In May 2021, the chief executive officer of Telkom SA SOC Limited (Telkom) in South Africa was facing a dilemma. Fifth generation (5G) technology was about to be introduced to the country’s communications industry. While Telkom had fared well during the COVID-19 global pandemic, even managing to gain market share from its much larger competitors, the anticipated release of additional coverage spectrum for the new 5G technology was going to put pressure on Telkom’s finances and business model. The chief executive officer, appointed in 2013, had helped transform the company’s business model from a struggling state-owned enterprise with a monopoly and unhappy customers to a thriving business in open competition with complementary strategic business units. However, with continuous evolution in the industry, Telkom was forced to innovate again and possibly reposition its strategic business units.
Increasingly in the 2010s, corporations turned to divestitures and spinoffs to streamline their operations. Over the course of one week in November 2021, conglomerates General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, and Toshiba announced plans for separation. The news reflected the broader shift toward divestitures as a means to focus on core competencies and achieve growth. By that time, more than three-quarters of companies (78%) believed that they should have divested assets sooner, as opposed to just 41% of companies in 2016. Further, 76% of companies anticipated that the Covid-19 pandemic would increase divestment plan momentum. This case explores the rationales for and against spinoffs, and provides recent examples of companies that followed their spinoffs with consolidations (and vice versa).
In 2016, India passed a new bankruptcy law (IBC) to counter a brewing bank crisis and increased corporate distress. Homebuilder Jaypee Infratech, one of India largest distressed companies (the "dirty dozen") began restructuring under the IBC in 2017. Two years later, the situation remains unresolved, the Supreme Court is involved, there are two interested bidders for the company, and a creditor group that includes Indian banks and local homebuyers. Should York Capital bid to purchase some of Jaypee's secured debt and at what price?
In April 2020, Rudra Industries and Services Private Ltd., a diesel generator product and service provider in Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in northern India, was facing a dilemma. Diesel generators (DGs) were heavily used by telecommunication companies to provide uninterrupted power supply to their towers, despite frequent power outages. However, consolidation in India’s telecommunication industry had led to stagnation in the company’s core business. To maintain a continuous flow of income, the company was considering a business expansion to leasing diesel generators to clients. The company was asked to prepare a bid proposal for leasing 100 DG sets to a local bank with numerous branches across the state. What factors would influence the pricing estimates in the bid? How should the company finance the purchase of generators that will be leased out to the client? How could the pricing estimate be calculated to ensure the project would be profitable? Should the company even consider entering the leasing sector, considering recent reductions in power outages and increasing diesel prices?
The note provides a qualitative and quantitative overview of the North American airline and airport industries with data covering 2016 to 2020. Specifically, the data covers five airlines—American Airlines Group Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., Southwest Airlines Co., United Airlines Holdings Inc., Air Canada, and WestJet Airlines Ltd.—and five airports—New York’s LaGuardia, Los Angeles International, Chicago’s O’Hare International, Toronto Pearson International, and Tucson International. The objective is to provide students with a basic understanding of the business and operations of the airline and airport industries.
In May 2021, the chief executive officer of Telkom SA SOC Limited (Telkom) in South Africa was facing a dilemma. Fifth generation (5G) technology was about to be introduced to the country's communications industry. While Telkom had fared well during the COVID-19 global pandemic, even managing to gain market share from its much larger competitors, the anticipated release of additional coverage spectrum for the new 5G technology was going to put pressure on Telkom's finances and business model. The chief executive officer, appointed in 2013, had helped transform the company's business model from a struggling state-owned enterprise with a monopoly and unhappy customers to a thriving business in open competition with complementary strategic business units. However, with continuous evolution in the industry, Telkom was forced to innovate again and possibly reposition its strategic business units.
In April 2020, Rudra Industries and Services Private Ltd., a diesel generator product and service provider in Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in northern India, was facing a dilemma. Diesel generators (DGs) were heavily used by telecommunication companies to provide uninterrupted power supply to their towers, despite frequent power outages. However, consolidation in India's telecommunication industry had led to stagnation in the company's core business. To maintain a continuous flow of income, the company was considering a business expansion to leasing diesel generators to clients. The company was asked to prepare a bid proposal for leasing 100 DG sets to a local bank with numerous branches across the state. What factors would influence the pricing estimates in the bid? How should the company finance the purchase of generators that will be leased out to the client? How could the pricing estimate be calculated to ensure the project would be profitable? Should the company even consider entering the leasing sector, considering recent reductions in power outages and increasing diesel prices?
The note provides a qualitative and quantitative overview of the North American airline and airport industries with data covering 2016 to 2020. Specifically, the data covers five airlines-American Airlines Group Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., Southwest Airlines Co., United Airlines Holdings Inc., Air Canada, and WestJet Airlines Ltd.-and five airports-New York's LaGuardia, Los Angeles International, Chicago's O'Hare International, Toronto Pearson International, and Tucson International. The objective is to provide students with a basic understanding of the business and operations of the airline and airport industries.
