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As of 2010, ING DIRECT USA has had a successful first decade, having grown into one of the largest U.S. banks with $90 billion in assets. It has developed an innovative culture and a unique approach to banking, and has a strong brand name. As a result of a regulatory requirement in the Netherlands, ING Group is required to divest ING DIRECT USA by 2013. The chairman, president, and chief executive officer is reviewing his organization and thinking about what challenges the firm will face in the future.

AWARD-WINNING CASE: Adjudged winner of the ISB Case Competition 2010 held in partnership with the Richard Ivey School of Business and the Association of Indian Management Schools and sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.<br><br><br><br>BASIX was a microfinance company with livelihood promotion as its key agenda. It had a strong presence in the poverty-ridden state of Jharkhand, India, where farmers were struggling to make ends meet. In 2005, PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt. Ltd (Pepsi) entered into an agreement with BASIX for promoting contract farming of potatoes in Jharkhand. As per the agreement, Pepsi was to supply seeds and get an assured supply of quality potatoes. BASIX was to provide microfinance to the farmers and render training and consultancy for package of practices (POP). Farmers were to get assured buyback of the produce and also an opportunity to learn modern farming practices. The collaboration was successful in the first year and the project witnessed very high growth in the second year. The second-year results, however, were not as encouraging. The case is set at this juncture, where the project manager has to present his view on how to move ahead with the agreement.

The (B) case describes the actions taken by Royal Dutch Shell's CEO and his management team to maintain their commitment to diversity and inclusion (D&I), as introduced in the (A) case, during a major restructuring of the whole organization.

The case explores value-driven strategy formulation and implementation by bringing to the fore issues of ethics, responsible leadership, social intitiatives in emerging markets and the global-local tensions in corporate social responsibility. It examines how Bayer CropScience addressed the issue of child labour in its cotton seed supply chain in rural India between 2002 and 2008. Bayer had been operating in India for more than a century. In December 2002, the Bayer Group completed the acquisition of India-based Aventis CropScience. Bayer CropScience first learned about the incidence and prevalence of the child labour in its newly acquired India-based cotton seed operations a few months post acquisition, in April 2003. The Aventis acquisition had brought onboard a well-known Indian company, Proagro, which already had operations in the cotton seed production and marketing - a new segment of the supply chain for Bayer. Child labour was widespread in cotton seed production - a traditional practice taken for granted not only by Indian farmers but also by several hundred Indian companies then accounting for approximately 90 per cent of the market share. The (A) case focuses on Bayer's decision whether, when and how to launch a self-run program that would take direct responsibility for tracking and eradicating child labour in rural India.

The case explores value-driven strategy formulation and implementation by bringing to the fore issues of ethics, responsible leadership, social initiatives in emerging markets and the global-local tensions in corporate social responsibility. It examines how Bayer CropScience addressed the issue of child labor in its cotton seed supply chain in rural India between 2002 and 2008. Bayer had been operating in India for more than a century. In December 2002, the Bayer Group completed the acquisition of India-based Aventis CropScience. Bayer CropScience first learned about the incidence and prevalence of child labor in its newly acquired India-based cotton seed operations a few months post acquisition, in April 2003. The Aventis acquisition had brought onboard a well-known Indian company, Proagro, which already had operations in the cotton seed production and marketing - a new segment of the supply chain for Bayer. Child labor was widespread in cotton seed production - a traditional practice taken for granted not only by Indian farmers but also by several hundred Indian companies then accounting for approximately 90 per cent of the market share. This is a supplement to Bayer CropScience in India (A): Against Child Labor, product #9B10M061, and focuses on Bayer's formulation of a value-driven strategy, with three pillars: communication, implementation and education.

Jeff Brown wondered whether now was the right time to call his boss, and friend, Bernard Tubiana. Brown was a rising star at Deloitte Consulting and three weeks into an important project for Aflac. He was about to receive an offer from Aflac's major competitor, Colonial Life, to become its Chief Marketing Officer.

Case Supplement for 311075.

Supplements the (B) case.

