個案總覽

Colombia conceived its 4G (Fourth Generation) Road Program to try to attract $17 billion from the private sector for investment in toll roads. The nation had also created the National Infrastructure Agency of Colombia (ANI) to oversee multiple investments, and the National Development Fund (FDN) as a credit enhancement vehicle. By 2017, Colombia had largely recovered from the "bad times" and was viewed as one of Andean Nations' success stories. Colombia was rapidly expanding its seaports, airports, power grid, and, particularly, its road network to link multiple metropolitan and rural areas across its mountain-riddled territory. Private-public partnerships were used since the federal budget did not have enough cash flow or credit to fund a vast road building program. The 4G Program featured improvements as compared to earlier-generation programs, making it more attractive to private investors. These included newly crafted contracts, shared risks between private and public parties, and liquidity lines of credit provided by FDN.

In 2015, Yıldiz Holding, one of the world's largest producer of confections, biscuits and crackers, was at the end of its divesture process from Ak Gida, one of the leading dairy companies in Turkey. The company had adopted a dual track process, pursuing an initial public offering (IPO) process as well as attempting, in parallel, a strategic sale to create a competitive bidding process. Ak Gida was co-founded in 1996 by the Ulker and Topbas families as a result of a joint vertical integration strategy: Ulker family, owners of Yildiz Holding, would secure milk powder, one of the main raw materials for its biscuits and chocolate production, and Topbas family would be able to create its own private label dairy products for its nation-wide hard-discount chain BIM. Following Yildiz Holding's acquisition of United Biscuits for over $3 billion in 2014, the Holding's CFO Cem Karakas and its Chief Strategy and Growth Officer Nurtaç Ziyal Afridi, were tasked with divesting of its vertical assets including Ak Gida. The duo had prepared Ak Gida for an IPO in Istanbul, while also having negotiated with multiple parties for its sale. Now, the duo needed to make a final decision: should they go forward with the listing, or should they sell Ak Gida to the world's largest dairy company, Groupe Lactalis?

In September 2016, Apple prepared to launch a new version of its flagship product, the iPhone 7. The new product, termed "the best, most advanced iPhone ever," was priced at three times its cost in the U.S. market. However, Apple had witnessed an 18 per cent year-on-year dip in iPhone revenues in the first calendar quarter of 2016, dragging down Apple's revenues for the first time in 13 years. The leader in the smartphone market was ousted from its number one position in fiscal year 2016 by the Samsung Group, which had a 20.5 per cent market share. A multitude of factors had caused a dip in the sales of iPhones in the United States and China-Apple's key markets. Apple was now eyeing India, the third-largest smartphone market in the world, to replicate its China growth story. The India launch of the iPhone 7 was planned for October 7, 2016. The base model was priced at the equivalent of over US$900, about 39 per cent higher than the U.S. phone price. Did Apple have the pricing power to charge more than three times the cost of the iPhone in the Indian market? What would be Apple's best pricing strategy in a market like India? How could Apple grow its revenues and profits in one of the fastest-growing smartphone markets in the world?

A team of investors at Omidyar Network explore two different investment possibilities in the budding financial inclusion space, using their investment framework to consider capital alternatives available for both investments, each of which carries highly divergent financial and impact potential.

MGM Resorts International was built as a gambling business. Over the past few decades, through its development of restaurants, live shows and musical performances, it has transformed into a fully-fledged entertainment company. Now, in 2017, it looks to pivot again - to find the future of "destination entertainment" for its Millennial consumers.

The London, Ontario, social enterprise For the Love of Laundry was founded in 2014 with the intention of selling homemade, eco-friendly soaps and using the profits to fund free laundry events in the community. In 2017, the founder's goal was to increase the scale of the business and its social impact. She needed to decide how to structure the organization to increase its scale while maintaining control of its strategic direction. The founder compared the pros and cons of the four organizational structures available for social enterprises in Canada-for-profit organization, non-profit organization, registered charity, and co-operative-to decide which option would best suit the organization. She wanted to ensure that the organization's social aspect remained central while she sought funds to increase its scale. She needed to balance the triple bottom line, but with a primary focus on the social component. She also needed to consider the importance of corporate identity for social enterprises in the scaling process.

In late 2016, Paris Wallace, the CEO of Ovia Health, and the rest of the company's co-founders faced a difficult decision about the best way to grow Ovia Health's revenue. Founded in 2012, Ovia Health specialized in mobile and web applications in the women's health space. After building a strong user base with its original app, Ovia Fertility (which helped women conceive by tracking ovulation and other factors), the young company launched a second app, Ovia Pregnancy (which helped women have a healthy pregnancy by tracking various health metrics). Ovia Health's apps were free to use, and most of the company's revenue came from charging advertisers to host ads on its native advertising platform. Wallace believed that the family benefits market was a promising growth area, but he was not sure of the best way to enter the market. Recently, a top health benefits provider had offered Ovia Health a multi-million-dollar contract, but Wallace wondered whether Ovia Health could create a better family benefits solution by turning down the contract and selling directly to employers' HR departments. Participants will need to examine how Ovia Health evolved its strategy over time and decide which growth opportunity was the better choice.

