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The Reinsurance Negotiation case is a fictional three-party negotiation between a primary insurer and two reinsurers. The case is appropriate for use in a wide variety of courses, including Financial Institutions, Negotiations, and courses related to the Insurance and Reinsurance industry. This Teaching Note emphasizes the key learning points that are most relevant to a course on financial institutions, while also examining several key elements of negotiation strategy.

The Reinsurance Negotiation case is a fictional three-party negotiation between a primary insurer and two reinsurers. The case is appropriate for use in a wide variety of courses, including Financial Institutions, Negotiations, and courses related to the Insurance and Reinsurance industry. This Teaching Note emphasizes the key learning points that are most relevant to a course on financial institutions, while also examining several key elements of negotiation strategy.

The BlackRock Solutions case examines the different functions and economics of a global asset manager's value chain, with particular emphasis on the "money management" and the "investment systems platform" businesses. Students analyze why BlackRock decided to unbundle its Aladdin investment platform and if the firm should consider expanding the platform in the future. Students also explore the resulting "dual-mission" challenges of servicing both internal and external Aladdin clients during a period of rapid growth within BlackRock and significant change in the global financial landscape.

This case examines Grassroots Capital's decision of whether or not to continue investing in a Bolivian microfinance bank that is suffering financial distress.

This case examines Grassroots Capital's decision of whether or not to continue investing in a Bolivian microfinance bank that is suffering financial distress.

Kay Sunderland is an account director at Attain Learning Inc., a business training solutions company. In January 2011, one of Attain's most important clients, Juan Nunez of Gramen Equipment Company, contacts Sunderland with a request: Nunez would like Attain content development director Mike Morgan to stop contacting him directly. Sunderland is surprised that Morgan, an experienced and talented contributor, is potentially jeopardizing the account by ignoring Attain's communications policy of restricting client-facing communication to the account director. Now Sunderland must decide how to handle the situation with both the client and her colleague Morgan.

This technical note introduces important metrics firms use to monitor customer relationships. The note begins by discussing how to count the firms' customers and keep track of their activity using the concepts of recency and retention. An important summary of customer activity is the profit the firm receives from each customer. Just as some brands are more profitable than others, so too are some customer relationships more profitable than others. Customer profit is the metric that summarizes the past financial performance of a customer relationship. A companion note, "Customer Lifetime Value" (UVA-M-0800), addresses the forward-looking metric that attempts to put a dollar value on a customer relationship. This technical note is an excerpt of the more comprehensive treatment of customer metrics found in "Customer Profitability" (UVA-M-0718).

This technical note introduces important metrics firms use to monitor customer relationships. An important summary of customer activity is the profit the firm receives from each customer. Customer profit (CP) is the metric that summarizes the past financial performance of a customer relationship and is covered in a companion note, ""Customer Profit"" (UVA-M-0799). The central difference between CP and customer lifetime value (CLV) is that CP measures the past and CLV looks forward. This note addresses the forward-looking metric that attempts to put a dollar value on a customer relationship. This technical note is an excerpt of the more comprehensive treatment of customer metrics found in "Customer Profitability" (UVA-M-0718).

Beginning in the 1990s, Wal-Mart sought to maintain its rapid growth by investing outside of the United States. Wal-Mart chose to enter other countries through the purchase of existing retail chains. This process created a new set of challenges, since the existing chains had their own corporate cultures and operating procedures. Wal-Mart experienced several surprising defeats. In 2000, Wal-Mart launched a chain of what it called "Neighborhood Markets," limited to the sale of groceries. Meanwhile, its Latin American acquisitions included stores of only 4,000 square feet. In 2010, Wal-Mart announced a strategy to create a major chain of mini-Supercentres, each of some 40,000 to 60,000 square feet, to be located within cities. Some of the new smaller stores would be focused on local ethnic groups. Hispanic neighborhoods were an obvious target for this paradigm. In addition to the need to change its inventory levels, and to rely on parking buildings rather than large parking lots, Wal-Mart encountered strong opposition from labour unions. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart was using its new small-format stores in China. Wal-Mart was also experimenting with on-line grocery sales with home delivery. Wal-Mart was continuing to cut costs by consolidating its global purchases, shifting to more global supply chains with the elimination of many wholesalers. At the same time, Wal-Mart was taking a dramatic position in compelling its suppliers to adopt "green" practices, conducting audits of its suppliers and refusing to purchase from those who failed to measure up to new environmental standards.

In 1992, the United Nations (UN) Convention on Climate Change urged UN members to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in order to limit global warming and climate change. In 1997, international negotiations established the Kyoto Treaty in which 160 signatory nations agreed to achieve specific reductions by the period 2008 to 2012. While the overall commitment was to reduce GHG emissions to a level 5.2 per cent lower than 1990 levels, nations committed to various percentage reductions. Each signatory would determine how it wished to reach its target, and no penalties were threatened to those who might not reach their goal. By 2001, when the time came to ratify the treaty, various credits were provided to some nations for "carbon sinks," particularly for existing forests. Even with such concessions, the United States refused to sign, and so did most developing nations. The Kyoto protocol proceeded at very different speeds in different nations. International negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009 and in Cancun in 2010 attempted to add clarity to the intentions of signatories. However, many significant details had not yet been addressed. Future negotiations in Rangoon and elsewhere would be necessary.

