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End-of-month account closure at many firms often requires long work hours, which may lead to staff fatigue and attrition that will affect productivity and quality of work. This is true for GlaxoSmithKline’s Record to Report Finance team in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in August 2014. The company is a science-led global business that researches and develops a broad range of innovative products in three primary areas: pharmaceuticals, vaccines and consumer health care. The team in Malaysia has 40 employees who provide services including month-end accounts closure, financial reporting and analytics to business units operating in the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. At the end of every month, the team must perform within five days a sequence of 17 activities requiring varying man-hours. The activities must follow a specific flow according to information availability and must, for internal efficiency and quality control reasons, start and end on the same day. Is there a method by which management can help the team achieve work balance or minimize the number of work hours per day?

Sidhi was a cooperative society aimed at rehabilitating destitute tribal women living in one of the poorest states in India. Most of these women were illiterate or had only primary education. A professionally educated non-tribal social entrepreneur has helped these women to set up cottage industries and earn a decent living. Because of her own health concerns, this social entrepreneur needs to resign. Her successor needs to be a woman who can arrange for funding, coordinate the funding and training, and liaise with both the government authorities and the vendors. The challenge is to either identify such a leader among the illiterate women or to recruit an outsider, who will understand Sidhi’s needs and be accepted by the Sidhi membership.

In 2005, Victorinox, the original producer of the Swiss Army Knife, acquired Wenger, including the fragrance label “Swiss Army Fragrance.” The acquisition of Wenger allowed Victorinox to become the only producer of the famous Swiss Army Knife as well as the key player in Swiss Army watches. Victorinox’s head of marketing was asked to design a business strategy that would successfully allow the company to enter the fragrance industry. How should Victorinox diversify into the fragrance business? Should it aim to transfer its existing brand attributes to fragrance products? Or should it adopt a strategy that would include the use of another brand to market the perfumes? The head of marketing had to present a plan to the CEO of Victorinox on how best to brand and position the product, and how to compete in the fragrance industry.

In late 2005, Risk Control Strategies, a canine training security company in Islamabad, Pakistan was formed. To ensure that the company was a class apart in security provision, the company founder designed an induction procedure based on employee referrals followed by a thorough two-month training program that encompassed both pure theory and practical dog-handling sessions. The extensive training increased employees’ market value, and they often left for higher salaries in other companies, without considering the added compensations Risk Control Strategies offered, such as medical benefits, free accommodation and basic health and education coverage for their families. The hiring process also contributed to the turnover; many of the friends and relatives who were given references by current employees came from villages and often returned to help their families with harvests. The founder needed to address the problem of employee retention before considering the future expansion of the company.

LifeNet International was a social conversion franchise concept aiming to provide basic, quality and sustainable healthcare to poor and underserved populations in sub-Saharan Africa. The founder and president had relied on the assistance of others to help bring about his idea of affordable healthcare. In 2012, the executive director for LifeNet International’s operations in Burundi, began focussing on developing the company in Burundi. She was excited to see LifeNet International’s presence expanding into Uganda. Her vision for LifeNet International, however, was much bigger. She envisioned LifeNet International as a sustainable organization that could provide quality healthcare and medicine to millions of people around the world.<br><br>If it planned to expand internationally and bring healthcare to more of the world’s population, LifeNet International needed a solution to tie its services together to further scale, replicate and measure its social impact. How could LifeNet International bring its social conversion franchising model to other African nations and internationally? Would LifeNet International’s model work logistically, financially and culturally? What adaptations would LifeNet need to make and what legal challenges would it face in the process of expansion? Furthermore, what structures would LifeNet need to put in place to manage the complexity of its growing network of partner clinics and operations?

This technical note explains what corporate governance is and why it is important. It examines how corporate governance is practised within developed and developing economies by identifying four distinct models of capitalism in which corporate governance is embedded: liberal market economies, coordinated market economies, family-led market economies and state-led market economies. Depending on the model of capitalism in which they operate, governance actors — owners, managers, directors and employees — engage distinct governance practices. The note concludes with a discussion of the corporate governance challenges facing multinational firms.

