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Instructor Spreadsheet to accompany product W27746.

Student Spreadsheet to accompany product W27745.

Copenhagen Airports A/S (CPH) has been severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with flight activity at levels not seen since the 1970s. Although the virus overshadows everything, three senior managers discuss a more long-term trend: the steadily declining revenues of the airport’s shopping mall. Over the past number of years, consumer interest in food, beverages, and tax-free items has continuously decreased, posing considerable challenges to CPH’s business model. About 80 per cent of the airport’s profits are generated by the non-aeronautical business, of which the shopping mall is the biggest part, and CPH needs that income to continue investing into the airport’s status as an important hub for airlines. What could CPH do to deliver better existing services, and what new services would merit serious consideration? Could CPH launch new products or services that would be attractive to both passengers and shopping mall tenants, or would it need to redevelop its entire business model? Since the commercial business was key to driving the airport’s further development, the managers knew that finding answers to these questions was important to sustaining CPH’s position as a leading hub in Northern Europe. The case is not about the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications for the aviation industry. This is a case about the long-term trend of declining revenues in the airport’s shopping mall.

The Center for Sustainable Agriculture was founded in 2004 as a solution to various problems in India’s agricultural industry. The founder developed a sustainable agriculture model to help farmers lower crop failure risk and reduce production costs, to which pesticide and fertilizer use contributed over 30 per cent. The Center for Sustainable Agriculture built a sustainable agriculture model by collaborating with farmers, producer associations, governments, and markets. The introduction of organic products allowed the company to integrate sustainability into its core business plan. In 2021, after achieving success in Telangana, India, the founder was planning to expand his organic farming model across the country, but he wondered what challenges he would face in other states and how he could overcome these.

In July 2020, the founder and manager of Montreal Community Contact (Contact), a bimonthly community newspaper, was considering strategies to ensure the survival of his business. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that he was sixty-three years old, he worried about what the future of the newspaper would look like if anything were to happen to him. Contact had been running for almost thirty years and had a loyal readership within the Black community in Montreal and a loyal cadre of advertisers, but online media was threatening the newspaper industry, and each year the business just managed to break even. The business’s owner now felt it was important to secure the long-term survival of the newspaper. How should he improve the stability of Contact while evaluating future avenues for the business?

In October 2018, Yehuda Katzman, vice-president of marketing and business development at design house Inbal Dror, was attending the 2018 New York Bridal Fashion Week event, where Inbal Dror and its direct competitors revealed their spring lines to distinct buyers. As in previous years, Katzman had lined up meetings with interested retailers and wanted to make sure they appreciated the unique nature of Inbal Dror’s designs and the quality of its craftsmanship and the raw materials it used. Katzman also wanted to ensure that the couture brand was recognized for its dependability, sincerity, and understanding of different cultures. Travelling from Israel to participate in international bridal shows was a costly undertaking, and it was critical for Katzman to identify new retailers to continue expanding Inbal Dror’s global reach. His challenge this time was to successfully penetrate the vast markets of China and the Far East—a challenge that could, if successful, generate incredible growth.

AcademyOne, Inc. (AcademyOne) was a small privately owned software provider whose focus was on providing students with college transfer solutions. It operated as an educational technology company that provided software as a service (SaaS) products to simplify and streamline the college transfer and advising process. After surviving an economic recession and an industry lawsuit, the firm had regained its financial footing, and in 2021, now that it was financially secure, some of its long-term investors had asked to cash out their investments. AcademyOne’s president and chief operating officer was tasked with looking for ways to grow the business and with valuing AcademyOne, with the end game of selling the business.

Spreadsheet to accompany product W26706.

On July 8, 2019, Barry Robinson, president and managing director of International Operations for Wyndham Destinations Asia Pacific (Wyndham Destinations AP), and Liam Crawley, chief financial officer, were in receipt of a report provided by law firm Baker McKenzie’s Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions team. Wyndham Destinations AP was in the process of acquiring the privately held Resort Frontier Co. Ltd., the management company for Sundance Resort Club. Through an affiliated corporate entity, Wyndham Destinations AP would also acquire all the forfeited and unsold points of Sundance Resort Club. This acquisition would represent the vacation ownership and exchange company’s first foray into the Japanese market. Crawley and his team would need to undertake comprehensive external and internal financial analyses and discounted cash flow analysis of Sundance and multiples valuations of comparable firms to help Robinson determine a fair offer price.

Instructor Spreadsheet to accompany W25640.

Student Spreadsheet to accompany product W25639

In 2015, Sundar Pichai was appointed chief executive officer (CEO) of California-based Google LLC (Google), and by December 2019 had also become the CEO of Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company. By June 2021, thirty-six vice-presidents out of 400 executives had quit Alphabet Inc., and Pichai faced criticism from the senior leadership team for his risk-averse decision-making style. Senior executives believed Pichai had made Google more bureaucratic in its operations, even though the company’s size and market-based performance had improved under his leadership. In the face of this criticism, what should Pichai do? Should he respond to the criticism? Should he begin to make more risk-aggressive decisions?

