In 1999 and 2000, Abbott Laboratories' senior management considered a number of philanthropic options that could make a difference and define the focus for Abbott and the Abbott Fund's charitable programs. Although the cause was humanitarian, it was considered important that the programs align strategically with Abbott's leadership in the HIV/AIDS arena. The Abbott Fund officially launched the Program for Orphans and Vulnerable Children in June 2000. The program assisted orphans and vulnerable children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS as well as the communities that cared for them. They chose Tanzania as host for a pilot program, which involved updating the country's community health care infrastructure. Abbott partnered with Tanzania's Ministry of Health over the next five years to upgrade the facilities at Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar Es Salaam, the Tanzanian capital; build an HIV center comprising an outpatient clinic and counseling/support facilities; create a national HIV teaching center; and introduce pharmacy, health information, and management systems. The dramatic growth of the Abbott Fund HIV/AIDS programs suggested a strategic turning point for the Abbott Fund, transforming it from a domestic philanthropic program to one with a global focus, now aligned with Abbott's international business focus. By 2003, nearly $20 million from the Abbott Fund was being invested in its developing-world AIDS programs.
The partnership between Abbott and the government of Tanzania continued to flourish. As a demonstration of Abbott's long-term commitment to Tanzania, in 2007, the Abbott Fund opened its first office outside Abbott headquarters in Illinois. The new office in Dar es Salaam, led by Divisional Vice President Christy Wistar, oversaw the expanding number of philanthropic projects in Tanzania. In June 2007, Abbott CEO Miles White returned to Tanzania for the third time and announced the Abbott Fund's future plans to modernize the 23 regional laboratories across Tanzania. By the end of 2007, the Abbott Fund had invested more than $50 million in Tanzania alone, strengthening and modernizing the health care infrastructure and systems countrywide. The Abbott Fund planned to continue its support of numerous programs and organizations that were working to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS and deliver effective care and treatment to HIV-infected patients. The Abbott Fund also supported programs that provided for the basic needs of orphans and vulnerable children in Tanzania and elsewhere in Africa and India.
The protagonist,David Dunwood, is a second-time search fund entrepreneur who in mid-2004 purchased Mountain Auto, a leading auto parts retailer in the Rocky Mountain United States. The venture started off strong, and Dunwood grew the organization along with revenues in his first two and a half years as CEO. However, by the end of 2006, the company finds itself in a downward spiral due to a combination of forces, including unfavorable weather and intense competition, especially among the top retailers who could afford to ride out leaner years and undercut smaller chains like Mountain Auto. Dunwood is faced with layoffs, budget cuts and having to put up the company for sale.
Zenovia Evans, mayor of the small Chicago suburb of Riverdale, was determined to save the subdivision of Pacesetter which had once been her home. As part of her efforts to save the deteriorating neighborhood, Mayor Evans joined a wide-ranging and innovative campaign to bring affordable housing to the entire Chicago metropolitan area, a region with a troubled history of race and class relations. Several influential business and civic leaders, learning of the predicament of inner-ring suburbs just south of the city, decided to lend a hand. They helped the Village of Riverdale devise a plan to renovate, rather than demolish, the subdivision and helped Pacesetters developers find programs that could provide the substantial funding that was needed to carry off the project. HKS Case Number 1890.0
This is an abridged version of note NR15-02-1661.0. The focus of international trade negotiations was once quotas and tariffs - how much of a particular product could be imported and the duty levied at the border. As the world economy has experienced deeper integration, attention has shifted away from tariffs and quotas to the complex policies and rules that affect the international movement of goods, services and investment. Such policies include protections for intellectual property rights. Negotiated during the Uruguay Round, the 1994 Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) significantly broadened the reach of the trading regime by establishing .a comprehensive set of global trade rules for intellectual property. World Trade Organization (WTO) members are now obliged to adopt policies that protect patents, trademarks, and copyrights. While countries remain free to provide even more protection than the TRIPs requires, the agreement sets minimum standards. 1661.3
Zenovia Evans, mayor of the small Chicago suburb of Riverdale, was determined to save the subdivision of Pacesetter which had once been her home. As part of her efforts to save the deteriorating neighborhood, Mayor Evans joined a wide-ranging and innovative campaign to bring affordable housing to the entire Chicago metropolitan area, a region with a troubled history of race and class relations. Several influential business and civic leaders, learning of the predicament of inner-ring suburbs just south of the city, decided to lend a hand. They helped the Village of Riverdale devise a plan to renovate, rather than demolish, the subdivision and helped Pacesetters developers find programs that could provide the substantial funding that was needed to carry off the project. HKS Case Number 1890.0
With its history of growth through acquisition, Citigroup has a conglomeration of sub-brands that need to be integrated and rationalized. Ajay Banga, CEO of Citi's Global Consumer Group International, chairs a task force to work through the process of re-branding the entire Citi house of brands while maintaining a focus on being focused on customers. The case describes the history of branding and re-branding at Citigroup at a time of increasing global competition in financial services.
