Eric Gomez, CEO maxiaNET Inc., an international brand management and consumer packaged goods distribution company from San Diego had a new opportunity to export disposable diapers into Venezuela. Gomez had experienced success exporting products into the country and understood first-hand the extreme shortages in basic goods and the economic and political crisis facing the country. Diapers were increasingly non-existent or only offered for purchase on the black market. maxiaNET had a strong local partner and access to distribution channels, however many strategic issues remain to be solved. Gomez needed to develop an appropriate business model that would cover costs, while at the same time offer extreme discounts and enable widespread product distribution and sales. Ultimately, he needed to decide on whether and how to proceed with importing diapers into Venezuela.
On September 9, 2019, thousands of Amazon.com Inc. employees threatened to join the global climate strikes planned for the week of September 20–27, 2019. Employees were protesting the e-commerce giant's customer-centric approach and its lack of transparency regarding its carbon footprint. Pressure for more transparency was mounting—not only from employees but also from various non-governmental organizations, politicians, and competitors. However, transparency could reveal environmental issues that might lead to a boycott of the company's products and services. Furthermore, transparency and environmental initiatives could work against Amazon’s customer-centric approach, and would likely not be approved by the shareholders. Amazon.com Inc. needed to make a decision. Should the company adopt a confrontationist approach and steadfastly pursue its customer-centric approach in the interest of shareholders? Or, should it adopt a co-operative approach and change the company's business model to minimize environmental damage?
The adoption of information technology (IT) in public services in India has been uneven and fraught with numerous difficulties. The case describes a context within the Indian police, where a middle-level officer, Vijay Kumar, led the adoption of an IT-based projectto organise an All India Level Police Meet. Vijay faced significant resistance from senior police officers, and he had to navigate the realm of organisational politics to implement the organisational change project within severe time constraints. Vijay had clearly articulated the design principles of efficiency, transparency and accountability behind the implementation of the IT project right from the beginning. While he took ownership of the project to see it through, he also sought the sponsorship of the top leadership to overcome contingencies in a project of dynamically changing scope and tight deadlines.
The adoption of information technology (IT) in public services in India has been uneven and fraught with numerous difficulties. The case describes a context within the Indian police, where a middle-level officer, Vijay Kumar, led the adoption of an IT-based projectto organise an All India Level Police Meet. Vijay faced significant resistance from senior police officers, and he had to navigate the realm of organisational politics to implement the organisational change project within severe time constraints. Vijay had clearly articulated the design principles of efficiency, transparency and accountability behind the implementation of the IT project right from the beginning. While he took ownership of the project to see it through, he also sought the sponsorship of the top leadership to overcome contingencies in a project of dynamically changing scope and tight deadlines.
The adoption of information technology (IT) in public services in India has been uneven and fraught with numerous difficulties. The case describes a context within the Indian police, where a middle-level officer, Vijay Kumar, led the adoption of an IT-based projectto organise an All India Level Police Meet. Vijay faced significant resistance from senior police officers, and he had to navigate the realm of organisational politics to implement the organisational change project within severe time constraints. Vijay had clearly articulated the design principles of efficiency, transparency and accountability behind the implementation of the IT project right from the beginning. While he took ownership of the project to see it through, he also sought the sponsorship of the top leadership to overcome contingencies in a project of dynamically changing scope and tight deadlines.
Black entrepreneurs encounter many unique obstacles when raising capital to start and grow a business. During their second year at Harvard Business School (HBS), MBA students Kimberly Foster and Tyler Simpson decided to do something to make a difference for early-stage Black technology entrepreneurs seeking funding. In just four months, they created the inaugural Black New Venture Competition (BNVC), which attracted 300 applicants and became the largest student-led business plan competition for Black entrepreneurs in the U.S. Over the course of the competition, Foster and Simpson were able to begin to identify some of the biases and frictions in the evaluation and funding of early-stage Black ventures. Was there bias in the selection rubric? What would happen when these Black founders faced traditional white VC investors in their next funding round? Now Foster and Simpson needed to decide what to keep and what to change for future iterations of the BNVC. Were they, and their successors, even thinking big enough for BNVC 2.0?
On September 9, 2019, thousands of Amazon.com Inc. employees threatened to join the global climate strikes planned for the week of September 20-27, 2019. Employees were protesting the e-commerce giant's customer-centric approach and its lack of transparency regarding its carbon footprint. Pressure for more transparency was mounting-not only from employees but also from various non-governmental organizations, politicians, and competitors. However, transparency could reveal environmental issues that might lead to a boycott of the company's products and services. Furthermore, transparency and environmental initiatives could work against Amazon's customer-centric approach, and would likely not be approved by the shareholders. Amazon.com Inc. needed to make a decision. Should the company adopt a confrontationist approach and steadfastly pursue its customer-centric approach in the interest of shareholders? Or, should it adopt a co-operative approach and change the company's business model to minimize environmental damage?
Alisha Bhandari, vice president of operations at a successful and well-respected global supplier of paints, coatings, specialty materials, and optical products, had watched during her 10 years at the company a subtle disintegration of workplace culture. Her own observations, coupled with a recent employee survey, had revealed an overall mindset of complacency, lack of motivation, inflexibility, and a general malaise and unwillingness to be flexible to new ideas in the company. Some managers admitted to being fearful of suggesting changes and a distaste for deviating from the normal routine or even considering embracing anything innovative. Bhandari had also noticed greater stress and tension in various departments, and believed that this was already affecting company performance. She worried that the more motivated employees might be lured away by competitors and general malaise would grow larger and more problematic. For the sake of workplace efficiency, employee mental health, and the future success of the company, Bhandari knew that things needed to change, but she was uncertain what steps to take and strategies to put into place.
