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A large Mexican conglomerate, active in tourism, real estate, and steel, is faced with difficult macroeconomic conditions beginning with the Peso crisis of December 1994. The conglomerate had extensive dollar-indexed liabilities and was caught in a crunch when the Mexian Peso lost half its value against the dollar in late 1994. Even though a large portion of its revenues were also dollar-indexed, thus ostensibly providing a foreign exchange hedge, most of the conglomerate's customers were Mexican nationals. With the ensuing recession in 1995, the revenue base dried up, but the dollar liabilities were still outstanding. The case covers the period from late 1994 to February 1995 and deals with the financial and operational decision that Sidek had to face at that time.

In the wake of market pressure to restructure, American Cyanamid spun off its poorly performing Chemicals Unit into a new publicly traded corporation, Cytec Industries. In addition to weak operations, Cytec inherited the bulk of Cyanamid's environmental and post-retirement health-care liabilities. The market's assessment of Cytec's prospects was grim. Cytec's managers, all long-time Cyanamid employees, were enthusiastic. They believed they could implement changes in Cytec's strategy and corporate culture that would bring about dramatic performance improvement. The spin-off gave Cytec the opportunity to change management style and adopt practices that were more effective and more suitable to its businesses. This case explores the organizational and managerial implications of spin-off transactions.

Illustrates the "Service Profit Chain" in action. QVC, whose initials stand for Quality, Value,, and Convenience, demonstrates clearly how a strong customer focus can lead to establishing a strong franchise in the retail sector and a highly profitable business whose revenue has grown 14% per year for 1992-96--usually at the expense of the rival Home Shopping Network and through higher customer retention.

BSE or Mad Cow Disease is symptomatic of a series of technology crises. This case deals with how governments, scientists, businessmen, farmers, and the media face very difficult issues under exteme pressure.

Focuses on InterSoft of Argentina, a growing software company in Argentina. In 1993, InterSoft acquires a Russian software company and Emilo Lopez, the vice president and director of InterSoft's Systems Software Lab, must manage a creative, cross-cultural, "virtual" team. This case illustrates InterSoft's origins and highlights the relationship between the founding partners, Lopez and Felix Racca.

In early 1992, Mr. Eu, managing director of Kanzen Tetsu Sdn. Bhd. (KTSB), a new Malaysian producer of stainless steel tubing, received a letter from KTSB's attorney in Washington, DC, informing him that the U.S. Specialty Tube Group had written to the U.S. president concerning stainless steel tubing imported into the United States from Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Malaysia at dumped prices that was causing injury to the U.S. industry. For the next year, Mr. Eu considered how he should respond to this threat, while at the same time increasing KTSB's exports to the United States so that KTSB could meet its sales and profit goals. In March 1993, Mr. Eu was informed that a formal antidumping action had been taken against imports of stainless steel tubing from Malaysia (and other countries). Mr. Eu is considering what he should do now, both to preserve KTSB's market in the United States and maintain alternative markets in other countries.

The CEO of the marketing and refining division of a major oil company is in the midst of implementing a profit turnaround. He transforms the strongly centralized, functionally-organized division into 17 independent business units and 14 internal service companies. The division also launches a new, market-segmented strategy aimed at high-end buyers. The CEO recognizes, however, that the new organization and strategy require a new measurement system. He turns to the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) because of its ability to link measurement to strategy, and to help the new profit-center managers develop customized strategies for their local responsibilities. The case describes the development of the initial divisional BSC, the linkage of the divisional BSC to independent business unit and internal service company BSCs, and linkage of the BSC to managers' compensation. Concludes with the senior executives reflecting on how they are using the BSC in their management processes.

The Royal Dutch/Shell Group of companies owns a petroleum platform, the Brent Spar, in the North Sea. The Brent Spar is an oil storage facility and tanker loading buoy. It came to the end of its useful life and was taken out of commission in September 1991. After a thorough study of the environmental impact of various disposal options, Shell concluded that deep water disposal was the safest strategy. The German arm of Greenpeace mounted an aggressive public campaign against this action, affecting public opinion to the point where Shell changed its disposal plans and opted for on-land dismantling.

