The student is starting his or her own business, baking make-to-order cookies. Basic times of each operation are laid out and the student is asked to determine the consequences for the operating system. Serves as an exercise and review of concepts such as capacity, bottlenecks, and throughput times. Students should be able to make several useful suggestions for improving the system.
A recent Cuban immigrant establishes a new notions store. The initial 3-month, GAAP-based income statement differs from one prepared by an economist friend. The store owner wants to know why one shows a profit and the other a loss.
When the Danish mobile phone service provider Telmore entered the market in October 2000, few people took notice. Its business model was not perceived as particularly aggressive or threatening to the industry. Less than three years later, Telmore's creative adaptation of the well-known, no-frills model of the airline industry had taken the Danish market by storm. With a combination of rock-bottom prices, simplicity, and a focus on customer satisfaction backed by a unique low-cost infrastructure, Telmore's business model, with its powerful virtuous cycles, proved to be the most successful innovation the industry had seen in many years.
Ever find yourself looking for the perfect case for an exam or mid-term? They can be quite rare. "Green Ox" was written specifically for a mid-term exam in an MBA Marketing Management class. Rather than focus on one particular concept or issue (e.g., segmentation, product line depth), the case challenges students to develop a marketing strategy for a food and beverage manufacturer's new line of sports beverages that contain beneficial antioxidants. Focal decisions include choosing a segmentation scheme(s), choosing a specific target segment(s), and articulating a positioning statement(s) for the new product - in light of market trends, customer information, and competitor positions. Students must also make recommendations regarding the product name, number of products in the line, and the price (including a break-even analysis). Distribution and promotion issues are downplayed, yet there is sufficient information to determine whether students' recommendations on the larger issues account for the necessary integration of the 4Ps.
The case asks students to develop a method for identifying individuals at risk of having chronic kidney disease. A 6,000 subject training set containing 34 potential predictor variables is provided along with a 2,819 subject validation set the instructor uses to evaluate student predictions. The case is based on an actual study which resulted in a simple nine-question survey that instrument health professionals use to help patients decide whether to be tested for chronic kidney disease.
A managing director of international equities for a large public sector pension fund has to decide how the pension fund would vote on say for pay. Say for pay represents a vote held at the annual general meeting whereby shareholders have an annual and non-binding (thus it has no legal effect on the board or the corporation) opportunity to vote on executive compensation. Such a vote is obligatory in Australia and the United Kingdom and is starting to be practised in the United States. The case introduces students to elements of executive compensation, governance issues with executive compensation, the compensation analysis process, and the business model of investment bank / merchant banks and the use of private equity funds as vehicles to create value and retain value to the general partner and shareholders or the investment bank / merchant bank.
CEMEX grew through acquisitions from a Latin American to a global company under the leadership of a CEO who believed in the importance of a "one enterprise" culture and benchmarking against world standards. As the CEO ponders an acquisition that would double the company's size and take it to new geographies, he wonders if the right capabilities are in place for what should be changed to manage the integration process effectively.
The case documents how Naresh Goyal, chairman of Jet Airways (India) Limited founded the airline and related business group, and built the 'Jet Airways' brand from the early 1990s to 2004. Deploying new aircraft, maintaining young fleet, and focusing on passengers' convenience and service quality, he positioned the airline to the needs of Indian business travellers, garnered more than 40 percent market share and attained brand leadership by 2004. With prudent pricing, cost and yield management, Jet Airways enjoyed healthy profit margins of 20 to 30 percent since early 2000. On the back of strong profitability, market position, brand equity, and booming Indian capital markets and economy, the airline priced its 2005 public issue aggressively but investors' feedback on a red herring prospectus called for brand ownership, which it licensed from Jet Enterprises Limited, a group company promoted and owned by Naresh. The carrier appointed Mumbai-based auditors to value the brand and Jet Enterprises began registering the trademark globally. While Carl Saldhana, Chief Financial Officer, hoped that the auditors would arrive at a formula to value the brand and complete its transfer in six months' time, the trademark registration in some countries hit a snag.
Firms that aspire to develop two-sided platforms face a formidable challenge. Prospective users on each side will not invest in the platform until they are confident there will be enough users on the other side. Traditional strategies for dealing with this dilemma--subsidizing users or securing their exclusive affiliation--are costly and risky. Describes less costly staged strategies for building two-sided platforms. With the "vendor to two-sided platform" strategy, a firm starts as a vendor selling products or services to customers on just one side of a potential--but not yet existing--two-sided network. Once the first side is firmly established, it proves easier to attract users to the network's other side during stage two. With the "merchant to two-sided platform" strategy, a firm starts as a merchant buying goods from many different suppliers and reselling them, in the process absorbing all the risk of platform failure. In stage two, the firm shifts risk and control back to some or all of its suppliers, giving them more responsibility for managing inventory, pricing, and merchandising their wares. Presents examples and offers guidelines for when to use each strategy.
Explores the core issues involved in compensating family employees in a family business. Explains family interests and other factors that shape family employee compensation practices. Distinguishes between achieving effective compensation practices, which help to achieve the business's key success factors and other important interests, and strictly adhering to "professional" compensation principles, which are useful standards to try to follow but they may not meet important personal and family interests or be politically feasible. Concludes with several recommendations to guide family employee compensation practices.
After having negotiated major financial and operating decisions with its parent company, the Chief Financial Officer of this small ready mix concrete subsidiary is then asked to provide a valuation of the subsidiary. A one year forecast of financial statements is provided along with information on long term operating expectations and capital costs. This otherwise straightforward valuation exercise is enhanced by (1) the need to select between the parent or comparable firm costs of capital, (2) sufficient guidance to perform an illuminating sensitivity analysis, and (3) a sufficiently clear and rich context in which to illustrate the linkages between operating and financing choices.
Rob Jones, a Business Development manager intern, has been asked to make a recommendation regarding the purchase of a key piece of intellectual property for use in the Xbox. The project requires collaboration with several functional groups within Xbox and, ultimately, their buy-in. Jones has collected assessments and perspectives (sometimes conflicting) and needs to assimilate them into a recommendation. Jones is surprised to learn that his manager has arranged for his recommendation to be presented to the Division's CFO.
Greg Mills describes his search for the perfect engagement ring which includes an analysis of the prices of 6,000 diamonds. An engineer, Greg hopes to impress Sarah Staggers by using regression to find an underpriced diamond. Students are asked to either select one of the 6,000 diamonds or provide point forecasts for prices of 3,142 diamonds in a hold-out sample. The instructor can use the actual prices of the held-out diamonds to evaluate student pricing models.