The huge growth of information technology (IT) and information technology enabled services (TIES) businesses in India and, in particular, in Hyderabad, led to the establishment of Indian and multi-national companies. With large numbers of employees and thousands of square feet of office space, these companies recognized that maintaining their premises was not part of their core competence and outsourced their housekeeping requirements, thus creating a new industry. A single mother who was unable to make ends meet on her salary as the principal of a catering college grabbed a tiny opportunity to provide cleaning services at the Oracle office in the Cyber Towers at Hyderabad and, over 10 years, built up Golden Star into the third-largest housekeeping services provider in the city, with over 2,000 employees. While maintaining her strong personal ethical values, she built a young, professional team and maintained high standards of professionalism and quality of service. The case is set at the time when she is faced with the typical dilemmas of organic growth: to take on allied functions of office management, such as maintenance of electrical and mechanical equipment - a growing trend in the industry; to expand geographically to manage the offices of her clients in several cities; or to make a huge amount of money by simply selling the business she had built from scratch.

This case focuses on management innovation in the South African dairy industry, describing how an innovative new yoghurt product, Danimal, was created specifically for the market at the base of the pyramid. It explains how management of the product line embodied the various innovation opportunities and challenges presented. The concept was initially introduced in order to assess the feasibility of profitably servicing this market. However, the project was not simply about introducing a cheap brand to the poor but was more about creating brand awareness in the market at the base of the pyramid. The new product took into consideration the nutritional shortcomings in the diet of children in this market and also allowed for the lack of available infrastructure — electricity and refrigeration. <br><br>The case illustrates the importance of a product being affordable, relevant, and available to its market. Innovation went further than product design and also took into account the necessity of a lean distribution channel. This took the form of micro-distributors, referred to as Danimamas, who comprised township residents that were unemployed or part-time employed. The case offers insights into the complexity of doing business in developing countries. It concludes with the challenge of how to ensure that the project continued on its upward trajectory.

This case study is based on a high profile issue facing the Canadian Federal Government - still ongoing as of December 2010 - that had begun in 2008. Industry Canada, working from a set of policy objectives crafted over the period of three years, decided that, in the auction sale of wireless spectrum set for 2008, it would set aside 40 per cent of the spectrum for new entrants. This decision had come about because research indicated that Canadian usage of wireless services had lagged behind that of other developed countries and that this was primarily due to the high relative cost of wireless services. This was in contrast to only a decade earlier when Canada was seen as a global leader in the implementation of wireless technology. It is well understood that telecommunication adoption rates have a direct implication to the productivity of the Canadian economy. One of the new entrants was Globalive Communications Corporation (Globalive), a startup which was funded by Orascom Telecom Holding S.A.E. (Orascom), an Egyptian company. Despite the fact that Canada has well defined foreign ownership restrictions for the telecommunications sector, Globalive was allowed to bid. It won, and paid $442 million for its spectrum, began to hire hundreds of staff, and committed another $300 million to investing in wireless infrastructure.<br><br>From the time Globalive applied to participate in the spectrum auction to the period prior to its official launch, the firm met several times with Industry Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), and the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to ensure that its ownership was structured so as to fit within the foreign ownership restrictions.

A board's decision-making and process in investigating and terminating a company's CEO are explored and the company's policies and contractual obligations considered.

The (D) case describes aspects of the Jan 2011 report by the Goldman Sach's Business Standards Committee on how the firm might strengthen its practices with respect to clients and other stakeholders.

