個案總覽

A star fund manager at Principal First had been managing the company’s information technology fund for the previous six years. Under his management, the fund had consistently outperformed the market, delivering a five-year compounded annual growth rate of 28 per cent. The exceptional performance of the fund was due to an overexposed position in Vakrangee Limited, a mid-tier information technology company. The fund manager bought the stock in early October 2017 at ₹240. By January 2018, the stock reached a high of ₹500. However, the fund manager did not liquidate his position because he believed that there was still more value in the company. At the end of January 2018, the stock plummeted, as did its net asset value, and the fund manager wondered where he had gone wrong in his analysis.

Spreadsheet for product 8B20N022.

Spreadsheet for product 9B20N022.

Spreadsheet to accompany product 9B20M135.

Verge Capital was a social finance organization in London, Ontario, that connected local aspiring entrepreneurs with funds that would support initiatives with societal or environmental missions that benefited local communities. In 2019, the social finance manager at Verge Capital had to recommend one of two social impact business proposals that the organization should fund a CA$30,000 loan to. The two options were (1) Sri Lankan Foods, which operated a Sri Lankan restaurant, a catering business, and a granola production facility that provided short-term employment opportunities for newcomers to Canada, and (2) Material Impact, which collected and resold used textbooks to fund donations of books and learning materials to South American universities. While both businesses aligned with Verge Capital’s mandate, the social finance manager needed to choose just one. He wondered how sustainable the businesses were and what criteria Verge Capital should consider before investing.

By May 2014, the bakery of French pastry chef Dominique Ansel had successfully been in operation for two and a half years. During this time, the bakery had gained numerous accolades for its most viral invention—the Cronut, a hybrid between a donut and a croissant. Moving forward, there were opportunities for Ansel’s company to expand beyond its current size and location in New York City. Ansel’s first option was to raise prices. Because the Cronut sold out every day before noon, the bakery was severely undersupplying the market, which had a huge demand. Ansel’s second option was to commercialize the Cronut. Perhaps it would be better to license the recipe to a major coffee chain, which could bring his invention to millions of people. Lastly, Ansel could expand his brand internationally to Asia or Europe. Could Ansel achieve any of these changes without compromising quality over quantity?

In 2018, Toyota Tsusho South Pacific Holdings, the leading automotive company in the South Pacific, was celebrating its 20th anniversary. The company, which operated a network of 27 dealerships through subsidiary companies in seven island nations, had been through a number of dramatic changes since its origins in the 19th century, and its Brisbane, Australia, office had transitioned from its early role as a corporate head office with 15 employees to become the regional headquarters for Toyota Tsusho Corporation, one of 17 major Toyota Group companies. In early July 2018, a new managing director was selected. Among his many duties, he would need to review the steps taken to date in transforming the Brisbane office and determine the appropriate steps to take in the future. Were any changes were required in the relationship between the regional headquarters and the island subsidiaries?

After only two years on the job, a successful young female engineer encountered a critical and independent decision-making scenario in a profession traditionally dominated by males. She identified a safety risk in a construction project as she was driving to work and decided to ask the crew to stop their work for a safety assessment. The issue raised several key factors that she had to address in her attempt to manage risk. Her decision to shut down a field project in a residential neighbourhood was based on various considerations, given her assessment of an imminent threat to public safety. Was she right to stop the construction project? Could she have done things differently?

In December 2017, the Electrical and Mechanical Services department (EMSD) held its first Innovative Technology Day in collaboration with Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation at EMSD’s Hong Kong headquarters. The event, which brought together government departments and related organizations as well as developers of innovative technologies, was a first step in responding to the new policy direction outlined by the chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in her first policy address and to the challenge issued to EMSD staff by the director of Electrical and Mechanical Services. Supervising engineers at EMSD were directed to develop a strategic roadmap and implementation plan to move EMSD forward to implement the organization’s new mandate: to be a promoter and facilitator of innovation and technology (I&T).

California-based Vivos Group (Vivos) built and sold luxury bunkers designed to withstand catastrophes. The founder himself had acknowledged that the majority of US residents could not afford them: while competitors offered bunkers with down payments as low as a US$1,300 —which middle-income consumers could afford—Vivos’s $35,000+ bunkers were for the rich. By May 2020, several of Vivos’s bunker properties were sold out, but it was uncertain whether this indicated some permanent change in consumers’ buying behaviour or an effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Vivos’s founder now faced several challenges: should he focus on constructing more luxury apartment-based bunkers or low-cost, community-sharing bunkers to provide consumers with protection from COVID-19? What aspects of bunker management should he improve, given the criticism that bunker companies had made false claims about the air filtration systems in the bunkers? How could he help Vivos achieve growth in the long run?

