The case is about HR practices at Singhania and Partners, one of the largest full-service national law firms in India. People are at the core of the services industry and it is imperative that service organisations have systems in place to attract and retain talent. The Indian legal services industry has been booming since the country's economy began liberalising in the early 1990s. The exponential growth of this industry was accompanied by an acute talent crunch. Indeed, the very ability to hire and retain talent was becoming a source of competitive advantage. Mr Ravi Singhania (managing partner), in conversation with Ms Manju Mohotra (chief executive officer), evaluates the firm's current HR practices and is concerned about whether the firm faces human resource risks.
This three-part case study relates to the 2007 product recalls of toys manufactured in China for Mattel Inc., the world's biggest toy maker. Part (A) focuses on the recall of toys on 1 August, coated with lead paint. Part (B) focuses on a subsequent double recall involving production problems and product design errors. Part (C) focuses on the reactions of the Chinese authorities and Mattel's subsequent apology to China.
Over the last 10 years, the number of publicly traded companies that have had to restate financial results has risen dramatically. Regardless of whether the restatements stemmed from the aggressive application of accounting standards or the need to correct intentional distortion of results by management, the outcome was often the same: a sudden and significant loss of shareholder value. In many cases, the restatement process led to significant turmoil within the company, including investigations by financial regulators, the resignation of chief executives and other senior officials, wide-scale restructuring and employee layoffs, and lawsuits against the board of directors, auditors, and other involved parties. The effects on the organization were often felt for years, taking a significant financial and reputational toll. This case examines five categories of financial restatements, as defined by Charles W. Mulford and Eugene E. Comiskey: recognizing premature or fictitious revenue, aggressive capitalization and extended amortization of expenses, misreporting assets and liabilities, other income statement items, and problems with cash flow reporting. Examples are provided for each category based on the events at Catalina Marketing, Krispy Kreme, Royal Dutch Shell, Royal Ahold, Nortel Networks, and Parmalat.
InnoCentive.com, a firm connecting R&D labs of large organizations to diverse external solvers through innovation contests, has to decide if they will enable collaboration in their community. Case covers the basics of a distributed innovation system works and the advantages of having external R&D. Links how concepts of open source are applied to a non-software setting. Describes the rationale for participation by solvers in innovation contests and the benefits that accrue to firms. Raises the issue if a community can be shifted to collaboration when competition was the basis of prior interaction.
Throughout its history, Corning Incorporated had maintained a strong dedication to technology and innovation, committing approximately four to six percent of its annual sales to research, development, and engineering (RD&E) until the late 1990s when this figure climbed to 10 percent. Even when the company was faced with severe financial challenges in the early 2000s by a crash in the telecommunications industry, its largest business segment, Corning saw investment in innovationand particularly in new business developmentas its road to recovery. While other companies might have slashed their RD&E budgets in a desperate effort to regain profitability, Corning increased and formalized the amount of time, money, and resources it dedicated to the identification of potentially large new businesses. As the company emerged from its financial crisis, management set a goal to double Corning's rate of innovation with the objective of launching two to four significant new businesses each decade. To accomplish its ambitious goals, Corning created an organization called Strategic Growth. The purpose of this new team was to collaborate with corporate research to identify and develop new, large (approximately $0.5 billion), and profitable business opportunities. Under the leadership of Dr. Mark Newhouse, a Corning senior vice president, Strategic Growth was more than three years into its charter by late 2007. Although the group had realized many accomplishments since its inception, the question facing Newhouse, his team, and Corning's executives was how well the company's innovative approach to organic growth was working. This case describes the Strategic Growth organization, its process, and its challenges.
In November 2005, members of Corning Incorporated's early-stage opportunity identification and development team were preparing to make a recommendation regarding whether or not the company should move forward with a project to develop mercury abatement technology to help power plants meet impending U.S. legislation for the cleaner use of coal. This opportunity, which had been surfaced through Corning's relatively new process for early-stage opportunity identification, was believed by some to have the potential to become a sizable new business. As the company evaluated whether or not to invest in the development of this new venture, it was equally important for Corning to consider the effectiveness of its early-stage opportunity identification process. With limited resources and a pressing need to increase the company's rate of innovation, this process was designed to take as much guesswork as possible out of the ambiguous "art" of identifying new business prospects. This case describes the Corning process for identifying and evaluating early-stage opportunities and allows readers to construct a recommendation as to what Corning should do regarding its mercury abatement project.
In 1999, the nonprofit Fair Labor Association (FLA) was launched to monitor factories around the world for sweatshop-related infractions. Another key nonprofit player, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), was launched in 2000. The two organizations had similar goals, but very different histories, strategies, and ways of operating. One major difference was that the FLA board included corporations, while the WRC board contained no industry representatives, but only representatives from the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), member universities, and labor-allied NGOs (non-governmental organizations). Mission-wise, the FLA focused on all apparel, while the WRC only focused on apparel bearing college and university names and logos. The fact that the FLA included company/industry representatives on its policy-making board, and the WRC did not, created not merely a difference but a source of immediate disagreement and conflict. By 2008, the WRC had grown from a membership of 44 colleges and universities at its founding to 174, and the FLA had grown from 100 colleges and universities to 205. Although the two organizations had often been closely associated together, appearing on panels, and even occasionally collaborating, their shared history had been controversial and tumultuous. Among the issues under continuing dispute were the role of third-party labor unions (which were not allowed by the government in countries such as China and Vietnam), the problem of "living wages" (which would raise production costs considerably), allegations voiced on the website "FLA Watch" (which seemed to many to be one-sided and unfair), and the overall impact of the anti-sweatshop movement's efforts (which led some to question how much progress had been made).
