The trials and tribulations of Dare Foods, along with its well-drafted shareholders’ agreement, show how good corporate governance reinforces the ability of courts to defer to directors’ business judgment.
In 2016, a recent business graduate entered the workforce as the manager of a radio station in a small town. His new employer, RSM Broadcasting, led the way in serving small Canadian communities and took steps to provide radio content in the most relevant way possible, but it might be time to quicken the pace. He faced a number of obstacles because the industry had been changing and internal politics made it challenging to enact any of his own ideas for strategic renewal. He had three options: support a current initiative, bolster his own idea for change, or focus on his own development. His newness to the organization, his youth, and his position as a middle manager could get in the way of promoting change in the short-term.
Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, is deciding how to structure the firm presence in Cloud computing. He can pursue the opportunity in multiple ways: doubling down the investments in an internal and nascent cloud offering, partnering with established third parties, or through an acquisition. At the same time, he also needs to continue ensuring the success of VMware virtualization business, and a recent acquisition in mobile. How will the different decisions affect his use of time?
The case charts the growth of Blk71 and related developments in Singapore's startup scene. It explores the factors that came together to help the startup hub grow from 2011 to 2015. The focus is on how a startup ecosystem can be nurtured; in particular, why Blk71 and government schemes from the late 2000s took off when earlier schemes have met with limited success.
In 2016, the chief operating officer (COO) of InteraXon Inc., a Toronto-based technology start-up in the health and wellness sector, needed to put together a revised supply chain that was consistent with the company’s new strategic plan. InteraXon’s flagship product was a lightweight headband called Muse, aimed at measuring the wearer’s brain activity. The COO needed to keep in mind two major requirements of the new plan: a) the company would be relocating the production of Muse from China to the United States and b) it needed to quickly scale up its manufacturing and marketing operations. What plan of action should the COO develop?
Canada’s economy could use a blast of innovation. After all, between 2005 and 2015, productivity averaged only 1 per cent per year, while economic growth averaged under 2 per cent. Unfortunately, despite public policy talk of supporting innovation, the government does not go far enough to provide innovation incentives. Indeed, the stimulants currently in place are inadequate to produce the high-performance economy that Canada requires. To help the Canadian economy return to the 3–4 per cent growth rates of our past, policymakers should consider three strategies. 1) Improve returns on innovation by lowering taxes and freezing or lowering capital gains and options gains tax rates. 2) Improve the regulatory environment: Excessive and poorly conceived regulations serve as an innovation killer, especially for small businesses that lack the financial resources to manage an excessive compliance process. 3) Innovate government services: One approach is to take the shackles off government-sector incentive systems and specifically reward efforts at innovation. Another, less controversial approach is a competitive grant program aimed at would-be government-sector innovators. Finally, universities and colleges through their teaching and research programs are a hotbed of innovation. Enhanced post-secondary education funding with proper targets and controls could be a boon to innovation.
America faces a previously unimaginable leadership crisis. And that is why businesspeople fleeing White House advisory councils over Trump’s response to the tragic events in Charlottesville—where a civil rights activist was killed during a violent clash—should be applauded, not attacked. Unfortunately, millions of Trump supporters don’t see a problem with the comfort that racists are taking from his leadership. And because these Trump supporters are also consumers, it is risky business for CEOs to take a stand against the man. Simply put, Trump doesn’t understand or care why there should be no presidential ambiguity when it comes to discrimination. As things stand, the president of the United States does not understand good leadership. His behaviour is dangerously erratic, childish, and divisive thanks to his unhealthy need for applause. Perhaps watching more and more CEOs choose to serve the country and their corporate stakeholders by taking a stand against his administration rather than supporting it will eventually cause Trump to reflect on his flaws as a leader. Either way, when something far more important than profits is on the line, choosing not to be associated with someone who has repeatedly attacked the foundation of American greatness is a sound business decision.
