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El Mawardy Jewelry was an Egyptian jewelry company located in Cairo, Egypt. The company was able to attract many customers due to its variety of designs, high-quality products, and competitive prices. The friendly atmosphere and customized services provided by the salespeople helped the company gain a competitive advantage. The Mawardy family was able to build on its success and open different stores across Egypt. In 2009, the financial crisis hit Egypt and many businesses were negatively affected. Faced with this challenge and a goal to go international, the Mawardy family considered different possibilities. The company had many options, but decided to focus on Qatar and the United Kingdom. It needed to decide whether it was better to expand now or later. It also needed to consider where to expand first — Qatar or the United Kingdom.

This case identifies the approach taken by Partners HealthCare to better manage the commercialization of its intellectual property (IP). Existing processes did not leverage the shared resources, such as business development efforts and the research centres created as a consequence of the formation of Partners HealthCare in 1995. Partners was the largest hospital organization and second-largest non-university recipient of research funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH). As such, it generated a vast and varied body of IP constituting an asset of considerable value to Partners and those it served. The leadership of Partners viewed it as their mission to the organization and to the greater health care community to vigorously pursue commercializing innovation generated through research efforts. <br><br>The case considers the organizational structure and how this structure enabled a cohesive commercialization effort. It includes three vignettes that involve research projects that precede the creation of the Research, Ventures and Licensing (RVL) unit in 2005. RVL served as the centralized office for overseeing the processes of IP protection, licensing, translational research project funding, new venture creation, and industry partnerships to bring forward the inventions that emerged from the research of Partners affiliates and their primary investigators. The case demonstrates how a large health care organization can bring innovative products and services to market through appropriate organizational transformation.

Ornge’s management team is taking a look at its helicopter service contract, which accounts for 42 per cent of its annual costs. The firm is a not-for-profit organization tasked with providing air and ground ambulance services for Ontario, Canada. In the past, Ornge has subcontracted helicopter service to a service provider. But an analysis conducted within Ornge suggests that owning the helicopters might save the firm a lot of money. Any savings could be reinvested, allowing Ornge to respond to more service calls per year. There are benefits and drawbacks to each of the options facing Ornge, and Dr. Christopher Massa and his team are trying to determine which option makes the most sense for the firm.

The superintendent of the St. Thomas Golf Course had to develop the 2010 operating budget for the maintenance of the golf course and recommend the extent of infrastructure expenditures for the upcoming year. The course was facing increased labour costs due to recent government-mandated increases in the minimum wage. The recommendations had to be made in terms of a weak economy in the area and a recent decline in membership. The student must first assess the financial position of the course prior to determining the extent to which discretionary expenditures should be recommended. The case requires the development of an operating budget and permits a discussion of follow-up procedures for monitoring the budget.

A young man in India follows his passion through to near-bankruptcy. Equipped with an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, he avoids a high-paying corporate job and instead starts a stockbroking firm. After ups and downs in several businesses, he finally decides his real fulfilment will come from producing a full-length movie — Ashta Chamma, based on the Oscar Wilde play The Importance of Being Ernest. The case chronicles the various issues he faces: funding the production, choosing the director, choosing a story that will satisfy his requirement of family entertainment, casting the principal characters, and creating a team that can bring the production to the movie theatres. The case goes behind the scenes of the film world in Tollywood, the Teluga film industry in Andhra Pradesh, and highlights the pressures faced by an entrepreneur in the industry. A rare combination of creativity, professionalism, and good business sense bring about success for the entrepreneur. Part B of the case presents the outcome after the release of the movie.

This is a supplement to Tata Steel Limited: Convertible Alternative Reference Securities (A). Tata Steel’s launch of a convertible bond offering in exchange for its convertible alternative reference securities issued in 2007 was in response to shifts in environmental factors. An analysis of the offer allows for a valuation exercise and an assessment of a capital restructuring decision that considers the interests of the issuer and of the investors.

Sam Silver, a law student, was near the end of a second visit to Mason & Klump LLP, a Bay Street law firm in Toronto, Canada. He was meeting Chuck Clayton, director of professional development. Silver was mentally exhausted from the interview process that had consumed much of his past three months, during which he had been seeking a position as a summer student at Bay Street firms. He had narrowed his selection to two leading national firms, Andrews, Mantle & Smithers LLP and Mason & Klump. On November 1 and 2, Silver had had interviews at six Bay Street firms, including his top two choices. Although he believed his first choice, Andrews, Mantle & Smithers, would offer him a position on November 3, when formal offers would be made, he was not certain that the firm would do so. As the meeting drew to a close, Clayton left the room for a minute, giving Silver a short time to decide if he should ask any more questions and to begin to reflect on the interview process.

