個案總覽

In January 2019, one of the founding members and current board members of Londvolota, a South African trust formed by General Electric South Africa (GESA) in 2015, faced a challenge. Londvolota needed to improve the establishment and growth of entrepreneurial South African businesses as part of GESA’s development of local suppliers, which aimed to enable the best of these businesses to supply the global GE network. The initiative represented a major contribution to supporting the South African economy; however, the board was considering updating its criteria for selecting the businesses for development. How should the organization adjust its criteria to avoid failures and increase the initiative’s success rate?

In 2017, the general manager of Rajarambapu Patil Co-operative Sugar Factory, a 50-year-old sugar plant in India, needed to recommend a strategy for the factory’s upcoming production cycle. For the aggregate production plan, he was considering three options: a chase strategy, a level strategy, and a subcontracting strategy. The company faced multiple challenges, including a limited pool of skilled labourers, employee poaching by competitors and allied manufacturers, the wide availability of job options in metro cities, and pressure from the labour union. Company management wanted to optimize profits, while reducing risks and incurring no extra costs. How should the general manager decide which strategy would best meet all the criteria?

Spreadsheet to accompany product 8B21E003.

Presentation to accompany product 8B21E003.

Both founded in the mid-2000s as two of China’s earliest online video platforms and both emphasizing creative, original content, Youku and Tudou enjoyed popularity among China’s young netizens, while constantly battling each other for market leadership. Both firms went public, on the NYSE and Nasdaq respectively. Facing China’s hyper-competitive online video market, the twin firms decided to engage in a series of transactions, including a merger of the two, the delisting of Tudou, a major investment from and eventually the acquisition by Alibaba, and the delisting of Youku Tudou and transformation into part of Alibaba. Together with Baidu’s iQIYI and Tencent Video, Youku Tudou will continue to shape China’s entertainment and media landscape.

Following problems during the 2016 Iowa caucus, the Democratic National Committee mandated the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) to publish raw vote totals for the upcoming 2020 Iowa caucus. This mandate coincided with the IDP’s shift for the 2020 caucus from a partnership with Microsoft, Inc. to one with a political consultancy, Shadow Inc., for developing a vote-recording application (app)---a partnership choice believed by many to have been politically motivated. Shadow developers were given much less time and resources than Microsoft had been afforded for the previous caucus. When the time came for the app to be used on February 3, eligible users could not download the app, which led to several problems. The consequences of the problematic app led to embarrassment for the Democratic Party, political ridicule by the Republican Party, distrust among democrat voters, and ambiguity and a delay in election results.

In 2016, a summer intern at Bombay Hospital Indore, in India, was tasked with evaluating the hospital’s patient discharge process. Two types of insured patients required different discharge processes for the payment of outstanding balances. The intern needed to map the respective processes and project the outcomes of (1) moving from the current two parallel systems to one centralized, or pooled, system; and (2) adding a third staff member to process patient discharges and collect payments. Would these suggested solutions resolve the problem of wait times? Would one be more effective than the other?

In late 2015, the chief executive officer of Extraordinary Journeys, an African safari tour operator, faced a rare opportunity to buy a smaller competitor, Safari Specialists Inc. The chief executive officer worried that her firm's strong organic growth would slow, and she was interested in examining alternative growth strategies. The smaller company was offered at a reasonable price and had a remarkably similar organizational culture. On the other hand, it relied heavily on outside contractors, not employees, creating potentially difficult human resources challenges. Further, it was located in rural Georgia, far from the Extraordinary Journeys home office in downtown Manhattan. All things considered, the chief executive officer was wondering if she should buy her competitor.

Spreadsheet to accompany product 8A83A25.

Instructor spreadsheet for product 8B21M008.

Student Spreadsheet for product 9B21M008.

In 2018, Marsh USA Inc. (Marsh), an insurance company based in New York, launched an innovative pandemic insurance product called PathogenRX. However, until the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, there was no demand for the product. During the pandemic, some US businesses attempted to claim benefits for business interruption losses from their insurers but were denied because their policies did not cover pandemic losses. Unlike other catastrophic events, pandemics seemed to be uninsurable. In May 2020, industry experts estimated that US small businesses could lose up to US$431 billion due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Marsh’s chief executive officer wrote a letter to the United States Congress and president requesting that a state-backed pandemic insurance plan be developed to help cover extremely high potential claim amounts. The federal government could act as a reinsurer and prevent the US insurance industry from collapsing due to increasing claims from US businesses. However, there were several lingering questions: What challenges could be faced in selling pandemic insurance and how could these be resolved? Was it preferable to partner with a government or a private reinsurance partner? How could pandemic insurance modelling be improved to better forecast potential premiums and claims?

