Fuller traveled from a four-room tenement bordering Chicago's infamous Cabrini-Green Housing projects to speaking at conferences around the world and typically holding court wherever she went. As a teenager, she helped raise her siblings. As a Wall Street executive, she navigated the investment management world to generate attractive investment results for clients. And as the Chief Investment Officer of New York State Employees' Common Retirement Fund (CRF), she helped manage the third largest state pension fund in the United States. Fuller's 5'2" height understated her reputational stature, as audiences where she was featured anxiously awaited hearing her market outlook, innovative investment allocations and industry insights for effective state pension fund strategies.
In widely-circulated videos, United staff and Chicago security forcibly remove a passenger from his paid seat on an aircraft, injuring him severely. United leadership must decide how to respond to public outcry.
An investment analyst was tasked with determining the impact of political controversy on firm performance in the aftermath of the highly charged 2016 U.S. presidential election. After this election, U.S. firms such as New Balance, GrubHub, and PepsiCo faced boycotts from aggrieved activists. The analyst needed to better understand the downsides-and potential benefits-of firms' involvement in political controversy. To do so, she needed to graph the impact, if any, political events had on the companies' stock returns. But were markets truly efficient and rational-that is, could they reliably capture the impact of political controversy on firm performance?
An investment analyst was tasked with determining the impact of political controversy on firm performance in the aftermath of the highly charged 2016 U.S. presidential election. After this election, U.S. firms such as New Balance, GrubHub, and PepsiCo faced boycotts from aggrieved activists. The analyst needed to better understand the downsides—and potential benefits—of firms’ involvement in political controversy. To do so, she needed to graph the impact, if any, political events had on the companies’ stock returns. But were markets truly efficient and rational—that is, could they reliably capture the impact of political controversy on firm performance?
In February 2017, a purchasing manager for General Motors Company (GM) needed to come up with a sourcing proposal to source e-boost modules, which were required to support the enhanced 2020 Chevrolet Bolt Electric Vehicle and the new 2020 Chevrolet Bolt Autonomous Vehicle. GM had four possible international suppliers to choose from. Each supplier had its pros and cons in terms of price, product development capability, and the architectural nature of the braking system. GM wanted to be a disrupter to the autonomous vehicle industry. Its top priorities were public safety and defect-free quality. In order to continue to maintain the market leadership position, GM wanted to retain the intellectual property of the e-boost modules. Which supplier would best meet the needs of the company?
CEO Tim Cook confronts multiple issues that each relate to identifying a source of longer-term growth at Apple, as it becomes increasingly dependent on iPhone revenues. Since Steve Jobs' death, Cook has successfully led Apple and made it the first company to be worth more than $800 billion. However, under Cook's leadership, Apple has largely released derivatives of existing products (e.g., iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, etc.). This has increased Apple's reliance on the iPhone (~70 percent of revenues), and Apple appears to be following a path to sell complementary products to the iPhone (Beats, Apple Pay, Apple Watch, Air Pods) at the same time that it is pursuing product development (Apple TV, Apple Car, Siri Speaker). The Apple Watch was the first new product category introduced under Tim Cook, and it has not been successful. As industry convergence continues, the case also looks at Apple's main competitors: Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Microsoft, and Samsung, as well as emerging Chinese competitors. Apple's sales in China are also declining.
As the poster child of the sharing economy, Uber has disrupted the heavily protected taxi industry with an app that connects a distributed network of passengers and drivers at a simple click of a button. While its asset-light ridesharing business model is highly innovative and has been excitedly embraced by investors, the extent of its success is diminished by unhappy customers, irate taxi drivers, and frustrated regulators. This case explores key challenges Uber faces in its quest for legitimacy as a sharing economy disruptor, and the strategies it adopts to deal with these challenges.
In February 2015, technical staff reviewed the results from a jointly conducted study on malaria control. This study had major implications for malaria in Zambia-and elsewhere. The preliminary analysis strongly suggested that the study's Mass Drug Administration (MDA) strategy was reducing the incidence of malaria disease. In addition, MDA seemed to be driving down the infection reservoir among asymptomatic people in the study area of the Southern Province of Zambia. Further analysis with mathematical models indicated that if the intervention was sustained so current trends continued, then the MDA strategy would make it possible to eliminate malaria in the Southern Province. If malaria could be eliminated in one region of Zambia, that would provide new evidence and motivation to work towards elimination throughout the country, an ambitious goal. But it would not be easy to move from conducting one technical study in a single region to creating a national strategy for malaria elimination. The scientists realized that their new data and analyses-of malaria infections, mosquito populations, and community health worker activities-were not enough. A national malaria elimination effort would require mobilizing many partners, national and local leaders, and community members, and convincing them to get on board with this new approach.
By 2015, JSW Steel Limited had established itself as one of India's leading steel producers. Since 2002, it had increased its capacity from 1.6 million tons per annum (MTPA) to 18.0 MTPA at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18 per cent; increased production from 1.30 MTPA to 12.36 MTPA at a CAGR of 19 per cent; and increased market capitalization by 59 times, from US$79.26 million to US$4.676 billion. The company's innovative shared-value approach at its Vijayanagar plant contributed significantly to its success. The plant set an example of how to integrate social and environmental challenges into a business core and create an integrated value chain with many benefits. However, an adverse economic performance in financial year 2015-16 and a gloomy forecast for the steel industry in the next few years raised questions for top management about whether to continue with the shared-value and corporate social responsibility approaches.
Ricoh India Limited, a subsidiary of Ricoh Japan, failed to submit its quarterly results in September and December 2015, leading the Bombay Stock Exchange to move the company's shares from the B category (companies with small to mid-capitalization rates) to the Z category, which included companies that had failed to comply with listing requirements or had failed to resolve investor complaints. Although the company claimed that it had adhered to corporate governance standards and high ethical conduct, it admitted to having falsified its accounting records. Between March 2016 and May 2016, the company's shares lost 42.3 per cent in market value. What was the impact for the company's shareholders? After the falsification of the company's financial statements was made public, should an investor continue to hold the Ricoh India shares, or divest?
In 2007, when Tata Steel (Tata) bought the Anglo-Dutch steel maker, Corus Group plc (Corus), it was a moment of great promise for India's growing steel industry. At almost 10 times the size of Tata, Corus was a company of enormous scale. The importance of that scale was reflected in Tata's need to raise the price of its original offer by a premium of 34 per cent. Tata's aim was to become a formidable force in the world steel industry. It stood to gain global market exposure, research and development, and technology, while Corus stood to gain cheap raw materials and access to emerging economies. However, negative indicators and market concerns by analysts eventually proved true on March 30, 2016, when Tata announced its decision to sell some units of its U.K. operations. When Brexit occurred in June 2016, confusion grew and Tata's plans for a future sale of U.K. assets seemed in jeopardy. The removal of the chairman of Tata further added to the woes of Tata Steel Europe. How would the new leadership, after a major failure, bring about changes toward a better future?