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The China national image film “People Chapter” — officially a sub-series of the “Experience China” campaign — was launched by the Chinese government to coincide with President Hu Jintao’s visit to the United States in mid-January 2011. The one-minute promotional video was played on six giant electronic screens about 300 times per day, and had appeared approximately 8,400 times when the broadcast ended on February 14, 2011. The video showed a series of Chinese people, ranging from ordinary citizens to celebrities. It was a publicity effort aimed at promoting a truer image of China abroad, and signalling that China was opening to embrace the world. However, reactions from both Chinese and overseas audiences had been fairly mixed since the initial release of the promotional film. Experts from China and abroad were skeptical of the effectiveness of the campaign in promoting the national image of modern China to the world. This case presents the opportunity to examine the basic elements in the marketing communication process, analyze how decisions in marketing design affect outcomes, and understand the differences between nation and product promotion.

It's well known that China has been working to spur domestic consumption. But it's making faster progress than many outsiders realize; for example, China is already the first or second largest market in a number of important consumer categories. Here are some trends Western multinationals should be aware of, along with advice on how to better position themselves so that they don't get left behind.

The chief credit officer (CCO) at Seoul National Bank has recently faced numerous defaults on its corporate loans. To address this problem, the CCO must re-evaluate how the bank responds to defaults and determine a default strategy. The CCO must evaluate the payouts and risk profiles of 1) collecting on collateral, 2) partially settling, and 3) waiting and seeing. Further, the CCO must determine a systematic way to approve loans from companies. Analyzing both qualitative and quantities factors, the CCO must determine which companies to approve for loans given a certain size of its loan portfolio. Also, the CCO must determine whether or not to increase or shrink the size of the bank’s loan portfolio based on the expected outcomes and/or simulated results.

In December 2007, the management of Mercedes-Benz India (MBI), a fully owned subsidiary of Daimler AG, the 12th-largest automobile manufacturer in the world, decided to relocate to a new facility near Pune in western India. In overseeing the installation of information technology (IT) infrastructure at the new premises, the company's CIO is dealing with some managerial choices pertaining to IT architecture, IT tools, and IT skill sets of the company. Each choice involves several trade-offs. The CIO's decision on each will have a major effect on the revenues, margins, and competitive positioning of MBI in the Indian automotive industry.

This case describes the history of Desko, a Canadian manufacturer of wood office furniture, as it faced a crisis that threatened its own existence. The president and CEO needed to decide which actions to take to improve the effectiveness of the value chain activities of the firm and the information technology (IT) supporting it. He was considering outsourcing parts of certain value chain activities, including manufacturing, to specialized partners. The case also depicts the main characteristics of the Canadian wood office furniture industry and the external factors that played an important role in the development of Desko.

This case describes the history of Desko, a Canadian manufacturer of wood office furniture, as it faced a crisis that threatened its own existence. The president and CEO needed to decide which actions to take to improve the effectiveness of the value chain activities of the firm and the information technology (IT) supporting it. He was considering outsourcing parts of certain value chain activities, including manufacturing, to specialized partners. The case also depicts the main characteristics of the Canadian wood office furniture industry and the external factors that played an important role in the development of Desko.

This case, a supplement to Value Chain and IT Transformation at Desko (A), describes Desko’s customer order process.

Electric motorcycles’ features of zero emissions, light weight, high efficiency, low energy costs, and almost no pollution contribute to the increasing popularity of and substantial growth potential for the worldwide electric motorcycle industry. However, Zero was facing competition from Brammo, which, though positioning its products differently from Zero, adopted a similar international growth strategy. How could the chief executive officer of Zero position its products so that Zero would be able to offer a unique value proposition and establish clear dominance in the electric motorcycle industry?

