This case describes the pay packages offered to Sara Becker, a graduating MBA student, including detailed information about two stock option packages (one of which is an indexed option package). She gathers the information and attempts to compare those compensation offers.
The leader of a newly formed small business banking division of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) decided on the necessity of creating a unifying vision for its 2,000 employees. She knew that a critical success factor in corporate reorganizations was to focus the team, through a corporate vision, on new shared goals they all believed were achievable. If the leadership team believed, then this winning attitude would cascade throughout the division and mobilize the workforce. In turn, this energy would be felt by the customers and become the most competitive weapon she could provide. The process of creating a vision and determining what actions make visions successful is presented within the context of the financial services industry and the challenges facing a new business unit.
Describes a situation faced by Mr. Ely Callaway, the 80-year-old founder, chairman, and CEO of Callaway Golf Co., in the fall of 1999. After a decade of stunning success with the marketing concept, Callaway suffered a significant loss and witnessed a steep decline in sales in 1998. Mr. Callaway had built a $800 million business by making a truly more satisfying product for the average golfer, making it pleasingly different from the competition and communicating the benefits to the consumer. The results in 1998 forced Mr. Callaway to reconsider the marketing program that had successfully supported the product until now.
This case is designed to familiarize students with the use of financial ratios. Two retailers, Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., have a very similar value for return on equity (ROE) in the 1997 fiscal year. Students use the information in the case and the accompanying exhibits, which include financial statements as well as disclosures regarding corporate strategies and accounting policies for each company, to analyze the value creation process for each firm. This case provides a good introduction regarding the combination of such information to create a powerful tool for financial statement analysis. A rewritten version of an earlier case.
Jeff Taylor, founder and CEO of Monster.com, ponders how his online site, the leading career site on the web, can continue its dominance (60% share in 1999) and growth on the Internet. Monster.com had just launched a nationwide branding campaign on television and entered a four-year deal with AOL. A rewritten version of an earlier case.
Beansprout Networks is a 3-year-old Internet company designed to foster effective communication between parents and the pediatricians and child-care providers who care for their children. With a significant headstart in the marketplace, it has attracted considerable attention from both venture capitalists and health care analysts. Founder James Chung must now examine his internal strategy, given his desire to maintain a strong, vital, entrepreneurial culture amid rapid increases in headcount, increasing need for structure, and the continuing challenges of combining both high-tech and high-touch skills.
Education services target public schools to assist the school with technology and services that will improve their communication with students, parents, and the community. There is also the goal of increasing scores of measured learning. How does a small company do this? How do they operate nationally with contract employees and maintain a consistent level of service and performance?
Bausch & Lomb (B&L) instituted an aggressive sales program in the final weeks of its 1993 fiscal year that pushed a large amount of inventories onto distributors. The company recognized revenues on these products when they were shipped. A rewritten version of an earlier case.
Describes Borders Group, a well-known retail chain, in late 1999 and its traditional strengths and rapid growth in the 1990s. By 1990, however, the company had fallen behind Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble in leveraging the Internet for book retailing, although it potentially had an opportunity to be the leader in integrating the store with the Internet in a "bricks and clicks" model. Allows students to explore the opportunities and pitfalls in pursuing bricks and clicks. Highlights the need for excellence in store execution.
The purpose of this series of notes is to define the key "drivers" of the fundamental value of equity and to illustrate how these drivers determine the future cash flows and the "present value pattern" of the underlying common stock. The series includes one technical note for each term defined. The terms defined are as follows: invested capital (IC), capital expenditures (Capex), earnings, return on invested capital (ROIC), free cash flow (FCF), short- and long-term growth rate and the growth horizon, and advantage horizon. This is a short introductory note to the series.
Describes STAR TV, a pan-Asian satellite network that has standardized its strategy across its target markets. STAR's acquisition by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation provides an opportune point to analyze whether the viability of this strategy is likely to increase or decrease over time. This analysis sets up a broader discussion of the dynamics of globalization.