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The chief operating officer (CEO) at Cambridge Cooling Systems (CCS), an industrial cooling system manufacturer, has been asked for his recommendations on CCS’s plants in Canada and Mexico. The company has had a reversal in its strategic plan in the past year and is shifting from a focus on growth to looking for operating efficiencies. CCS’s global plants are running below full capacity, and opportunity exists to reduce costs through the consolidation of operations. The current focus is on Canada and Mexico, and the CEO is exploring moving custom work from Canada to Mexico, where labour and overhead rates are lower. The challenge for the CEO is to consider the implications of such a move. He needs to determine if it is economically preferable to move production to Mexico, and consider the implications of making changes to CCS’s operations strategy.

In January 2012, Alberta-based energy infrastructure business, AltaGas Ltd. (AltaGas),was considering the purchase of U.S.-based green energy power producer Decker Energy International, Inc. The move into renewable energy and into the United States would be a departure for AltaGas, which was primarily focused on traditional energy and infrastructure businesses in Canada. The financial lead on the acquisition project was looking at the assumptions provided. His task was to value the U.S. power producer’s assets and provide feedback on issues that could affect the deal.

In April 2016, the owner of Apoorva Mess (Apoorva) in Manipal, India, wanted to open a full-service economical restaurant to reach out to customers, beat the competition, improve his sales, and fulfil his dream of serving quality food at affordable rates to the lower middle class. He was facing a dilemma over selecting the best location for establishing his new restaurant, knowing that the wrong choice would spell disaster for his business in the long run. A number of conflicting constraints were making it difficult for him to come to a decision. He wanted to follow a systematic approach to pinpoint the final location.

In October 2010, Ira Pittelman, lead producer of the Broadway musical American Idiot, had to evaluate one week's grosses from when star musician, Billie Joe Armstrong, was put into the show in New York City. The rock star had been enthusiastic about filling in for an actor in the musical based on an album by his band, Green Day. Audiences had also been enthusiastic, and revenues for the play were up. The producer had to determine whether Armstrong was the source of the increased revenue and, if so, how much his performance had contributed. He needed to determine how to respond should Armstrong offer to act in the musical again. Should he accept such an offer? How much compensation should he offer the star?

Instructor Spreadsheet for product 8B17E012.

Instructor Spreadsheet to accompany product 8B17E013.

Student Spreadsheet to accompany product 9B17D007.

Spreadsheet to accompany product 9B17E012.

Student Spreadsheet to accompany product 9B17E013.

Spreadsheet to accompany product 9B17D016.

A senior manager at Ergonomica Consulting was under pressure to demonstrate to her client Solltram Hotels that the hotel's investment in LED lighting would provide a payback. Winning the client's buy-in would lead to an extension of the contract with the client, development of a new specialist practice area within Ergonomica Consulting, improvement of the manager’s chances of promotion, and the cementing of her reputation. However, at a critical moment, the manager discovered that a previously hidden error in her main spreadsheet, which contained over two million data points, had resulted in her overestimating the cost savings for the client. Should she conceal the mistake and win the important contract, improving her chances of promotion? Or should she own up to the mistake and risk losing the account, her promotion, and her reputation?

For the Deutscher Fussball-Bund e.V. (DFB)—the German Football Association—winning the most prestigious football trophy, the 2014 FIFA World Cup, was the culmination of a long period of suffering, reinventing, and rebuilding. Once the dominating force in world football, the German team had been at rock bottom around the beginning of the millennium. To manage its way out of this crisis and leave competitors behind once again, the DFB had to fundamentally reinvent itself. The turnaround required radical changes that would take a long time to pay off and involved substantial risks. How did the DFB reinvent itself to overcome the crisis and regain competitive strength, culminating in triumph at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil? How could DFB’s managerial options be applied to the corporate world and provide lessons on successfully managing a crisis? What could DFB’s management do to remain at the top of international football?

Hisense Co., Ltd. (Hisense) was the fourth-largest television maker in the world, but its market share and brand recognition remained low in Europe. Therefore, strengthening its branding and improving its sales there were priorities for the Chinese company. In 2013, Hisense was considering whether to establish a strategic alliance with the German high-end television manufacturer Loewe AG (Loewe). Despite having a good reputation, Loewe was suffering severe financial distress and facing possible bankruptcy. If Hisense co-operated with Loewe, it would gain access to Loewe’s distribution network in Europe and utilize co-brand advertising with Loewe. In turn, Loewe would benefit from Hisense’s long-term technical support and gain access to the promising Asian market. Should they proceed?

