In November and December of 2013, Target Corporation suffered one of the largest cyber breaches till date. The breach that occurred during the busy holiday shopping season resulted in personal and credit card information of about 110 million Target customers to be compromised. The case describes the details of the breach, circumstances that led to it, consequences for customers and for Target, and the company's response. The case then discusses the role of management and the board of directors in cyber security at Target. Target's board of directors was subject to intense criticism by shareholders and governance experts such as the leading proxy advisor Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS). The case discusses the critique and defense of the board's role. The case is designed to allow for a discussion of the causes and consequences of the cyber breach and accountability of directors in cyber security.
In November 2014, The Dow Chemical Company was faced with the prospect of a proxy battle with prominent hedge fund and activist investor Third Point Management. The activist had criticized Dow's recent performance and advocated that the company split itself to maximize its potential. The activist also proposed two director candidates to join Dow's board. Third Point offered its director nominees what had come to be known as a "golden leash" incentive structure - a significant amount of incentive payment from the investor if the company performed well. Supporters and critics had weighed in on the pros and cons of such incentive schemes for corporate independent directors. Faced with the prospect of a proxy fight, Dow's board had to decide whether to invite the two directors on to the company's board knowing they came with the special payment scheme from the hedge fund.
Yoyo Wallet, a technology start-up headquartered in London, United Kingdom, developed a mobile application for smartphones to facilitate in-store payments and loyalty data collection. Inspired by the success of Starbucks’ loyalty-integrated mobile application, Yoyo Wallet strove to become the ultimate tool for retailers in enhancing customer experience. The company planned to enter the mobile payment industry in the United States; however, Yoyo had to compete with existing wallets (like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Android Pay), navigate through the uncertainty of the industry’s future, and adapt their strategy to the competitive environment in the United States.
On February 29, 2016, an investor, who was a business school graduate, purchased one share of Tesla Motors, Inc. stock for $191.93. In doing so, the investor wondered what trading strategy should be followed over the next six months to maximize returns while minimizing risk. In choosing a strategy, he wanted to make good use of the knowledge gained from his financial analytics classes. To that end, he did not know if he should choose a buy and hold, or a stop-loss strategy with an optimal stop-loss threshold. The investor wondered how he would make this decision. Would a six month comparison of the stop-loss strategy with thresholds from 1 per cent to 99 per cent versus the buy and hold strategy resolve his dilemma?
This case study focuses on how Huawei had developed and used Huawei Innovation Research Program (HIRP) as its open innovation platform, showing how the company has changed its role from a research fund provider to a research collaborator, bringing mutual benefits to university-enterprise research collaborations. The case features the challenges of managing open innovation projects, such as looking for suitable external research partners, keeping the research projects on track, and evaluating research outcomes. It also shows how Huawei has tackled the problems common to open innovation projects, including the Not-Invented-Here syndrome, intellectual property protection, industry-university communication difficulties and research output evaluation.
A newly elected city council member is facing her first vote -- an appropriations measure to increase funding for the Scared Straight program. Juvenile crime is rising in the city, citizens are concerned and want the government to do something, and the police chief is promoting the Scared Straight Program as one part of the solution. But the council member learns from a colleague at the community college that research shows the Scared Straight Program has a negative effect on youth -- causing more crime among some. How should she vote? How could she explain the research to constituents who are concerned and afraid and want action?
Oracle's proposed acquisition of Sun was on a fast track until the EC's antitrust concerns about open-source MySQL ignited a transatlantic war of words delaying the deal. Sun's performance suffered and its customers were approached by competitors while regulatory objections were debated and tensions rose between U.S. and EC regulators.
The chief financial officer (CFO) of Buck Auto Care Products (Buck's), a Toronto-based manufacturer and distributor of premium car care products, had to prepare for a meeting with the company's vice-president (VP) of sales and the VP of manufacturing. The staff had heard rumours that the company was for sale, but no one had received any confirmation until now. The company was founded in 1975 as a chain of car-wash stands in Toronto and Mississauga, and in order to supplement the chain's income, Buck's created a line of complementary automotive care products, which eventually became the sole focus of the business. A competitor was interested in buying the company. As the CFO prepared a response to the competitor's offer, she thought about the various issues she had to consider before coming up with a valuation.