In early January 2017, Vanessa Teo, Director of Global Learning and Talent Development at the DFS Group, is outlining the airport retailer's e-learning strategy. The Group had already invested significant resources in various training, learning and development programmes. These programmes, housed within DFS University, focused on building a deep knowledge and appreciation of the various luxury products sold by incoming sales associates. Associates in these programmes learn different types of sales tactics, and promising employees are enrolled in leadership programmes to fast-track their management potential. Nonetheless, these programmes were expensive. DFS first embarked on an e-learning initiative three years earlier with the development of an e-campus, which was a social learning platform akin to Facebook. This platform was piloted at many locations throughout DFSs' worldwide network of airport duty free stores. The hope was that such social learning could simultaneously reinforce and scale up the learning and training development programmes. Now, Teo seeks to advance into the next stage of developing the e-learning initiative, envisioning a broader type of blended learning experience that could digitise some of DFS's learning content into something even more scalable. However, e-learning at DFS is still a relatively new and untested tool. Teo needs to convince her counterparts to look past the development costs and embrace a more digital approach.
In 2010, only 16 percent of Americans were streaming movies and television shows online. By the end of 2011 that number would almost double, and the entertainment industry began barreling towards a digital future. This case follows Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and HBO through the year 2011 as they launched and improved their streaming video capabilities. Though Netflix had historically been the most popular player in the streaming video market, Hulu, Amazon, and HBO had deep pockets and various incentives for entering this market and by the end of the year the competitive advantages of each player had begun to emerge.
In 1997 Reed Hastings founded Netflix on the heels of a $750 million exit of his first venture-a software company. The premise was simple: Hastings believed that he could leverage the high-performance culture and data-drivenness embodied by tech companies to succeed in the DVD-rental-by mail business. Within a decade Netflix was bringing in more than a $1 billion in revenue a year and revered as one of the most innovative companies in Silicon Valley. This case covers four distinct eras of Netflix, spanning from 1997 to 2015: A.) the Pre-IPO Era, within which Netflix withstood the dot com bubble and settled on a successful DVD-rental-by-mail business model; B.) The DVD Growth era, within which they held an initial public offering and scaled their business to more than 850,000 subscribers; C.) The Introduction of Streaming era, where Netflix introduced their online video-on-demand service and eventually pivoted to offering streaming only subscriptions; and D.) the Content era, within which Netflix began producing their own exclusive television shows and movies to in response to the ever rising costs of content licensing.
<p style="color: rgb(197, 183, 131);"><strong> AWARD WINNER - Urban Transition Challenges Award, European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) Case Writing Competition</strong></p><br>In 1995, many of the flights at Edmonton City Centre Airport (ECCA) were being diverted to Edmonton International Airport. By 2008, ECCA’s two runways required an estimated CA$10 million in capital upgrades and CA$35 million in additional maintenance costs over the next 10 years. In light of these facts, in November 2011, Edmonton’s city council had begun to consider whether maintaining ECCA was feasible or if other alternatives would put the land to better use. The options available included the following: 1) maintain ECCA and the status quo by completing the repairs, 2) sell the property to a real estate developer and generate immediate revenue for other city projects, or 3) close ECCA and have the city redevelop the land for a community project. City councilors needed to find a clear and sustainable solution to the challenges presented by ECCA.
Earls Restaurants, Ltd., a Canadian restaurant chain headquartered in Vancouver, was facing a communications crisis in April 2016, when it changed its sourcing policy with regard to beef. In a bid to appeal to millennial consumers, who were conscious of animal welfare standards, it decided to source beef from a U.S. farm that had its beef independently certified as humane. This cut out the restaurant's traditional supply sources among Canadian ranchers, most specifically in Alberta, where the restaurant chain had been founded. The backlash was immediate. After discussing the situation with his core management team and asking a consultant for help formulating a communication strategy, the company's president had to decide how to proceed to restore the company's reputation. Should Earls do nothing and wait for the attention to die down, go back to sourcing its beef through Canadian suppliers, or continue to serve humane beef in its restaurants?
