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This case is the follow-up of Kingdee A(6-311-351). In 2011, Kingdee made strategic investments and business expansions, suffering net profit decline despite operating revenue growth and also changes to top managers.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 213019.

In 2012, China attained a historic development milestone with more Chinese citizens living in cities than in the countryside. China's rapid urbanization, and the accompanying conversion of agricultural land to non-agricultural uses, raised a number of economic, social, and political concerns. Could China maintain its food security in view of the sharply rising demand for land for urban development? How could it ensure the sustainability of local government finances? Was the growing number of land protests the harbinger of major changes in China's political institutions? How would the challenges of urbanization affect the business environment for private firms? The success and viability of China's overall growth strategy depended crucially on managing a successful urban transition.

This case chronicles the challenges of establishing an innovative tissue bank service to accelerate the research and development processes of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies worldwide. Asterand's two major challenges involved achieving a standardized approach to collecting tissue samples in hospitals all over the world and achieving the highest possible quality of tissue samples shipped to their primary customer, Amgen. Despite the identified need for high-quality tissue samples, Asterand was experiencing multiple quality control problems in their processes and procedures. Tissue samples were being packaged poorly, labeled incorrectly or delivered at the wrong time or to the wrong place. Additionally, there were quality issues with the RNA analysis of the samples, which was a critical factor in the usability of the tissue sample for research and development of new therapies and drugs. The head of pathology at Amgen's California facility was threatening to terminate their existing order and communicate the failure of Asterand to all company employees, which would have had a devastating ripple effect across the industry and likely destroyed opportunities for any future orders with Asterand. If this happened, Asterand would not have been able to secure contracts with customers and would've been at risk of losing investors and going bankrupt.

A hybrid entrepreneur working at a full-time job has come up with the idea for his first product, a smartphone car stereo. He has invested $10,000 of his own money plus $3,000 from an early investor to develop his prototype. He needs to put together a viable commercialization plan and is considering crowdfunding as a viable funding source. He also needs to decide whether to distribute his product through direct sales or a traditional retail mode

In the summer of 2010, the members of the business development team of Target Systems were carefully considering the possibility of entering the Electronic Health Information (EHI) systems arena. The company had both breadth and depth of experience in providing logistics, project management and information technology (IT) services to clients in the public and private sector. Although the employees of Target Systems were experts in a full range of IT services, no one in the company had deep expertise about the way IT applications were being used to manage patient care or administer health care organizations. The lack of expertise implied that a movement by Target Systems into the EHI systems arena would call for the company to simultaneously develop new products and services for a new set of clients -- to engage in growth by related diversification. That strategy would stand in contrast to the growth by concentration strategy the team had employed throughout company history. To pursue a diversification strategy the team would have to decide if it should provide services to regional health information organizations, hospitals or individual physicians' practices. It would also have to decide whether it would cultivate new capabilities by investing in internal development or by seeking a strategic partner that was already operating in the arena. Ultimately, the way the business development team weighed the opportunities versus the challenges of adopting a new growth strategy in the context of a still uncertain external environment would strongly influence its decision as to whether or not the company should enter this new arena.

Schneider Electric has focused primarily on urban customers in the energy management space. The question is the extent to which it should prioritise rural opportunities for meeting the energy needs of the bottom of the pyramid, and whether these initiatives can be transitioned from subsidised social responsibility projects to self-sustaining businesses.

Whether the government or markets, or a mixture of both, can provide efficient and effective incentives for encouraging entrepreneurial activity and new venture financing is an age old question. Public promotion efforts are controversial and in most cases they tend to fail. In the United States, debate about the role of government in these areas can be traced back to at least the Great Depression and the period immediately after World War II when the issue became a particular concern. Policy makers considered that existing financial institutions could neither provide the necessary due diligence nor the pool of risk capital that was necessary to spur entrepreneurial ventures. Furthermore, there were calls for additional inducements in the form of tax related incentives. The mechanisms that were used raise questions about benefits, costs and unintended consequences. Can, and should, the government influence entrepreneurial activity and venture financing? What are the limits to government intervention?