In September 2017, news spread of McDonald’s India terminating its franchise arrangement with its joint venture (JV) in India. The termination notice was the newest step in the saga of the conflict between the two JV partners—US-based McDonald’s and the Indian partner Vikram Bakshi of Connaught Plaza Restaurants Limited (CPRL). McDonald’s entered India in 1996 through a JV that was originally seen as the perfect combination to share investments, reduce risks, and succeed. The events between 2013 and 2017 showed that this was not true, and many reasons were suggested in the media for the problems—strategy, team, resources, and a mismatched value system. Did the former franchise holder CPRL have a legal right to use the McDonald’s name anymore? Could the partners resolve their differences?
TSA promulgated a regulatory process to ensure safety and security at the nation's airports. That process also creates opportunities for entrepreneurs. This case describes the TSA process and engages the students to identify and vet opportunities to create private value. The SCAMPER methodology is explained and used to identify market opportunities. They are vetted using the 6 Hats framework. The case can also be used to help regulators understand the unintended consequences that may emerge from regulations.
In 2016, new CEO Chris Linthwaite had been brought in to turn around Fluidigm Corporation (Fluidigm), a biotechnology company based in San Francisco. Following a year of missed earnings, strong currency headwinds, product backorders, strong competition, and a lag in product demand, Fluidigm's stock had collapsed 87% in 10 months. Fluidigm was burning through cash; it had posted yet another quarter of losses; employee morale had plummeted; and the company had mounting cash flow issues. Linthwaite was preparing his turnaround strategy to present to his board of directors. He had many levers he could pull to right the ship, including cost cutting and restructuring, launching new products, and making an acquisition. This case is intended for a first-year MBA course in business strategy. The course develops students' ability to evaluate, design, and execute a firm's strategy by analyzing the competitive and organizational factors essential to sustained success. The case is used in the latter half of the course and is about selecting an appropriate growth strategy for a company in turmoil. It is used to introduce the basic tradeoffs between pursuing organic growth strategies, such as R&D and innovation, and pursuing other possible strategies, such as inorganic growth through acquisitions, cost cutting, and restructuring.
This case investigates the downfall of Ocean Park Corporation (Ocean Park or the park) from the perspective of financial statement analysis. Ocean Park's performance significantly declined from a surplus of HKD127.2mn in FY2013 to a severe deficit of HKD557.3mn in FY2019. This was mainly attributable to the shrinking revenue size and mounting difficulties in controlling the operating costs during this period. In 2020, Ocean Park was hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, which pushed it further to the verge of liquidation. After rounds of debates, the Hong Kong legislature eventually approved of a relief fund of HKD5.4bn in taxpayers' money. The case seeks to highlight the financial ratios and metrics commonly used in financial statement analysis, and their interpretations. It provides insights on Ocean Park's financial performance in terms of profitability, liquidity, solvency, and operational efficiency. Students will tackle practical questions regarding financial statement analysis of Ocean Park from FY 2013 to FY2019, and the financial impact of the relief fund by means of pro forma financial statements over the next few years.
A new accounting standard, IFRS 16 Leases, has come into effect on 1 January 2019. The new standard introduces a single lessee accounting model and requires a lessee to recognise assets and liabilities for all leases with a term of more than 12 months (except for low value underlying asset). The IFRS 16 introduces on lessee's account the "right-of-use" asset to represent its right to use the underlying leased asset and the "lease" liability to represent its obligation to make lease payments. The purpose of the case is to introduce IFRS 16 and illustrating its effect and the differences on treatments of leases compared with IAS 17. The case features a coffee company called Lazy Coffee. Readers take on the role of Jan Lo, the Financial Controller of the Company, who is closing the accounts of 2019 and retrospectively restating the figures of 2018 to reflect IFRS 16. Jan is also required to prepare detailed discussion on the application, implications and impact of changes in the accounting policy.
Boubyan bank grew from a small Islamic bank in Kuwait to one of the largest and most successful financial organizations in its home country. As the bank is entering its next phase of growth, the leadership must confront how to successfully deal with issues around digitization, regional and global expansion, as well as recruiting talent in a more complex and increasingly hybrid world of digital and physical solutions.
This case examines efforts to foster teamwork within and across work units in the Cleveland Clinic, a large, distributed healthcare delivery organization. With a long history of valuing teamwork since its founding in 1921, the Clinic had taken dramatic steps to further enable collaboration back in 2008 after the growing complexity of medical care had led to problematic divisions across specialties. The Clinic restructured from departments organized by specialty to "institutes" organized by disease and organ systems. A decade later, when this case takes place, the world has continued to change-with the Clinic substantially expanding its scale and scope-posing new teamwork challenges. The case asks students to understand the Clinic's efforts to enable teamwork with the Institute Model and to evaluate whether the Model should be continued, abandoned or changed to address new teamwork needs for 2020 and beyond. It reveals the complexities of enabling teamwork in large, distributed organizations in which fluid, cross-boundary "teams of teams" are operating.