In 2015, the executive director of Furniture Bank had successfully managed the Toronto social-service agency by turning a $300,000 net loss two years prior into a $100,000 net income. He had employed a variety of strategies and information technologies to integrate and rationalize business processes that resulted in significant productivity and performance improvements. However, Furniture Bank, which collected unneeded furnishings from donors and distributed them to those in need, had been a victim of its own success; it had maximized its capacity and was struggling to meet growing demand for its services. The executive director had to explore growth opportunities, specifically those accessible by leveraging information technology (IT), and choose from among four likely options.
NeoGenius Co., Ltd. (NeoGenius) was an early-stage entrepreneurial venture based in South Korea. Founded in February 2000, NeoGenius provided a wide range of business-to-business (B2B) e-business software and related services. In June 2001, the company was up and running, but it faced competition from larger firms, and the effects of a global economic downturn; as a result, its financial performance was falling short of expectations. NeoGenius had received significant offers from three different entities: a business partner, a competitor, and a venture capitalist. The chief executive officer had only a short time to choose from several options, including growth and exit.
The owner of the small Berlin-based Schmidt Press encounters a dilemma when she is given the opportunity to publish a novel about a Muslim woman who attempts to lead an underground movement to take control of the Kaaba, the holy sanctuary at Mecca. Given the events of the prior 25 years - such as the angry fallout after Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the upheaval in many Middle Eastern countries - publishing the novel presents a host of various ethical dilemmas, including whether Schmidt should put her staff at risk. This case discusses the ethics of a free press and challenges to the profit motive in the face of political and religious world affairs.
When Joe Jimenez became CEO of Swiss-based Novartis in 2010 replacing longtime CEO Dan Vasella, he assumed control of one of the top pharmaceutical companies in the world. Vasella, an avowed advocate of diversification, had expanded the scope of the company and structured it into sixteen distinct business units ranging from animal health to oncology while "actively fostering competition between those divisions for resources." Shortly after assuming his position, Jimenez initiated a strategic review that sought to concentrate the portfolio on businesses where Novartis could be at global scale in attractive markets. Rather than following competitors, like Pfizer, in a single mega-acquisition, Jimenez and his M&A team decided to achieve this goal through targeted transactions, or "precision M&A". By 2014 after examining twenty or so possible deals, the company was in the process of negotiating a multi-billion dollar asset swap with Glaxo-Smith Kline (GSK) that was unprecedented in the pharma industry. Although Novartis would improve its position in oncology by acquiring GSK's promising drug portfolio, it had to sell its vaccines and animal health businesses, while giving up control of the over-the-counter (OTC) business. Jimenez and his team knew the offer was "all-or-nothing" and struggled over whether to accept it, or reject it and move in another direction.
In February 2013, US Airways announced that it would merge with American Airlines to create the world's largest airline. Doug Parker, the CEO of US Airways, would become CEO of the new American Airlines Group (AAL).The case describes a number of critical decisions Parker made and actions that he took in the course of the acquisition integration process. All focused on how best to combine the two airlines' core systems and operating processes as well as the appropriate scope and speed of strategic changes. Now, Parker must decide on the composition of AAL's senior executive team. Should Parker select a team dominated by US Airways executives with whom he has successfully worked for decades? Or should he establish a new team with roughly equal representation from both airlines? Parker's choice will send important signals to employees about the extent to which the transaction will be viewed as a merger of equals or as a takeover by US Airways.
Sesame Workshop was transforming in 2016. CEO Jeff Dunn had reorganized and shifted the iconic institution to respond to digital disruption and a consensus culture. This case examines his efforts to turn Sesame Workshop around. It notes Sesame's storied history and the underlying financial troubles that Dunn confronted upon taking over in 2014. It shows how Dunn's leadership changes, increased communication, new partnership deals, and a focus on digital, sought speed, innovation, and accountability to better fulfill Sesame's educational mission. By 2016, Sesame was in the middle of its change, and Dunn contemplated how best to position the organization for success in the future.