By 2014, Tencent Holdings Limited, headquartered in Shenzhen, China, had become one of the most innovative companies in Asia. It had created several leading Internet platforms to form China’s largest Internet community. WeChat (or Weixin, as known to Chinese users) was one of the company’s most popular mobile platforms, having grown to 200 million active users in the first two years after its launch in 2013. Shortly thereafter, WeChat rolled out a payment platform that sought to capitalize on its customer base across China. However, its president was concerned about how to expand WeChat Payment in the country’s emerging mobile payment industry. Where was the next major opportunity? Tencent had to be highly creative in navigating the world’s largest economy.

Mid-India Construction Private Company Limited (MICC) was awarded a refurbishing project for INR30 million from the National Institute of Management. The project had to be completed in eight months. MICC’s project manager observed the dismal pace of work execution and the limited resource deployment on-site in the first monthly review meeting for the project. This situation warranted the manager’s immediate attention to acquire more resources and to find ways to fast-track the project. Given the nature of the project site and the project work, MICC began to explore the possibility of running parallel work-fronts to expedite the project while considering various financial and operational implications.

In early March 2012, an investor sat at home in Gurgaon, India examining the latest financial information about Apollo Tyres Limited, India’s leading tire manufacturer. Over the past decade, the company had significantly diversified its product and geographic mix through organic investment and strategic acquisitions and had experienced superior growth opportunities. Yet, after almost doubling between 2007 and 2010, its share price had not seen any significant appreciation in the last two years, delivering only 12 per cent return between 2010 and 2012. Would this be a good investment? He decided to use the free cash flow discounting valuation technique to identify and value this high growth but undervalued stock.

An immigrant entrepreneur created Hi-Bridge Consulting Corporation, a company that imported and distributed alcoholic products in Canada, among other activities. In 2009, the entrepreneur brought Yanjing beer to Canada from China, even though the Chinese brewery did not have an articulated international expansion strategy in Canada at the time. Despite numerous challenges in the Canadian beer market, the entrepreneur made significant headway. However, six years after the product’s introduction, she understood that many Canadian consumers were still not aware of Yanjing beer and that she needed to find an effective way to increase its market share.

A novice entrepreneur and a strong believer in ethical business practice has tried to build a family-oriented culture in his business process outsourcing company. However, although he created a friendly atmosphere, he still faced performance and attrition issues. The company grew in size and financial worth but the entrepreneur persisted in looking for better opportunities for a new business venture. He developed the idea of a new e-commerce venture that would sell Chinese products online. Juggling human capital risks and entrepreneurial exit, he had to consider the merits of his decision and determine whether to leverage the same team or hire a dedicated team for his new venture.

In February 2011, the senior associate deputy minister of Industry Canada was appointed as the Canadian prime minister’s personal representative to the bi-national team charged with developing the “Beyond the Border Action Plan” to both improve security and streamline cross-border commerce and travel between Canada and the United States. He was immediately faced with a range of decisions on how to proceed — whom to consult, which Canadian team members to hire, which of many possible priorities to pursue in discussions with his U.S. counterparts and which steps to take to manage a complex process involving a multiplicity of large and powerful Canadian government departments and agencies as well as private sector interests. While he didn’t yet have strategies to address these issues, he knew that he would have to formulate them rapidly. Both the prime minister and the U.S. president had made clear their desire to move quickly — ideally, an action plan was to be in place within six months.

In 2012, a highly controversial bill was passed that called for major reform and restructuring of Britain’s government healthcare system, the National Health Service. Public opinion of the reform was both highly polarized and volatile. The Secretary of State for Health faces two tasks: addressing key issues to ensure successful implementation of the reforms and developing a plan to ensure both long-term and short-term success.

