On 9 April 2005, the leading global direct-sales cosmetics company, Avon, gained exclusive rights from the Chinese government to test the direct-selling model in China. This provided Avon a rare opportunity to expand its business, especially given that the demand for cosmetics in China had skyrocketed in the past decades. Since China banned the direct sales model in 1998, Avon had successfully adopted the traditional sales model of boutique and counter stores. Although the direct sales model had worked well for Avon in almost all other markets in the world, the traditional sales model had proved to be very successful in China. How should Avon exploit this opportunity of direct selling in China?
Examines a proposed investment in the capability to manufacture printed circuit boards (PCBs) in-house rather than buying them from third-party contract manufacturers. Stryker Corporation's Instruments business is considering the proposal in response to difficulties with existing suppliers. Requires students to formulate and execute basic quantitative capital budgeting analyses, specifically, to compute net present value (NPV) internal rate of return (IRR) and payback period.
Examines the life, career, and leadership style of John Meredith, the group managing director of Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH). Meredith established the company in 1972 based on his vision for more efficient global trade. Under his leadership, the company grew to become the world's largest container port operator. HPH grew from owning and managing a single container port to owning and managing 45 container ports by May 2007. Also looks at the importance of leadership at all levels of organizations. When a company grows quickly and sets up operations around the world, it must constantly train new leaders. However, HPH had difficulty finding and training enough leaders who were willing to lead the company's new port operations in far-off destinations. Reviews HPH's actions thus far and asks what other measures may be appropriate in the future.
This technical note focuses on risk management in a project-based organization. Risk management is discussed at the organizational and project levels. Three components of risk management are mentioned: risk assessment, risk management plan, and risk monitoring. Recent thinking in risk management has gone beyond financial risk management and incorporates enterprise risk management (ERM). Finally, the technical note links risk management to strategy, and notes the importance that the implementation of both has on the performance of the firm.
"Hee Soap, Hee Soap," Timothy Jones sang out in a mocking fashion towards Hee Seop Choi, a fellow learning team member at a noted graduate school of business. Hoping to gain the benefits from a diversity of resources, knowledge, and ideas, MBA students at this school were assigned to learning teams. Each member was specifically chosen with an effort to mix up gender, nationalities, professional backgrounds, and interests. But those advantages may be outweighed by problems stemming from multicultural differences. This case offers a disguised, yet real, team experience that can be used in the classroom to unpack how this richly diverse group had trouble getting along and why their personality clashes intensified. The opportunity to discuss the challenges in light of culture, and the difference between that and problems stemming from personalities will help students reap the benefits intrinsic in multicultural teams.
Not all groups are teams. That statement certainly applies to the learning team in this case study. Tony Marshall, a second-year learning team mentor, witnessed an interaction with the team last night confirmed what he suspected. Only three weeks into the first year of a MBA program at a big name school, the learning team (LT) was in trouble. From his own experience the year before, Marshall knew that a first-rate learning team made a huge positive difference in a student's first year. The corollary was also true; a bad or difficult LT experience could taint the entire FY and school experience. Although Marshall wanted to help, he just was not at all sure how. In the case, Marshall thinks about how to describe the situation to his fellow peer mentors in his second year elective class on managing teams in an effort to draw out some good ideas.
The owners of the Novotel Suvarnabhumi Airport Hotel planned a grand 4+ star hotel in a prime location, just a five-minute walk from the airport terminal. It would feature 612 guest rooms, multiple food and beverage outlets, meeting facilities and the largest ballroom in eastern Bangkok. The property was co-owned by three Thai government corporations and was set to open on 1 October 2006. Bangkok hotel operator Universal Hospitality Group and French hotel and leisure company The Accor Group submitted a joint bid for the management contract when it was opened for tender in September 2004. In February 2005, the hotel's owners awarded the management contract to the Accor-Universal management group. This was after the hotel's design had been finalized and construction had begun. The management consequently felt they had no meaningful input in the development process. Furthermore, the hotel had been built on a turnkey basis. Hence, when the management group assumed responsibility for the hotel in April 2006, they discovered many operational challenges stemming from what they felt was a misalignment of the hotel's development, construction and operation. The management group spent the first few months grappling with those challenges and seeking solutions.