Genentech is a rare success story in the biotechnology industry. Hundreds of billions of dollars of venture capital have been invested without the expected transformational effects. Established in 1976, Genentech was to develop the new science of recombinant DNA into viable therapeutic products with mass market appeal, something that most scientists agreed was at least a decade away. The founders, Herbert Boyer and Robert Swanson had limited financial resources, so they turned to Tom Perkins, the co-founder of Kleiner-Perkins, for venture funding. Genentech developed through an effective union between scientific and venture investment mindsets. In 1980 an IPO valued Genentech at $300 million. In 2009 it was fully acquired by the Swiss-based healthcare company, Roche, for $47 billion. Roche had held a majority stake in the company since 1990.

The case described the issues faced by a mid-sized Indian generic pharmaceutical firm, in its attempt to acquire a small unlisted Japanese generics manufacturer. It showcases the strong motivation of a successful emerging market pharmaceutical firm to expand into the developed market, buoyed by its cost competitiveness. The case presents an opportunity to discuss the trade-offs involved with most of the dynamic decisions in a cross-border acquisition, such as estimation of synergies and value, bidding, and financing the acquisition. The case may be used in programmes on valuation, and mergers and acquisitions.

This case teaches the impact of variability on process performance. In 2009, media coverage of long wait times in a local hospital brought considerable embarrassment to the state secretary of health. The hospital, located in a midsize European city, had the only emergency care facility in its metropolitan region. After the delays in care were brought to light, the secretary of health ordered the hospital's CEO to produce an action plan-and measurable progress-before the end of the month. But the CEO faced scarce resources and was already under pressure to reduce spending. What reforms should he make? Would he need to increase the emergency department's staff, and if so, how should he balance the costs? As this case explores the challenges of the healthcare industry, students learn to address questions of process mapping and operations.

Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant must guide his global agribusiness technology company into an uncertain future where food security, food safety, sustainability, and climate change will all impact the global food system.

The case presents the opposition by a leading institutional investor in Goldman Sachs to the re-election of Jim Johnson to the board of directors of the company. The investor, Sequoia Fund, opposes the re-election citing Jim Johnson's prior track record as the CEO of Fannie Mae, which has been criticized for its role in the financial crisis and for serving on the compensation committees of two companies that experienced option backdating scandals. The case allows students to discuss issues surrounding director performance assessment, director elections, investor engagement with companies, and director reputation.

This exercise is one in a series intended to help students learn how to perform financial calculations in marketing contexts. Helmut Schmidt, product manager for Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. KG, the world's foremost manufacturer of harmonicas, accordions, melodicas, and ukuleles, was sitting at his desk reviewing his first assignment from the company's senior executive team. Schmidt had been asked to calculate the break-even point for the company's flagship product, the Marine Band harmonica, under a number of different scenarios.

This exercise is one in a series intended to help students learn how to perform financial calculations in marketing contexts. Maru Keitou, a decorated former collegiate softball player with a PhD from Oxford University, ran Maru Batting Center in the Roppongi district of Tokyo's Minato ward. She had a deep knowledge of the game and of her customers, but she lacked a marketing background. She had recently signed up for a hosted customer relationship management service that would allow her to track the cost of acquiring and serving each of her four main customer segments. Using this data, she could determine which segments to target in the upcoming year. The exercise describes the use of calculations of customer acquisition cost, retention rates, and customer lifetime value in picking between market segments and various options for activities to acquire customers.

Spreadsheet for case KEL688

This exercise is one in a series intended to help students learn how to perform financial calculations in marketing contexts. Carolina Araujo had recently taken control of her family's business, Pepita Disco PPM, Uruguay's second-largest producer of beef-based dog food, treats, and toys. While she respected the company's nearly eighty-year history, Carolina felt that Pepita Disco had grown complacent with its market share and was basically preserving the status quo. Her plan was to re-energize the employee base and grow Pepita Disco's business faster than the overall market. This exercise poses a fictional problem about a company's efforts to predict the impacts of price, product cost, and spending moves on profitability.

This technical note provides an update on the use of customer data in marketing organizations and discusses how calculations of customer acquisition costs are made. It introduces the concept of customer lifetime value and provides examples of how it is calculated and how it is used. If desired, this reading is good preparation for students completing the Kellogg exercise "Maru Batting Center: Customer Lifetime Value," Case #3-112-003.

This technical note discusses learnings from organizations facing the challenges of managing brands across global geography. It talks about best practices for balancing the competing needs for local relevance and global consistency and scales.