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Barry Lam, the CEO and Founder of Quanta Computer (the largest notebook computer manufacturer worldwide), has recognized for many years, that he had to transform the company to decrease its dependence on producing commodity hardware for other global brands and move the firm into areas of higher value-added products and services. But how could he transform an organization that was rooted in low cost manufacturing and supply chain management into one that creates innovative new products and commands premium prices? The existing organization was built to operate in a highly constrained innovation space, and the internal resistance to change often seemed insurmountable. Meanwhile, the firm had to continue delivering predictable revenues. Lam launched the Quanta Research Institute (QRI), a targeted effort to foster industrial research as a vehicle for organizational transformation and to build differentiation in a commodity world. The case examines how QRI sources ideas, and discusses how Quanta will use China as a test market for new products and services.

During the past quarter of a century, Asia has risen to become the world's factory. This trend has, however, coincided with the relative decline in value of manufacturing compared to other value adding activities, including R&D, design, and branding. This significant "value shift" has eroded the margins of manufacturing firms and sparked considerable interest among executives in Asia to design, brand, and market their own products. To date, though, this transition from being manufacturing oriented to becoming brand owners has largely only been accomplished by Japanese and Korean firms. In the rest of Asia-including in the rising giants of China and India-there are very few valuable brands. In fact, there is not a single Asian brand from a country other than Japan and Korea in Interbrand's 2008 valuation of the world's top 100 brands. Our article discusses, in depth, the challenges that Asian manufacturing firms encounter as they try to become "branders" and how these challenges can be overcome. Based on our collaboration spanning academia and consulting, we have been able to tap a wealth of information made available through research, case studies, and Interbrand's database of completed brand related assignments across Asia.

This case is about a US$1.4 billion corporate governance fraud at India's fourth-largest information technology company: Satyam Computer Services. The company offered IT outsourcing services to around 690 clients, including 185 Fortune 500 companies such as GE, Nissan Motors and General Motors. By 2008, Satyam was a global company operating in 37 countries. The case traces the rise and fall of both Satyam and its founder, Raju, who was an important celebrity in corporate India. The case offers an opportunity to understand the various aspects of corporate governance and can be used to study the reasons behind corporate governance failures at a firm and the risks that it might face post-scandal. It will help students understand the role of a promoter, independent directors, auditors and the government in corporate governance failures. The case can also be used as a vehicle for teaching the theories of corporate governance.

The man was on a mission. With just two years to go before stepping down from the direction of the enterprise, he had his hands full. Not only did he want to ensure that he would leave his ancestors' distinguished house in capable hands but also that the values the firm espoused would flourish. The legacies had to go beyond family and values though: Miguel Torres wanted to convince his family, employees and the rest of the wine industry that climate change was already impacting the business. Environmental responsibility had to become part of the Torres family legacies. And that was still not obvious to most. When he chose global warming as the topic of his keynote address to Rioja wine producers in 2009, the reception was lukewarm. Winemaking peers questioned his priorities. After all, there was a global crisis going on and wine sales were down more than 10%. Why worry about long-term climate issues when there were more urgent short-term challenges to tackle? Was climate change even real? But Miguel Torres had a long-term perspective: "In the wine business one needs to think 15 years ahead. Forget weather statistics: facts are telling. In less than four decades, harvesting of the grapes in the Penedès region had to be brought forward more than 10 days on average." To preserve quality, Torres had already adjusted its viticulture practices, planting vines at a higher density per hectare and on higher ground to reduce the impact of increasing temperatures. Climate change was happening and it was impacting the business today. Something had to be done. Another concern for Miguel Torres was how to successfully transition the business to the fifth generation. How could he ensure the preservation of the family values? How could he make the firm attractive for the best non-family managers? How could he nurture the "youngsters" after his retirement?

This case deals with supplier difficulties faced by WildChina - a travel service provider in China. WildChina is a classic case of a company that is trying to bring a local, within-country product to a market outside the country (in this case, travelers to China from around the world). In doing so, startups have to build competences to deal with local suppliers and global customers. The case describes the operations of WildChina, providing detailed information on how they evaluated suppliers to determine their appropriateness, given WildChina's customers. The decision in the case revolves around what the founder should do when faced with a supplier who is trying to bypass WildChina to reach customers directly - a common problem faced by intermediaries.