The purpose of the case is to help students understand the complex nature of a visible and expensive organizational buying process. The goal is to help students appreciate the nature of the selling task, the complex interplay of different decision-making-unit members, and both the political and economic factors that often permeate such purchasing decisions. The A case (see also the B case, UVA-M-0471) documents the procurement-decision process used by Los Angeles to purchase light-rail cars for its subway system. The A case traces the bidding process and ends with the final award.

Set in 1994, this case concerns a subsidiary of Westmoreland Coal that is considering whether to proceed alone as the international partner and developer of a coal-fired electric power plant in Zhangze, China. The domestic partner, the government's electric power agency, has proposed a build-operate-transfer (BOT) project financing in which Westmoreland Energy (WEI) would receive returns over 20 years and then exit. The internal rate of return on the project appears to exceed the CEO's target rate, though the project developer, Dorothy Hampton, is concerned about a variety of risks and the appropriateness of the target hurdle rate. The tasks for the student are to evaluate the risks, estimate a target rate of return, exercise the valuation model (which is given in the case), and recommend any changes in the deal structure that can help WEI achieve its goals. The objectives of the case are to (1) exercise students' capabilities in analyzing a complex investment-financing transaction from the standpoints of various project participants (the key tasks are risk analysis and valuation), (2) illustrate the financial effects of debt leverage and equity leverage (the focus of attention is on the creation of value and its sources, risk shifting, and wealth transfers), and (3) assess the characteristics and challenges of project financings and development projects in emerging economies.

A summer intern is asked to perform a financial value analysis of a company's financial report for the period 1987-1994.

In 1995, Hewlett-Packard Home Products Division (HPD) has the assignment to make Hewlett-Packard the third major home PC player worldwide. With the U.S. launch imminent, the HPD team has to decide how to enter the European market.

Illustrates: 1) the impact of a manager's leadership style on corporate culture, direction, and performance; 2) the concept of fit between leadership style and the requirements of situations in which managers find themselves; and 3) the need for managers to adapt their styles as situational requirements change. More specifically, it provides an opportunity to look at some of the special issues of: 1) being a black woman manager; 2) the advantages and disadvantages associated with a "family corporate culture"; and 3) managing in a creative business. Does not substantially differ from the (A) case, but it does emphasize more strongly Suzanne de Passe's success. Students have misunderstood the standards of the entertainment industry, and this case makes Motown's accomplishments clearer.

Watermill Ventures acquires and turns around an underperforming business. The case describes the criteria the company uses to identify acquisition candidates, its screening and selection process, and the way it introduces strategic thinking at the business it acquires. Steve Karol, Watermill's founder, is concerned because the company has only acquired two companies in its three years of operation. He is considering a number of actions, including establishing a Web site to broaden the base of contact.

John Hansen, CEO of ThermoLase, must develop a plan of action to exploit the company's new development-stage revolutionary hair removal technology with negligible revenues and a $500 million market capitalization. This nascent public Thermo Electron spin out company has the opportunity to change the U.S. beauty industry if Hansen can develop and execute an effective rollout strategy. Teachng Purpose: To introduce students to the Thermo Electron development strategy in the context of a high-potential, development-stage, retail/consumer-oriented business.

Eve Stacey, a recent Harvard MBA, has the challenging task of evaluating the market opportunity for NutraSweet in China. She must decide how best to develop the market for the product in China. May be used with NutraSweet in China (B).

A medium-sized investment management firm is attempting to decide whether to try to grow, and if so, how. It is a complicated decision because the managing partner and her colleagues have significantly different views. This case provides the background on the industry, firm, and situation.

Set in January 1994, this case concerns a discussion between a money manager and her assistant about approaches for analyzing an offering of convertible bonds by Boston Chicken. The analysis compares the insights available from standard descriptive ratios with those available from valuation analysis. The case is intended to be a student's first exercise in analyzing convertible bonds, and it assumes some familiarity with option-pricing theory and bond valuation. The format of the case (clear tasks and conversational style) is intended to disarm the novice. Nevertheless, the case raises many important and interesting points that will easily fill a class period.

This case exercise enables an understanding of applying Queuing models in the context of Queues in a post office. The issues of universalization of country due to computerization, appropriate segmentation of client system to help demand analysis are also highlighted.

The financial vice president must decide the value and form of an acquisition offer to be made to a small hand tool company.