PremiumSoft, a Hong Kong-based software company, relied heavily on its creative workforce to drive new product delivery, manage product upgrades, and incorporate customer feedback in its products. As founder and Director of Software Development, the core responsibility of Ken Lin was setting up strategic goals for the organization and identifying new products and opportunities for innovation to ensure the company's growth. In addition to this role, Ken had been the company's human resource (HR) manager since its founding. He alone handled all the HR-related activities including recruiting and retaining talent, and ensuring a healthy work environment. This role, however, had become more challenging over time. Demand for good developers was at an all-time high, and just across the border, Chinese companies such as Alibaba and Tencent were willing to provide Silicon Valley-like salaries and benefits to attract developers.

In August 2008, Magic Technology ("Magic") launched an initiative to implement the balanced scorecard in its organisation. Alan Lo, the chief executive officer, oversaw the implementation of the balanced scorecard at the company's headquarters. Lo encountered both strategic and execution difficulties during implementation, such as too many strategic objectives, too many strategic performance indicators and a diverse focus of strategic action plans. Yet, such difficulties hinted at a more fundamental issue of too many formulated strategic directions in the first place. In late 2009, Lo was in the middle of the execution phase to push the implementation of the balanced scorecard towards the department level. How would the difficulties encountered influence the initiative of the implementation of the balanced scorecard at the department level?

In 2006, European automotive supplier Interior Group and China-based China Textile established Interior JV, a joint venture in China to produce seat covers for automakers manufacturing in China. After a slow start, the joint venture began to secure orders and was moving towards a breakeven point. Nonetheless, it was still faced with teething problems, especially in product development time, internal quality and on-time delivery. Though Interior JV had adopted many processes that were used by its European mother company, operating in the foreign environment of an emerging market continued to pose challenges for the joint venture. Now Interior JV must address these problems in order to stay on top of the game.

Shanghai Inteva Automotive Door System Co. Ltd (formerly Shanghai Delphi) was a leading player in China's automotive component industry with a 30%market share. Nonetheless, between 2007 and 2009, it failed to meet its profit targets for three consecutive years. A number of factors contributed to this failure, some internal and some associated with the challenges of working in an emerging economy. If Shanghai Inteva is to stay competitive, it has to start making its targets.

In the mid-2000s, an American automaker opened an auto financing company in China, Shanghai-based C Automotive Finance Company (China) Ltd ("CAF"). CAF grew rapidly and broke even in three years. Nonetheless, the long cycle time of its application process led to rampant dissatisfaction among dealers and also lowered the number of car purchases financed by CAF as a percentage of total cars sold. The auto financing industry in China held great potential but was also becoming increasingly competitive as more and more foreign companies entered the market. In order stay on top of the game, CAF must improve the efficiency of its financing application process. What actions could CAF undertake to achieve this objective?

In 1994, US-based building-control systems specialist ECG US created a joint venture with China-based CIG Ltd, Realton JV, in order to manufacture and sell building-control system products, such as air-conditioning valves and fire safety equipment, on the mainland. The joint venture was out of control from the beginning. Sales were weak and, unbeknown to ECG US, the joint venture used complex maneuvers in order to gain contracts. With Realton unable to generate a profit, ECG US decided to dissolve the venture altogether by 2001. Nonetheless, the Chinese partner was adamant about continuing its operation, maintaining that Realton was profitable by Chinese accounting standards. As the two parties enter negotiation, how can they find a solution to this quagmire and protect their interests at the same time?

In 2004, U.S.-based China Sourcing Group, which specialises in premium and gift products, established a sourcing office in Shanghai. The Shanghai office was responsible for sourcing vendors not only in China but also in southern Asia. It played a major role in quadrupling China Sourcing Group's revenues over the next four years. Despite its contribution to the group, the Shanghai office faced a major issue of frequent late deliveries, especially of new products that were developed from scratch. In 2009, as the Shanghai management team reviewed the performance of the sourcing office, it decided that something had to be done to improve the punctuality of that office's deliveries. What should the Shanghai office do to improve the situation?

In 2002, Worldclass Lighting launched an initiative to introduce the balanced scorecard into the Asia Pacific and Greater China regions, in order to provide a new management tool for its lighting business covering four perspectives-financial, customer, process, and learning and growth. The balanced scorecard ran successfully for a period of time until implementation issues surfaced that undermined its benefits, such as unquantifiable measures in target setting and the over-measurement of indicators. In 2009, a plan to terminate the balanced scorecard was presented to the Asia Pacific Chief Executive Officer ("AP CEO"). The AP CEO must now make a decision about whether to continue using the balanced scorecard.

