• The Birth of Dunia (B): Time to Actively Start Lending?

    Supplement to case SMU382. Dunia B is a follow up case to Dunia A, but can also be taught independently. This case discusses the challenges faced by the chief risk officer Raman Krishna after the launch of Dunia, during a time of unprecedented uncertainty in the midst of the 2008 worldwide financial crisis. During this time it has become difficult to manage the sales force and their motivation on account of ever tightening credit criteria and the inevitable reduction in loan volumes. There is a real need to understand how, and from where, to source a sufficient number of potential borrowers who will satisfy the revised criteria and also enable Dunia to meet their planned growth numbers. Dunia has been cautious with its first couple loans, but as it begins to loan out the remainder of its portfolio, the company needs to make some tough decisions on how to make the lending business work with such widespread uncertainty. In the Dunia B case, participants experience the challenges of pursuing profit with quality (versus quantity) growth. It provides students an opportunity to discuss the challenges of credit evaluation and approval strategies, as well as credit risk management, faced by a new financial institution. The instructor can also guide a discussion on the reliability of traditional rule-based models as opposed to a judgment-based approach.
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  • Generations at TCS: Ever Changing Workforce

    Tata Consultancy Services' (TCS) Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) division faces the challenge of retaining their Generation-Y employees, with seven out of a thirteen-person team quitting within a month. Workforce dynamics in the BPO industry in India are a high growth area and employees often have offers from several respected competing firms. In particular, the thriving industry has a great impact on Generation-Y in India, which makes up an increasingly large share of the workforce. To this end, TCS has made significant efforts towards both engaging their Generation-X employees and retaining their Generation-Y employees - leaving the human resource head, Jagdish Chaudhari wondering what more needed to be done after this latest episode.
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  • TATA Chemicals Brand Consolidation: Power of One?

    In July 2010, Sujit Patil, head of corporate communications for Mumbai-based Tata Chemicals Limited (TCL) has to develop a company branding strategy after a series of acquisitions. TCL has acquired several of the top producers in the soda ash business, making it a commanding player in the global industrial and commercial markets for this product. The acquisitions include the large British producer, Bruner Mond; the US leader, General Chemicals Industrial Products; and Kenya based Magadi Soda - all of which have well-known brands and established customers. The senior management at TCL wants to see these new companies unified under a single global brand. But that task has proved difficult to execute given the long-standing brands and centuries-old companies. Kenyan Magadi Soda even has a town named after it! Patil must consider his next steps - whether to sustain the long-standing and well-selling brands, or scrap them all for a new global brand representing what is now the second largest soda ash producer in the world.
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  • The Oreo in China: Time to Get it Right or to Get Out

    In late 2005 As Shawn Warren the head of biscuits at Kraft for Asia Pacific, surveys the China market for Oreos he knew he had to make changes, and fast. The company's flagship brand was falling far short of expectations in the world's most populous country. This meant that the turnaround had to be quick to avoid the complete disaster of pulling the product from the shelves altogether. Oreos were first launched in China in 1996, yet sales had been flat since then while the rest of China had been setting record growth in the biscuit industry. The Oreo case illustrates the dilemma faced by a successful multinational brand when entering an emerging market, namely China. It covers the complexity of dealing not only with differing consumer tastes, but also the challenges of local competition and distribution systems. The case provides a rich historical account of Oreo's entry into China and the problems facing Kraft and its management as it strives to reach its full potential in a large and fast-growing emerging market.
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  • Viki: By the Fans, for the Fans

    Viki is a web portal that provides video content with crowdsourced multi-lingual subtitles. It relies on an active community of fans to add captions and subtitles in numerous languages to premium videos (movies, television shows) from around the world - thus opening up new markets and enabling new viewers to enjoy the content. Leveraging crowd-sourced subtitling enables Viki to distribute non- English, non-US television content to foreign markets quickly and cheaply. The case begins as Nadine Yap, vice president at Viki, prepares for a major redesign of the website to meet the requirements of the growing company. She laments that when the company fixes bugs or makes improvements, community members often complain and even leave. The community of fans and 'subbers' is at the heart of what Viki does, so staying authentic is crucial to the company's sustainability. How should Yap and Viki go about maintaining the delicate balance between being an authentic site that is supported by an informal community and a slick, commercial operation?
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  • Navigauge: A Disruptive Innovation to Measure Car Radio Listening

    Navigauge, a start-up company that specialises in radio market research, has developed a tool that provides high quality, accurate and location-based radio market research. This pioneering technology in radio market research is captured in a positive, albeit reserved, article in the New York Times in September 2004. The use of this tool is in stark contrast to the industry standard in the US radio research market, where a panel of listeners kept diaries on which radio programmes they listened to each month. Navigauge has successfully completed a test of its new technology in 500 cars in test market and is now looking to expand. The case starts as the founders prepare to present their new business to secure a third round of badly needed venture funding. While the new technology is revolutionary, they have yet to sign up any customers. Readers are challenged to take this small business and turn it into a success across the US, and disrupt the car radio market research industry.
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  • The Birth of Dunia (A)

    This case is a two-part series on Dunia. Case A is set in 2008, where founder CEO Rajeev Kakar has just spent 20 months setting up Dunia, a finance company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The enterprise originated from a partnership between his former employer, Fullerton Financial Holdings (FFH) and a couple of key entities in the UAE that were keen on building a financial presence in the region. On September 15, 2008 - as the Dunia team is preparing to announce the opening of its first branch in Abu Dhabi - news breaks on the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. For Kakar, it means that the product programmes he has lined up, as well as his funding assumptions for Dunia, have crashed. Dunia A deals with the time frame before the launch of the company and covers factors such as pricing risk and uncertainty, along with a broader view that covers the struggles presented with new ventures and entrepreneurship.
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