The case describes in detail Desko's customer order process. It highlights the importance of this key business process and how its inefficiencies can significantly diminish the SME's performance.

In the midst of massive growth in the oil sands, Suncor's chief executive officer (CEO) is growing concerned about the local government's inability to cope with unprecedented growth of oils sands development in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Crime, prostitution, drug use, social inequality and ecological deterioration have begun to cripple Fort McMurray and the surrounding area largely because the local government has been unable to support the massive growth with appropriate public services and environmental protection. As part of a major oil and gas company in the region, the CEO is aware of the harsh lessons learned by Shell in Nigeria in 1995, where the company's reluctance to get involved in political activities led to a massive boycott and tarnished reputation. The CEO is concerned that inaction may hold Suncor complicit in the social and ecological issues in the region. The case illustrates the need for companies to take on political responsibilities, in this case through the active engagement of addressing public service gaps. Written for courses in business and society, stakeholder engagement, public administration, public-private partnerships, strategic management, and negotiations, the case chronicles the motivations of companies such as Suncor to address public service gaps to avoid negative impacts on the firm. Students engage in a role-play representing six different stakeholders, the objective of which is to begin a process of engagement to collectively address the social and ecological issues plaguing the region. The case helps students recognize the growing prevalence of private sector involvement in political affairs and the difference between stakeholder management of and stakeholder engagement with seemingly adversarial stakeholders, the latter of which is critical to collaboratively respond to the complexity of sustainable development.

A junior investment analyst at Maple Toronto Fund (the Fund), a deep-value shop whose main strategy was to invest in deeply-undervalued businesses, was screening hundreds of small cap stocks and stumbled upon HQ Sustainable Maritime Industries Inc. (HQS), an aquaculture and aquatic product processing company that operated in two product segments in China. A quick look at HQS's financials suggested to the junior investment analyst that he had found the holy-grail of value investing: a net-net stock. The junior investment analyst knew he had to present an in-depth due diligence to estimate a stock's intrinsic value and determine whether the stock was truly undervalued. He wondered how to tackle the valuation; in addition to developing a deep understanding of the industry and the company's business model and numbers, he considered the value-investing-based valuation approach. The junior investment analyst knew that demonstration of thorough analysis and accurate valuation of HQS might convince senior management of the Fund to acquire a substantial stake in HQS; if this investment was profitable, it could boost his career and prospects of advancement within the Fund. The junior investment analyst had one week to put his presentation together.

Process capability, as revolutionized by Motorola, can be defined as the extent to which a process's natural variation falls within specifications. This note is a succinct introduction to the process capability ratio, which compares set specifications against the three standard deviations on either side of the process mean--six in total, referred to as Six Sigma. This introduction assumes a normal distribution of observations and a process that is performing predictably over time.

The sales representatives at Designs by Kate (DBK) sell private label jewelry at hosted parties and through online social media channels. They are also responsible for recruiting, training, and managing new sales reps. CEO and founder Kate Creevey designed the commission plan to encourage sales reps to build teams and become "leaders" for their teams. The strategy has been very successful over the company's first five years. Now the CEO is concerned that growth in top-line revenue is slowing, possibly due to an unwillingness by current sales representatives to build and manage their own sales teams. A survey reveals that many sales reps believe their incomes from jewelry sales decline when they add members to their sales teams due to increased competition for hosting parties within the same geographic area. The CEO must revisit the commission structure to determine if it is still an effective incentive. The case includes a quantitative assignment that students should complete as part of case analysis.

Spreadsheet Supplement to 4284.

This is a (B) case for AQR's Momentum Funds. It follows the first year of performance of the funds after launching, and gives students a critical inflection point for analyzing the nascent stages of a new product launch and the potential path dependence of the product depending on initial returns. It allows students to wrestle with the way forward given these conditions, and how (if at all) it changes their views, pitch, and perspective on the strategy, and traditional long-short strategies more generally.

This note discusses the economics of government-debt accumulation. Fiscal deficits are only part of the picture; other factors include the level of debt as a percent of nominal GDP; the interest rate; the inflation rate; the growth rate; and changes in the exchange rate if some debt is owed in a foreign currency. The note discusses how these factors interact to affect government debt levels.

This case examines the management of home and host country risk by Beiersdorf during the interwar years. It can be used both in business history courses and more generally to teach political risk management by multinational corporations. Beiersdorf, a German personal products company, expanded globally before 1914, but had its foreign factories and intellectual property expropriated during World War 1. After 1919 ceo Willy Jacobson rebuilt the international business, and sought to protect it by "cloaking" the ultimate ownership. Following the appointment of Adolf Hitler, as German Chancellor in 1933, Beiersdorf and Jacobson personally also came under attack by the anti-Semitic Nazi regime in its home country. The case can be used as a vehicle to understand the rise of both host and home country risk by companies during the interwar years, and more generally to explore the strategies which firms can follow to attempt to manage such risks.

Discussion of new model of Social Enterprise that applies the venture capital model to social enterprise.