Established in 2006, OSSCube was an open source software development company based in North Carolina, United States, which had its India office in Noida and its development centres in Delhi, Bangalore, and Noida. OSSCube started as a software training provider and gradually emerged as an open source software development and consulting company. The marketing of OSSCube’s offerings was primarily executed by search engine optimization (SEO) initiatives. Later, OSSCube created a social media presence on a variety of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Vimeo. The primary objective of creating a presence on these social media platforms was to augment the company’s SEO initiatives. Although this strategy helped OSSCube in gaining business leads, the community manager of the firm realized that the strategy was not building the brand identity of OSSCube. Also, the prospect of having a wide presence on social media platforms to augment SEO activities created confusion in consumers’ minds regarding OSSCube’s expertise. Hence, in 2010, the manager was reviewing the social media approach with some definite objectives such as branding employees, branding OSSCube, and promoting open source software. He faced the challenge of forming an appropriate social media strategy that would address these objectives.

This case deals with the problems that Platmin faces as it heads toward full production at a new open-cast mine in Pilanesberg, South Africa. Platmin is in a very difficult situation that is affecting the viability of the operation. The main issue is the timing of the production — investment in mining is typically heavy in the beginning, but when the mine starts producing, payback of loans is usually substantial. Any delay in production has an exaggerated effect on the payback period and, by extension, the viability of the mine. The second major issue is the economic downturn, which has seen the price of platinum decline substantially; however, this may benefit Platmin because it is a low-cost producer, and the downturn has led to some competitors leaving the industry or “mothballing” operations that are not viable at the current platinum price. On the other hand, while Platmin is seeing a shakeup in the industry, it is experiencing pressures on its margins, and this also has an effect on its capital funding.

In 1985, the president and founder of New Deantronics (ND) launched her sales office in San Francisco, California, and then set up a factory in Taiwan in 1987. With no technical background or prior experience, the president used her system of management strategy and philosophy and built ND’s reputation as a trusted manufacturer and developer of medical devices. All of ND’s products were directly exported to large global health-care companies, including Philips Medical Systems, Johnson & Johnson, and Covidien. With the rapid increase in business, the need for expanding production capacity became increasingly urgent. Sitting in her office in early 2009, the president knew that she could no longer postpone her decision to relocate. Several options were presented to her, and the factors that influenced her decision included considerations about the supply of quality human resources, geographical convenience, the willingness of her current employees to relocate, affordability, and the possibility for future expansion. The president pondered what would be the best bet.

An executive must estimate the demand for Kodak Express outlets in various developing countries based on socioeconomic and demographic data about the countries. The case requires students to think about how to transform data on a national scale (GDP per capita, population, income distribution) into a form that is meaningful for a managerial decision — here, the number of outlets that could be supported by a country’s market demographics. In this instance, doing so can be accomplished effectively through modeling on a spreadsheet.

The president of Oakville Hydro Energy services needed to make a decision on the installation of an electricity-generating engine at the regional municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant in Burlington, Ontario. This engine installation was in support of the production of green power, and the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) had introduced a feed-in tariff that paid a premium for the generation of this type of green power. One of three specific engines would be purchased and installed to generate electricity from the combustible gases produced during wastewater treatment. The president had to decide which engine generator would produce the most favourable output and the best return for Oakville Hydro and the municipality. The president also needed to decide whether or not to integrate the existing on-site gas storage tank into the controls of the generator system.

This case presents the challenge faced by Nokia India in 2007. Nokia had built a strong brand reputation over a ten-year period and was a market leader in Indian mobile devices. India, incidentally, was also Nokia’s second-largest market, next only to China. Suddenly, what corporate headquarters considered a routine product advisory for a defective battery resulted in panic in customers after the Indian media widely publicized the potential dangers that defective batteries could pose. Over a three-month period, Nokia India had to recall a few million batteries and replace them with new ones.<br><br>The case provides an opportunity for students to develop practical knowledge of the role of operations management in a product recall situation, particularly in an emerging market context. Product recalls are an integral part of supply chain management (SCM). Companies inevitably face a question of when, not if, a recall will be necessary. These recall situations combine the complexity of operations with the time-urgency of a mission-critical task. The case also provides a rich context to learn about the interaction of SCM, information systems and reverse logistics, and to understand the marketing, logistics, and communication challenges faced by a multinational company operating in an emerging market such as India.

A large financial institution has acquired a sizable portfolio of new clients of travel (corporate expense) cards. The bank must decide on the optimal mix of clients to retain in order to achieve the goals of maximizing profitability, entering a new product market successfully, and maintaining reputation. The optimal mix depends on a number of different factors, including annual account spending level, complexity of serving the account, the number of cards in each account, account risk, and account retention level. The selection and number of clients chosen will affect the bank’s future profitability and long-term strategy. The bank is limited by attempting to achieve a three-year payback, and facing costs that can vary significantly and are not in the bank’s control.