The leadership team of Rackspace, faced with accommodation of its service offering and dwindling financial reserves, decides to make customer focus the rallying cry of its new strategy. This short case was designed as the discussion igniter for a series of short video clips describing the shift to a more customer-focused approach.
The financial system is the heart of free market economies. The 2007-2008 financial crisis raised concerns that the global financial and economic system might experience a truly substantial collapse. New financial instruments had proliferated to the degree that it had become impossible to calculate the market value of many of them, and so it had become impossible to know the market value of institutions that held them or that guaranteed them. The initial disaster occurred with the U.S. subprime residential mortgage market, but it quickly spread globally to institutions that held new financial instruments related to these mortgages. Firms that had guaranteed these financial instruments found that their net worth was disappearing, leading to concerns about the institutions that had relied on their guarantees. Meanwhile, new kinds of hedge funds introduced the risk of greater volatility, and they exposed investors to sudden shocks. Many banks were caught in this web and suddenly had to obtain additional equity capital in order to meet regulatory requirements and maintain the confidence of depositors. As a result of these developments, liquidity disappeared from the financial system. It seemed that recession in the United States was inevitable. Previous expectations that other economies had become "decoupled" for the United States were being replaced by fears that economies throughout the world would follow the United States into recession. Central banks reacted dramatically with attempts to reduce interest rates and to increase financial liquidity, and the U.S. government cut personal taxes through a tax refund program. It was not clear whether monetary and fiscal policies could prevent a long and deep recession. Debate arose concerning the advisability of a wide variety of new regulations that might be able to prevent future recurrence of such a financial crisis.
The case explores the opportunities and challenges confronting Starbucks in the early 21st century. For more than 15 years, Starbucks has grown swiftly and successfully, helping create a large, dynamic market for specialty coffee, building one of the world's most powerful brands, and forging a new business model based on industry disrepair and responsible global citizenship. In 2008, Starbucks leadership faces a range of issues--inside and out of the company--related to that success. This case examines these issues in the context of a changing economy, increased competition, evolving consumer priorities, and the organization's place on the larger global stage.
Wang's Fortune Tea, marketed as Wanglaoji in mainland China and considered to be the founder of Chinese herbal tea, grew from a strong regional brand in China with limited national market penetration to becoming China's top soft drink giant with 90% market share of the country's herbal tea industry. This case explores how Wang's Fortune Tea became China's top selling herbal tea brand. The case asks students to analyze the company's growth strategies and to consider if it can continue to sustain its competitive advantage while facing intense competition from domestic and international companies.
As a luxury fashion goods producer and marketer, what made PORTS different from other high-end European and American labels was its distinctive background as a China-based company with a Canadian history. The company and the brand, PORTS International, were originally founded in Toronto in 1961 and later acquired by a Chinese immigrant entrepreneur, Alfred Chan, in 1989. Despite being made famous in North America and UK during the 1970s and early 1980s, the brand lost its glory in the early 1990s because of a global recession and poor management. In 1993, Chan decided to rebuild the brand by moving to Xiamen, China where he established the new headquarters and factories. After that, the brand continued to be ranked as one of the top most desirable fashion labels in China. In 2003, the company went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and started slowly entering the Western market. A new label, PORTS 1961, was created for the comeback and to target more high-end consumers. Although China was one of the world's biggest manufacturers of apparel products, China-made products were often associated with cheap, low quality and counterfeits. Since image is paramount in the world of luxury goods, how would PORTS overcome this perception of its goods, as well as other challenges, and further expand its presence in the local and global market?
Founded in 1996, China Minsheng Banking Corporation Limited ("Minsheng") was the first private commercial bank in China. By 2006, Minsheng had acquired almost US$130 billion in total assets and established almost 330 banking offices across the nation. The Banker magazine consistently praised Minsheng's development, ranking it number 310 in its top 1,000 business banks in the world in 2004, number 287 in 2005, and number 247 in 2006. In early March 2008, Minsheng obtained the green light from the China Banking Regulatory Commission to buy a 4.9% stake in US-based banking holding company, UCBH Holdings, Inc. ("UCBH") for US$95.7 million. The deal would eventually take Minsheng's stake in UCBH to 9.9%, totalling around US$200 million. The acquisition not only distinguished Minsheng as the first Chinese mainland institution to invest in a US bank, but was also viewed as a milestone for Chinese banks entering the US and international markets. On the flip side, UCBH would soon use this opportunity to make its own moves into China, leveraging its affiliation with Minsheng to totalingacquire other Chinese banks. This case examines the process of international expansion through acquisitions in the banking industry and the positioning of a growing bank in the global market, covering issues such as value creation, impact of government regulation and international barriers, the Chinese banking industry and its development, and the associated risks.
"Media General and the Balanced Scorecard (A) " (UV1135) describes the impetus for and the process of implementing a balanced scorecard (BSC) in a large, publicly held, multimedia news organization. The B case (UV1137) presents a situation where a business-unit manager turns to his region's BSC to evaluate the possible reasons for a quarterly revenue shortfall. These cases can be used in an undergraduate, graduate, or executive-education setting to introduce the BSC topic.
"Media General and the Balanced Scorecard (A) " (UV1135) describes the impetus for and the process of implementing a balanced scorecard (BSC) in a large, publicly held, multimedia news organization. The B case (UV1137) presents a situation where a business-unit manager turns to his region's BSC to evaluate the possible reasons for a quarterly revenue shortfall.
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.
Northwest Mutual Funds is a boutique mutual funds company that differentiates itself on a high level of customer service. The case describes how the company is considering marketing its funds directly to retail investors. Thus far, the company has marketed its fund only to the financial planners that make up the channel. The case illustrates channel issues, and helps students discuss how products must be differentiated from competitors' products in the channel.