Since its inception as an organization dedicated to promoting women’s entrepreneurship through coordinated activities, the Association of Lady Entrepreneurs of Andhra Pradesh (ALEAP) has gone through different phases, acquiring distinct competencies and resources to offer an integrated approach to helping women entrepreneurs. In the two decades of its operations, ALEAP had established two industrial estates. There was scope to establish more industrial estates for women but ALEAP was contending with severe financial and manpower constraints that would make it difficult to pursue the manufacturing route to develop women entrepreneurs. ALEAP’s president believed that it was time to scale up operations and explore new opportunities. However, several questions had to be addressed: What growth strategy should ALEAP adopt? Was it time to look for a new model? Should ALEAP look beyond manufacturing for its growth? Should ALEAP look for innovative approaches to set up incubation centres? Whose support should it seek?

Sound financial management is the most important element in the viability of any business undertaking, and capital investment decisions are the foundation stone of this process. A company can pursue either an internal, organic approach to its financing options or an external, inorganic approach that uses borrowed funds to make acquisitions it hopes will increase its business. This is the route taken by Bharti Airtel Limited, India’s leading telecommunications giant. Beginning in 2010, it has borrowed heavily on the international market to invest in acquisitions of a 3G licence in India, in Zain Africa and in the broadband wireless access branch of Qualcomm Inc. However, due to many causes — including the effects of the global recession on the industry; the highly competitive Indian telecommunications market; restructuring and disorganization in the firm’s top management; and lack of innovation in offering and delivering new services in India — the company has experienced not the growth it expected from its expansion strategy, but a steady decline in profits. How can the management turn this situation around and regain the company’s position as a leader in the telecommunications market in India and globally?

In an initiative to develop its herbal soap offering and create a repositioning strategy for its soap products, one of the front-runners in the Indian skincare market explored the perception of the brand image, using survey data to compare its own image with those of two of its strongest competitors. The challenge for this brand was to reposition itself and build its equity after taking into consideration the perceptual results of the study and the existing positioning of soap brands.

With four outlets of Taco Bell opened in Bangalore, India by December 2013, the managing director of Yum! Restaurants India, the parent company, felt eager to expand. The company took pride in providing the best Mexican-inspired fast food at a low price in a friendly atmosphere. Its target market was young people with global aspirations and/or experiences who were aware of the brand and willing to try something new. India appeared to be a large and fitting market for this quick service restaurant: a population of more than a billion people, the majority of whom were under 35, growing income levels and increasing tastes for international cuisines. Yet, despite a record-breaking launch in 2010, its retail foot traffic was declining. The addition of vegetarian items to the menu had limited success in luring customers to repeat visits. Were the price changes on the new menu reasonable and consistent with the brand promise Taco Bell had made during its launch? What could be done to sustain the company’s survival in India?

After a series of strikes in its Manesar manufacturing plant in 2011, Maruti Suzuki India Limited is beginning to recover from the after-effects of the strike. Amid this tense atmosphere, a minor brawl breaks out between supervisors and workers, then escalates into full-scale violence and arson, which results in the death of the plant’s general manager of human resources. The company locks down the plant, and law enforcement agencies initiate criminal proceedings against the workers. The incident raises serious questions about industrial relations at the plant and, in particular, the suitability of the Japanese management style in the Indian context.<br><br>See A case 9B13C009.

This case deals with the revitalization of Tata Chemicals Ltd. (TCL) by way of significant international acquisitions in the first decade of the new millennium. Set in 2011, TCL has a decision to make on the potential acquisition of a stake in a North American early stage potash development company. This acquisition could allow TCL to set up a fertilizer plant, which might give the company a jumpstart just as earlier acquisitions had helped the company to be ranked number two in the world in soda ash production. As backward integration can be a risky strategy, the acquisition needs to be carefully considered in terms of when to integrate and when to rely on market-driven contractual arrangements.

Sheng Siong was the third-largest supermarket chain in Singapore. Its chief executive officer co-founded it with his two brothers in 1985. Sheng Siong’s business model was well suited to cater to the price-sensitive and more traditional customer segment in Singapore, with a dominant presence in suburban areas called “heartlands.” It also had a unique corporate philosophy, which was influenced by the personal values of its founding family. However, the market became increasingly saturated, competitors were aggressive and costs were rising. The key question was whether Sheng Siong’s original competitive advantage was sustainable and how it could grow.