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A management consultant has been hired to fix the morale issues at a branch of SkillsForTomorrow (SFT) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States. SFT is a government-sponsored organization tasked with helping at-risk young adults gain vocational training toward preparing them for a successful work career. Several factors appear to be influencing the morale of the SFT management team. Unfortunately, some of these factors point directly to the sponsor of the consulting project, the executive director at SFT Harrisburg. The consultant must identify the root causes of the management discord and derive a solution that can help solve the various issues. At the same time, the consultant will need to consider the political and interpersonal aspects of the consulting relationship between herself and the executive director in crafting and presenting a solution.

In 2012, an investment banking summer intern in the head office of a leading international financial institution has received some stellar reviews. His manager hints that as long the intern keeps up the good work, his full-time return offer is all but guaranteed. However, the 120-hour work weeks would deprive him of any opportunity to spend time with his family. He must choose between taking advantage of the organization’s Summer Intern Mobility Program, which would allow him to apply to work full time at another office, closer to his family, versus staying put at the head office, where he has already established a good reputation and where a full-time job offer seems imminent.

Krohne Inc. of Germany separately established a joint venture, a wholly owned sales company and a manufacturer in China. Unfortunately, although the sales channels were different, the product lines of the joint venture and the wholly owned manufacturer overlapped. The two companies were therefore competing and unsure about which company rightfully represented the parent enterprise. In addition, the two investment parties were battling for control of the joint venture.

In 2008, a scandal in China involving milk products tainted with melamine (a chemical used in plastic production) brought regional and global attention to the country. More than 290,000 infants were affected and several died. At a time when international trade was important for China’s economic development, the tainted milk scandal raised concerns about the safety of products and food made in China. The case illustrates how the pressure of rapid economic development resulted in measures to cut costs at the expense of consumer safety and health, bringing into question the ethics underlying business practices in the country. The lack of quality control and corporate governance processes on the part of the company and government facilitated the ease with which the milk was tampered. The case also documents remedial efforts that followed the scandal, including recall of the tainted milk products, putting new government policies and regulations in place, arrest of top executives and the companies’ public apology in the unique form of a New Year text message.

PowerPoint presentation for product 8B12A043.

The chief executive officer of Tesu, a small manufacturing company in Croatia, and a consultant hired to solve Tesu's production problems both realize that the company has several problems, the most pressing of which is a shortage of cash. Together, they need to come up with a plan to restore cash flow and improve production efficiencies.

A multinational company’s first senior female leader is assigned to the European headquarters. The assignment is a professional coup, and she is primed to meet the challenge. However, her new colleagues’ predominant view is that she is a non-European woman who represents the corporate head office. She has the opportunity to fly high or fail.

Each year, Orlando International Airport serviced more than 35 million passengers. Many were attracted to Orlando, Florida, for tourism, vacations and fun, as the area was home to some of the most popular theme parks in the United States. Others travelled to Orlando on business, as the area had attracted international companies, and domestic companies had a growing presence in other countries. The airport needed to continue to attract new airlines and to expand its services to new regions and countries. Local business people collected information on the growth of travel between Orlando and other regions, underserved markets, and time and cost savings. The challenge includes how to use the data to decide on which countries and industries to focus on to attract new business.

Educomp Solutions Ltd. was established in 1994 with the aim of providing for a customer’s entire education lifecycle, from pre-school to higher education/vocational training, and appropriating value from the same customer multiple times. This strategy, over a period of 17 years, enabled Educomp to become the largest player in the education technology sector in India. Educomp took the organic route to growth, which it achieved largely through acquisitions and alliances. Its flagship brand, SmartClass, brought technology into the classroom with a vast repository of digital modules on every subject. However, in 2012 the government of India proposed changes in its education policy that — along with the country’s economic uncertainty — threatened to erode the competitive advantage that ESL had gained over the years. The CEO of Educomp wondered how he could maintain his organization’s leadership position. He was contemplating a three-pronged strategy that involved 1) expanding into the untapped Indian rural market segment with school learning solutions; 2) creating a virtual learning solution that included open-source content for students; and 3) investing further in research and development in order to develop innovative products to penetrate the Indian education market.