PremiumSoft had been a competitive player in the SQL software market for 10 years. Like many software companies, PremiumSoft's business model required that it continuously evolve its current successful product lines through research and development. At the core of the business was its creative people: they were the company's largest asset. PremiumSoft had created a team-centric, informal work environment that promoted creativity and innovation and attracted the best candidates. As a small company, PremiumSoft had a mix of formal and informal controls when dealing with recruiting, retention, roles, and responsibilities. It had achieved success with hiring, retaining, and managing its current employees and wanted to ensure that it could maintain this success with future growth. In 2010, PremiumSoft's owners were looking to grow the business through the development of new software. This growth required an expansion of its staff by 25 percent and the addition of a new product line.

The case introduces students to the concept of supplier management with scorecard and other performance measures and the concept of Total Cost of Ownership The purpose of this case is to enhance the student's understanding of the role of performance measures in the inter organizational setting - buyer supplier partnerships. In particular their role in managing the purchase allocation decision made by the buyer. • The role of management accounting information in the purchase allocation decision is explained by the total cost of ownership concept. • Purchase allocation decisions are made with respect to various factors including past performance, strategic importance and inventory requirements • Understanding the extent to which these factors are in play in the purchase allocation decision by buyers is important to the development of modern management systems in settings where there is increased outsourcing of non-core value added activities. As more parts of the global supply chain are being located in China, greater responsibility falls on the management to adopt systems that can help them to manage and satisfy international standards for delivery and quality.

Taiwan-based memory manufacturer Power Quotient International Co. Ltd. (PQI) had an established system for selecting, assessing, and managing suppliers. A scoring system that assessed suppliers in areas ranging from technical expertise to service quality and responsiveness made it easy for management to spot suppliers' strengths and weaknesses and to decide whether to keep a supplier at arm's length or to cultivate a strong relationship with the supplier. PQI had just completed its biannual evaluation of suppliers, of which several required further investigation. These suppliers had received only average scores despite strong performance both technically and commercially. Meanwhile, the management wondered whether sharing its assessment results openly with suppliers might help improve its relationships with them.

Shenzhen-based Sunshine Fashion Co. Ltd "Sunshine" is a Sino-Japanese venture that has grown from mere original equipment manufacturing of cashmere sweaters for export to include retailing, with 220 retail points throughout China. In order to manage its retail operations, it has set up both regional and branch offices to handle stock and to support and monitor its retail points. It has installed an ERP system for tracking its goods and monitoring sales. The implementation of the ERP system has improved the situation. For example, the system has helped Sunshine manage its domestic business considerably through reliable and consistent reporting from the retail points and branch offices. Nonetheless, fraudulent behaviour among employees has cost the retail chain the equivalent of almost 5% of its domestic sales. What more can the management do to control such behaviour and reduce its loss?

PCL is a leading European consumer electronics, lifestyle and healthcare company that has been operating in the Chinese market since 1995. While its consumer electronics business has grown quickly in China, it has discovered that the costs of returned goods in its TV division equal 5% of its sales. Even more worrying is that 37% of the products returned are of good quality and have been returned without good reason. PCL has set up taskforces to study and remedy the situation and has uncovered a more serious problem within the organisation: control measures designed to handle returns have simply not been executed by its staff and third-party after-sales service centres. What can PCL do to ensure enforcement of company policies in the future?

EU Design is an increasingly important trim supplier for various companies in the apparel and fashion industry in both New York and Hong Kong. Since its establishment in 1999, the company has grown gradually, attracting more customers and employing more staff. By 2009, however, further growth has been obstructed by an informal management style, an inappropriate organizational structure and a simple incentive system that is suitable only for a small company. The situation has been worsened by the global financial crisis. With falling margins, there is a need for expanding the customer base and for staff to become more sales-oriented. With limited funds, EU Design's owner needs to decide how to transform the company and which management control systems to implement first.

Since 1963, Bernard Watch Company has been manufacturing watches for widely known brands, such as Dolce & Gabbana and Roamer. The company is headquartered in Denmark and has a branch office in Hong Kong and an assembly plant in Shenzhen, China. Anson Leung, chief financial officer, has conducted a series of audits on the various cost aspects of running the assembly plant. This is to ensure efficient management of the plant's human capital, which is a vital resource for the company due to the need for stable production quality with just-in-time delivery at competitive prices-a common goal for the watch-making industry. Leung is alarmed by findings that reveal a high voluntary turnover rate of 39.3% among assembly line workers during 2006, costing Bernard as much as Rmb 718,188.9. She is concerned that this may jeopardise the company's long-standing market position in watch-making. This case examines the different types of costs that may incur from voluntary turnover, including both direct and intangible costs such as those that are related to separation of leaving employees, recruitment of new staff and loss in productivity. It can be used to teach the concept of human resources accounting and to introduce how human resources management practices may help reduce voluntary turnover costs.