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (M&M) is a manufacturing leader in the utility vehicles (UVs) segment in the Indian automotive industry. Since 2004, M&M has been exporting UVs to South Africa, the only country in the African continent with a significant middle-class population. M&M has set up a fully owned subsidiary in South Africa, which enjoyed the growth wave in the South African automotive industry up to 2007, then fell into a three-year slump, largely as a result of a recession in the global automotive industry. Now on the verge of industry renewal in 2011, the subsidiary needs to plan its next steps. The case is positioned in May 2011, when M&M’s subsidiary must choose from four alternatives. M&M can continue with its prevailing business model of importing completely built units (CBUs) from its Indian operations to meet local demand while using South Africa as a re-export hub for the burgeoning markets in sub-Saharan Africa. It can also choose to collaborate with a local vendor to assemble vehicles locally from completely knocked down (CKD) components imported from India. Alternatively, M&M may choose to set up its own manufacturing facility in South Africa, like many of its competitors. Lastly, M&M can choose to wait and watch until it notes definitive signs of revived demand. The case provides an opportunity for students to examine each alternative and make a decision on M&M’s way forward in South Africa.

Pricing is no longer a purely economic challenge, or a problem that can be solved through simply lowering prices or allocating costs and adding markups. Pricing must focus on value exchange — that customers will buy a product when it delivers value in excess of its price after adjusting for alternatives — and the marketing orientation of the firm. The challenges of pricing can be categorized as price setting (setting the right price in the first place), discounting, price structures (the strategic approach through which specific transactional prices are set), and overall pricing strategy. Various qualitative and quantitative analytical techniques have been developed that help with pricing challenges. Executives must realize that they cannot rely upon the output of a single equation or quantitative analytical technique, as pricing is a strategic challenge, not an “engineering” challenge. In examining the four basic challenges of pricing, this article reminds us that firms exist to serve customer needs profitably. The right price reflects the ability of the product to address a customer challenge, and the right price extracted from customers must exceed the firm’s cost to deliver. Price structures enable executives to align their prices with customers’ willingness to pay without resorting to discounting. The modern understanding of pricing, as detailed in this article, is crucial for executives to embrace in order to make better decisions for their firms.

Building from within isn’t necessarily a new approach, but in a flat-growth environment it represents a significant opportunity for entrepreneurial business. This article explains how many successful companies focus on internal growth, improved relationships with existing customers, and incremental innovations, rather than mergers, risk-taking, and radical new innovations. It is the paradoxical combination of entrepreneurship and restraint in small and medium-sized businesses that will lead to much business growth of the future.

There has long been discussion about the need for more innovation in Canada. This article uses interviews with business and education leaders and summarizes the obstacles to innovation, including a risk-averse culture and lack of cross-sector collaboration, and the enablers of innovation, such as creating a culture of innovation. Recommendations for advancing innovation in Canada are synthesized under the categories of awareness, intent, and actions.

While there are advantages to being proactive, the best strategy for today’s volatile, slow-growth environment may be one that is essentially reactive — a strategy in which CEOs, like some great athletes, allow events to “come to them.” This is emergent strategy, one that is formed spontaneously, in constant reaction to events and fast-changing realities. This author, a colleague of Henry Mintzberg, argues that an emergent strategy is the right strategy for a slow-growth business environment and stresses the importance of frugal innovation, or Jugaad (an idea whose time for implementation has come).

The Chinese fireworks industry thrived after China adopted the open door policy in the late 1970s, and grew to make up 90 per cent of the world's fireworks export sales. However, starting from the mid-1990s, safety concerns led governments both in China and abroad to set up stricter regulations. At the same time, there was rapid growth in the number of small family-run fireworks workshops, whose relentless price-cutting drove down profit margins. Students are asked to undertake an industry analysis, estimate the industry attractiveness, and propose possible ways to improve the industry attractiveness from an individual investor's point of view. Jerry Yu is an American-born Chinese in New York who has been invited to buy a fireworks factory in Liuyang, Hunan.

The recent downgrading of the United States’ credit rating brought into focus the fact that sovereign credit rating is today a largely unregulated industry. While ratings are a prime driver of investment decisions and collateral eligibility standards, they are also a potential contributor to global financial instability. This article compares the three dominant American ratings agencies — Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch — to the Chinese agency Dagong, and discusses the flaws of the current sovereign credit rating industry, including the dominance and minimal regulation of the three major agencies, as well as their limited anticipatory function and potential triggering of misguided economic policies. The article concludes by discussing an alternative — a supra-national organization with a functional focus and political impartiality.