個案總覽

The case addresses the birth of Tencent Music Entertainment Group, China's music streaming leader. The case features two protagonists. One of them is Guomin Xie, a legally-trained senior executive at Sina.com, an early and highly influential Chinese internet company, employed in the period approximately from the beginning of that company's existence in the late 1990s until 2012. It was a highly challenging period for China's legitimate music market resulting in pervasive piracy. Among Guomin Xie's corporate responsibilities at Sina.com was acting as the head of Sina Music, a fledgling music streaming platform, which in turn enabled him to gain an extraordinary familiarity with China's struggling music market. Aided by his legal education and experience with China's imperfect copyright enforcement, he became consumed with a vision to create a major new company which would help kill the piracy cancer. The business model of the new company would combine streaming of legitimate music with exclusive ownership or rental of music copyrights. As the top management of Sina.com was not interested in pursuing Xie's vision, which would require major investments, he quit his job in 2012 and turned to entrepreneurship by founding China Music Corporation ("CMC"). He was faced immediately with three main challenges in his entrepreneurial career - (1) to enter into exclusive copyright agreements with music labels; (2) acquire two existing music streaming platforms; and (3) pursue fundraising. By September of the following year, he made good progress on the first two objectives, but still needed to close in on fundraising in order to complete challenge.

Costco Wholesale Corporation (Costco), the world's second-largest retailer, officially entered the Chinese market in Shanghai in August 2019. The opening day was so jam-packed with customers that the massive influx forced the company to close early, after only five hours of operations. However, after only one week, customers were lining up outside the store, asking Costco for refunds for their membership cards. The warehouse's traffic declined significantly as well. What caused this situation? Did Costco make the right decision to enter the Chinese market? Does Costco's membership system fit the Chinese market? What kinds of challenges will Costco face in the future?

In February 2019, Tim Hortons, Canada's iconic coffee franchise, opened its first coffee shop in China in Shanghai, thereby extending its international footprint to China. To accomplish this entry, Restaurant Brands International (RBI), the parent company of Tim Hortons, formed a joint venture (JV) Tim Hortons (China) Holdings Co., Ltd. (Tims China) with Cartesian Capital, a private equity fund that had operated in China for more than twenty years. As the minority owner, RBI granted Tims China the master franchise rights, covering the use of trademarks, core products, store management procedures, and so on. Cartesian Capital, on the other hand, held majority ownership and would manage the strategy and daily operation of the joint enterprise. A veteran of Cartesian Capital was dispatched to the JV to be its chief executive officer. The fast-growing coffee market in China presented enormous opportunities, but Tim Hortons was a latecomer compared with foreign brands like Starbucks and numerous local coffee providers. In this situation, how should he best position and expand Tim Hortons in the new market?

This case follows the formation and growth of Guild, a company founded on the mission to unlock opportunity for America's workforce through education and upskilling for working employees. By connecting employees to educational programs through its three-sided marketplace, Guild increased access to learning opportunities for employees, improved retention and employee satisfaction for companies, and drove higher numbers of learners for universities. The case explores several leadership dilemmas in the context of Guild's rapid growth and success.

This case is set in 2020. In the latest credit cards sub-sector report from the Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) survey by the Institute of Service Excellence (ISE) at the Singapore Management University, OCBC Bank's credit card business was ranked last again in terms of customer satisfaction, while an analysis of two key customer loyalty metrics, namely 'likelihood to use the credit card again' and 'likelihood to recommend their card', saw the bank faring only slightly better for the former, but again ranked last for the latter. Given these findings, Tammy Ang, an analyst at ISE, had been tasked with preparing a business consulting pitch for OCBC Bank's credit card business. Using her skills in business analytics, Ang hoped to use the data to provide useful insights for the bank to improve its customer loyalty performance.