By 2016, the Big Apple Circus has weathered many storms in its 38 seasons as one of the most well-known New York City nonprofits. Will Weiss, the executive director, has witnessed his share of chaos during four years at Big Apple. After a slight resurgence following the precipitous drop in ticket sales during the financial crisis, the operating health and finances of the Circus are growing more tenuous each year. Big Apple Circus is on the brink and Will Weiss must determine if there is a way forward.

Privateer Holdings was a Seattle-based private equity firm that was "shaping the future of the legal cannabis industry." In late 2017, Privateer held an expanding portfolio of global brands intended to "lead, legitimize, and define the future of cannabis" and was preparing to announce the closure of a Series C round that had raised more than $100 million. It was an opportune moment for its founding triumvirate to contemplate the future direction of the path-breaking firm they had established back in 2010 and the global companies they had built, through a combination of acquisitions, investments, and incubation, and in which they held 100 percent ownership. Privateer's founders had committed to hold true three core beliefs which formed their fundamental investment thesis: -"cannabis is a mainstream product consumed by mainstream people; -the end of cannabis prohibition is inevitable; -brands will determine the future of the cannabis industry." But, as market velocity and opportunities expanded with ever-increasing speed, it seemed the right time to consider how best to steer, and structure, Privateer Holdings going forward. While the potential growth options were many, there was much uncertainty as to many factors that could impact the cannabis industry.

The Fundamental Rights, guaranteed by the Constitution of India, are very substantive rights. The rights, however, are available only against the State as defined in Article 12 of the Constitution. The definition of State includes the Union and States' legislatures and executive. The meaning of these terms is clear and definite. The last entry in the definition is Other Authorities. This term has been subject to judicial interpretations. The Airport Authority of India Case was a landmark judgement expanding the scope of Other Authorities. It formulated that a public corporation, which was an instrumentality or agency of the government, should be considered as Other Authority.

In December 2017, Marc Freed-Finnegan and Jonathan Wall, the co-founders of retail technology company Index, had to discuss the company's direction as they entered 2018. Five years earlier, Freed-Finnegan and Wall had founded Index after observing the technological advantages that Amazon and other online retailers had over brick-and-mortar retailers. Index's first product was a customer database tool that allowed brick-and-mortar retailers to collect customer contact information (e.g., email addresses) at the time of checkout. Index soon added automated marketing tools and payment/security tools (e.g., encryption) to its product portfolio. However, selling to large retail chains had proved challenging-many stakeholders were involved in the buying decision, creating a long sales process, and some retailers did not understand why they should trust a small, young company with their payment security. By late 2017, Index had made some changes to reduce the average sales cycle, but there was still room for improvement. Now, Index was preparing to launch a new product, Index Connect, that would essentially allow retailers to pool customer contact data and be more competitive with Amazon. Participants must evaluate whether Index was taking the right approach to sales and marketing and consider how the company could position Index Connect to be a success.

By 2017, digital, social, and mobile technologies were rapidly changing the way many of SAP's traditional customers did business over the last decade. In response to this trend, SAP had acquired companies with capabilities in e-commerce, human capital, workforce management, travel and expense management, and other areas. No longer able to rely on a single contact point through customers' IT departments, SAP's salesforce now had to target a variety of buyers including line-of-business managers and end users, who had a growing role in software purchase decisions. The case focuses on the changing role of SAP's marketing function including its ability to (a) revamp SAP's brand for the digital age to materially help sales reps when they approached buyers in the short and long term, (b) help SAP earn mindshare of prospects and customers by articulating unique points of view that informed and educated buyers who were increasingly moving online for research, insights, and thought leadership at a time when brand messages were increasingly being defined by advocacy groups and influencer communities, and (c) realistically demonstrate that recasting SAP's branding as a leading-edge technology company would pay off.

In the summer of 2017, with over half of the United States and a growing number of other countries allowing the use of either medical or recreational marijuana, Mountjoy Sparkling was entering a huge market. Its product, sparkling water infused with marijuana, was targeting consumers who did not like to smoke and wished to avoid the generally high level of sugar in most marijuana edibles. The company faced all of the operational challenges of a start-up, while navigating the legal, financial, and logistical obstacles unique to the marijuana industry. The founder was seeing demand increase. He was seeking venture capital to fund the growth necessary to get big enough fast enough to survive in a market with many competitors and constantly changing regulatory frameworks. He needed to make at least five strategic decisions in terms of product mix, market selection, and distribution.

