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In its annual report for the financial year (FY) 2018/19, Reliance Industries Limited reported an unprecedented ₹596.74 billion as other comprehensive income (OCI). The OCI affected the statement of profit and loss (P&L), the balance sheet, and the statement of changes in equity. India converged its accounting standards with the International Financial Reporting Standards, effective FY 2017 onward. The converged accounting standards required an entity to present the statement of P&L and OCI in two sections, with the sum of the two reported as the total comprehensive income. The requirement to present a separate statement of changes in equity was also introduced in India. Though the concept of OCI was new to India, it had been used globally since 1997. The classification of income and expenses to either P&L or OCI as well as the subsequent reclassification of OCI to P&L have remained subjects of debate. The exercise discusses the nature, reporting, and reclassification of OCI, as well as its impact on key financial ratios.

VaycayNation was a German start-up operating an online travel and booking portal. Despite its recent growth, the firm still had low brand awareness in the German market. As a remedy, the chief executive officer planned to invest in a major television advertising campaign to attract more visitors to the company’s website and thus improve its customer awareness. He wanted to build the campaign based on a solid understanding of how executional campaign elements related to the firm’s website traffic. He asked his newly hired team member to use her analytical skills to prepare the data, structure her analysis, and interpret the results in order to provide clear guidance for him and the company.

This annually updated exercise assesses one’s exposure to the rest of the world’s peoples. A series of worksheets require the respondents to check off the number and names of countries they have visited whether for business, family or tourism reasons, and the corresponding percentage of world population which each country represents. The summary of a group’s collective exposure to the world’s people will inevitably be the recognition that together they have seen much, even if individually some have seen little. The teaching note provides assignments and discussion questions which look at: why there is such a high variability in individual profiles; the implications of each profile for one’s business career; and, what it would take for the respondent to change his/her profile.<br><br>For marketers, it underscores the need to gather greater base knowledge about opportunities in 211 countries spread across 8 regions: Africa; North America and Caribbean; South America; Western Europe; Eastern Europe; Central Asia and Indian Subcontinent; Middle East; Asia Pacific.

The chief marketing officer (CMO) at an automobile agency was looking at a list of car model features, which he had received from the manufacturing plant. He was expected to provide the manufacturer’s suggested retail prices of the cars to dealers the following week and had to decide on the base prices. The CMO asked a data scientist at the research lab to predict prices using the data of past car models. Each car model had different features that could affect the price. The data scientist decided to use feed-forward neural networks as a tool for predicting the prices of new models. After comparing different prediction models, he also wanted to determine which prediction model was suitable for car manufacturing plants.

In 2016, the Volkswagen Group (VW Group) announced a new future program, Together–Strategy 2025, which outlined the company’s ambition of becoming “a world-leading provider of sustainable mobility” by 2025. The VW Group made it clear that innovation and technology would be essential enablers to the success of the new strategy. In 2018, VW Group, like other players in the automotive industry, was increasingly drawn to artificial intelligence (AI), which could be used in areas including manufacturing, autonomous vehicles, and data analytics.

In 2016, the Volkswagen Group (VW Group) announced a new future program, Together-Strategy 2025, which outlined the company's ambition of becoming "a world-leading provider of sustainable mobility" by 2025. The VW Group made it clear that innovation and technology would be essential enablers to the success of the new strategy. In 2018, VW Group, like other players in the automotive industry, was increasingly drawn to artificial intelligence (AI), which could be used in areas including manufacturing, autonomous vehicles, and data analytics.

The series of Janet Ames cases follow a fictional alumna of Harvard Business School into her consulting career in Boston. Over the series of cases, Ames is first offered the opportunity to join the board of a Boston-based non-profit organization, which offers students a chance to consider what questions they may have should such an opportunity arise within their first four to five years out of graduate school. Ames does join the board, and in the subsequent cases, questions emerge about whether an organization should have a fundraising screen, succession planning, and fiscal controls. The cases can be taught in a lively single session as each concludes with a discrete choices and opportunity for rich class debate in a realistic and, for some, likely set of personal and professional choices.

On February 24, 2016, HTL International Holdings Ltd (HTL), a Singapore-based furniture company, announced that it had entered into a purchase agreement with Guangdong Yihua Timber Industry Co. Ltd (Yihua). According to the agreement, which was subject to approvals, Yihua would pay SG$1.00 for each share of HTL. However, the agreement required that HTL meet set profit targets in each of the next three years. A compensation agreement between HTL's controlling shareholder and Yihua stipulated that if HTL did not make its profit targets, HTL's controlling shareholder would make up the shortfall to Yihua. When the agreement was announced, HTL's share price was at $0.70, and the $0.30 gap signalled uncertainty about whether Yihua's shareholders would agree to the acquisition. Minority shareholders and potential investors, who were not bound by the profit guarantee, needed to decide whether they should buy, sell, or hold HTL's shares.