In May 2019, a senior analyst and blogger for a market research firm decided to analyze the performance and pay of various top-rated cricket players in the Indian Premier League. Teams usually spent millions of dollars acquiring players through auctions, and on coaches and other key personnel, as well as promotional campaigns. The analyst had started following the player auctions, where bids on some players had run into millions of US dollars. He wanted to take a more objective and data-driven approach toward analyzing player rankings and how far players’ salaries reflected their performance, something that was often ignored by the pundits. The analyst wondered if these claims were at all valid and decided to use data visualization techniques to determine their validity.

This note introduces a leadership communication competencies framework as part of the embodying executive presence model. The model can be leveraged in the education and development of leaders seeking to improve their skills associated with having impact and influence, enhancing their persuasive capabilities, and their ability to inspire others.

BDP International Inc. (BDP), one of the world’s leading privately-held freight logistics companies, provided chemical shipping services to eight of the top ten global chemical companies. In April 2021, it contracted with a chemical company for two shipping orders, each to a different destination, and each with a set number of containers to be shipped every month for a year. The containers were filled with a chemical used in the electronics industry. This was one of the biggest logistical challenges faced by BDP’s vice-president of Government and Industry Affairs and its director of Transportation, especially because the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic had disrupted the global shipping industry.<br><br>After having sorted out and arranged for the shipping, a few containers belonging to BDP’s client were engulfed in a fire that broke during the vessel’s voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. The containers and their contents were damaged beyond recovery. BDP had to scramble again to plan transportation, this time deciding how to inform the client, deal with possible late penalties and damage fees, and make whole on the order.

Hongxing ERKE Industrial Co., Ltd. (ERKE), founded in 2000, was the first large Chinese sportswear company to list overseas. Despite the difficulties it faced caused by poor management and the decline of its brand influence, ERKE donated ¥50 million worth of aid to disaster-hit areas in Henan, China, shortly after severe flooding in the province in July 2021. The donation caused an unprecedented online event in China and ignited the enthusiasm of netizens for buying ERKE products. Millions of netizens rushed to ERKE’s livestreaming studios and expressed their gratitude and support for the company through “wild consumption.” ERKE became representative in consumers’ minds of excellent domestic products that were part of Chinese fashion trends. Why had ERKE’s donation become such a hot topic and triggered a consumption binge in China? On the heels of this situation, how should ERKE use the opportunity to achieve a long-term competitive advantage in the future?

The historic Lund Resort at Kla ah men (the Resort) was wholly owned by the Tla’amin Nation and operated by Tla’amin Management Services LP (TMS). The Tla’amin Final Agreement had been in effect since April 2016, making the Tla’amin Nation self-governing over its land, resources, and members. The Resort, on British Columbia (BC)’s Sunshine Coast, featured thirty-one renovated guest rooms that ranged from budget-friendly units to luxury ocean-front suites. In addition to hiring a new general manager, the Resort needed to increase bookings in the shoulder season and stabilize staffing. By 2018, the Resort had had six general managers in two years and needed a highly experienced professional to fill the position. TMS hoped to retain this person for at least three years. The new manager would need to be a good fit in terms of Tla’amin culture and values; given the complex reporting structure, they would need to be adaptive and willing to work with multiple people within the Tla’amin leadership, including the TMS board of directors and the Tla’amin operating board. While it would have been best to hire a manager with experience working with Indigenous communities, the TMS had determined that this was not feasible and that it was best to hire someone who was experienced and open to learning about Tla’amin culture and values.

In October 2018, Canada legalized recreational use of cannabis. One year later, in late 2019, after share prices had fallen significantly from their peak, investors were looking for favourable investment opportunities in the cannabis industry. HEXO Corp. and Aurora Cannabis Inc. were two cannabis companies that traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange and followed International Financial Reporting Standards. In such a young industry, many companies were still reporting losses. Therefore, potential investors focused on a company’s enterprise value (EV) and used the EV-to-revenue multiple as a useful metric for assessing a company’s value. Before conducting an analysis of the two companies’ values, however, investors had to consider several accounting directives issued by the International Accounting Standards that affected their financial statements. In particular, IAS 41 Agriculture posed various difficulties for Canadian cannabis companies. Investors who were interested in pursuing opportunities in Canada’s cannabis industry had to pay close attention to this accounting standard and to the financial statements of individual companies.

The B case examines the fall of Wirecard and the roles of investors, auditors and regulators.

This case explores a current but also enduring and widely relevant intersection of challenges facing managers who compete in rapidly evolving technology markets. In the landmark US$9 billion Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc. case, Google LLC (Google) leads development of the now-ubiquitous Android mobile operating system, used by billions of people globally. However, many of the laws governing development were unclear, having been written before the technologies being developed were even imagined. Thus, Google must balance competitive risks with other risks, such as legal uncertainty.