In the early hours of Friday, December 13, 2019, a triumphant Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister, stood in front of his supporters and declared, "We did it - we pulled it off, didn't we? We broke the deadlock, [. . .] we smashed the roadblock. [. . .] This election means getting Brexit done is now the irrefutable, irresistible, unarguable decision of the British people." To Johnson, this was the culmination of a long process that had started with the shocking results of the 2016 referendum on Britain's exit (Brexit) from the European Union (EU). But many long-run economic and political challenges still lay ahead: Would the UK and the EU be able to agree on a mutually-beneficial economic relationship before the end of the transition period? Could the UK negotiate better deals with other countries in a context of rising global protectionism? With renewed calls for Scottish independence and uncertainty about Northern Ireland's future, would the UK itself start to break apart?
The main purpose of the Venus Medtech case is to give students a greater appreciation for the scale, sophistication, and competitiveness of the innovation landscape outside of Silicon Valley, with particular focus on China. Through a dramatized account of the June 2013 Series A fundraising experience of Venus Medtech, a Chinese medical device start-up, the case forms the basis of a rich, in-class discussion about the similarities and differences between the entrepreneurship and venture capital ecosystems in China and the U.S. Considerable attention is given in the case to the factors that influence a Chinese entrepreneur's decision to build a business and raise capital at home or abroad. The case also compares and contrasts the business practices of VC investors in China and the U.S., as well as the types of deal terms that they typically seek from start-ups.
This case is based on Biocon Group's (NSE: BIOCON, an Indian biopharmaceutical company) R&D unit and fully owned subsidiary - Biocon Research Limited (BRL). This case involves study of R&D management processes followed within the company and the imminent decision on the organizational & structural change within R&D unit at the wake of changing business contexts and aspiration of the company. The case outlines the overall environment of the bio-pharmaceutical industry across the world and in India, and introduces readers to the events leading to the organization change and the execution of change management by the corporate leadership. The case captures the transition of Biocon, from an enzyme manufacturer to the technologically challenging space of biopharmaceuticals. This transition provides scope for learning various aspects of organization development such as building organizational and technology capability, creating processes and structures that support R&D initiatives, managing and measuring a portfolio of varied product development projects, and developing an innovative organizational culture.
The case on Grab.in analyzes the hyperlocal delivery business in India, and provides details on how the founders built a business around outsourced delivery of food, grocery, and e-commerce packages. Through meticulously evolved business operations, the founders of Grab have ensured sustenance of the delivery outsourcing model by alleviating business outlets of having to maintain in-house delivery personnel. With growing demand for home service, customer mindset is more open than ever to pay a convenience fee for home delivery of food or grocery from their nearby favorite outlet. Grab.in has piggybacked on this mindset, and backed by increasing penetration of smartphones and Internet, it has enabled local businesses to expand customer reach. When used as an introduction to multi-sided platforms, this case can help the student understand the hyperlocal space, the challenges that food and restaurant businesses face and how these delivery service platforms help address the same. It should help the students appreciate how a technology platform brings differentiation to the traditional food and grocery delivery space, and how a platform business model can provide significant competitive differentiation. By presenting details on Grab.in and the hyperlocal delivery platform, the case study helps illustrate the business model while bringing forth the challenges in the same.
This case discusses the hyperlocal food delivery business firm ZomatoTM and its business model. The case outlines how the firm went ahead and enhanced its business model to launch their new loyalty programme called Zomato Gold. It focuses on the sustainability of the hyperlocal business delivery model and the challenges faced by it to succeed and deliver against competition. This case outlines how Zomato put to disadvantage one of the platform participants and how this turned out for the platform as a whole. It also delves into an analysis of the loyalty programme to review the critical aspects of platform overreach and how it altered the network effects of this multi-sided platform business. The case can be used to teach the downsides of multi-sided platform business model - how an overreach on any one aspect of the platform sides can threaten the fine balance of the platform participants, remedial measures that need to be undertaken to restore confidence, and how platforms need to deal with the new normal that emerges after these confidence lowering incidents.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation (TAPF) is a not-for-profit non-governmental organization (NGO) headquartered at Bengaluru, India. Since its inception in 2000, TAPF has been working to provide fresh and nutritious meals to children on every single school day and in 2019 catered to about 1.76 million children from 15,024 schools across 12 states in India daily. TAPF's Vrindavan kitchen (TAPF VRN), located in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, has been operational since 2004, and now caters to about 140,000 children in 2,032 schools daily. The uniqueness of this kitchen is that it has both rice and roti (chapati) based meals, making it different and more complex to manage than their other kitchens, most of whom are either only rice or only roti based. The case describes the complete range of activities: procurement, pre-processing, cooking, and finally packaging and dispatch, at this kitchen. The richness of the data helps to generate discussions around the material planning, procurement, and production planning activities at this kitchen.