CEL was a loss-making Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) with many problems of discipline, operational inefficiencies, aggressive unions, skill gaps and high employee cost. The past restructuring of the company has not led to performance improvement. At the time, CEL had already eroded its net worth by nearly 90% and was merely INR 66 Million as against a paid-up capital of INR 558 Million. A glance at its balance sheet showed a large number of qualifications reflecting the health of systems in the company. CEL was established in the year 1974 as a Central Public Sector Enterprise, under the Ministry of Science & Technology, with an objective to commercialise technologies developed by National Laboratories and Research & Development Institutions in the country. In subsequent years, it had taken up the manufacturing of a wide range of products in collaboration with various labs & institutions. CEL initially started off with manufacturing of Ferrites as its primary business. Soon afterwards, it started its two key business verticals, Solar Photovoltaics (PV) and Railway Signalling systems. CEL is credited with pioneering the growth of Solar PV in India and holds the distinction of manufacturing India's First Solar Cell in 1977 and India's First Solar Panel in 1978. Later in 1991-92, CEL supplied and installed India's first Solar Power Plants (two 100 KW power plants in Aligarh and Ghosi Districts). These plants started operations in 1993. CEL had entered into the field of Solar PV in an era when the technology was largely limited to the domain of space research and there were only a handful of organisations in the field, even globally. CEL was the fourth largest manufacturer of solar modules in the world in late 1980s. CEL has played a pioneering role in a number of other areas as well, including development of Piezo elements for various applications-Ferrite based Phase Control Modules for Radar Arrays, Cadmium Zinc Telluride Substrates for night vision devices, etc.

Cliff Asness was facing a dilemma into how he would plunge his hedge fund into the hottest investment area worldwide - ESG Investing. Founder and managing principal of AQR - one the most storied quantitative hedge funds in the world - Asness knew anything less than a big splash was not an option. To this end, Asness was planning to launch a liquid equity long-short fund he hoped would appeal to ESG sensitive clients. Shorting was unheard of in the ESG space, but Asness knew that it could send a new, and powerful message, on carbon neutrality - and ESG weighting more broadly - that he hoped ESG investors were ready to send. He would soon find out just that...

BUA Group must decide between investments in cement, road building, power generation, or sugar. Private businesses are important to economic development in Africa. Students must assess the competitive nature of each of these industries, the magnitude of capital investments and recurring costs and revenues, and the skills required to lead in each of these sectors. Additional considerations include federal and government policy to either regulate or stimulate each of these industries, the competitive set, and the relative size and impact of risks and uncertainties in each industry.

The Board of ICICI Bank was meeting on January 30, 2019, to decide the action to be taken against the Bank's former MD & CEO, Chanda Kochhar, in response to an independent investigation report that found her guilty of violation of the Bank's code of conduct pertaining to conflict of interest. The non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank, Girish Chandra Chaturvedi, must decide the possible actions the Board might consider against Kochhar. Punitive action against Kochhar would be a reversal of an earlier decision of the Board to allowing Chanda Kochhar to resign without any cause (Termination Simplicter). Maintaining status quo on the decision could hurt the credibility of the Board and the reputation of the Bank. While evaluating the choices, Chaturvedi must maintain professional integrity and be fair to Kochhar. He had to frame the justifications for the choices he would put before a possibly divided Board.

Based in Shanghai, China, Huazhu Group, the world's third-largest hotel operator, was known for its standardized IT system. It helped the company boost efficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief Digital Officer Xinxin Liu also faced some longer-term challenges: What resources and digital strategy would the company need as it tapped into the higher-end hotel market to become a multi-brand hotel giant? How should Huazhu balance the needs between using its IT solutions to scale its own operations on one hand and to empower other hotels on the other?

In February 2016, the principal dealer of several European luxury automotive dealerships learned from Audi of America LLC (Audi) that he would have to relocate one of his dealerships to a new location. The relocation would be to a new market area and the dealer would most likely lose his current customer base. Instead, the dealer used the opportunity to create a new business model for auto retailing that could enable him to maintain his market share without having to comply with Audi's relocation requirement. His new concept, named "Carcierge" and opened in 2016, was showing initial success, but the dealer wondered whether the boutique sales model he developed would be viable in the long run.

Bengaluru Airport began an expansion project worth US$2 billion in 2018, but by mid-2020 COVID-19 had severely impacted the aviation industry and reduced passenger volume at the airport by half. Although the airport's leadership team had detected the crisis early and taken swift action, with no cure for the virus in sight business continuity and staff safety were in jeopardy. The next board meeting was in August 2020, less than seven weeks away, and the pandemic threatened to derail the expansion plans. Among other pressing questions the leadership team had to address-including whether to continue with the expansion plan, reduce its scope, or delay it-was whether they had done enough throughout the crisis to inspire confidence.

