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Being a business executive is about leading, competing and winning — which is why sports stories can be valuable reference points for decision making and motivating. Take, for example, the National Football League’s Super Bowl XLIX, which was lost due to a terrible judgement call by the Seattle Seahawks coaches that provides a vivid illustration of something that is critical to business success — the willingness of leaders to listen, and the willingness of staff to speak up when they disagree with the boss. History is full of mistakes caused by leaders who set courses of action that went unchallenged even when everyone else saw them as folly. Leaders should ask for feedback before taking courses of action, because it is easier for staff to be critical of a position the leader has not yet taken. The viewpoints of staff should be carefully listened to, and private conversations should be initiated with those staff members who do not speak up. Staff can be heard more effectively if they are prepared and well-informed, because nothing makes a leader stop listening faster than half-baked criticism.

Berendsen Island, an outsourced workwear service, uses the standard costing model to determine its profitability. Because the company recently reported a loss, the plant manager and the business controller investigate time-driven activity-based costing in an effort to gain insights into its cost structures. The company also needs to provide a quote to two potential new customers.

The Glasgow-based charity, Impact Arts, was looking for alternative funding streams for its Young Gallery project. As a result, it undertook its first crowdfunding campaign on the Indiegogo platform. The project did not achieve its stated target of £15,000 in the six week campaign period. Instead, only £4,715 (31 per cent of the total) was raised. While the charity did not achieve its goal, the campaign left the chief executive officer and her team feeling motivated and enthusiastic about crowdfunding as a possible complementary revenue source. However, they recognized that they needed to learn from this experience in order to make future campaigns more effective with respect to pitch (the proposition made to would-be donors) and its delivery.

Instructor Spreadsheet for product 8B15B012.

Student Spreadsheet for product 9B15B012.

In 2013, London Water, the water system of the City of London, Ontario, has run deficits for eight of the past nine years, leading to significant pressure to pull the organization out of the red. The Water Engineering Division manager knows that something needs to change. Overhauling the rate structure is an attractive option; however, myriad political, economic and environmental issues are at play. Moreover, as steward of one of the city’s most important utilities, the manager needs to determine the best course of action, ideally a solution that will work in both the short run and the long run. See supplement case 9B15B010.

Supplement to 9B15B009.

AWARD-WINNING CASE - 2015 AESE Case Writing Competition. The global convenience store brand 7-Eleven entered Indonesia in 2009, with local player PT Modern International as the master franchisor. To differentiate the stores from other convenience stores and to cater to emerging market customers in Indonesia, the CEO combined the idea of a restaurant and a convenience store in his new 7-Eleven outlets. The 7-Eleven stores provided an affordable and convenient location for youth to hang out and have a quick bite to eat. They also offered wireless Internet and a range of services and products like fresh food and beverages. The case requires students to outline the innovative elements that explain 7-Eleven’s success in Indonesia, reflect on its scalability and sustainability, and also to advise the CEO on further strategies to strengthen 7-Eleven in Indonesia.

ABB India, the Indian subsidiary of ABB Global, has been lagging behind the parent company’s other subsidiaries in terms of its percentage of female employees. To rectify the gender imbalance, the parent company has assigned the head of Diversity and Inclusion for India, the Middle East and Africa with the task of introducing and rolling out diversity and inclusion initiatives at ABB India. In June 2014, the chairperson of ABB has scheduled a visit to India and is looking forward to reviewing the status and progress of the diversity and inclusion program.

A young analyst decides to collect Twitter data to better understand who is promoting the Net Promoter matrix on the social media site in late July 2015. How widely is the metric mentioned and how much of the dialogue involves conversations rather than tweets being sent as general broadcast messages? He considers the social network of these users, their relationships and the network as a whole to create a network graph and wonders what he can do to improve the way it can be viewed and understood.

Excel spreadsheet for students.

A middle-aged investor, living in India, is looking for a pension plan as he wants to retire within 10 to 12 years and start his own consultancy. His financial advisor suggests four investment plans, each a mix of equities and bonds with different risk elements. An investment that has more equity also has more risk but higher returns. Inflation, equity markets, bond trends, interest rates, portfolio returns and likely annuities all have to be analyzed. Annual contributions and the accumulation of a corpus fund at the time of maturity also have to be considered. The investor wants to ensure that his pension plan will generate the annuities required to support his retirement but is still unsure which plan to choose.