In May 2021, a recent graduate from the master of business administration program at Ivey Business School noticed a news article about one of his investments, the leading athletic apparel company Under Armour, Inc. The article stated that Under Armour, Inc. was fined US$9 Million by the US Security and Exchange Commission. The charges were a result of concerns over the company’s revenue reporting practices, but the company's share price dropped only very slightly following the announcement. The investor was considering his options regarding his investment. However, he was still curious and eager to learn more about the circumstances behind the US Security and Exchange Commission’s charge and potential consequences for the company. The investor decided to examine Under Armour, Inc.’s revenue reporting practices, financial reporting practices, and corporate governance issues.
Established in 2015 in Shanghai, China, Shanghai Kmind Enterprise Management Co., Ltd. was a strategy consulting firm that specialized in helping enterprises overcome market competition through the provision of its consulting services. It not only provided strategy consulting reports to clients but also acted as a business partner in assisting clients in implementing the reports. Among its many clients, nine leading enterprises had achieved rapid growth, and five had reached revenue of ¥10 billion. However, behind its success, the firm was facing a shortage of consultants. Although its clients had increased in number since the firm's founding, it had had to turn away many high-quality clients because of the consultant shortage. The firm’s chairman had to consider how to rapidly improve the firm’s service capability.
In order to build diverse and inclusive business ecosystems, leaders and organizations must be authentic and move beyond performative allyship. The authors argue that by taking a cue from successful Black business communities of the past and robustly engaging in cooperation, companies can play a role in building the communities needed to facilitate social sustainability in underserved communities today.
Divami Design Labs is a company that specializes in user experience (UX) strategy, UX design, and user interface (UI) development services across web and mobile platforms. The company-based in Hyderabad, India-works with several clients in designing their software products and solutions. The company had recently won a large contract that involved redesigning a software product for a client in the employee life cycle management business. The client, Paysoft, had recently undergone a redesign process using internal resources. While the new product was well received initially, several complaints started to emerge about product rigidity and the lack of customer centricity. In a crucial board meeting, Paysoft decided to bring in an external specialist to help make the product more user-friendly. Divami won the contract after a long competitive process. As the Divami team began implementation, it ran into resistance from Paysoft's internal software development team, which had managed the initial product build. The Divami team had the challenge of justifying the role of design specialists in the product development process. It needed to convince the Paysoft internal team of the value it could add and how the design process does not replace but strengthens the development process. The Divami team also needed to showcase the design process with an illustration.
The case, set in April 2019, follows the managing director of an investment firm that is deliberating whether to invest in Jet Airways. It is the day after the airline halted their operations, and our protagonist, Surjit Trivedi, Managing Director of a Mumbai-based private equity firm, the Agile Group, is headed for a meeting where his team of analysts and strategists are presenting their evaluation of Jet Airways. Trivedi must decide whether to invest in the airline or not as he is due to present the proposal to the board of the private equity firm he works for. He does not want to make a wrong investment and jeopardize the firm's future and his forthcoming promotion. The case follows the rise and fall of Jet Airways. Civil aviation in India has changed tremendously over the past 20 years, both from the consumer and service provider standpoints. This change was due to factors such as globalization, the higher disposable income of Indians, government initiatives, travel enthusiasm among millennials, and so on. With India expected to become third-biggest aviation market by the year 2025, the number of players in the market increased, with both indigenous and global competitors in the fray. Despite positive industry indicators, two major airlines were forced to halt operations in the last decade, Jet Airways being one of them. The case can be used to scrutinize the reasons for Jet Airways' downfall such as their acquisitions and alliances, the decisions of their founder Naresh Goyal, and Jet Airways' response to the challenge posed by low-cost carriers (LCCs) in India. Moreover, the case can be utilized to analyze how the consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI) handled the Jet Airways crisis.
Digital globalization is transforming innovation in multinationals, but opposing localization forces, such as trade restrictions and nationalism, are limiting the portability of digital assets and raising innovation uncertainty and risk. This creates a challenging context for multinationals. To meet the challenge, they can use four approaches to better calibrate the connectivity of their innovation sources and assets.
This case depicts Singapore's TraceTogether (TT) story, beginning in early 2020 when COVID-19 was spreading globally with ravaging effects. TT was the world's first national application of a digital contact-tracing tool. Remarkably, the initial version of TT was developed and launched in just eight weeks. The increasing adoption of TT (both as a mobile app and as a hardware token) enabled the early identification and isolation of infected cases much faster than manual tracing. Part A of the case covers the related events and decision-making until the launch of the TT app on 20 March 2020. Part B covers the subsequent development efforts, version upgrades, follow-on releases and other issues until November 2021. The ability of the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) to respond quickly to this unforeseen crisis was germinated about 7 years prior. Chan Cheow Hoe, Deputy CEO led the transition to a bimodal IT organisation which was internally capable of exploratory and rapid software development, and recently Jason Bay, Senior Director, led the overall effort to create and launch the TT app. As Singapore's COVID-19 situation was changing dynamically, so were the national response policies and the TT app. In August 2021, government officials announced that Singapore would begin the adjustment of living with COVID-19 as an endemic. Yet, as of November 2021, the situation was still highly volatile with the emergence of the Omicron variant. To this end, what would the future hold for TT? Should the health authority sunset TT to assuage concerns of national surveillance? Should they encourage the population to keep using TT as uncertainties remained due to the emergence of new COVID-19 variants? Could a subset of TT's capabilities be repurposed for other national initiatives? What new types of foundational capabilities and supporting infrastructure should GovTech start putting in place now to prepare in advance for the next big unknown?