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A financial consultancy analyst received an assignment to assess the long-term performance of Reliance Industries Ltd., a multinational conglomerate based in India. The assignment had resulted from a share price rise for Reliance Industries. On April 27, 2022, the company’s share price reached its peak of ₹2,776. Consequently, a few of the financial consultancy’s clients had requested information regarding the long-term performance of Reliance Industries. The analyst was therefore tasked with calculating the economic value added in order to evaluate the company’s performance.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W28538.

Tire-building machinery producer Safe-Run Group (Safe-Run) was a second-tier supplier in the automotive industry. Responding to “green supply chain” initiatives in the industry, including by Safe-Run’s major clients, the company started working on a new environmentally friendly meridian machine. The results of a pilot test led by Zhijun Li, vice-president and head of research and development at Safe-Run, proved very promising both in terms of energy consumption and productivity, yet senior management remained skeptical. In a meeting with Li, senior executives expressed concerns about the higher production costs and the reaction of Safe-Run’s main customers. Li needed to build a better business case for the new machine.

The chief technology officer of a leading pharmaceutical distributor in the US is facing a crossroads. Driven by the company’s mission of “reimagining healthcare,” his team has just conducted a pilot of blockchain. Having designed the blockchain and tested it in real-world conditions, the team is now keen to use it in the company’s supply chain. As the team leader, the CTO is grappling with how to move forward. How can he ensure he chooses the right business partners for incubating blockchain technology at Cardinal? And how can he ensure he chooses the right business processes for implementing blockchain technology?

This is the student handout which accompanies 8B10M108.

In August 2021, the co-owner of the property management and rental business Nassau Property Partnership, located in London, Ontario, asked his brother, a senior partner in a tax firm, for help with the tax structure of various operational and strategic decisions, both for his business and personal affairs. The business managed well over the COVID-19 pandemic, but several recent major events required advice from an experienced tax professional. Regarding his personal life, the co-owner was considering retiring from his company, which was a partnership, and had already put down a deposit on a second home in Florida. He wanted to fund the remaining part of the purchase through either a sale of his business interests to his daughter or through the sale of his family cottage. However, both of these decisions may have repercussions.

Data cleaning, data preparation, and model development are the crucial steps in data analytics. The first two steps aim to improve data quality for higher accuracy, improved productivity, and better efficiency in modelling and obtaining results. The last step, model development, seeks to improve accuracy of prediction, especially in predictive modelling. In this technical note, we use a sample to illustrate how to work with a multivariate dataset in Python. This dataset’s massive number of variables requires different approaches to data cleaning, preparation, and model development, such as data normalization and dimension reduction.

This note provides an overview of asset management and capital markets, the different types of firms in this industry, types of investments, the different investment styles and strategies employed by asset managers to help them achieve their goals, and asset manager roles and responsibilities.

<p style="color: rgb(197, 183, 131);"><strong> AWARD WINNER - Family Business Category at European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) Case Writing Competition</strong></p><br>Established in 1988, Cee Dee Vacuum Pvt. Ltd. was a family-owned engineering products manufacturer located in the industrial hub of Pune, India. In the three decades since inception, the company established itself as a leading supplier of engineered equipment used in the manufacturing and maintenance of electrical transformers. Its achievements included the design, manufacture, installation, and commissioning of some of the largest engineered equipment for their clients’ electrical transformer-manufacturing sites in Asia. The founders wanted to plan for the company’s growth over the coming decade. Central to the evaluation and choice of strategy was the consideration for a high growth rate while leveraging Cee Dee Vacuum Pvt. Ltd.’s leadership position in the industry. Assuming that the owner family’s next generation was not interested in taking over the business, the founders had to find the most suitable growth strategy and prepare the business for sale.