This case summarizes some of the challenges - managerial and technical - associated with transitioning to an activity-based costing (ABC) model. The primary objective of this case is to introduce the student to the rationale and mechanics behind the ABC accounting approach and to explore the untoward consequences of using traditional accounting methods.

This case deals with a rural charitable homeopathic hospital in the state of Maharashtra, India, set in the year 2008. The hospital, Dr. M. L. Dhawale Memorial Trust's Rural Homeopathic Hospital, is one among many clinics and hospitals run by the Dr. M. L. Dhawale Memorial Trust (MLDT). Dr. Navin Pawaskar, the head of the hospital, has to make recommendations to the management team to improve the profitability of the hospital and be financially sustainable. He has findings and data from a field study done by management students of S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai, India. The study involved a preliminary costing exercise of the various services offered in the hospital. The data from the costing exercise must now be analyzed to arrive at actionable conclusions.

Mary Erdoes, the CEO of JP Morgan's Asset Management business, and three colleagues provide insights into risk management issues faced by the firm's Private Bank during the financial crisis in 2008-2009. The case provides perspective on the philosophy with which they approach risk management, issues of greatest concern, tools and processes used in practice, the benefits and limitations of quantitative models and balance between the use of models and exercising judgment, and lessons learned from the crisis about risk management.

The regulations in the home care industry are changing. The industry is moving toward consolidation and favouring large companies. Closing the Gap, a small home care provider in Ontario, reaches a crossroad. The company has three strategic options to choose from: (1) sell the company, (2) buy another company, or (3) grow organically. Given these conditions, students will be asked to conduct an industry analysis and help the chief executive officer (CEO) of Closing the Gap make the appropriate decision. In the (B) case, students will be asked to evaluate an acquisition possibility and advise the CEO whether the acquisition will be a successful one or not.

This is a supplement to Closing the Gap - The Changing Home Care Environment (A) case, product #9B10M051. The regulations in the home care industry are changing. The industry is moving toward consolidation and favouring large companies. Closing the Gap reaches a crossroad. In this (B) case, students will be asked to evaluate an acquisition possibility and advise the chief executive officer whether the acquisition will be a successful one or not.

In today's complex environment, the most successful thinkers are able to quickly and effectively abstract the best qualities of radically different 'ways of seeing' and apply them to the situation at hand. The authors describe how the minds of these 'integrative thinkers' are dialectical - 'diaminds' for short - in that they can holds at least two contradictory ways of seeing in any critical situation, give each its full due, and instead of fleeing from the resulting tension, embrace it and come up with a third and better way. 'Stretching' the mind to achieve this, they argue, is a cornerstone of the diamind's way of being in the world; they describe how this is accomplished and how we can willfully augment our mind's faculties of real-time thinking to achieve creative solutions.

The term 'complexity' can be summed up by the phrase, 'Two's company, three's a crowd'. Complexity Science can be seen as the study of the phenomena which emerge from a collection of interacting objects -- and a crowd is a perfect example of such an 'emergent phenomenon'. Everyday examples of crowds include collections of commuters, financial-market traders, human cells or insurgents -- and the associated crowd-like phenomena that emerge are traffic jams, market crashes, cancerous tumors and extreme weather. In each example, the precise nature of the crowd-like phenomena that emerges will depend on how the individual objects interact and how interconnected they are. In the end, the author shows that Complexity's role in making connections between previously-unrelated phenomena taken from distinct disciplines is a very important one.

In this interview from Rotman Magazine, the Wharton risk expert states that the hallmarks of the 21st century will likely be more and more unthinkable events, previously-unseen contexts, and pressure to react extremely quickly - even when we cannot predict the cascading impact of our actions. He explains the important role of 'creeping risks' and describes the three top risks for 2010, as outlined in his report for the World Economic Forum: underinvestment in infrastructure; fiscal crises; and chronic disease. In the end, he explains one of the key ironies of living in an interconnected world: that being selfish today means taking care of others.

