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With its dual listings on the Hong Kong stock market and New York Stock Exchange, state-owned enterprise, China Netcom was mandated to meet the listing requirements of these exchanges. From this initial step, China Netcom's Chairman, Zhang Chunjiang, began a program that sought to further develop the company's corporate governance practices to meet international corporate governance standards. The company hoped that its commitment in developing a globally-accepted governance structure would help the capital markets and potential investors understand that the company was a true, modern corporation, even with the state as a majority owner.

Presents one company's efforts to implement a project management organization, or PMO, and the challenges they faced in doing so. Issues brought out in the case include defining the PMO's purpose and mission, the structure and governance of the PMO, and how to successfully implement it in what appears to be a resistant culture. John Strider, AtekPC's chief information officer (CIO), had strong convictions that the PMO-light model was the way to go. He had held back on hiring fill time employees for the PMO and was moving very slowly and cautiously so as not to violate AtekPC's culture. He was also concerned about the many issues that the PMO implementation had already raised. Were small steps building on small successes going to get the job done fast enough? With the ever increasing challenge of successfully managing information technology (IT), organizations are recognizing the need for greater discipline in managing IT projects. For many organizations, this has meant ratcheting up project management skills, processes, and governance structures within the organization by implementing a project management office (PMO). Unfortunately, there is little shared understanding of the challenges of implementing a PMO. Therefore, managers and their organizations have inadequate guidance to help them identify and overcome the obstacles they are likely to encounter.

After 20 years of expansion, Gome Electronics has become China's largest consumer electronics retailer. It has opened stores in almost every province in China, acquired some of its competitors, and went public in Hong Kong. However, it has begun to experience a slowdown in growth as sales per-square-meter have declined. The company is now being challenged to develop new ideas for growth, including experimenting with its product mix, renegotiating its relationships with suppliers, and developing new business models to maximize profitability.

Fiyta had long been on of China's foremost watch brands. However, as China's economy began to improve and the livelihood of many Chinese rose with it, their tastes began to change. Exposed to more luxurious foreign brands, many Chinese strived to purchase a Swiss or Japanese watch. How could Fiyta build up its brand image to a more sophisticated Chinese consumer? What marketing activities should it undertake to reinvigorate its brand? Is it meeting the needs of all segments of Chinese consumers? Should it?

Examines the type of security that is appropriate for an Internet company to have on its site. Focuses on a 20-person electronic e-commerce company trying to decide what parts of the information security product line they should acquire from the largest security service company in Japan, Secom. The services include everything from server hosting, advanced housing, firewall intrusion detection, etc. Introduces the wide range of products that can be used to ensure secure operations.

Describes the history of clinical computing at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital and the development, since the 1996 merger to form the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, of an information system designed to support the delivery of patient care. The hospitals' CIO, John Halamka, MD, has overseen the development of an information system that places physicians at its center. Describes the design and function of five major components of the system: the On-Line Medical Record, ePrescribing, Physician Order Entry, the Emergency Department "dashboard," and the Performance Manager. Provides students with an opportunity to identify key design principles for health care information systems, and to discuss the unique implementation challenges that the health care delivery setting raises for CIOs and CEOs.

Describes the opportunities and strategy facing one of the most innovative global supply-chain companies, and the strategy it has chosen to deal with the expanding demand for its services. Li & Fung links thousands of factories in India, China, and elsewhere to nearly a thousand large retailers, primarily in the U.S. and Europe. It basically does the supply-chain job faster and more accurately with the aid of a sophisticated information system than anyone else.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 307077.

Focuses on the experience of China's largest shirt manufacturer in managing various aspects of government relations in China. Identifies a wide variety of social initiatives it has undertaken.

Digital China is the largest Chinese independent systems integrator (IBM and HP are larger). Describes their history and their current strategy and invites the student to advise them as to how they should continue to grow in the future. This is the closest China currently has to Infosys and their 7,700-person company is a very interesting, and today, a largely unknown organization outside of China.