<p align="justify">In May 2022, a young analyst intended to examine the financials of Yes Bank, one of India’s leading private banks. It had gotten into financial trouble and had experienced irregularities in recent years. Crucial clients of the analyst’s financial advisory firm were interested in Yes Bank’s investment potential because the share price was cheap. The clients therefore wanted to know if the bank showed signs of progress and stability, as it could make an ideal investment. The analyst believed the bank would be financially stable only if it was no longer experiencing financial distress. Therefore, the analyst used the CAMELS framework and probability of financial distress model to examine the financials and advise their clients on the bank's financial position.<p/>

Spreadsheet to accompany product W29015.

Presentation to accompany product W29016.

Favarr.com was the brainchild of two Master of Business Administration graduates from Harvard Business School who were looking forward to their start-up dream. They aim was to solve a problem of cross-border delivery of items through an aggregator model, where travellers would sell spare space in their luggage to carry and deliver goods. The platform was in beta testing mode and available by invitation only. The founders were deliberating on various issues and challenges as they launched their online platform, and the possible available solutions to resolve them.

Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce company, had dedicated itself to corporate responsibility from the time of its launch, focusing on poverty and environmental protection. Alibaba released its Carbon Neutrality Action Report in December 2021, aiming to achieve carbon neutrality in its own operations and slash emissions across its supply chains and transportation networks by 2030. Alibaba was launching several new initiatives, and needed to know whether they would help to achieve its carbon neutrality goals.

DingTalk was a digital platform launched by multinational technology conglomerate Alibaba Group Holding Limited. The predecessor of DingTalk, Laiwang, was initially intended to compete with social networking apps such as Tencent Holdings Limited’s popular WeChat. Laiwang failed to take off, so Alibaba quickly and agilely pivoted, steering DingTalk’s strategy to focus on business users instead of consumers. The vision for DingTalk became a digital platform for facilitating the transformation of both small- and-medium sized enterprises and a digital operating system for large corporations. However, in a climate of constantly-evolving business and social environments and needs, DingTalk’s design and strategies needed to evolve as well. What strategy should DingTalk pursue for its future growth and evolution?

As of the end of 2019, the point-of-care testing (POCT) products of Getein Biotech Inc., an important in vitro diagnostics (IVD) enterprise, had been successfully applied to the detection of many diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, inflammation, kidney diseases, and blood coagulation disorders. Its market share and output value were both among the highest in the industry. In addition to improving its core POCT products, Getein Biotech firmly grasped industry opportunities to accelerate expansion in key IVD segments and build a complete product system. However, with the impact of COVID-19 in 2020, the enterprise, unlike its competitors in this industry, failed to seize the opportunity of developing COVID-19 test kits. As a result, its profits fell sharply, and its competitive position in the industry faced huge challenges. At the beginning of 2021, due to uncertainties about the COVID-19 pandemic, the enterprise was forced to integrate its original resources and capabilities and adjust its development strategy in order to establish sustainable competitive advantages.

In early May 2022, Collie Turner, founder of award-winning non-profit organization Heroic Gardens, was looking to obtain additional revenue streams in order to expand the organization’s programming. The mission of Heroic Gardens was clear: help veterans experience the healing power of nature. The pivot to a new campaign during the COVID-19 pandemic was successful, and the number of organizations and veterans reaching out for services was increasing.<br><br>Heroic Gardens was looking for funding and new ways to scale in order to grow its programs and hire employees to support that growth. As Turner was preparing for a financial and program review with her board—and knowing that the organization was 99 per cent volunteer run—the challenge was understanding and finding a way to increase funding in order to support Heroic Gardens and the veterans it serves.

Presentation to accompany product #W31043.

Presentation for product 8B20N031.

Julia Miller was the lead project coordinator for Construct Water Company on a water line construction project in Bakersfield, California. Miller had been recently been promoted when her new boss came to her hotel room for a meeting, but kissed her without her consent. Over the next few months, Miller faced more conflict and had to make an increasingly complicated decision about what to do next, including whether to report the original misconduct. Miller repeatedly chose not to report the incident because she worried about a negative reaction from the company’s human resources office and potential retaliation from her mostly male superiors. She decided instead to follow the advice of a co-worker to avoid conflict. Miller was constantly trying to figure out what she should do, and wondered why the organizational environment had made these decisions so difficult for female employees like her.