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Accenture is a leading global consulting, technology, and outsourcing company. It has clients and its own operations throughout the world. This case describes the human resources and related activities necessary to deliver its services to clients. It allows students to explore how Accenture predicts its staffing needs, identifies the necessary skills, identifies how to recruit staff, when to hire them, in what parts of the world, how to develop, compensate, and motivate them, how to form them into project teams, and manage the process in a cost effective manner. The case also provides a fictional example of an Accenture project. A potential client has issued a request for proposals to deliver a technology project. Students are asked to create a project team with the right mix of people at a cost that is competitive enough to win the project.

James Amphlett, a financial analyst with Xenon Capital LLC, gathered information about NetSuite Inc., a company whose shares Xenon might purchase for its computer software portfolio. NetSuite provided cloud-based financial and enterprise resource planning software to customers for a recurring subscription fee. The company's stock price performance over the last few years was nothing short of spectacular, having increased from around $10 per share at the end of 2008 to over $110 per share at the end of 2013. NetSuite was one of many companies that provide cloud-based computing services, and were often referred to as software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies. NetSuite generated sales through both direct and indirect approaches, with most selling activities conducted over the phone by its sales force. Xenon's portfolio manager asked Amphlett to pay close attention to the company's accounting methods, particularly its revenue and expense recognition methods. Xenon had become quite wary of companies such as salesforce.com, ADT, and Pre-Paid Legal Services, which experienced significant stock price declines after popular press articles criticized their accounting policies. Such stories invited close scrutiny from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Recently, software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies have attracted considerable attention from the investment community because their services were sold to customers on a subscription basis and services were delivered over the internet through applications on mobile phones, tablets and other portable devices. Because software provided by SaaS companies required considerably less investment in infrastructure (servers, software engineers) than traditional software vendors such as Oracle and SAP, they were affordable to far more companies. And because of a much larger total addressable market, over 200 SaaS had gone public through initial public offerings (IPO) in the last five years to take advantage for the demand for SaaS applications by small and medium-sized companies. Southern Cross LLC, an investment fund with over $20 billion under management, had established a SaaS portfolio to which it planned to add several high quality companies. Once such company under consideration was Workday, Inc. Workday provided cloud-based human capital management (HCM) and financial management (FM) computer applications to customers for an upfront subscription fee. Southern Cross had assigned Andrew Ferris, a recently hired MBA graduate, to evaluate Workday. Workday solicited customers for its software offerings through its direct sales organization. Southern Cross's portfolio manager had asked Ferris to scrutinize the company's accounting methods, particularly its revenue and expense recognition methods. Upfront revenue recognition and capitalizing and amortizing some indirect outlays were well known methods for enhancing a company's bottom line.

VMD Medical Imaging Center, a local independent provider of medical imaging services, is facing some important challenges. Despite efficiency improvements and cost cutting initiatives carried out over the past few years, their profitability is shrinking, their prices are becoming uncompetitive, and their main customer, a large regional research and teaching hospital, is threatening to seek alternative, more cost-effective, suppliers. The case addresses a number of important challenges that firms typically face with respect to designing and maintaining their costing systems, including the need to keep the costing system in line with the business processes of the firm throughout its life cycle, the setting of transfer prices, which highlights the interdependencies between costing systems and pricing strategies, and the demand-induced death spiral, which is brought about by a shift in sales mix from labor intensive to technology intensive imaging services. In addition, this case offers an opportunity to develop the class discussion in multiple directions, at the discretion of the instructor, such as the role of costing systems in organizations, the relationship between costing and strategy, and the facilitating role of costing with respect to cross-functional coordination.

This case challenges students to review a series of corporate financial metrics and to match them to one of the 13 labeled and listed industries. It is suitable for MBA and undergraduate students ready to expand their basic understanding of financial metrics.

In November 2014, The Dow Chemical Company was faced with the prospect of a proxy battle with prominent hedge fund and activist investor Third Point Management. The activist had criticized Dow's recent performance and advocated that the company split itself to maximize its potential. The activist also proposed two director candidates to join Dow's board. Third Point offered its director nominees what had come to be known as a "golden leash" incentive structure - a significant amount of incentive payment from the investor if the company performed well. Supporters and critics had weighed in on the pros and cons of such incentive schemes for corporate independent directors. Faced with the prospect of a proxy fight, Dow's board had to decide whether to invite the two directors on to the company's board knowing they came with the special payment scheme from the hedge fund.

The owner and manager of a small garden shop that opened on January 1 needs to analyze and record transactions, prepare financial statements, and assess the company's performance during its first year of operations. She also needs to provide a set of financial statements for her bank, as she is required to do annually based on her loan agreement. Students will prepare journal entries, post this information to T-accounts, record the necessary adjusting entries and post to T-accounts, prepare an income statement that summarizes results of operations for the year, and prepare a balance sheet as of December 31.