As B.S. Nagesh thumbed through the 2006-2007 Annual Report for Shoppers' Stop Group (SSG), action shots of healthy-looking people dressed in the latest fashions amid the words "Redefining Retail" brought a smile to his face. As managing director of SSG -- a Rs 8.9 billion ($206 million) company in 2007 which included 23 department stores and a new hypermarket -- Nagesh was proud of the way the company had taken retail from its roots in simple transactions to a complete "experience" defined by the luxurious ambiance, food, events and educated staff in SSG's retail outlets throughout India. The company's success led to an initial public offering in May 2005. SSG's parent company, the K. Raheja Corporation, and its affiliated companies held 66% of SSG's Shares.
Campbell Soup, like most food manufacturers, faced grocery chain and wholesale demand for its goods driven by Campbell's own promotional pricing structure rather than retail consumer demand. Former policies to encourage overstock created huge swings in production and inventory levels. Campbell's introduced continuous product replenishment (CPR) under which they would manage inventory for their customers, enabled by electronic data interchange to link supply to actual demand. Implementing this channel shift required a restructuring of relationships with its customers and a radical restructuring of its promotional policies.
In 2008 the Boston-based Harvard Business School would turn 100. As the centennial year began, the HBS community and leadership were reflecting on how the School might fulfill its mission to "develop business leaders who make a difference in the world" in the next century. This case focuses on the school's commitment to general management education and its implementation in an increasingly globalized business world.
This note provides an overview of intercorporate investments, including passive investments (marketable securities), investments that result in significant influence, and investments that result in control. Then, the accounting for marketable equity and debt securities is described in detail.
McDonald's Corporation, the behemoth of the fast food industry, has taken its share of criticism-even ridicule-over the years. The image of the company suffered as the public began to perceive its jobs as dead-end, unskilled, and unstimulating. The term "McJob," coined by an author in 1991, was slang for a low-paying job that required little skill and provided little opportunity for advancement. But in many ways, McDonald's Corporation defied norms, using a combination of promotion-from-within strategy and benchmark employee training programs to develop an abundant pool of human capital. The company was deeply committed to its employees who "started as crew" coming up through the ranks, receiving the necessary training at its own Hamburger University. This case tells the story of Jan Fields, who started at McDonald's making french fries and found herself 20 years later serving as executive vice president and chief operations officer at McDonald's USA.
The case Vanguard Security Corporation, a Portuguese company, explores exchange rate and trade financing decisions for a transaction between a U.S.-based importer and a European exporter. It focuses on transaction and economic exposure identification and risk management. It also explores corporate finance and bid risk management issues. The case involves quantitative and qualitative solution techniques as it requires using four fundamental exchange rate forecasting techniques and selecting between six exchange rate hedging products to find the best solutions based on an assessment of the needs and risk appetite of the VSC corporate treasurer.
With an almost forty-year history as a business in China, the Wanxiang Group has navigated through the significantly different political and economic changes in China to succeed as a global leader in the auto parts industry, and to develop into a broad business conglomerate. Beginning in 1994, when it first began its operations in the United States, Wanxiang started to expand its role as a parts supplier into a discerning acquirer of distressed companies in the U.S. While it saw acquisition as an exciting means for growth, company strategy at its Hangzhou, China headquarters also included vertical integration with a goal of developing a full-on electric car. Were these two goals divergent or complementary: mutually supportive or exclusive?
Der Spiegel is Germany's most influential political news magazine. In the 1970's, its founder Rudolf Augstein gave a 50% ownership stake to his employees and sold another 25% to rival publisher Gruner+Jahr, but retained significant control during his lifetime by stipulating in the bylaws that every important business decision would require a 76% shareholder approval. When Augstein died in 2002, however, his co-owners exercised the option the same bylaws gave them to buy a 0.5% stake each from Augstein's heirs, who thus lost their veto rights. In September 2007, the benefits and costs of sharing ownership with employees become particularly salient when the employees block the CEO's proposal to acquire 50% of the Financial Times Deutschland. Faced with the new balance of power, Rudolf's eldest son Jakob Augstein is forced to rethink the role that his family can play in Spiegel going forward. Should he try to buy back the pivotal stake? Sell the family stake altogether? But to whom, and at what price?
The management team of an industrial equipment supplier is debating the company's method of compensating salespeople. Different executives have offered different alternatives to the current method of straight salary plus expenses. Each option has different implications for business strategy, organization, control systems, and sales management requirements. As a result, the case raises issues and analytics relevant to topics such as aligning strategy and organization, strategy implementation, and cross-functional incentive systems as well as sales management.
When Dominique Strauss-Kahn became the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund in late 2007, he faced a number of significant changes. The organization had lost much of its legitimacy over the previous decade, and countries seemed increasingly reluctant to borrow from the Fund. Developing countries had increased their foreign exchange reserves, which reduced their reliance on potential IMF support packages. Furthermore, the IMF found itself unable to influence the macroeconomic policies of the United States and China in order to reduce global current account imbalances, and developing world countries complained that they were underrepresented at the Fund. As the IMF's new Managing Director, Strauss-Kahn had to decide how best to address these challenges and in what direction to steer the Fund.