On March 21, 2017, Downer EDI Limited, a leading provider of engineering, construction, and infrastructure management services in the Australasia region, announced an unsolicited offer for Spotless Group Holdings at A$1.15 per share, to be funded largely by a fully underwritten renounceable two-for-five rights issue at A$5.95 per share. Although an offer for Spotless Group Holdings was not unexpected, the market was surprised at the considerable premium of 58 per cent above the previous day’s closing price of A$0.725. With the institutional portion of the rights offering due to close the following day, an equity analyst with a large institutional fund that was a major shareholder of Downer EDI Limited, had little time to complete a thorough valuation analysis of Spotless Group Holdings. If the analyst determined that Downer EDI Limited was overpaying for Spotless Group Holdings, she would recommend that the fund turn down the rights offering and sell its stake in Downer EDI Limited.

Spreadsheet to accompany product 8B20N041.

Student Spreadsheet to accompany product 9B20N041.

In October 2015, the investment management firm Trian Partners disclosed a US$2.5 billion investment in one of the largest industrial enterprises in the world, General Electric Company. The investment was the largest in the firm’s 10-year history. At the time, General Electric Company was the longest-standing member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the 18th-largest company by market capitalization in the entire S&P 500 Index, and featured regularly on Fortune’s list of the world’s most admired companies. General Electric Company’s reputation as an enviable employer and world-class company had largely been cemented under Jack Welch’s tenure (1981–2001), when the company’s share price had reached its all-time high. Understanding what drove its performance during that period was therefore an essential part of any effort to determine whether General Electric Company had a sustainable competitive advantage to carry that performance into the future.

By November 2016, Trian Partners had built up a sizable stake in General Electric Company shares and became the company’s eighth-largest shareholder. General Electric Company’s total shareholder return had outperformed the market by 9 per cent since June 2015, when Trian Partners initially invested in the company. However, it was important to consider whether the factors that had led to this performance could be sustained, and a comparison of General Electric Company’s performance over the last 10 years under the current chief executive officer with that under his predecessor could offer some useful perspective. General Electric Company’s share price had reached its all-time high under Jack Welch, solidifying his reputation as the “Manager of the Century.” However, there were several important questions to consider: What factors contributed to the success of General Electric Company historically? How might those same factors influence the company’s future prospects? And how might an analysis of these factors shape an agenda with the board?

On October 8, 2019, Blizzard Entertainment Inc. (Blizzard), a subsidiary of one of the world’s largest video game companies, banned a popular player from participating in future video game tournaments for one year and stripped him of his winnings—a response to a dramatic political statement that the player had made during a post-game interview at a Blizzard event. The immediate response was a flurry of angry fans who used social media to protest Blizzard’s actions and call for a boycott of its products. Some of Blizzard’s employees had staged a walkout and US politicians were accusing the company of censorship. For six days, the company said nothing. Blizzard had an upcoming product launch in days and a massive eSports convention in just two weeks, and the CEO needed to do something. He needed a crisis communications plan for the short-term to address a number of stakeholders.

In late 2019, the chief people officer at World Vision Canada was feeling overwhelmed. Eighteen months earlier, she had exited her intense and successful career in the private sector to join World Vision Canada, a leading international development charity. While she embraced the organization’s mission-driven ethos of collaboration and collegiality, it had led to an excess of meetings. In just the past week, she had attended more than 100 meetings. Was it time to resurrect the organization’s previous attempts to address its meeting culture? What roadblocks had prevented the success of those previous attempts? How could the chief people officer continue to be an advocate for a culture of collaboration and inclusivity while also ensuring a change to the meeting culture?

In September 2019, a marketing director at Multinational Beverage Inc. faced a dilemma: she needed to determine how to reverse the declining sales and market share of her Florida-based orange juice brand, Fresh Squeeze. While one potential solution was to move production to Brazil to take advantage of lower production costs, the marketing director also had to consider the effect this would have on Fresh Squeeze’s brand image. Given industry dynamics, would becoming a low-priced competitor lead to the right positioning for Fresh Squeeze, or were Florida oranges the heart of this business?

In late 2018, the founder and owner of Pupadise, Inc., a pet care business in Canada, was nearing her graduation from university and needed to decide what to do with the business she had built in her undergraduate years. Pupadise cared for clients’ pets when the pet owners could not; its services primarily consisted of live-in and drop-in pet care. The owner was considering selling the business, but was concerned that the sale price would be low because her business had no traditional assets. Inspired by a guest speaker in her pricing class, she realized that her client list of 300 pet owners had value, but wondered how to price it. She had a meeting scheduled with a prospective buyer and wanted to prepare. Should she sell her business, and if so, for how much?

The two co-founders of PharmEasy, an online medical store and pharmacy website launched in 2015, faced a new challenge in December 2018. Recent judgments by the Madras and Delhi High Courts had suspended the operations of India’s more than 250 online pharmacies until new industry regulations could be drafted. Only a few months earlier, in August 2018, the Indian government had released proposed draft regulations for the online sale of medicine. However, an organization representing more than 850,000 pharmacists in India had staged a one-day strike to protest the government’s proposal. Should PharmEasy take a cautious approach with its ambitious expansion plans until the government introduces regulations? Or would its competitors seize the opportunity to move forward aggressively to gain market share? The co-founders recognized that the regulatory uncertainty was creating confusion. They needed to decide on their next steps quickly—and communicate their intentions to all stakeholders.