In May 2020, Scenic Floral Inc. (Scenic), a Beamsville, Ontario start-up that sourced fresh cut flowers from Colombian farms and the Niagara Peninsula, was aggressively looking to expand the business. The company’s Mother’s Day sales had started out very slowly in 2020 as the floral industry in Canada and worldwide began to recover from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. While a flurry of last-minute orders from Scenic’s two largest customers meant sales for the holiday had been strong overall, the company’s manager and partners knew they would have to strike a careful balance in growing their business—continuing to focus on their main customers while considering whether to expand the current product line, add retail customers, perform processing services, serve as a sub-supplier, export to the United States, or launch into e-commerce. Capacity constraints meant they might need to make trade-offs between growing the core business and appropriately timing new opportunities. With so many opportunities available, how could they maintain their existing customers while planting the seeds for growth when the timing was right?

Toronto-based financial technology (fintech) start-up Koho Financial Inc. (Koho) offered millennial consumers a new way to manage their money with no fees. Koho challenged traditional banking institutions by providing typical banking services digitally. In November 2019, the company had recently secured its series B funding round, bringing the total amount raised to US$57.5 million. Now, with expectations from its investors and growing competition, Koho had to develop new strategies to ensure its leading position. Should Koho continue competing directly with traditional banks, or should the company invest in new technologies and compete with other fintech start-ups? How could Koho acquire more customers? How would the changing fintech regulatory environment affect Koho’s strategy?

Linc Pen and Plastics Limited (LPPL) was a 40 year old Indian writing instruments company with a presence in over 50 countries through its sole brand Linc, a value brand that had a brand image of providing good quality products at a low price. Over the past year and half , LPPL had faced margin pressure due to a steep increase in the price of raw materials. In late 2019, Deepak Jalan, the managing director , decided not to disturb the brand equity of Linc but instead to move upmarket by developing a new ballpoint pen, Pentonic, for the premium segment. LPPL priced Pentonic ball pens at ₹10 —higher than Linc’s original ball pens, which mostly sold at ₹5. The Pentonic ball pen was highly successful right from its launch, and within a year, Pentonic had become the company’s second largest product in terms of volume and its largest product in terms of value. Pentonic had an independent identity in the market. In the last board meeting, Jalan had proposed building Pentonic as a separate brand for the premium market. The board had asked him to develop a detailed plan for developing the new product to target the premium market and balancing the marketing mix and positioning strategy for the specific target customers of the two brands, Linc and Pentonic.

The Sydney Opera House, an iconic architectural landmark and United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site, was officially opened in 1973. The project cost AU$102 million and took 14 years to complete—AU$95 million and 10 years more than originally estimated. The challenges with the construction of the opera house included a brilliant and visionary architect who lacked project management experience, team collapse due to misalignment, bureaucratic and political issues that hindered work, and a rush to begin construction without proper planning. What could have been done at crucial crossroads to facilitate the project? What could today’s project managers learn for future construction?

In April 2020, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (Jio), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, announced an alliance with social media giant Facebook Inc. (Facebook). This was the biggest foreign direct investment for a technology firm in India. The association between Jio and Facebook offered both firms many opportunities, and the strengths and core competencies of the two organizations promised to create value for Indian consumers and businesses by meeting their technology needs. However, the differences in the two organizations in terms of culture, expertise, business models, and management styles would need to be dealt with effectively to create the desired synergy. How could Jio ensure a co-operative and complementary partnership (despite their differences with Facebook) in order to succeed and set a precedent for future international alliances?

On June 8, 2020, Sembcorp Marine Ltd. (SCM) announced a S$2.1 billion recapitalization plan to be followed by a demerger from Sembcorp Industries Ltd (SCI). SCM’s business had been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and a collapse in oil prices, resulting in a critical need for liquidity. The recapitalization would be done through a rights issue. The demerger would be conducted through a subsequent share distribution of SCI’s stake in the recapitalized SCM to SCI’s shareholders.<br><br>The case seeks to provide a reasonable valuation of SCM based on its past financial performance and other relevant market information. It also analyzes the rationale of the demerger and the impact of the demerger on shareholders of SCM and SCI.

The owner of Hailey’s Handbags, a New England-based online business selling handmade products, had successfully grown her company using a limited-release sales model. However, by early 2019, complaints posted to her business’s social media accounts had become abusive and personal. The emotional impact on the owner was severe, and before she could decide how to manage the comments, she needed to first determine whether they represented legitimate complaints or if she had become a target of cyberbullying.

Students were provided with the financial data for 10 major companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2019. They were also given a list of 10 major industries. As an exercise, students were then asked to identify which company operated within which industry. The exercise would test the students' understanding of how a company’s financial data can be specific to a particular industry. Using only financial figures, could the student identify within which industry each company operated?