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For decades, businesses have sought competitive advantage in "upstream" activities related to making new products--building bigger factories, finding cheaper raw materials, improving efficiency, and so on. But those easily copied sources of advantage are being irreversibly eroded, and advantage increasingly lies "downstream"--in the marketplace. Today the strategic question that drives business is not "What else can we make?" but "What else can we do for our customers?" This new center of gravity demands a rethink of long-standing strategy principles: First, the sources and locus of competitive advantage now lie outside the firm, and advantage is accumulative--rather than eroding over time as competitors catch up, it grows with experience and knowledge. Second, it's no longer about having the better product but about how you position yourself in the market and which companies you choose to compete against. Third, the pace of change in markets is now driven by shifts in customers' purchase criteria rather than by improvements in products or technology.

Conglomerates once dominated the U.S. business world. But by the 1980s, they'd been laid low by poor performance, inspiring the belief that focused corporations created more shareholder value. Today conglomerates are largely considered dinosaurs--except, that is, in emerging markets, where diversified business groups, comprising numerous unrelated enterprises, are flourishing. The authors, who studied Indian business groups for five years, believe that the key to these organizations' success is their structure. Unlike corporate divisions, a group's affiliate companies are legally independent. That allows them to raise capital, set strategies, and create incentives more effectively. Affiliates don't report directly to the leaders of the business group but are overseen by the group center, a management layer in the group chairperson's office. It coordinates the identity work that unites and inspires affiliates' employees, and helps affiliates spot and seize opportunities, share resources and talent, and collaborate on strategic activities. Business groups using this model are not only profitable; they also outperform other companies in their markets.

Companies in developing countries are often so focused on chasing growth that they fail to invest in improving their innovation, operations, and brand management. So despite enormous reach and revenues in the billions, they're unprepared when demand growth slows and competition from increasingly savvy developed-world multinationals intensifies. The once high-flying Chinese automakers BYD and Chery have landed hard. In contrast, another automaker, Great Wall, and the appliance maker Haier have won early competitive advantage. In their efforts to compete, emerging-market companies should consider four stages: (1) Seize the moment and invest in the basics, such as payroll, finance, factory operations, and employee management. (2) Build strength by learning (through licensing or contract manufacturing, for example) from established companies. (3) Scale and consolidate, keeping product lines and markets relatively narrow. (4) Move up and out, with a strong portfolio of brands, innovation capabilities, advanced technology, marketing, and sales.

When a new work group forms, people often make snap judgments about who is qualified to lead. If the players don't already know one another, they tend to afford status to teammates on the basis of factors such as age, gender, race, attractiveness, and rank. These are characteristics beyond your control, but they don't necessarily predetermine the influence you can have on a group. Anyone, the authors say, can achieve higher status and more influence by getting in the right mind-set before engaging with new teammates. There are three psychological states that can increase the optimism, confidence, and proactive behavior that people associate with leaders: promotion focus (defined as a focus on goals and positive outcomes), happiness, and a feeling of power. And all it takes to help you enter one of these states is a simple five-minute exercise before starting a group task: Write about your ambitions or a time when you felt happy or powerful. The authors report that study subjects who did exactly that were more likely than others to speak up, steer decision making, and be viewed by their teammates as leaders--both in initial group meetings and in follow-up meetings two days later.

Terranola is a wildly successful company with a market cap of $8.1 billion. Its product, the Express granola-bar-making machine, is on kitchen counters across North America, and market analysts suggest that household penetration of Express machines could triple. Then Jeremiah Hughes, a well-known hedge fund manager and short-seller, starts making public comments suggesting that the company is overrated. Its managers debate how best to respond. This fictional case study is written by Suraj Srinivasan and features expert commentary by Guy Gresham and Dan Mahoney.

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on overcoming gender discrimination in the legal profession, building rapport and consensus with her colleagues, being a "mother hen" to her clerks, and the lessons she learned growing up on a ranch.

Terranola is a wildly successful company with a market cap of $8.1 billion. Its product, the Express granola-bar-making machine, is on kitchen counters across North America, and market analysts suggest that household penetration of Express machines could triple. Then Jeremiah Hughes, a well-known hedge fund manager and short-seller, starts making public comments suggesting that the company is overrated. Its managers debate how best to respond. This fictional case study is written by Suraj Srinivasan and features expert commentary by Guy Gresham and Dan Mahoney.