As a senior project manager for the Colombian office of a consulting services firm, Lucia is responsible for hiring decisions regarding junior consultants. During a recent recruitment process, Lucia found out that a candidate who achieved a perfect score on the written test had cheated, with the help of Lucia's subordinate and close friend. She further learned that this candidate was motivated to commit fraud because of the medical needs of his young daughter. This A case asks students to step into Lucia's shoes and figure out an action plan that is both developmental (rather than merely punitive) and true to her values. This case set is intended for undergraduate students taking leadership, human resources, or ethics courses. The approach is based on the Giving Voice to Values (GVV) curriculum authored by Mary C. Gentile.

In 2019, two fatal plane crashes plunged Boeing in an unprecedented crisis, setting off a maelstrom of controversy about Boeing's corporate practices and the safety of the 737 MAX - the recently redesigned version of its most successful commercial jetliner. Within weeks, the MAX was grounded worldwide, and Boeing faced financial, legal, regulatory and reputational pressures. All while under intense media scrutiny and heightened safety concerns from the flying public. And then the COVID-19 pandemic hit the aviation industry, escalating the crisis into an existential threat to Boeing's commercial aviation business. Amid this perfect storm, Boeing executives faced one key question: How to restore Boeing's reputation as a leading aircraft manufacturer?

In 2019, Paratent Event Rentals Ltd. was facing the possibility of year end net losses. The co-owners of this Canadian business had recently invested in premium inventory, but a lackluster first quarter showed that they were not forecasted to get return on their investments. A new method of cost allocation was proposed to get Paratent back on track. When choosing between three conflicting future contracts, both the old and new methods of cost allocation needed to be implemented and considered. Using qualitative and quantitative analyses, Paratent needed to decide which job would be the most profitable and which cost allocation method to use in the future.

The key objective of this case is to provide students with the skills and understanding of how out-of-home (OOH) advertising is utilized as a channel for brands to communicate their messages to consumers, as well as how a media company contributes to the value chain in the industry. The six examples cited in the case illustrate the concept in practice as well as the developing trend of the interactive outdoor-and-online (O&O) model going forward. The case describes a situation faced by Asiaray Media Group (Asiaray), a company founded by Vincent Lam in Hong Kong in 1993. Despite entering the market as a latecomer amid fierce competition, Asiaray has grown in stature as a media enterprise and gained a strong foothold in Greater China and Singapore. Its success was largely attributed to its innovative spirit, particularly in developing its Space Management concept as highlighted in the case studies. The pandemic which began in 2020 brought disruptive and unprecedented changes to the economy and the advertising landscape. Despite signs of recovery in the first half of 2021, the company recorded a net loss of HK$113.7 million in the period, and its share price had plummeted close to 75% from just before the pandemic. Based on what he and the company have learned and built in the past, Vincent must now seek and seize the next opportunity, with innovation being a key for survival in these changing times.

Norman Müller and René Serrano, cofounders of Fondeadora, a Mexican "neobank," had lined up a $12.5 million in Series A funding round in 2020 only to run into a major obstacle: The lead investor was Gradient Ventures, a venture firm launched by Alphabet, Inc., and Mexican banking law would require personal financial disclosures from Alphabet's biggest owners, including Google's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. That would be a non-starter with them. To stay under a 5% ownership threshold, Mexican banking regulators had established for such disclosures, Müller and Serrano faced two choices: work with Gradient and the lawyers to try to put together an alternative structure or syndicate the round among multiple investors, with no lead for their Series A. Müller and Serrano had deployed new fundraising approaches before. They had tapped an early crowdfunding platform for money, as well as friends and family and other angels. They had used a Mexican adaptation of SAFE notes, a financial instrument created by YC for early-stage fundraising. Could two designers turned fintech entrepreneurs get creative once again?

Since 1989, US companies have been trying--mostly unsuccessfully--to marry the ease of ordering groceries online with the convenience of home delivery. All have learned that the combination of customer demands and logistical challenges has made it difficult to be profitable in this space. Unlike retailers of standard items (such as books), sellers of groceries had to exercise judgment when selecting fresh meat, fruits, and vegetables to satisfy consumers' tastes. Once selected, many items needed to be packed in specific ways and required timely delivery to maintain freshness and quality. In addition, the "last mile" of delivery was costly and highly variable between high-density urban customers and those in more dispersed suburban and rural communities. Customers were familiar with in-store prices and resisted paying more, a preference reinforced by Amazon and other online retailers, which had created an expectation that online prices should be the same as--or even lower than--prices in stores. In addition, customers had a strong aversion to delivery charges, even if delivery saved them time. They also much preferred the convenience of narrow time windows for delivery and had a low tolerance for mistakes.