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<p style="color: rgb(197, 183, 131);"><strong> AWARD WINNER - Oikos Sustainability Case Writing Competition</strong></p><br>Cargill, Inc., the privately owned, U.S.-based agribusiness company, was one of the largest sellers of palm oil in the world. Starting in 2007, the company was targeted by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), a non-governmental organization (NGO) that advocated environmentalism. RAN targeted Cargill because the production of palm oil in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia destroyed rainforests. Pressure was put on Cargill’s customers, including Nestle, to demand palm oil produced by sustainable farming. Palm oil producers formed an industry-monitoring body called the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). A September 2011 announcement of Indonesia’s withdrawal from the RSPO warranted a response from Cargill to combat the strident protest of RAN. Cargill’s CEO had to come up with a plan of action to respond to RAN’s demands.

In 1998, Boots PLC was in the midst of planning to enter the Japanese retail drugstore market. Boots, a household name in the United Kingdom and a fixture in traditional English shopping areas known as High Street, had an impressive lineup of Boots-branded health and beauty products. Boots developed, manufactured, marketed, and sold these products through its chain of Boots The Chemists stores. Management was convinced that the markets for health and beauty products were becoming increasingly global. Although Boots made few international sales at this time, it was in the midst of expanding overseas and had identified Japan as a particularly attractive market to enter.<br><br><br><br>International retailing efforts can prove difficult, as many failed international ventures show. Japan presented a number of unique challenges and required careful planning and attention. Boots had dispatched a manager to Japan to work on market entry and had been discussing a joint venture to develop several pilot stores together with Mitsubishi Corporation, one of Japan’s large trading companies. Mitsubishi had a great deal of clout in Japan, something Boots lacked, and was interested in the retailing venture. The case centres around the question of whether Boots should go ahead with the joint venture with Mitsubishi, and also facilitates a broader consideration of the market attractiveness and market entry in general.

In 2006, the Japanese subsidiary of Tommasi Motorcycles, an Italian manufacturer of high-end motorcycles, was implementing a new customer data application to help its motorcycle dealerships increase the effectiveness of their sales and marketing activities. Horizon LLP, a consulting firm, was Tommasi’s global implementation partner for the application. To identify any dealer concerns regarding the new system, Tommasi Japan had brought in additional consultants from Horizon to conduct interviews with the dealers. As the consultants soon discovered, the dealers’ concerns with Tomassi went far beyond the new application. An unannounced visit by an influential dealer set all the players on a collision course, and soon exposed their widely differing views and a number of fundamental problems in the relationship between Tommasi Motorcycles Japan and its dealer network.<br><br><br><br>The case begins with a series of separate dialogues involving the director of sales and marketing; the expatriate president of Tommasi Motorcycles Japan; an influential owner of multiple dealerships; and two non-Japanese consultants from Horizon. When they meet in the board room of Tommasi Motorcycles Japan, the ensuing conversation reveals a number of issues: opportunistic behaviour by the bilingual director of sales and marketing, who limits and shapes communications between the dealers and Tommasi’s Japanese National Office; a limited understanding of local market conditions by expatriate Tommasi management; frustration on the part of business-savvy dealers; and naiveté on the part of the consultants, who do not see the social hierarchies at work, nor realize that their cultural and language fluency, which has in past projects always been an asset, could also be a threat.

In mid-2010, the president and chief executive officer of Phase Separation Solutions (PS2) needed to address potential cooperative opportunities with separate Chinese organizations regarding its Thermal Phase Separation (TPS) technology. PS2 was a Saskatchewan-based small environmental solutions company that had grown under the president's entrepreneurial direction to become a North American leader in the treatment of soil, sludge, and debris impacted with various organic contaminants. The company specialized in the cleanup of two waste streams using its TPS technology. The first was the remediation of soil contaminated with persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The second was recovering usable oil from industrial sludge generated in various industries such as the oil and gas industry.

