Wymsee was a company that aimed to develop a mobile application (app) that would allow television audience members to identify and purchase clothing or accessories worn by characters in the program they were watching, with the Wymsee founders taking a percentage of transactions they facilitated. To get the data necessary to make this work, protagonist Alex LoVerde and his three co-founders built an app called SyncOnSet, which helped film crews update and streamline their previously analog and complex costume tracking workflow. The quick adoption of SyncOnSet and the relative difficulty of launching Wymsee made LoVerde wonder if the company should pivot away from a consumer-facing app and toward software designed for Hollywood film crews.
This case describes the trials and tribulations that tested Yung Kee Restaurant, a Chinese roast goose restaurant in Hong Kong. The former Michelin-star eatery, founded by Kam Shui-fai, received several other accolades, including recognition by Fortune magazine as one of the world's best restaurants. Unfortunately, with the passing on of Kam Senior in 2004, a bitter feud over the ownership and management of Yung Kee erupted among his children; the public dispute tore the family apart. At one point, Kam family members refused to even acknowledge one another in social settings. In July 2010, the elder Kam brother, Kinsen, applied to the Hong Kong High Court to liquidate Yung Kee Holdings, if his younger brother, Ronald, refused to buy out his stake. In 2015, the court instructed Yung Kee Holdings to close its business, which could spell the end of the restaurant, which was its crown jewel and a culinary institution in the city. Fast forward to 2020, Yung Kee has survived the ordeal. A third-generation member of the Kam family became Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the restaurant and helms the family business. What could have been done better in terms of corporate governance? In what other ways could the family business be organised?
Emaan Modaraba, a Shariah compliant publicly traded modaraba based in Pakistan, made an investment in shares of Indus Motor Company Limited, a listed company assembling Toyota vehicles, in July 2020 - whose shares were designated to be Shariah Compliant and included in the Pakistan Stock Exchange's KMI-All Share Islamic Index. In August 2020, Indus' annual report disclosed that the company increased its short-term investments in interest-bearing instruments in order to be financially resilient in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ms. Khan, CEO of Emaan Modaraba, instructs Ms. Amina Ali, an investment manager, to provide her opinion on the annual report and whether Indus would remain Shariah Compliant and be included in the portfolio.
The Asia sourcing manager at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), a humanitarian organization working in conflict areas, had contributed to the 2009 creation of an ethical procurement policy to respond to urgent needs around the world. Her mandate was in line with the ICRC's strategy of improving the flexibility, cost effectiveness, and sustainability of its supply chain. Ethical procurement could not be enforced, however, when sudden conflicts or natural disasters relied on local purchasing or cash transfer programs to meet the needs of distressed populations. Ten years later, despite efforts to systematize and expand the ethical procurement policy, emergency relief items were still being procured from local and regional markets through traders or cash transfer programs not covered by the policy. How could the ICRC address this gap and promote the ethical procurement of relief items at the local level in emergency situations?
HCL Technologies Ltd., one of the big four information technology companies in India, had established a corporate entrepreneurship function within its enterprise technology office (ETO). As part of its aspiration to scale up its corporate entrepreneurship activities, the ETO had adopted an ecosystem innovation strategy, and in 2020, the ETO team was deliberating how to standardize and institutionalize its corporate entrepreneurship practices, enhance the platform technology, and build a culture of innovation to leverage the newly adopted ecosystem innovation strategy.
This note explores the selection of investment managers and the performance-measurement tools associated with this important task. In selecting investment options for a firm's 401(k) plan, identifying possible managers to oversee a portion of an endowment's or foundation's investment portfolio, or a retail investor's decision of which fund to choose for their regular investment account, investment performance is likely to play an important role. In this technical note, we explore a number of different performance measures that may be used to select managers, including total return, alpha, and information ratio, and a key risk measurement used in this approach, tracking error.
Unconventional monetary policy has become the norm since the 2008 financial crisis. Central bank balance sheets have swelled and new tools for interest rate control have now emerged. This technical note provides a framework to help students understand the nature of unconventional monetary policy and interpret recent changes in how short-term policy rates are controlled. It can serve as a technical supplement to an event-study case on monetary policy responses to the 2008 financial crisis and/or the COVID-19 pandemic. It would also complement a case on monetary policy in a world with central bank digital currency. Alternatively, it can form the basis of its own tool-building class ahead of such cases.
This technical note aims to guide discussion on three strategic moves that are designed for multipoint competition: thrust, feint, and gambit. It will examine how these moves might be applied for multipoint competition within the pet food industry. In the 1980s, pet food companies competed across many different subsegments of cat and dog food, requiring complex and creative multipoint competition strategies to win market shares.