Supplement to case UV7159. The owner and manager of a small garden shop needs to prepare the financial statements for the shop's second year of operation. These financial statements will assess the financial performance of her company during the year, as well as take stock of its financial position at the end of the year and will be important to loan officers at her bank where the company had obtained two loans, and to an equity investor in the company. Students will prepare journal entries, post this information to T-accounts, record the necessary adjusting entries and post to T-accounts, and prepare an income statement that summarizes results of operations for the year.

A physician is thinking about starting a new business. Students must translate her ideas into a beginning balance sheet.

Supplement to case TCG037. This is a follow-on to the Narcolarm (A) case. It begins with the balance sheet developed in the (A) case and adds some events for the first year of operations. The case helps to bring the accounting information together.

This case gives students the opportunity to examine the operating cycle. They see how a manager's decisions can affect both the cycle, and, perhaps most importantly, how to manage the amount of cash that an entity needs to operate.

Supplement to case TCG041. This case builds on the J. Prep (A) case but adds a couple of twists, including the need for students to identify and record three adjusting entries. They also must include the effect of accumulated depreciation in the accounts.

This is a relatively simple introductory case, designed to give students practice in constructing a balance sheet and to begin to think about the meaning of assets, liabilities and equity.

Supplement to case TCG046. This is a follow-on case to the Carson Realty Company (A) case. It adds some complications to the situation. It requires students to use T accounts and to prepare a full ste of financial statements, including a statement of cash flows.

The associate director of hospitality services at a large university had to address overcapacity at an on-campus eatery. The eatery was experiencing long lineups and severe bottlenecks, especially at its full-service coffee outlet. Seating capacity was also short of demand, and no additional space was available. The associate director also faced pressure from university administration to consider closing a nearby eatery as a result of its poor profitability, but doing so would put additional strain on the already overcapacity eatery. After examining profitability and completing a corporate assessment, the associate director expected to have a better idea of how to tackle the current capacity and profitability issues.

In July 2015, the chief executive officer of Toshiba Corporation (Toshiba) resigned over the revelation of a JP¥151.8 billion accounting scandal that shocked the world. Toshiba, a Japanese multinational conglomerate with net sales of JP¥6.5 trillion and total assets of ¥6.2 trillion, had been widely criticized in the news for the multi-billion-dollar accounting fraud. The company’s stock prices declined by 38 per cent after the accounting probe was announced, and the company withdrew the dividend that had been declared earlier. These setbacks challenged company investors, who had always regarded Toshiba as a reputable company. The investors were wondering the same thing as everyone else watching the scandal unfold: How could a company with a 140-year history do this, and why? What were the consequences? What should Toshiba do in response to this crisis?

In July 2015, the chief executive officer of Toshiba Corporation (Toshiba) resigned over the revelation of a JPÂ¥151.8 billion accounting scandal that shocked the world. Toshiba, a Japanese multinational conglomerate with net sales of JPÂ¥6.5 trillion and total assets of JPÂ¥6.2 trillion, had been widely criticized in the news for the multi-billion-dollar accounting fraud. The company's stock prices declined by 38% after the accounting probe was announced, and the company withdrew the dividend that had been declared earlier. These setbacks challenged company investors, who had always regarded Toshiba as a reputable company. The investors were wondering the same thing as everyone else watching the scandal unfold: how could a company with a 140-year history do this, and why? What were the consequences? What should Toshiba do in response to this crisis?

In March 2016, BP disclosed that its Chief Executive Officer, Bob Dudley, would receive a $19.6 million compensation package, a 20% increase in total compensation over the previous year. BP justified the amount, emphasizing that the company delivered strong results despite an exceptionally challenging environment, which included a nearly 50% drop in oil prices. However, shareholders questioned the massive payout and ultimately rejected BP's remuneration report in April 2016. Was BP right to give a generous pay package despite the industry slump? Or was it "unreasonable and insensitive," as shareholder Royal London Asset Management claimed?

Supplement to "Survey Masters LLC (A)" 107061.

The owner of a designer handbag company, 442 McAdam, found she could no longer manufacture in-house the quantity of handbags required to meet existing orders. Manufacturing would need to be outsourced, and the owner would have to choose between a local manufacturer and an overseas manufacturer. Local manufacturers offered the same quality as overseas manufacturers but charged higher prices. International manufacturers, while offering lower prices, required larger minimum order quantities. Regardless of the manufacturing option she chose, the owner wondered whether the minimum levels of inventory she needed to order could be sold within the upcoming six-month style season.