A Stockholm-based sports broadcasting firm with five international offices is facing uncertain contract renewals by its current clients from several geographic territories. It must determine the likelihood of profitability if it purchases the global broadcasting rights of the Portuguese Soccer League (Liga Zon Sagres) for the upcoming 2011-2012 season.

Jamie Bailey, owner and president of C. R. Plastics, had successfully grown his business every year since 1994 when he began producing recycled plastic outdoor furniture. This rapid growth had provided its own challenges in terms of constrained financing and by summer 2010, Bailey was desperate for a new source of cash. He subsequently auditioned to be on Dragon’s Den, a television show where entrepreneurs could pitch their business to a group of venture capitalists, who could then choose to invest their own cash in exchange for a share of the business. With a week remaining before he had to present his final pitch, Bailey had to make a difficult prediction: How much money would he need to meet the growing demand into 2011? Complicating his analysis were competing proposals to fundamentally change how production was managed. In addition to reconfiguring labour allocation, one method required significant investment in equipment, while the other increased inventory during the off-season. Which alternative would allow the company to retain a greater share of the equity when Bailey pitched his business to the Dragon’s Den panel?

The case takes place in Peru in the aftermath of the worst mercury spill in history, by a transportation contractor for Newmont Mining Corporation. BHP Billiton, which has no connection to Newmont but is affected by increased hostility toward mining companies, enters into an agreement with Oxfam to conduct training on sustainability and “the impacts of large-scale infrastructure projects on communities.” Executives from the company’s various international business units are selected to participate in the program, to be held each year in Orissa, India. One of the first managers selected to attend the program is the general manager for BHP Billiton’s Tintaya copper mine in Peru. The case discusses the process, objectives, and outcome of the resulting dialogue between BHP Billiton and local indigenous residents.

The case takes place in Peru in the aftermath of the worst mercury spill in history by a transportation contractor for Newmont Mining Corporation. Newmont's senior vice president and chief administrative officer is sent to Peru to assess the situation. The subsequent audit revealed that Newmont's mining operations in Peru met neither U.S. nor Peruvian mining standards. There were water issues, there were air issues, there were road issues, there were health issues - all arising out of the mining operation, the report concluded. The investigation also found that Newmont executives could be subject to criminal prosecution and imprisonment for the company's actions in Peru. More importantly, the company had violated its social license with local communities, putting in jeopardy its ability to conduct business in that country.

This background note discusses the history and current state of mineral mining in Peru. Topics include stakeholders, government policies, corruption, regulation, conflicts, social costs, remediation, and the advocacy role of NGOs. The note can be used with two case studies on mining in Peru, Newmont Mining Corporation and BHP Billiton. The note also discusses the current debate on how to procure greater compliance to international standards by mining companies and the potential impact these decisions may have on the future of mining in that country.

Yara Branco has just joined Tarbes S.A., one of Brazil’s best-known technology firms, as its new CEO. She sees a crisis on the horizon and needs to find a way to communicate that change is necessary at the company. She must overcome several issues, including the fact that she is an outsider and that many insiders will not support the change effort. Branco needs to develop an appropriate communications strategy to begin her term as CEO. This requires determining Tarbes’s predicament, devising a list of stakeholders and barriers to change, and identifying the stakeholders’ interests and what might be necessary to change their positions.

Two facilities owned by a large U.S.-based multinational enterprise (one in Canada, one in the United States) are competing for a regional manufacturing and distribution mandate. The head of Firstwell’s global operating committee must decide whether the proposal from Firstwell Canada is best not only for the Kingston, Ontario, plant but also for Firstwell Corporation worldwide. The decision could signal a major shift in parent–subsidiary relations.

The newly appointed president and chief operating officer of Olympus Corporation of Japan was called to an emergency board meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss governance issues regarding corporate mergers and acquisitions. However, it would be no ordinary meeting. Since assuming the role of president in April 2011, the president had discovered evidence of corporate fraud on a large scale. He had commissioned an external auditor report that showed a significant loss of shareholder value. His call for changes to be made to the Japanese board of directors had been met by resistance. How should he plan for the meeting? What could he expect? What position should he take? How should he influence decisions regarding the company’s immediate problems and its longer-term corporate governance?

