Provides a detailed description of the process of strategic management, particularly strategy implementation, at Zhujiang Iron and Steel Company (ZISCo)--a Chinese state-owned enterprise. ZISCo, established in 1997, is a steel manufacturer and produces a range of steel sheets and plates used in manufacturing containers, industry-used gas bottles, steel pipes, white good appliances, and automobiles. In early 2003, ZISCo faced many problems in the key areas of production, procurement, and marketing, which largely resulted from the niche market strategy it was implementing at that time. In March 2003, Ruosheng Zhang was appointed as the new president of ZISCo. Since then, ZISCo has implemented a "value creation strategy" and undertaken a number of important functional reforms, with active participation from its employees. Consequently, its financial performance improved substantially during 2004-2006. Nevertheless, ZISCo still encountered various challenges in 2007, particularly in the areas of cultural change, knowledge management, and development of organizational competence and learning capability.
After significant changes in management, strategic direction and product focus, XenSource, a virtualization software start-up that relies on open source code, faces key decisions regarding the pricing and packaging of its products, a challenge which is compounded by two additional factors: the tension with all of the trappings of open source and the objective to catch / overtake the established incumbent, VMware.
In 1997, the Philippines government privatized its water utility in the metropolitan Manila area. The East Zone concession was won by Manila Water Company and the West Zone concession by Maynilad Water Services. Over the next decade, Manila Water turned in an impressive and profitable performance, while Maynilad failed. Describes the management actions of Manila Water and poses the question of whether, and how much, they should bid for the vacated West Zone concession.
Fiyta had long been on of China's foremost watch brands. However, as China's economy began to improve and the livelihood of many Chinese rose with it, their tastes began to change. Exposed to more luxurious foreign brands, many Chinese strived to purchase a Swiss or Japanese watch. How could Fiyta build up its brand image to a more sophisticated Chinese consumer? What marketing activities should it undertake to reinvigorate its brand? Is it meeting the needs of all segments of Chinese consumers? Should it?
This technical note provides a brief introduction to option trading strategies. It covers pay-off diagrams and specifically introduces bull spreads, butterfly spreads and calendar spreads. It also introduces straddles, strips, and strangles.
Jan Muska, a financial analyst with Fidelity Investments, must evaluate Statoil ASA for possible inclusion in the company's Energy Fund portfolio. During the period January 1, 2001 - September 15, 2006, Statoil's stock, which was listed as an American Depositary Receipt (ADR) on the NYSE, outperformed the S&P 500 by a wide margin. In August 2006, an ING analyst issued a report changing the firm's rating on Statoil from buy to hold. In October 2006, ValuEngine issued a market "outperform" rating and set a target price of $28.40 per share. With conflicting analyst opinions on Statoil's value, Muska must prepare his own evaluation of Statoil's financial performance and valuation and make a recommendation to the portfolio manage of Fidelity's Energy Fund.
This case provides financial statement data for ten companies from ten different industries from Thomson Banker One-Analytics. Using knowledge of the industries' financial characteristics and financial ratios, the case asks student to match each of the ten financial statement data sets to an appropriate industry. The case provides common-sized income statements (all items scaled by revenues), common-sized balance sheets (all items scaled by total assets) and selected financial ratios. All data are averaged over three years-2004-2006-to smooth out one-time items.
South Africa had formally introduced a policy of inflation targeting (IT) in February 2000. By December 2001, the governor of the South African Reserve Bank after reading the latest statistics is concerned with the disappointing economic data. Economic activity had slowed drastically, to the point that the country appears to be heading for a recession. The gloomy statistics force the governor to consider whether the country had pursued the right policy. The persistently high unemployment, one legacy of the apartheid era, meant that South Africa did not have the luxury of waiting for new policies to bear fruit. With inflation forecast to exceed the mandated target, the governor would have to tighten monetary policy, which would further restrict investment. He questions whether it is time for South Africa to change course.
This note explores how advertising works from a consumer behavior perspective. Following an overview of some of the traditional hierarchical approaches to studying advertising and limitations associated with these models, the elaboration-likelihood model (ELM) is introduced as a means of addressing some of these deficiencies. The ELM is then examined within an advertising context. Subsequently, subliminal advertising is briefly considered. Lastly, issues related to measurement of advertising effectiveness are discussed.
Codelco was a Chilean copper-mining company, widely considered to be one of the most professionally managed firms in South America in spite of the fact that it was 100% government-owned. A $10.5 billion company in 2005, Codelco faced the challenge of incorporating information technology into its production processes, which had historically been very manual in nature. CEO Juan Villarzu's initial turnaround attempts introduced a customer-centric corporate culture to his ranks, but he was still challenged by how to create an outsourcing strategy given his location and the traditionally low IT-to-total-spending ratio in the mining industry. Villarzu envisioned moving to a robust IT architecture, enhancing the solutions that were available, identifying further needs in the company and deciding how to fix them, and working together with Codelco's business processes to assess, plan, and build new IT projects.