In early 2016, stock markets around the world plummeted, raising the threat of another major depression enveloping the world. In their struggle to recover from the post-2008 global recession, many nations had expanded their money supply and lowered interest rates, with the aim of stimulating both consumer spending and corporate investment. While some of this monetary expansion increased production and employment, much of it created bubbles in asset prices, especially in the prices of equities. Investors faced such low returns from bonds and other fixed-income assets that they poured their funds into equities, which increased price-earnings ratios to exceptional levels. This bubble in stock prices amplified the risks of a severe crash. What could-and should-governments do to avoid a significant stock market crash and a global depression?
In March 2016, an investor wanted to evaluate the strategy and stability of Cisco Systems, Inc. by using historical income statements to predict future cash flows. He knew that he might be able to use time series analysis to evaluate the company's performance in the near future, but he was unsure how to proceed if the historical data would not be predictive of the future performance. In particular, the investor wondered, how would he determine the likelihood that the company's next quarter would yield similar net income to the previous quarter?
Curling was officially included in the Winter Olympic Games in 1998. Since then, it spread beyond its home in Canada and northern Europe to many other countries, including China. As a new player, the Chinese Curling Association managed to elevate its national teams to achieve world elite status and be widely admired by its international counterparts for being so successful with fewer than 300 curlers and only a 10-year history. In 2014, the Chinese Curling Association needed to develop a strategic approach to grow curling in China in a healthy and sustainable way.
During the Holi festival in March 2012, the managing director of Ramcides, a family-run agrochemical business, was considering the path of the company that his eldest brother had started in 1973. Ramcides had a goal to achieve US$50 million in revenues by March 2014 and $130 million in the following five years. The managing director reflected on whether the company was on the right path towards achieving that objective. Much had changed since an infusion of private equity from a venture capital firm in 2008, but there was still much to be done. There was also the matter of the venture capital firm's planned exit, and where the company would then secure additional funding. All the stakeholders were clear on promoting the future growth and success of Ramcides, but the next three to five years were a critical time of transition. What needed to be done to ensure continued success? The current manager viewed himself as the managing director in transition-the bridge between Ramcides's history as a family-run firm and its future as a professionalized agrochemical company.
The owner and manager of a small garden shop that opened on January 1 needs to analyze and record transactions, prepare financial statements, and assess the company's performance during its first year of operations. She also needs to provide a set of financial statements for her bank, as she is required to do annually based on her loan agreement. Students will prepare journal entries, post this information to T-accounts, record the necessary adjusting entries and post to T-accounts, prepare an income statement that summarizes results of operations for the year, and prepare a balance sheet as of December 31.
Supplement to case UV7159. The owner and manager of a small garden shop needs to prepare the financial statements for the shop's second year of operation. These financial statements will assess the financial performance of her company during the year, as well as take stock of its financial position at the end of the year and will be important to loan officers at her bank where the company had obtained two loans, and to an equity investor in the company. Students will prepare journal entries, post this information to T-accounts, record the necessary adjusting entries and post to T-accounts, and prepare an income statement that summarizes results of operations for the year.
Oracle's proposed acquisition of Sun was on a fast track until the EC's antitrust concerns about open-source MySQL ignited a translantic war of words delaying the deal. Sun's performance suffered and its customers were approached by competitors while regulatory objections were debated and tensions rose between U.S. and EC regulators.
Histograms are graphs that provide a large amount of useful information for all types of data and display the frequency of observations in a data set. The purpose of this note is to introduce histograms for several types of data, provide examples of insights that can be gained and calculations that can be performed using histograms, and demonstrate how to build histograms in Microsoft Excel. In addition, this note reviews the Normal distribution, which can be used to approximate many empirical distributions. The note includes practice exercises and their solutions, and a supporting Excel workbook for students.