PepsiCo faces criticism after releasing a series of online advertisements for Mountain Dew that featured an angry Mountain Dew–drinking goat, a battered white woman on crutches and the goat in a police lineup of all black men. Critics are offended by the advertisement’s portrayal of violence toward women and racial stereotypes. As the public outcry spreads, Mountain Dew’s senior brand manager needs to devise a course of action or risk damage to one of its billion-dollar brands.<p>You might also like: Abercrombie & #Fitchthehomeless, Abercrombie and Fitch, Domino’s Pizza

An analyst is assessing Demand Media’s accounting policies in the face of media scrutiny around its capitalization of media costs as well as some of its non-GAAP disclosures. She has to decide whether it is appropriate to capitalize these costs. In order to do so, she must evaluate whether the costs meet the definition of an asset. After analyzing the company, its business model and its strategy, she can compare its content costs to various other companies that create content (intellectual property); competing accounting policies are also examined. The analyst can then determine the appropriate accounting treatment and whether any adjustments are warranted. With respect to non-GAAP earnings, she can decide whether the metrics proposed by the company are appropriate in order to measure performance.

Coca-Cola has announced the opening of its first bottling plant in Burma in almost 60 years. Since 1962, Burma has been a closed and isolated country and under military rule. As a result of the military’s steady relinquishing of control over the government, Burma has begun opening its doors to international trade and investment. However, political instability is still very high and economic development is far from secure. Furthermore, although a framework agreement between the U.S. and Burmese governments has been signed, a bilateral investment treaty to provide protection for Coca-Cola’s direct investment is not yet in place. How should Coca-Cola pursue its strategy in Burma?

A portfolio manager for Penhall Investment Funds was reviewing the financial data his team had prepared on Lenovo Group Limited (Lenovo), one of the major holdings in Penhall’s Global fund. Lenovo wanted to become more than just the largest manufacturer of PCs by volume. It aimed to become a leader in other devices, such as smartphones and tablets, and it was focusing on innovation as a key capability. The portfolio manager was impressed by Lenovo’s results so far; the stock was up 7.5 per cent in a year. However, given the decline in the traditional PC segment, the competitive nature of the industry and global economic conditions, he wondered if Lenovo should continue to be a key holding in the global fund.

Inspired by software development boot camps in New York and San Francisco, Bitmaker Labs has just launched a similar offering but without considering the operational constraints unique to doing business in Canada. The result is governmental scrutiny just as the business is taking off with 42 students enrolled, each having paid $7,000 for a nine-week web development boot camp. Government investigators raid Bitmaker Labs, confiscating financial documents and threatening penalties and possible jail time for running an unregistered career college.

WestJet Airlines grew from a startup regional carrier in 1996 serving five Western Canadian cities to an international airline with more than 80 destinations and 9,000 employees by 2011. In a strategic move to implement code sharing and several other strategic IT applications to enhance WestJet's competitiveness, the CEO and his executive team hired an experienced and highly successful CIO to bring WestJet up to par with other airlines. The new CIO was asked by WestJet to assess its IT competence as part of a corporate drive to gain competitive advantage by delivering innovative guest services. The executive saw IT as the key to WestJet achieving its ambitions and corporate growth so formulated an ambitious plan to restructure the IT organization. But certain senior IT staff members, some of whom had been with the company since the beginning and had played a major role in developing the existing systems, believed the plan was ill advised and unworkable. The executive had to convince both senior management and the IT group that implementing the new IT governance model was essential if WestJet hoped to achieve its strategic goals.

Huawei has attempted to enter and acquire assets in the United States, but there are issues involved in understanding foreign market risk and the political challenges of internationalization. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) twice denied Huawei’s acquisition of a U.S. computer company. Huawei had to transform its company image and reputation, changing from a Chinese company with Chinese characteristics into a global corporation equivalent to Cisco Systems or Ericsson. This case encourages students to address the issues of internationalization in an incompletely open global market, the government intervention in markets and the broader issues that arise with the geo-political and geo-economic shifts of 21st century.

Excel spreadsheet for students.

Excel spreadsheet for students.

Excel spreadsheet for students.

Excel spreadsheet for students.