On February 24, 2016, HTL International Holdings Ltd (HTL), a Singapore-based furniture company, announced that it had entered into a purchase agreement with Guangdong Yihua Timber Industry Co. Ltd (Yihua). According to the agreement, which was subject to approvals, Yihua would pay SG$1.00 for each share of HTL. However, the agreement required that HTL meet set profit targets in each of the next three years. A compensation agreement between HTL’s controlling shareholder and Yihua stipulated that if HTL did not make its profit targets, HTL’s controlling shareholder would make up the shortfall to Yihua. When the agreement was announced, HTL’s share price was at $0.70, and the $0.30 gap signalled uncertainty about whether Yihua’s shareholders would agree to the acquisition. Minority shareholders and potential investors, who were not bound by the profit guarantee, needed to decide whether they should buy, sell, or hold HTL’s shares.

On April 14, 2014, CapitaLand Limited, a Singapore-based real estate company, launched a voluntary conditional cash offer of SG$2.22 for each share (SG$3.06 billion in total) of its subsidiary commercial property development and management company, CapitaMalls Asia Limited (CMA). CMA’s principal business strategy was to invest in, develop, and manage a diversified portfolio of real estate used primarily for retail purposes in Asia. CapitaLand’s offer represented a 22.3 per cent premium over CMA’s closing price of SG$1.815 on April 11, 2014. The intention was to delist CMA and fully integrate it into CapitaLand.<br><br>As an investor in CMA, you are seeking a reasonable valuation of CMA based on its past financial performance and other relevant market information. You also need to compute the premium, net present value (NPV), and synergy of the acquisition.

On April 14, 2014, CapitaLand Limited, a Singapore-based real estate company, launched a voluntary conditional cash offer of SG$2.22 for each share (SG$3.06 billion in total) of its subsidiary commercial property development and management company, CapitaMalls Asia Limited (CMA). CMA's principal business strategy was to invest in, develop, and manage a diversified portfolio of real estate used primarily for retail purposes in Asia. CapitaLand's offer represented a 22.3 per cent premium over CMA's closing price of SG$1.815 on April 11, 2014. The intention was to delist CMA and fully integrate it into CapitaLand. As an investor in CMA, you are seeking a reasonable valuation of CMA based on its past financial performance and other relevant market information. You also need to compute the premium, net present value (NPV), and synergy of the acquisition.

A management science professor had an unpleasant experience with a hotel she stayed at in New York City. Consequently, she wanted to figure out if hotel ratings were enough to recommend a hotel, or if customers’ text reviews could be used as more important and accurate indicators of customers’ hotel experiences. The exercise serves as an introduction to the topic of text analytics—specifically, sentiment analysis—and introduces the concept of text mining and the importance of dealing with unstructured datasets. Much of the exercise focuses on the method and rationale behind document indexing and the subsequent weighting of the indexed terms through term frequency–inverse document frequency. Textual data from customers’ hotel reviews are provided to apply the text mining techniques and to provide insight for a better decision-making process that would help the professor in her next hotel booking.

On March 8, 2017, Singapore-based food outlet operator Kimly Limited (Kimly) announced its intention to go for an initial public offering (IPO). Through this IPO, it aimed to raise SG$43.5 million. Altogether, 173.8 million new shares would be issued at SG$0.25 per share, comprising a retail tranche of 3.8 million shares and a placement tranche of 170 million shares. The chances of successfully getting Kimly’s IPO shares were slim, given the small retail tranche. In addition, the controlling shareholder and other key shareholders were subject to lock-up periods, which would prevent a short-term overhang of the shares. These factors implied that the supply of Kimly’s shares would be scarce in the initial six months after the IPO, which could have a positive impact on the share price. A retail investor, drawn to the issue because of Kimly’s identity as a family firm, applied for the IPO and was also considering purchasing shares in the aftermarket later in March. Was this a worthwhile investment, and if so, what should this investor’s maximum price be? Should such an investor plan to sell immediately or hold for the long term?

On March 8, 2017, Singapore-based food outlet operator Kimly Limited (Kimly) announced its intention to go for an initial public offering (IPO). Through this IPO, it aimed to raise SG$43.5 million. Altogether, 173.8 million new shares would be issued at SG$0.25 per share, comprising a retail tranche of 3.8 million shares and a placement tranche of 170 million shares. The chances of successfully getting Kimly's IPO shares were slim, given the small retail tranche. In addition, the controlling shareholder and other key shareholders were subject to lock-up periods, which would prevent a short-term overhang of the shares. These factors implied that the supply of Kimly's shares would be scarce in the initial six months after the IPO, which could have a positive impact on the share price. A retail investor, drawn to the issue because of Kimly's identity as a family firm, applied for the IPO and was also considering purchasing shares in the aftermarket later in March. Was this a worthwhile investment, and if so, what should this investor's maximum price be? Should such an investor plan to sell immediately or hold for the long term?

As a typical investor in India, you sought to attain reasonable growth in her capital with adequate diversification and low volatility in returns. It was suggested that you consider investing in mutual funds in order to obtain diversified exposure to India's equity and debt markets. In particular, it was suggested that you invest in the Tata Equity P/E Fund, which had witnessed stellar performance in the recent past. However, before you can decide whether to invest in mutual funds, you must thoroughly understand the key features and their benefits and costs. You also need to identify specific sources of outperformance and to assess the fund's true outperformance, actively attained after adjusting for risk.