After graduating from Harvard Business School in June 2006, Ken Pao and Bill Li were ready to fully commit to the Internet start-up they had been working on since they first stepped foot on the business school campus. They moved to Beijing, rounded out their management team, received venture capital investment, developed joint-venture partnerships, and set key milestones to create a full-impact product launch for their social networking Web site catering to the college market. On the day of their launch, they faced a setback from China's Ministry of Education and were forced back to square one. Discusses the pluses and minuses of partnering with China's government ministries, the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, and the numerous opportunities available to entrepreneurship in China today.

Founded in 1987, China Merchants Bank (CMB) is a pioneer in the use of technical innovation and IT as a competitive tool in the rapidly evolving Chinese banking sector. With a relatively small branch network when compared to its larger competitors, CMB uses an IT-driven strategy to introduce an "all-in-one" card, which integrates a suite of financial products to drive its personal banking business enabling CMB to be ranked 6th among China's commercial banks and 2nd among the other national commercial banks in terms of total assets as of June 2006. Underlying its excellence in personal banking is CMB's leadership in developing its credit card business. By April 2006, CMB had issued a total of over 5 million credit cards, capturing one-third of the Chinese credit card market. In September 2006, CMB's IPO in Hong Kong fetched about $2.4 billion and, given deregulation in the banking sector in China, CMB's President was presented with new challenges and opportunities concerning how such funds should be productively allocated to ensure CMB's competitiveness.

Kendall Square Research was a small competitor in the supercomputer industry. Sales grew rapidly in 1992 and early 1993 and the company sold stock to the public for the first time. Analysts forecast higher earnings for 1993, then the company's revenue recognition practices were questioned and the answers were devastating.

Provides a brief background on the history of credit agencies in the United States. Focuses on the mature process of data collection on an American consumer and how credit agencies share the information to determine proper credit risk and worthiness of a consumer. The American system as defined in this note can be contrasted against the lack of developed systems in burgeoning economies and help to better understand the capital markets of society.

Explores the various aspects of information technology that can be outsourced. Cathay Pacific outsourced a significant part of its vital operations from Hong Kong to Sydney, Australia.

Dana Hall is a private all-girls school in New England facing a crisis in its mission. As social norms shift away from single-sex education, the school's enrollment is falling and deficits are becoming the norm. At the same time, the modern vision for girls' education requires an even greater investment in science and sports--at a time when Dana Hall's resources are lower than ever before. Can the school stay true to its mission? How will it find the funding? Through the story of Blair Jenkins, head of school, this case examines the difficult mission and funding decisions facing many nonprofit organizations.

Supplements the (A) case.

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Ever since the Y2K scare, boards have grown increasingly nervous about corporate dependence on information technology. Since then, computer crashes, denial of service attacks, competitive pressures, and the need to automate compliance with government regulations have heightened board sensitivity to IT risk. Unfortunately, most boards remain largely in the dark when it comes to IT spending and strategy, despite the fact that corporate information assets can account for more than 50% of capital spending. A lack of board oversight for IT activities is dangerous, the authors say. It puts firms at risk in the same way that failing to audit their books would. Companies that have established board-level IT governance committees are better able to control IT project costs and carve out competitive advantage. But there is no one-size-fits-all model for board supervision of a company's IT operations. The correct approach depends on what strategic "mode" a company is in--whether its operations are extremely dependent on IT and whether it relies heavily on keeping up with the latest technologies. This article spells out the conditions under which boards need to change their level of involvement in IT decisions, explaining how members can recognize their firms' IT risks and decide whether they should pursue more aggressive IT governance. The authors delineate what an IT governance committee should look like in terms of charter, membership, duties, and overall agenda. They also offer recommendations for developing IT policies that take into account an organization's operational and strategic needs and suggest what to do when those needs change. Given the dizzying pace of change in the world of IT, boards can't afford to ignore the state of their IT systems and capabilities. Appropriate board governance can go a long way toward helping a company avoid unnecessary risk and improve its competitive position.

Relates the events leading up to the announcement in February 2005 that INVESTools, a Utah-based provider of investor education services, would be restating prior-year financial statements due to inappropriate revenue recognition.