Rafi, a retiring oncologist, wanted to invest in safe, high dividend paying stocks. Upon his stockbroker's recommendation, he bought three tranches of S$500,000 worth of Sabana REIT ("Sabana") even as price fell during the period in between. His stockbroker had advised him to adopt dollar cost averaging, as even if price fell, Rafi could lower his breakeven price and gain in the longer term as stock prices tend to mean-revert. Further, Sabana's high dividend yield would help offset the price fall. Six months later, Sabana's price fell further. Rafi sought the advice of Michael, an investment-savvy friend, who advised him to look at capital gain yield besides dividend yield, and to check out Sabana's website and various investment forums for important company's actions and other crucial information. Rafi found that disgruntled investors, unhappy with Sabana's falling dividend and price, had formed two groups, one of whom had proposed various drastic actions at an Extraordinary General Meeting which may involve booting the REIT manager, and/or delisting the REIT and liquidating its portfolio. The manager formed a Strategic Review Committee and requested for more time. Rafi had to decide: vote for or against the manager or just cut loss immediately.

Greg Milani, Senior Managing Director of the Stanford Management Company, considers how much of Stanford's $27 billion endowment to allocate to early stage capital, taking into account the various pro's and con's of that allocation.

In the fall of 2014, Chad Kartchner, senior manager of marketing and product management at Honeywell Aerospace (HA), pondered how technology could transform the way aircraft were maintained. He had heard a lot of buzz about cognitive analytics, an artificial intelligence term referring to the use of computer models and algorithms to simulate human thought through self-learning systems, data mining, pattern recognition, and natural language processing. The sheer volume of parts and the time-sensitive nature of repairs in the aviation industry made it complicated to identify problems and address them quickly. Kartchner contemplated the options for updating HA's ground-based maintenance system. Should he emulate HA's state-of-the-art on-board system for an entire aircraft or try something new? Emulating the on-board system, which HA developed internally, would be an easy sell to leadership given internal buy-in and satisfaction with the on-board system, but he contemplated new approaches because he did not want to overlook rapidly emerging technologies. The latter could include crowdsourced features that leveraged the abundance of knowledge among HA's customers' technicians or a cognitive analytics approach. Even if he could persuade leadership to try a new cognitive analytics approach, should HA partner with an established entity or work with a relatively unproven startup who promised lower cost, better features, and quicker turnaround to develop a new system? Students will step into the shoes of Kartchner as he leads the internal discussion on whether and how to tap into the benefits of cognitive analytic solutions for Honeywell Aerospace and its customers.

In mid-June 2011, the Chinese president of the China-Benin joint venture Benin Textile Company (Compagnie Béninoise des Textiles, or CBT) was deeply worried about the supply of cotton in Benin. Since 2009, CBT had faced significant challenges in obtaining a reliable cotton supply. In 2010, the company had already placed its cotton orders, but local Beninese cotton producers were unwilling to deliver cotton at the earlier agreed-on price due to the rising market price. CBT was forced to stop production for five months and could not deliver on numerous contracts. The president of CBT was unsure whether to stay in West Africa and if so, how to improve the cotton supply situation. He had four options: maintain the status quo and hope for improvements, withdraw from West Africa, buy cotton contracts from other countries, or invest in cotton production. Which would be the best option for his company?

As a well-established Chinese garment brand, Yangtzekiang Garment Limited (YGM) and its related retail business, YGM Trading Limited, faced the challenges of a labour shortage, stagnant productivity, and the transformation of the traditional garment industry. As China was rapidly developing, Chinese companies were facing new challenges and needed to consider strategies to ensure more sustainable development. In March 2015, the executive chairman of YGM needed to transform the company and develop a sustainable strategy of innovation and transformation that would lead it forward in these new circumstances.

This case discusses the question of the inheritance of power and entrepreneurial spirit in the family run Xinjiang Yier High Technique Agriculture Company and its wine brand and subsidiary Xinjiang Xiangdu Winery Co. Ltd. (Xiangdu). In 1998, the company's founder took her family to break new ground for growing grapes in the vast expanse of the Gobi Desert. In 2002, she founded Xiangdu, and the company's focus gradually shifted from grape growing to wine making and upgrading the grape processing infrastructure. In June 2016, having reached age 65, the founder called a senior management meeting to discuss a number of challenges that Xiangdu was facing. After her departure, could Xiangdu continue to achieve great success? Should the founder fulfill her husband's last wish to make Xiangdu a public company? How should Xiangdu move forward?

A private equity-backed fast food chain has hired McKinsey's new People Analytics group to help it improve performance. As the final client workshop approaches, Associate Partner Alex DiLeonardo ponders the best way to present the team's findings, especially those that conflict with the client executives' long-held intuitions. If successful, the project would help People Analytics build its reputation both internally and with clients. But to be successful, DiLeonardo knows his team must convince the client that their results are credible and actionable. In addition to discussing the specifics of the fast food project, the case also provides an overview of the people analytics field more broadly through the lens of McKinsey's client portfolio.