Terranola is a wildly successful company with a market cap of $8.1 billion. Its product, the Express granola-bar-making machine, is on kitchen counters across North America, and market analysts suggest that household penetration of Express machines could triple. Then Jeremiah Hughes, a well-known hedge fund manager and short-seller, starts making public comments suggesting that the company is overrated. Its managers debate how best to respond. This fictional case study is written by Suraj Srinivasan and features expert commentary by Guy Gresham and Dan Mahoney.

COFCO was China's sole legitimate window for agricultural foreign trade before 1987. The reform of China's foreign trade system beginning in 1987 cost COFCO its monopoly position. Subsequently, the SOE giant capitalized on its foreign trade expertise to strategically move upstream in the food industrial chain. Additionally, COFCO made investments in unrelated areas. These unrelated diversification activities were stopped by the new Chairman Ning Gaoning, appointed in 2004. He cared greatly about the innate logic for future mergers and acquisitions. The company, under his leadership, focused on its weaknesses and strengths, to identify a focused overall strategy. He brought the "whole industry chain" concept to COFCO with three clear goals in mind: 1) to shape "farmland to table" food processing to assure customers of safe, high-quality food, 2) to unite COFCO's segmented business units, and enable them to gain competitive edge over local companies 3) to increase the company's strength to compete with global food companies. The case depicts COFCO's historical transformations, identifies its mergers and acquisitions since 2005 and shows its financing history. Information is provided about several domestic and overseas competitors to illustrate COFCO's role in a larger China environment. It is not only a market player but also a main force in China's pillar industry and the only domestic food company that can rival global food companies in China's domestic market.

The partners of Saito Solar, a privately owned photovoltaic (PV) solar panel manufacturer in Japan, received an unsolicited proposal from an investment bank about their interests in selling the firm. The firm had experienced steady sales decline in recent years, due mainly to intense competition from low-cost solar panel manufacturers from China. However, in 2012, the solar industry in Japan received new signs of life. The threat of radiation from the nuclear plant explosions due to a deadly earthquake in 2011 had prompted Japan to look for alternative energy. On July 1, 2012, the Japanese government implemented a new feed-in-tariff of 42Â¥/kWh (about US$0.53/kWh) for solar energy. This tariff was almost twice as large of that in Germany and three times of that in China. This incentive was predicted to produce solar energy that would rank Japan as one of the largest in the world in solar capacity. The partners of Saito Solar were excited about the investment bank's solicitation and wanted to find out how much the firm was worth. The cash flow projections incorporating the positive outlook of the Japanese solar industry were provided. The partners discussed valuation using discounted cash flow (DCF) approach, so it is a perfect case to introduce beginner finance students the proper and common way to value a firm using DCF.

In June 2013, Elan's shareholders (Elan Corporation, NYSE: ELN) were faced with a difficult choice. Elan's management had four proposals on the table, management's attempt to defend itself against a hostile takeover from Royalty Pharma. Royalty Pharma was a private company, a private equity-owned collector of biotech and pharmaceutical royalties. If shareholders voted in favor of any of the four initiatives, it would likely kill Royalty Pharma's offer-and its guaranteed returns. That would allow Elan to stay independent, and remain under the control of a management team generally considered as underperforming.

This case is based on Kingfisher Airlines, the brainchild of Dr. Vijay Mallaya. It made a grand entrance into the Indian aviation industry as a single-class, all-economy air carrier in 2005. The company soon turned its focus to becoming a premium service operator offering high-class in-flight services and unrivalled luxuries. Subsequently, it took a number of steps to differentiate itself from other airlines, while also embarking upon an ambitious expansion plan. Its acquisition of an ailing airline, Air Deccan, combined with rising fuel costs and a rapidly changing business environment made its survival difficult. The company's bank accounts were frozen several times by the Income Tax Department and the Service Tax Department because of defaults on tax payments, leaving it cash dry. The battered airline had to temporarily suspend its operations from several cities and cope with a staggering debt load that had reached Rs. 7,000 crore by March 27, 2012. The staff was demoralized and some employees left the company due to the non-payment of salaries. There was also widespread anger among passengers owing to last-minute flight cancellations. The challenge facing its CEO, Sanjay Agarwal, was to make Kingfisher Airlines bounce back from its precarious position. The company had to tackle the issue of raising funds to meet its day-to-day expenses, maintain the current number of flights and perhaps also conduct a thorough review of its past policies and strategies and try to learn from the competitors that had managed to weather the storm and still remain profitable in the most unfavourable of business environments.