In identifying high-potential employees and leaders, the HR world tends to prefer “all-rounders,” meaning individuals who score well across a range of competencies deemed necessary to lead and grow businesses. As a result, many HR departments focus executive development plans on individuals with limited weaknesses — weaknesses that can be fairly easily “rounded off” or trained away. The logic behind this appears sound. But this reasoning can eliminate leadership candidates with one or two significant soft spots even when they are outsized talents in other areas. And that’s not something that everyone on the executive floor accepts. Indeed, to many members of the C-suite, clear gaps in competencies are seen as the price that must be paid for an individual’s clear strengths — especially when those strengths are in areas that drive business performance. <br><br> An emerging body of evidence suggests that managers who are exceptional in key areas and weak in others have a much greater impact on corporate performance than individuals who are exceptionally well rounded. While more work needs to be done in this area, the existing work indicates that having an executive team with some distinct capability “spikes” rather than smooth across-the-board capabilities can make a significant difference to business performance. Thus, when selecting leaders, the HR world should not discount individuals with a distinctly uneven capability profile, especially when those distinctive capabilities are likely to be key performance drivers. In other words, mind the spikes, don’t mind the gaps.

The prospect of online grocery (e-grocery) shopping has generated a substantial amount of interest. Many fast-moving consumer goods companies have entered this potential market, and Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is contemplating building its own e-grocery platform. However, e-grocery firms have yet to develop a business model that can consistently deliver profits while also creating value for customers. HUL needs to assess the potential barriers to success, including challenges such as inadequate infrastructure and customer skepticism. If the company decides to launch its e-grocery store, which model should it follow? Should HUL enter the e-grocery arena with a full range of products or only a select few? What technical and physical capabilities would the company need to succeed in the online retailing business? HUL has always been at the forefront of using technology to reach consumers, but is e-commerce the best way forward?

This case presents the perspective of a Malaysian company, Nora Bhd, which was in the process of trying to establish a telecommunications joint venture with a Finnish firm, Sakari Oy. Negotiations have broken down between the firms, and students are asked to try to restructure a win-win deal. The case examines some of the most common issues involved in partner selection and design in international joint ventures.

The chairman of one of India’s leading tire manufacturers must devise a strategy to maintain his company’s significant position in the tire industry. To date, the company has generated most of its revenues from sales in India, and it has become a leading player in the Indian commercial vehicle segment. With an overall slowdown in the manufacturing sector, the commercial vehicle segment has been hard-hit. The passenger car segment, however, is expected to grow. The manufacturer must find a way to effectively align its tire sales network and decide which segment to focus on.

In 2015, the vice-president of international operations must decide whether to continue to operate or abandon the company's Nigerian joint venture. Although the expatriate general manager of the Nigerian operation has delivered a very pessimistic report, Larson's own hunch was to stay in that country. Maintaining the operation was complicated by problems in staffing, a joint venture partner with divergent views, and increasing costs of doing business in Nigeria. If Larson decides to maintain the existing operation, the issues with its local partner and staffing problems (especially in terms of the joint venture general manager) have to be addressed.

Excel spreadsheet for 9B15M038.

Founded in 1889 in Kyoto, Japan, Nintendo has always operated in the entertainment business, beginning with playing cards and, in the 1970s, entering the electronics and video game industry with a small handheld console. By investing in innovation to ensure continuing delivery of new recreational experiences, Nintendo was dominant until the mid-1990s when the two multinational giants, Sony and Microsoft, entered the market with large investment capital and promotional campaigns. Nintendo competed with these new challengers, but its Wii U and 3DS systems, launched in November 2012, met with little success. In 2014, the company faces many questions as it looks to move forward. Has it lost its innovative edge? Were its strengths in human resources and research and development not being leveraged to their full potential? Can the new strategic directions — to revitalize existing products, take advantage of smart devices, actively utilize existing character IPs and expand into other new markets and other new business areas — successfully revive the traditional dominant position of Nintendo in the game industry? Should it pursue strategic alliances or mergers and acquisitions to acquire required resources and competencies from outside to invest in product and market diversification?

The head of marketing and sales at National Dairy, a quasi-government co-operative enterprise in the Indian state of Odisha, is hounded by the threat from private milk marketing firms that are attempting to overtake the monopoly position enjoyed by National Dairy for close to three decades. The title company’s field salesforce provides intelligence reports from the market, indicating that National Dairy’s authorized retailers and bulk customers (e.g., tea stall owners and restaurants) were slowly switching to competing brands, lured by attractive schemes and better earnings. National Dairy faced the dilemma of wanting to defend its leadership position and build a sustainable competitive advantage while at the same time continuing to uphold its social obligations towards the farming community in Odisha.