Explores the process and inputs behind financial and operational forecasting in the Electronic Specialty Materials unit at Air Products and Chemicals, a global chemical company. The protagonist, John Goldberg, grapples with how to better integrate the two forecasting processes, while also trying to prepare for unexpected urgent orders and natural disasters.
In July 2004, a then 17-year-old Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon, arguably the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world. Max Eisenbud, Sharapova's agent at International Management Group (IMG), knew the championship would lead to a flood of new opportunities. What would be the best approach to the management and marketing of a champion like Maria Sharapova? Which of the various endorsement offers would be worthwhile to pursue? And how could Eisenbud best leverage the resources available to him at IMG? Allows for an in-depth examination of marketing issues and, more specifically, sports endorsement opportunities in the context of a world-class athlete. (As of 2006, Sharapova is one of the world's most recognized sports figures, and its highest compensated female athlete.) Provides unique insights into the world of "team Sharapova," consisting of Sharapova and her advisors at IMG, a leading sports, media, and entertainment agency. Contains rich data on the way in which IMG structures its sales process, and can serve to illustrate best practices and key trade-offs in sports or entertainment marketing initiatives.
Set in 2007, examines the role of the Area Instruction Officer (AIO) in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Focuses on the leadership skills and behavior needed to successfully manage a portfolio of schools with varying capacities, needs, and challenges. Also describes the role of the district and what its current development and support systems include for AIOs. Several schools and principals are profiled in order to delve deeply into "a day in the life" of an AIO.
Provides a set of easy, step-by-step guides for some analytical techniques that are useful in the analysis of cases discussed in the course "Competing and Winning Through Customer Information"(CWCI). The instructions that follow use datasets from three of the cases in this course: Slots, Tables, and All That Jazz: Managing Customer Profitability at the MGM Grand Hotel; MercadoLibre.com; and Bancaja: Developing Customer Intelligence (A). These datasets are available upon request from the author.
In July 2002, a legal watchdog group, Judicial Watch, announced that it was suing Halliburton Company for overstating revenues during the period 1998 to 2001. The group's contention was that Halliburton used fraudulent accounting practices to boost revenues and hide a deteriorating financial position from investors. Specifically, the lawsuit centered around the way the company recognized claims recoveries on long-term construction projects. Prior to 1998, the company's policy was to book cost overrun expenses as soon as they occurred, but not to book claims recoveries as revenue until the repayment amount was agreed to with the client. In 1998, the company changed policies to begin estimating future recoveries and recognizing them in the same period that overrun expenses were realized. The company, which had been suffering from a recent slowdown in business and large litigation losses from asbestos lawsuits, claimed that its accounting practices were permitted under generally accepted accounting principals (GAAP). Judicial Watch, however, claimed the accounting policy inflated revenues over the four-year period by as much as $534 million. This case focuses on the accounting issues and disclosure policy of the company during the 1998 to 2001 period. Readers of the case are asked to assess whether the company's policies and decisions were appropriate in the relevant areas of accounting and disclosure.
Evaluates the role that the quarterly conference calls play in a company's overall communications strategy with investors. In particular, students are asked to assess what additional information they can learn from the conference call that they would not otherwise learn in reading quarterly earnings results and financial statements.
This case considers how one project-based organization overcame deterrents to strategic risk management and enabled an effective risk management process to be diffused through its projects, without significantly upsetting the autonomy of its projects. Students will explore both the deterrents to strategic risk management and the components of effective risk management.
While wine tourism in the United States was booming, the majority of consumers who tasted a Cabernet Sauvignon in one of Napa Valley's tasting rooms were not permitted to ship the wine directly to their home. In 2002, direct-to-consumer shipping was either banned or overly cumbersome in 37 states. W. Reed Foster, president of the Coalition for Free Trade, was determined to remove these obstacles. Would he be able to free the grapes?
During a discussion, a physician once pointed to the name on his lab jacket and said, "MD-makes decisions!" One of the greatest challenges we face in cultivating leadership competence is being centered and skillful in the midst of difficult and upsetting situations, or during times of crisis. Each of the three vignettes in this case offers an opportunity to practice decision-making in challenging situations. The material helps students focus on decision-making. What guides effective decision-making? The vignettes present situations that can be used to describe common approaches to decision-making and explore problems or challenges with traditional decision-making.