The Innovation Consultancy, a small team within the health care provider Kaiser Permanente, practices an expansive, service-focused version of innovation that is both rapid and economical in comparison with the conventional version. The team's members observe how health care providers interact with one another, with technology, and with patients, and how the patients respond. They take photographs, draw pictures, write stories, and try to capture experiences from the point of view of everyone involved. During KP MedRite, a project to reduce the error rate in dispensing medication to hospital patients, the team asked nurses what they thought was wrong with the dispensing process. The nurses usually replied, "Nothing." But when given a chance to make self-portraits, they would draw themselves with sad faces and frazzled hair. Interruptions appeared to be the leading cause of errors-so one of the resulting innovations was a bright yellow sash signaling that its wearer was not to be disturbed. KP's Chris McCarthy founded the Innovation Learning Network to accelerate knowledge transfer among peers in the nonprofit health care industry. One promising process that has emerged, Inflection Navigator, helps patients who've received a frightening diagnosis handle the consequent urgent tasks-follow-up tests, visits to specialists, decision making about treatment and care-with the aid of care coordinators. This innovation and others like it arise from a brand of creativity that transcends the media version of the health care debate.

Drugs to cure the disease exist, however they don't reach the demand where it occurs and stock-outs of drugs to treat malaria cost lives. Jim Barrington, former chief information officer (CIO) at Novartis and current director of the SMS for Life project, had been trying to solve the problem since 2006, when he first heard about the "last mile" problem from Silvio Gabriel, executive vice president (EVP), Novartis Malaria Initiatives. The case talks about how he approached the supply-chain problem and established a public-private partnership to develop a simple solution suitable for the rugged African environment. The essential idea was to create an in-county forecasting system based on the use of SMS messaging between the health posts that dispense the drugs and the district and regional warehouses that distribute the drug. A data management system with a reporting interface using charts provided stock level information from all facilities to facilitate stock movement and supply, as well as improving stock forecasting and planning. The case describes the process of developing and implementing the solution through a pilot in three districts in Tanzania. The pilot was successful and the case ends with the question how to approach a country-wide and even a pan-African roll-out. Learning objectives: There are three learning objectives, and ways to teach the case: 1) To discuss a new, collaborative way, involving private and public companies (and contrast it other available approaches), to solve world-wide problems, which demand solutions beyond the capabilities and responsibilities of single players. 2) How simple technology, e.g. based on available mobile phone networks, can solve supply chain problems in most difficult environments. 3) How external collaborations can bring innovation into well established multinational players, and have a potential impact on their business model.

MindTree is a mid-sized Indian IT services company known for its knowledge management practices, its collaborative communities, and its strong culture and values. The CEO has set a goal of becoming a $1 billion company by 2014; to reach that goal, employees must create several new businesses. The head of knowledge management must decide how his function should change in order to become more supportive of innovation and new business development.

In 2007, the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) was facing a saturated market for women's tennis and identified the emerging middle-class in Asia as a growth area. The chief operating officer (COO) of the WTA was faced with a dilemma: He had to decide the new location of the Asian regional office of the WTA and present his recommendation at both the next board meeting and the WTA Global Advisory Council. The COO's presentation had to include the rationale for the chosen location and a strategy to increase the sport's popularity in the Asian market. With several cities to choose from, the COO had to weigh the pros and cons of each to present the most logical choice.

Sam Palmisano became CEO of IBM in 2002. He dramatically energized the organization through portfolio changes and a values driven approach to managing the company.

Cathy Hoffmann has rapidly grown her novel facilities for day care therapy for elders with mild cognitive and physical problems. But she needs to decide whether to franchise or own the next expansion.

The case involves an insurance CEO choosing between different designs for a variable annuity product in light of hedging, marketing, and pricing issues. The case provides students with background on the economics and regulation of life insurance and variable annuities. Then it asks students to calculate the returns on capital of different product designs for a variable annuity based on specified assumptions including a range of hedging scenarios.