After working together on a university business plan, two entrepreneurs worked for three years to develop their venture: Shutout Solutions Inc. Their start-up venture was established in response to an issue familiar to most hockey players: notoriously smelly equipment. While their familiarity with hockey equipment helped them identify a specific problem, subsequent research revealed a much broader issue: the need to clean products made of micro-fibre. Utilizing a technology that addressed the micro-fibre odour issue, they believed they had a five-year opportunity window to develop and profit from the business before it was imitated or superseded. As they considered their options, they realized that they might have to choose to focus their resources on a single product line rather than continue to develop their current portfolio of a detergent, body wash, and spray. They also questioned whether they were using the right channel - gyms and sporting goods stores - to reach customers. The opportunity to pursue bulk institutional sales was also intriguing, though it would require a different sales, pricing, and distribution strategy. Also, they considered how they might respond to an offer to sell the company in its current form.

This case describes how significant debt was built up in Pakistan among the private- and public-sector energy and power-generation companies, which were some of the country’s largest organizations. An unexpected slowdown in recovery of payments created debt that affected corporate business operations and the Pakistani economy as a whole. The case discusses the energy and power sectors, along with the reasons for the circular debt. The Pakistani government was heavily involved in regulating the energy and power sectors; to respond to high oil prices, a subsidy was provided in 2008 to keep the price of diesel low. The government, however, had not created an effective plan to recover these funds, and when large public-sector enterprises such as Pakistan International Airlines did not pay their bills, no action was taken. The focus of this case is on resolving the very large amounts of debt that had accumulated in various energy companies. A secondary analysis can explore the impact of regulation on the operations of oil companies.

The case provides an opportunity for students to develop practical knowledge of the role of operations management in a product recall situation, particularly in an emerging market context. Product recalls are an integral part of supply chain management (SCM). Companies inevitably face a question of when, not if, a recall will be necessary. These situations combine the complexity of operations with the time-urgency of a mission-critical task. The case also provides a rich context to learn about the interaction of SCM, information systems and reverse logistics, and to understand the marketing, logistics and communication challenges faced by a multinational company operating in an emerging market such as India.<br><br>The case presents the challenge faced by Nokia India in 2007. Nokia had built a strong brand reputation over a ten-year period and was a market leader in the Indian mobile devices. India, incidentally, was also Nokia's second largest market, next only to China. Suddenly, what corporate headquarters considered a routine product advisory for a defective battery, resulted in panic in customers after the Indian media widely publicized the potential dangers that defective batteries could pose.<br><br>Over a three-month period, Nokia India had to recall a few million batteries and replace them with new ones.<br><br>The objectives of the case include 1) developing an effective product recall / reverse logistics plan that would ensure preparedness for the challenges and urgent circumstances that might surface in a recall situation, 2) understanding the key criteria for success of product recall systems and 3) understanding the interface of management action and the logistics system under a crisis situation.

In the 2000s, the African economy finally began to stir. Africa is today the world's third fastest-growing region, and its collective GDP is roughly equal to Brazil's and Russia's. Africans spend nearly $900 billion on goods and services-far more than Indians do. Pent-up consumer demand on the continent is enormous, and so are the opportunities: Consider that telecom companies have added 316 million subscribers-more than the U.S. population-in Africa since 2000. Yet because of political instability and poverty, many companies have reservations about Africa. To help managers assess whether growth will continue there-and if so, where-McKinsey conducted an economic analysis of the continent and studied its consumer markets. The conclusion: Companies can no longer ignore Africa. But they need to manage risks, develop innovative strategies to deal with gaps in infrastructure and training, and recognize that it isn't one market. There are four main types of economies: diversified, oil exporting, transition, and pretransition. Each presents a different set of opportunities and challenges, and executives must develop their strategies accordingly.

The price of pharmaceuticals in the Philippines is second only to Japan within Asia and is among the highest in the world, despite the Philippines being a less developed country with nearly half of its population living on US$2 a day. The case illustrates how The Generics Pharmacy, a local pharmaceutical company, challenged the existing industry business model and became the largest pharmaceutical retailer in the country within a period of only three years. Under the strategic leadership of CEO Benjamin Liuson, The Generics Pharmacy succeeded in formulating a superior value proposal by focusing on the supply- and demand-side constructs at the bottom of the pyramid and bringing affordable high-quality medicines within reach of low-income individuals. Superior leadership, management, and strategic initiatives succeeded in integrating and balancing tenets of corporate social responsibility, entrepreneurial foresight, and resource-based strategy to catapult the company into a leadership position.