Looks at various international expansion models for a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley. Lightspeed Venture Partners believed that India had tremendous potential for venture capital returns--the question was how best to tap into that potential while also growing the firm's presence in the U.S., Israel, and China. The venture firm had recently hired partners in Israel and China, and subsequently opened offices in both countries. The firm was contemplating hiring a third international partner in India and potentially opening a third foreign office. This model seemed to be working in the other two countries, but other U.S. venture firms were entering India in a more aggressive manner. Some venture firms were purchasing local firms and raising money for dedicated India funds. Others were hiring a team of two or three local investors at one time. Lightspeed partners wondered which was the best long-term solution for their firm.
Aussie Pies, Inc. was established in Seattle, Washington in 2005 after Anna Amphlett and Andrew Ferris discovered Aussie meat pies on a vacation to Australia. The meat pie, a hand-sized pot pie made with pastry and filled with minced (ground) beef and gravy, is consumed as a takeaway food snack in Australia. To obtain financing from Bank of America, the company's business plan initially forecasted sales of a little over one million dollars in 2006, the first year of operations. But with an aggressive sales and marketing campaign, sales reached $6 million in 2006. Although sales greatly exceeded their expectations, Amphlett and Ferris were disappointed that net income in the first year was only $786,000 and that the company had cash on hand of just $200,000 at the end of 2006.
Describes the process by which the largest law firm in the world developed a unique framework for personnel management. In 2004, John Conroy is about to take the reins as the leader of Baker & McKenzie, the largest law firm in the world by employees, with offices in 38 different countries. Facing an intensifying war for talent and associate retention concerns in some offices, Conroy has spearheaded the development of a framework for guiding the hiring, development, and retention of employees. As he is getting ready to introduce his framework at the firm's annual meeting, however, he faces many questions about its implementation. Could a single framework effectively apply to lawyers across so many different regions and cultures? Had this framework properly identified the attributes needed to succeed at Baker & McKenzie? How would the firm's hundreds of partners react? Offers the industry- and firm-specific content necessary for students to explore these questions and more.
Set in mid-2002, this case illustrates "a day in the life" of a district sales manager of a Silicon Valley company, as the technology market faced a downturn. The case enables a polarized class discussion about the tradeoffs that a new district manager might make relative to hiring / firing and setting quotas, after inheriting a mixed bag of talent in an underperforming district. It also seeks to provide with additional texture about the types of challenges and activities that such an individual would face (different from those faced by a sales representative). The case enables students to engage in discussions about four key dilemmas faced by the district manager: (a) Which representatives should he retain in his district, and which should he fire?, (b) How should he negotiate quotas/goals with his superior (regional manager), and with his representatives?, (c) Should he train an employee who will likely fall short of the company's growth goals, or replace him in hopes of hiring on a better performer?, and (d) What should Jim do about an employee who appears to insist in putting the customer's interests ahead of the company's?
Describes the International Fight League's (IFL) formation and growth, the mixed-martial arts (MMA) industry in 2007, and culminates in the dilemma of what the company should do strategically in order to survive. After going public, the company faced competition from various new small players like itself, and from dominant player UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). As the company fell below break-even, its challenge became to search for one or more types of revenue streams to "salvage" itself before burning through its remaining cash reserves. Evaluates the typical revenue streams of sports companies, such as television, team sponsorship, league sponsorship, advertising, merchandising, and live arena events. Each strategic direction is evaluated, given its corresponding operational model, cost of ramp-up (particularly considering UFC's position), and sustainable barriers to entry. Looks at typical challenges faced by management of a publicly traded company caught in a strategic pinch by looking at the IFL's situation.
This case describes E+Co's approach to promoting clean energy entrepreneurship in developing countries and its current strategic challenge; how to scale up its business model to reach 100 million unserved or underserved people in the developing world by 2020. In the last 12 years E+Co was successful at demonstrating and validating an "enterprise centered model" which offered reliable access and improved energy efficiency to the poor in emerging economies. Its approach to bringing the poor up the modern energy ladder, one step at a time, was initiated in response to a challenging project for the Rockerfeller Foundation, marked by a radical departure from the top-down, large scale infrastructure projects sponsored by international institutions. So far, these models had left 2.5 million people trapped into the double bind of energy poverty and energy waste. E+Co's approach was working well; by September 2006 it had invested in 138 enterprises in 30 countries. These local entrepreneurs currently provided clean energy to more than three million people. The next issue was scaling it all up; however, this risked straining the resources of E+Co's global team of 38 employees and could change the services the company provided to local entrepreneurs. Tenfold expansion within these constraints required an innovative growth strategy. Supplemental case, E+Co: The Path to Scale (B), product 907M55, presents a set of entrepreneurial growth strategies that preserve the core of the model.