Angus MacIntyre, CEO of Dumbarton Bearing Supply, LLC (Dumbarton), is deciding whether to introduce a new ceramic ball-bearing product line and whether to produce those bearings by refitting an existing production line or by building a new production line. The initial analysis favors a refit-despite a much higher variable cost, the investment is relatively small, and as a result this approach poses little risk. However, this analysis does not recognize the possibility that Dumbarton could abandon the new product line and recoup much of its investment in scenarios where demand for the new bearings is low. The ability to abandon the product line at a later date is a classic "real option." When properly recognized, this real option flips the conclusion on the production choice-it allows Dumbarton to capture the benefits of a newly built line's very low marginal cost while mitigating the risk created by a larger investment. The case provides insights into option-like features of decisions without any use of option-pricing tools. This case has been used successfully to introduce real options in Darden's core finance curriculum, a specialty master's degree program in data analytics, and an Executive Education program. It would be appropriate either in a sequence of cases covering optionality or as a later case in a sequence of cases on net present value (NPV) analyses. Any student with an understanding of basic NPV analysis can execute the required work, so the case can be used in a wide variety of settings. The emphasis can be easily shifted from technical modeling (advanced techniques in valuation) to intuition (strategic choices) as needed.
China's gold jewelry market was for a long time very homogenous: brands all offered very similar products and provided discounts to gain a competitive advantage. For many years, even Chow Tai Fook (hereinafter 'CTF'), an industry leader that boasted superior product design and craftsmanship, suffered from low profit margins and sluggish sales growth. Furthermore, CTF's competitors constantly tried to mimic its pricing and sales strategies to seize market share. It was against this backdrop of fierce competition that CTF launched the HUÃ Collection in September 2017. The new collection targeted the high-end market and was a resounding success, as well as an industry game-changer. However, as the HUÃ Collection gained market share and production scaled up, this gave rise to new challenges: How could CTF disrupt the homogeneous gold jewelry market through brand innovation? How could it maintain HUÃ's brand value while scaling up production? Moreover, how could it respond to an endless stream of imitation products and plagiarism?
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (M&M), an Indian automotive giant, was pursuing strategies to retain the leading position in the domestic automotive space. Traditionally an SUV manufacturer, M&M created a new vertical—Advanced Technology Solutions (ATS)—to spearhead technology development as a means of competing with the multinational companies entering India. ATS’s technology pursuits had already translated into several successful products; however, by 2019, the head of ATS had reasons to be concerned about the unit’s future. The major areas of concern included investing in frontier technologies, bridging the time lag between technology conceptualization and deployment, and holding the team together into the future.
HCL Technologies Ltd., one of the big four information technology companies in India, had established a corporate entrepreneurship function within its enterprise technology office (ETO). As part of its aspiration to scale up its corporate entrepreneurship activities, the ETO had adopted an ecosystem innovation strategy, and in 2020, the ETO team was deliberating how to standardize and institutionalize its corporate entrepreneurship practices, enhance the platform technology, and build a culture of innovation to leverage the newly adopted ecosystem innovation strategy.
Guillaume Laverdure, chief operating officer at Medicom Group (Medicom), was evaluating a potential investment in a new facility that would manufacture melt-blown polypropylene (melt-blown PP), a key raw material for surgical and respirator masks. It was February 2021, and the previous 12 months had been eventful for the company, one of the largest suppliers of medical masks in the world, as the COVID-19 pandemic had led to a staggering increase in demand for its products. Raw material supply shortages had been a major problem during 2020, and Laverdure was exploring opportunities that would make the company’s supply chain more resilient. Laverdure was scheduled to meet with Medicom’s chief executive officer the following week to review alternatives and to make a decision regarding melt-blown PP supply.
This short note introduces all of the important and commonly used financial ratios, organized into five categories: (1) liquidity ratios, which measure a company’s ability to meet short-term debt obligations; (2) leverage ratios, which evaluate a company’s capital structure by measuring how a firm uses debt and equity to finance its operations; (3) efficiency ratios, which measure how efficiently a company is utilizing its assets and resources; (4) profitability ratios, which measure a company’s ability to generate profit from its resources; and (5) market ratios (also called valuation ratios), which evaluate the share price of a company’s stock.
Like the society of which it is a part, the work world has not been immune to the plight of intolerance. Recognizing that while systemic changes are necessary, this case offers a powerful way to combat bias by empowering employees to speak up in order to share their concerns, discomfort, and frustrations with intolerance and bias in real time, as they see it happening. An organization is more than the sum of its policies, procedures, and other initiatives. A company is made up of many thousands of personal interactions, and much of the intolerance that marginalized employees experience occur within these moments. Learning to break the silence in these moments is key.
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (M&M), an Indian automotive giant, was pursuing strategies to retain the leading position in the domestic automotive space. Traditionally an SUV manufacturer, M&M created a new vertical-Advanced Technology Solutions (ATS)-to spearhead technology development as a means of competing with the multinational companies entering India. ATS's technology pursuits had already translated into several successful products; however, by 2019, the head of ATS had reasons to be concerned about the unit's future. The major areas of concern included investing in frontier technologies, bridging the time lag between technology conceptualization and deployment, and holding the team together into the future.