both divisions must survive, and that a market orientation must be achieved, i.e. the company must meet customers' needs and must improve its business performance.
A director within the leadership development program of a large multinational organization must decide how to manage a very difficult conversation she must have with her assistant director. The assistant director, who is older and more experienced (although less educated), interviewed for the director's position and didn't get it. The assistant director has never been happy reporting to her much younger boss, and has felt consistently left out of major decisions. The assistant director had confronted the director about her feelings and threatened to resign. How should the director handle this difficult conversation?
After 10 years of rapid growth, the Chinese Athletic Vancouver Association (CAVA) was threatened with a leadership vacuum. To deal with the recent loss of their president, the vice-president had to devise a plan that would sustain CAVA's benefit to the Vancouver Chinese community, by locating and developing leaders who could carry this organization forward. As the vice-president was expected to assume the president's role at the end of 2005, he needed to develop and implement leadership and succession planning strategies for CAVA.
The regional manager of the Container Transportation Company, and his colleagues were looking for a new strategy to allocate containers for transportation from Korea and China to the Middle East. All the business departments had been challenged by top management to optimize their revenues and profit. The regional manager wondered whether he could improve pricing or apply other revenue management techniques to enhance revenues without negatively affecting customer service.
A shareholder and silent partner in More Vino Ltd. reviews a request for TT$600,000 in additional funding to finance a renovation for the company. He had initially invested a major portion of the start-up capital. Since then, More Vino has grown in popularity and is now considered the most popular spot for food, drink and entertainment. The shareholder believes that More Vino is a good investment, but he is uncertain whether lending additional capital at this time is the best solution for the business.
This technical note discusses the methods and factors that investment bankers and venture capitalists take into account when placing a value on the shares of biotech companies.
Samsung Electronics (Samsung) managing director had presented the new management philosophy for achieving leadership in a global market. The three-part strategy would prioritize quality, globalization, and multifaceted integration, in that order. After a restructuring effort, Samsung had emerged as a leader in the global electronics industry. Now, considering the new management philosophy and several other factors, the managing director faced the decision of whether Samsung should enter the Indian market.
In part A of this case, Samsung's managing director had to decide whether Samsung should enter the Indian market. Now, three years later, he was ready to relinquish the position. The three years had been very successful and the managing director was promoted to vice-president of global sales and marketing of display products. One of the first decisions facing the new managing director as he takes the position is what type of products Samsung should compete with in India. One option is to compete in the low and medium segments. Another option is to take the high end segment.