The executive director of a daycare is trying to figure out how to address legal, financial, and safety issues stemming from an incident that occurred two months before, when a two-year-old boy broke his leg. Despite having no formal training in public relations or crisis management, the executive director felt she had handled the incident reasonably well: it seemed as though everything at the daycare had returned to normal. Still, the executive director couldn’t stop worrying that the daycare might experience further fallout from the incident.

Pearson Plc is an education company that operates worldwide, with headquarters in London, England. Its six primary business units are North American Education, International Education, Professional, The Financial Times, Interactive Data, and Penguin Publishing. The vice president of product management within the Digital Learning division of the North American Education unit based in Chandler, Arizona, begins to transform the product development processes to better meet the needs of his customers in the education market, specifically in transitioning from using an off-shored Waterfall software development model to an on-shore Agile model.<br><br><br><br>When the vice president first joined Pearson a year earlier, the Digital Learning unit had spent significant resources developing a major upgrade for one of its educational software products. The first version of this new product was challenged by the disconnect between what the software development group was delivering and what the vice president’s customers desired. He is now faced with a decision to continue focusing on the specific methodology the group had implemented (Scrum) or move to a new one (Kanban). Additionally, he has to consider expanding his focus to help drive Agile methodologies both with other groups in his business unit and outside his business unit. These decisions must be made at a potentially critical time for his products as his organization deals with the growing pains associated with the shift to Agile.

The CEO of Strong Tie received the draft 2008 financial statements for the company, which was a manufacturer of structural connectors used in the building industry. He began to question the company’s performance when he compared the statements to those of previous years. How were profits holding up given the intense price competition in the industry? Were attempts to lower costs through more automation paying off? Were the current problems in the U.S. housing market going to continue to reduce demand for connectors? How would lenders react to this poor performance? Was the company’s financing in danger?<br><br><br><br>After discussing the matter extensively with Strong Tie’s CFO, it was decided that an outside consultant should be hired to provide an independent analysis of the company’s recent performance and to provide suggestions for future action.

Accountant Sarah McIvor, a junior partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers, has been selected to conduct a financial review of Gemini Electronics Ltd. Gemini is an up-start American electronics company that recently went public and now wants to expand its business to rival the major Korean and Japanese producers. Before the company finalizes any expansion plans, Dr. Wang, the founder, feels it is prudent to conduct an independent evaluation of Gemini’s financial condition.

In May 2010, the “chief pain officer” of SalesBrain, a neuroscience-based marketing research and coaching company located in California, has been approached for advice by the marketing head of Digital Technology International (DTI), a Utah-based provider of technology solutions for the global publishing industry. DTI has been struggling with communicating the core value proposition of its offerings to customers, including leading newspaper publishers. Its frontline people are delivering messages that are technical, jargon-filled, and complex. Publisher-customers are unable to understand quickly how the technology solutions being offered by DTI can help them become competitive. The sales messages are also not consistent.<br><br>SalesBrain is suggesting a three-step process wherein it will identify the “pain points” being experienced by the publisher-customers of DTI; create a compelling set of claims that DTI could offer about its technology products; and guide its frontline salespersons towards developing appropriate sales scripts that they could use with prospective clients. SalesBrain is deploying the cutting-edge tools of neuroscience marketing in each of the three processes. The chief pain officer must choose between Layered Voice Analysis and Facial Action Coding System as a medium to serve the needs of DTI.

This case is a supplement to Ellen Moore (A): Living and Working in Korea. In this follow-up case, Ellen discusses how a major crisis was averted and reflects on what she learned during her assignment in Korea.

Spreadsheet for product 9B10N028.

Spreadsheet for product 9B10N037.