In 2017, Volkswagen Group was not satisfied with its performance in India. Tata Motors Limited, on the other hand, had been dealing with increased competition from new automobile players. In March 2017, both players made the announcement of a potential strategic alliance with one another. However, the alliance talks soon stalled over the potential use of a platform and the practicality of the business model. The question facing both companies was whether to work out their differences and move the alliance forward, or to terminate the negotiation talks and operate independently.

On June 1, 2016 a student was preparing for a summer job with Agarwal Automobiles, a vehicle fuel station owned by his father. The student had taken courses that covered supply chain management, including inventory management and forecasting. His father had suggested that, as a summer project, the student examine the fuel station’s retail inventory management practices with the intention of replacing the current simple rules with a more rational and complex planning model. The student needed some ideas to use as a guide toward a better ordering policy. The available data for the previous six months suggested that the company held an average ending inventory of ?2.1 million worth of fuel products to maintain average daily sales of ?0.52 million. The challenge was to reduce the inventory levels, while maintaining a high customer service level in fuel sales.

By 2017, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (Wal-Mart) had shaped purchasing power for more than a million U.S. workers. Wal-Mart’s economic muscle was so profound that one could assume that the corporation’s wage policies had had a significant impact on the struggle for a living wage in the United States—but did this assumption have any merit? Wal-Mart had set the benchmark for low-cost retail labour practices. Understanding how Wal-Mart set the agenda with wages invited the investigation of a few pertinent questions: What socio-economic forces were in play and what was the environmental context that shaped Wal-Mart’s approach to managing its labour force? What were Wal-Mart’s wage-related practices, and how did the hourly rate paid to workers by the corporation affect prevailing wage rates? Finally, what were the benefits for Wal-Mart if it pursued a progressive wage rate agenda related to a living wage, and what were the disadvantages if it did not?

In late 2015, the chairman of Sofame Technologies Inc. (Sofame), a Montreal-based manufacturer and marketer of energy-recapture systems, faced a dilemma. The firm, which transformed the waste heat generated by hot water and exhaust gases into usable energy, had struggled for more than a decade as it coped with low gas prices and a failed carbon credits management subsidiary. Sofame had just been delisted from the stock market and was precariously close to bankruptcy. However, the chairman continued to see value in Sofame and was considering a restructuring plan that involved the acquisition of a New York–based boilermaker that could save the firm. In addition to the financial viability of the acquisition and the difficulty of raising funds, he also needed to consider other issues, including the fact that, as the chairman of a Canadian Crown corporation, he could not preside over a firm undergoing the bankruptcy process.

Survival analysis refers to a collection of statistical techniques used to analyze the occurrence and expected timing of events. Survival analysis can provide not only the probability of an event of interest occurring, but also the time at which the event is likely to occur. A particularly useful application of survival analysis is in the area of "customer churn"—the loss of clients or customers—which is a major concern in many industries. This note introduces survival analysis and discusses two approaches to examine customer churn: the Kaplan-Meier estimator and the Cox proportional hazards model. Instructions are provided on how to build these models in Microsoft Excel, without add-ins.

In 2014, mobile payment company Square, Inc., based in San Francisco, California, was one of an increasing number of venture capital financed firms with valuations above US$1 billion, which had become known as unicorns. By September 2014, the company had raised $371 million over five rounds of venture capital financing. Since the first funding round had been almost five years previous, it was possible that venture funding investors would be pushing for an exit. The firm considered an acquisition offer and an initial public offering, but it was apparent that neither option would yield its desired $6 billion exit value. With $139 million in cash on hand, Square, Inc., was on track to use $138 million of cash in 2014. It approached venture capital investors for a sixth round of financing. It was then up to the investors to determine if they could agree to suitable terms.

In June 2012, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) sought to further financial inclusion in India by permitting non-bank corporate bodies to roll out “white-label” automated teller machine (WLA) networks. Unfortunately, most licensed operators soon found that the number of customers using the white-label machines was lower than anticipated, while the costs of installation, operation, and maintenance were higher than projected, and the revenues received from card-issuing agencies (i.e., banks) were inadequate to ensure viability of the business proposition. However, one operator, Tata Communications Payment Solutions Limited (TCPSL), rolled out its “Indicash” network very quickly, installing over 7,000 units in about 33 months, accounting for close to 60 per cent of all WLA installations by March 2016. Yet by June 2016, in what seemed like a reversal, TCPSL was put up for sale at an estimated valuation of between INR10–13.5 billion. In attracting potential buyers of the Indicash network, how could TCPSL leverage its accomplishments with the WLAs to make a sale? What would attract a strategic buyer to the WLAs?