This case chronicles the growth and evolution of Revital, the bestselling vitamin and mineral supplement in India. The Indian nutraceutical market was booming, as the growing economy and increasingly demanding job requirements were pushing young Indian consumers to look for products like energy drinks, energy candy and health supplements. Stressful work conditions and lifestyle changes were resulting in an increased incidence of chronic disorders, and more and more consumers were taking nutraceuticals as a preventive measure. No company had launched an energy candy in the Indian market and imported brands were of limited availability. The case explores the possible options for Ranbaxy - one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in India -with brand expansion opportunities for Revital through introducing Revital energy candy. Should Ranbaxy introduce an energy candy in the Indian market? If so, should it be a brand extension of Revital or a new brand altogether?

Caterpillar Tunnelling Canada Corporation, a Toronto-based subsidiary of the U.S. company Caterpillar Inc., specializes in the custom design and manufacture of tunnelling boring machines used in the construction of transportation and utility tunnels such as subway, sewage and telecom cable tunnels. After the acquisition by Caterpillar, the company was chosen as one of the sites to undergo enterprise resource planning (ERP) transformation. After over a year of localization effort to adapt the corporate ERP template to the subsidiary's business processes, the project was called off due to both the strained local resources and the significant gap between the parent company's repetitive manufacturing model and the subsidiary's concurrent engineering/project-based model. Moreover, the lack of executive buy-in and a mandate in establishing company-wide performance metrics and consistency in business semantics led to sporadic user adoption of business intelligence tools and the creation of sometimes irreconcilable reporting. The business resource manager and head of finance has to rethink the management of business intelligence technologies and come up with a strategy to achieve coherent data analytics for effective business decision making.

An owner was concerned about the condo she bought in Mont Tremblant, Quebec in 2006 as an investment property and for occasional use by her family. A beautiful, five-bedroom unit with a panoramic view over the La Bête golf course, it was close to the ski area, the village of Tremblant, shopping, spas, restaurants and a casino. It was fully furnished with many upgrades. However, by 2010, the number of rentals was disappointing, and the unit was operating well below expectations. Something had to be done to increase occupancy or she would have to sell the property. She considered changes in all aspects of marketing: her target, positioning, product features, pricing, distribution and promotion. She needed to assess the situation and determine what could be done to generate more bookings and make the venture profitable.

The case serves as an illustration of organizational behavior when it comes to the issue of silence in organizations. It describes a critical leadership situation that requires speaking up against the orders of a superior in a hierarchical structure - in this case, the armed forces. When the protagonist, a young Israeli officer leading a special-forces platoon, receives an order that would put his platoon in extreme danger, he has to make a decision. The case is not concerned with combat situations, but rather with how to act as a responsible leader. Given the setting of an army unit governed by command and control, the initial case discussion is likely to focus on typical leadership issues, such as motivation and followership. However, the more interesting aspect concerns the dual roles that leaders typically have to fulfill, that is, they may be both leaders and followers. The protagonist of the case is a captain who receives an order from a major that will have consequences for the captain's platoon. The core issue of the case is the decision to reject the order in question. Participants will discuss why speaking up is an issue in organizations and usually does not occur. The case also allows us to look at situations in high-risk organizations that allow open communication.

In December 2011, the world-renowned SMRT train system in Singapore suffered a series of commuter disruptions that shattered public confidence in the system. SMRT Corporation Ltd. is Singapore's multi-modal public transport operator, with train, bus and taxi services across the island. This case recounts the train breakdowns, resulting in commuter frustration and SMRT's response. Not only does SMRT management need to restore confidence in the reliability and safety of the system, but they also need to restore good faith with the public that they are committed stewards of a public system integral to daily living.

In mid-April 2013, the chief executive officer of Tesco PLC, the world's third largest global retailer headquartered in London, United Kingdom, must explain to shareholders his decision to close down the operations of the fully owned subsidiary, Fresh & Easy Neighborhoods Market Inc., in the United States. Following a December 2012 strategic review that reported that the subsidiary was not delivering acceptable returns, operations have already been discontinued and a buyer is being sought. Although the focus on fresh food to ameliorate the health care costs of obesity in the United States was a driver for establishing the subsidiary, the effects of the 2008 recession discouraged consumers from paying the higher costs of fresh food. Is exiting the United States the right decision for Tesco? How should the process of exit be managed? Are there any takeaways from the U.S. operations that Tesco can apply elsewhere in its global strategy?

Multinational corporations and wealthy individuals often use so-called tax havens to establish subsidiaries or holding companies in order to rebalance profits across borders with the primary purpose of lowering their effective tax rate. This note describes the use of tax havens, the implications for the financial sector in tax havens, as well as the debate around the effect of tax havens on welfare in other jurisdictions.