The case describes in detail Desko's customer order process. It highlights the importance of this key business process and how its inefficiencies can significantly diminish the SME's performance.

China's economic progress has been so dazzling that people often forget that China, Inc. has seen its share of failures too. Just look at the first cross-border acquisitions that Chinese companies made. Many of those high-profile deals-including TCL's acquisition of France's Thomson, SAIC's takeover of South Korea's Ssangyong Motor Company, and the D'Long Group's purchase of America's Murray, Inc.-ended badly. But for the Chinese, failure is not about falling down; it's about refusing to get up. They quietly changed course, altering the kinds of targets they pursued and their rationale for M&A. Chinese acquirers have learned to steer clear of deals that involve costly turnarounds or tricky integration. Instead of buying brands, sales networks, and goodwill, they now look for hard assets, like mineral deposits and oil reserves, or state-of-the-art technology and R&D. And where they once tried to buy market share abroad, today they focus on acquisitions that will help them strengthen their share in China. Most telling of all, they're more willing to walk away-perhaps one of the surest signs of M&A sophistication.

People vary enormously in how they perceive and respond to failure, and those perceptions and responses are shaped by the cultures in which they grew up or now work. Western multinationals are sinking a huge amount of money into India, China, and Brazil, and emerging giants in those countries are setting up operations in world markets as well. Any business with global aspirations must take seriously cultural differences in general and around failure in particular. Drawing on the findings of a global survey that has been ongoing for 30 years, Trompenaars and Woolliams have identified the dimensions along which people from various cultures differ regarding failure. They discuss the five most important of those dimensions: (1) Do we view our environment as internally or externally controlled? (2) Which is more important-rules or relationships? (3) Are failures the responsibility of the individual or of the team? (4) How much do we identify with our failures? (5) Do we grant status according to performance or to position? The authors describe how some forward-looking companies are managing to reconcile cultural differences to create a powerful platform for innovation.

India’s largest domestic retail group, the Future Group, is pursuing a novel private-label strategy. In a country dominated by small-scale retailers, it is using its scale to launch private-label brands in several product categories. It is planning to delink these new offerings from the store brand and make them available through other retailers. Future Group hopes to derive most of its growth over the next few years from this initiative.<br><br><br><br>The case enables students to take on the role of the group’s brand advisor, and deal with some important questions: Will private-label brands erode customer loyalty or build it? Will they increase traffic to stores or cannibalize it? Will they add to the complexity of retailing or simplify it? More fundamentally, is the private-label brand strategy sustainable in the long run in the highly competitive Indian retail market?

This case depicts how executives who are holding power in an organization can create chaos due to interpersonal conflict. Rao and Naik, two senior executives at TKC Consulting in India, scapegoated an innocent subordinate during the course of their rivalry. Their actions, not befitting the positions they held, created confusion and misunderstanding in the organization. The chairman of the company understood that their selfish, power-hungry actions could not be explicitly pointed out, as this would merely result in a cycle of blame. Yet he also knew that if the conflict was not addressed immediately, it would cause more discord within the organization.

As the largest food and drink company in the world, Nestlé S.A. prided itself on a solid reputation built over the past 150 years. On March 17, 2010, the chairman of the board of directors was surprised by a YouTube video created by the environmental activist group Greenpeace. The graphic and provocative video criticized Nestlé for its use of palm oil in Nestlé products. It helped Greenpeace make a bold statement: Nestlé products were leading to deforestation and the extinction of orangutans. Within 24 hours, the video had more than 100,000 views and anti-Nestlé campaigns quickly emerged on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media networks around the world. At the same time, Greenpeace activists dressed up as orangutans and protested at Nestlé’s headquarters and factories in Europe. Activists urged the company to stop sourcing palm oil from companies that destroy forests in the process. Considering the popularity and force of social media, how should Nestlé react to the YouTube video?