This case examines an Israeli firm, B2Bcs, which provides end-to-end services in establishing offshore project development teams and helping firms in their decisions to outsource projects offshore. An interesting aspect of B2Bcs’s work involves cross-cultural partnering, and interfacing Israel-based client organizations with service provider organizations in India and Eastern Europe. However, the recent economic downturn has made B2Bcs’s customers very cautious about the decision to set up offshore development centres. Recently, Israeli firms have been looking for less expensive outsourcing solutions as part of their various cost-reduction initiatives. They expect low-rate quotes from offshore service providers of low-cost destinations such as India and Eastern Europe. However, India has not been hit very hard by the recession, unlike the West, and hence the prices quoted by Indian service providers are still very high.<br><br>Recently, B2Bcs has been facing stiff competition from similar consulting firms. The key to getting business in this area is based on one’s past relationships with key executives in client and vendor firms. Increasingly, other consulting firms have started exploiting these relationships to get new business, thus affecting B2Bcs’s growth plans severely. In such a scenario, two broad questions need to be answered: 1) What is the new value proposition that B2Bcs should now offer to its clients? 2) How can B2Bcs help its clients find the right service provider at a competitive price?

Orascom Telecom Holding S.A.E. (OTH) was established in 1998 in Egypt and grew to become a major player in the global telecommunications market. OTH was among the largest and most diversified network operators in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. Orascom Telecom Algeria (Djezzy) was launched in February 2002 and grew to become the market leader in Algeria in terms of both subscriber numbers and the quality of telecommunications services provided. Djezzy served more than 14.7 million subscribers on its network and had a 62.9 per cent market share.<br><br>Orascom wanted to further expand, and India was considered a great opportunity. In 2006, OTH agreed to acquire a 19.3 per cent stake in Hutchison to penetrate the Indian market. India was a promising market as there were strong complementary similarities between Orascom and Hutchinson Telecom. However, Orascom was not able to enter the market because it did not consider the expenses in an accurate way and ignored many factors. Now, in 2009, the treasury director of OTH was wondering what lessons in the risks of internationalization he could learn from the company’s failure in India and present difficulties in Algeria.

This case examines the family business constitution created by Dawu Group’s founder, Sun Dawu. It was the only such system in China to date, and made it possible for the group to survive near-fatal challenges. The case starts with problems Sun Dawu encountered, such as a salary-rise request from a recently elected board member; managers’ doubts about the constitution system; and the suspicion of external experts and journalists regarding the group’s elections. The case examines the history of Dawu Group, the family business constitution system, and the approach Sun Dawu took to address succession. One of the issues the family business owner faced was whether it was possible to solve the internal challenges and external doubts about family business succession and governance and, if so, how.

<p style="color: rgb(197, 183, 131);"><strong> AWARD WINNER - Supply Chain Management Award, European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) Case Writing Competition</strong></p><br>The case examines the supply chain, managerial, and organizational challenges facing a large European industrial company competing in a mature industry with strong price pressure. Established in the 1930s in Denmark, Danfoss initially produced automatic valves for refrigeration plants. The company has since grown into a major industrial group. Until the mid-1990s, Danfoss had the majority of its sales and production in Europe. This changed, however, with the arrival of a new CEO, who initiated a process to change the company into a global player within all of its main business areas. <br><br>Following this process of internationalization, the company was facing three main issues which top management was concerned about: Danfoss’s manufacturing network; its continued global growth; and its highly engineering-based culture. The first issue stemmed from the fact that Danfoss had followed a strategy of one product, one plant. This had created a situation with a lot of highly specialized product lines and very few common features between them. On the other hand, the internationalization strategy had so far been quite successful in Eastern Europe and China. In the United States, however, the company was still experiencing difficulties despite heavy investments in its manufacturing capacity in Mexico. In China, the company had experienced success and wanted to secure long-term growth in the market. The third issue was the very engineering-based culture of the company, which among other things was manifested in the fact that Danfoss previously developed products at the expense of consumer demand and preferences.

Yangarra Resources Limited, a Calgary-based junior oil and gas company, had several properties throughout Alberta comprising both solely controlled and joint ventures. The president and chief executive officer (CEO) was involved in the construction of a well on the Ferrier property — a joint venture between three companies, each holding roughly one-third of the stake. As part of the joint venture, Yangarra had signed an agreement that committed Yangarra to cover all expenses proportional to its working stake of 31.875 per cent. The well had been drilled at a higher cost than expected, with many charges not yet recorded or incurred. As a result of the cost overruns, Yangarra had been asked to provide more funding to the project. In deciding whether to commit additional resources to the Ferrier well, the CEO had to consider several factors including an existing gross overriding royalty revenue (GORR) agreement, uncertainty in estimating the recoverable quantity of oil, crown royalties, and a current legal dispute.

In December 2007, the management of Mercedes-Benz India (MBI), a fully owned subsidiary of Daimler AG, the 12th-largest automobile manufacturer in the world, has decided to relocate to a new facility near Pune in western India. In overseeing the installation of information technology (IT) infrastructure at the new premises, the company’s chief information officer (CIO) must deal with some managerial choices pertaining to IT architecture, IT tools, and IT skill sets of the company. Each choice involves several trade-offs. The CIO’s decision on each will have a major effect on the revenues, margins, and competitive positioning of MBI in the Indian automotive industry.