Rotary Central TTK-VHS Blood Bank, situated in the premises of a multi-specialty hospital named, Voluntary Health Services (VHS) in Chennai, is a supplier of safe blood and blood components to various hospitals across Chennai. VHS is a non-profit organization serving the needy sections of the society. It procures blood from voluntary donors by organizing blood donation camps at various places in Tamil Nadu and separates blood into its components after appropriate testing of the collected blood. It also makes arrangement for regular blood transfusion for Thalassemia patients in its hemophilia center. Since blood and blood components are perishable and have a short shelf life, accurate forecasting of demand for various components of blood is essential. Due to gap in supply and demand and perishability of blood components, Athmanathan, CAO (Chief Administrator) of VHS Blood Bank felt that the data could be used to predict the future demand on a daily basis and to help in planning blood donation camps accordingly.
This case focuses on a $1.5 billion Net Investment Hedge using currency forward contracts executed by Boston Scientific Corporation in April 2018. A Net Investment Hedge is intended to offset the balance sheet translation of a company's net investment in non-dollar functional entities. This hedge was motivated by changes in both U.S. tax law and U.S accounting rules, combined with favorable interest rates overseas. The transaction was predicted to generate approximately $150 million in interest savings over five years. Part (A) explores the initial decision to enter the hedge.
Part (B) examines the implementation of the net investment hedge, including the realized forward contract rates, notional amounts, and tenors. Accounting-focused students are asked to confirm the accounting treatment of the net investment hedge under ASC 815, including footnote disclosures in form 10-Q and form 10-K.
Part (C) examines the net investment hedge a year after its implementation. It provides an opportunity for students to discuss how net investment hedges are reported, monitored, and evaluated, ex-post. It also considers a proposal to expand the hedge to additional currencies.
The Analog Devices case explores the complexities of strategy execution post-acquisition. Analog Devices, facing industry consolidation and struggling with the internal challenges associated with developing a critical technology organically, decides to use an acquisition strategy to gain the resources they need to compete effectively. ADI's CEO, Vincent Roche, embarks upon a three-year courtship of Linear Technologies, attempting to convince their CEO and founder to sell the firm. After three years and successively higher offers, Bob Swanson, LTC's founder, agreed to the merger. The case begins as ADI starts the post-merger work to integrate the two firms' operations. ADI's senior management begins to discover the differences between the two firms' cultures, styles, systems (specifically the reward systems), staffing patterns and metrics by which the firms evaluate business opportunities. In addition, ADI faces the prospect of integrating a strong culture formed by LTC's founder and Chairman, whose outsized personality was deeply imprinted in LTC's DNA. ADI's senior management were veterans of the semiconductor industry with a background in both internal operations and acquisition integration. The management team was experienced in both large- and small-scale acquisitions prior to the LTC acquisition. However, the LTC acquisition was their largest acquisition to date. Management realized the need to balance speed of integration against moving too quickly for their staff to adjust to the challenges of this complex integration. Market forces were also in play as larger competitors acquired smaller firms, and value chain activities - especially at the customer specification and design part of the value chain - were changing as customer requirements of increasingly complex production solutions were evolving.
This case study describes Mark Lund's journey in starting and growing two different businesses. The businesses are set in Brazil. The time period of the businesses span two decades, the 1980s and 90s. Mark is firstly a surfer, musician and philosopher. Yet, he had an uncanny ability to identify business opportunities, develop and shape these opportunities and to capture opportunities.
In 2018, Software development corporation iQmetrix Software Development Corp. (iQmetrix), headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, had experienced exponential growth and success over the past two decades. The company's head of People and Culture, was interested in the debate over the ideal performance appraisal process. After reading a few articles in the Harvard Business Review, she was considering dropping traditional performance appraisals and replacing them with written feedback only. To make an informed decision, she conducted a quasi-experiment by assigning employees to different performance evaluation conditions and then examined employee perceptions six months later to determine which evaluation format she should adopt company-wide.
In 2018, Software development corporation iQmetrix Software Development Corp. (iQmetrix), headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, had experienced exponential growth and success over the past two decades. The company’s head of People and Culture, was interested in the debate over the ideal performance appraisal process. After reading a few articles in the Harvard Business Review, she was considering dropping traditional performance appraisals and replacing them with written feedback only. To make an informed decision, she conducted a quasi-experiment by assigning employees to different performance evaluation conditions and then examined employee perceptions six months later to determine which evaluation format she should adopt company-wide.
In December 2018, Boom Technology Inc., a start-up based in Colorado, United States, was hoping to enter the aviation market with a supersonic aircraft. The company’s founder and chief executive officer believed that customers would pay a premium for a flight that could get them to their destination in less than half the time compared to current options.<br><br>Developing meaningful relationships within this complex web of stakeholders, including large and powerful traditional aircraft makers, regulators, airlines, and end customers, was one of the biggest challenges. In addition, two other start-ups had similar aims and were also developing relationships and alliances with different businesses in the sector.<br><br>The company’s founder was contemplating several key business decisions. Was supersonic flight a technologically possible and economically viable form of transport? How could the company convince airlines to buy the supersonic aircraft? Was building a supersonic private business jet a safer bet?