個案總覽

In September 2016, Johnson Controls, Inc., completed the acquisition of Tyco International PLC, a $9.9 billion business with operating profits of $884 million. The purchase consideration was $14.4 billion. Although the deal was billed as a merger, Ireland-based Tyco effectively acquired U.S.-based Johnson Controls in a tax inversion deal that saved $150 million a year in taxes. Operating synergies were estimated at $500 million over three years. Tyco International was all that remained of what 15 years earlier, in 2001, had been a $36.4 billion conglomerate with a market capitalization of $120 billion. It took the charismatic CEO, Dennis Kozlowski, 10 years to grow the business from $3 billion to $36 billion, increasing its value by more than 60 times along the way. But Kozlowski went to prison on fraud charges in 2005, and the portfolio was slowly unwound under his successor. Now in 2016, Tyco was to disappear.

Sesame Workshop was transforming in 2016. CEO Jeff Dunn had reorganized and shifted the iconic institution to respond to digital disruption and a consensus culture. This case examines his efforts to turn Sesame Workshop around. It notes Sesame's storied history and the underlying financial troubles that Dunn confronted upon taking over in 2014. It shows how Dunn's leadership changes, increased communication, new partnership deals, and a focus on digital, sought speed, innovation, and accountability to better fulfill Sesame's educational mission. By 2016, Sesame was in the middle of its change, and Dunn contemplated how best to position the organization for success in the future.

Hamburguesas El Corral is a Colombian hamburger fast food chain founded in 1983. From the beginning, Hamburguesas El Corral was recognized as a traditional Colombian brand, positioning itself with the motto "the original recipe" as a provider with focus on fresh and highest quality products. The case allows students to examine the service encounter design of Hamburguesas El Corral and to compare it with McDonald's, which entered the Colombian market in 1995 and took over market leadership from Hamburguesas El Corral in 2012. The case furthermore tackles the trend towards delivery services in the fast food sector, addressing the specific service encounter design components of this delivery mode as well as its potential benefits and risks within the context of a changing competitive environment. The case finally asks students to analyze potential responses of El Corral's management to regain market share and market leadership, leading to the following question: Should El Corral hold firm to its traditional "no-delivery-service" policy or should it adapt to a major market trend and create a new brand, "El Corral Home", as a 100% home-delivery chain?

Leader Healthcare India (LHC) was a medical devices importer firm that dealt primarily in respiratory and anesthetic devices. The company imported medical devices from U.S. manufacturers and, for the most part, performed its own marketing, sales, and service activities. In 2016, the director of LHC was concerned about LHC's multiple failed efforts at market expansion. The company wanted to grow, but its attempts had been unsuccessful. Lack of highly trained personnel, supervisory control, and sufficient financial resources had been the key reasons for the failure. Market expansion was even more critical as LHC wanted to launch a 24/7 service in the respiratory devices business, and success with this service depended on the size of LHC's existing customer base. How could LHC grow?

The LiveRamp case follows the story of Anneka Gupta, Chief Product Officer of LiveRamp, from her early days with the company as a spinoff from Rapleaf, to the present day, where she manages a large product management team responsible for developing cutting edge data onboarding products.

Shortly after submitting their best and final offer to acquire Merck's Consumer Care Division, a collection of "over-the-counter" (OTC) products with sales totaling $2 billion, the Bayer M&A team was given a chance to revise their bid because another potential acquirer - likely Reckitt-Benckiser, a UK based company that had outbid them in a few prior acquisition auctions - had submitted a last-minute offer to Merck. Frank Rittgen (Head of M&A) and Werner Baumann (CFO) have to decide whether to increase the cash portion of their $14.2 billion offer and/or amend the terms of a proposed joint venture (JV) with Merck involving cardiovascular drugs which had been included in their offer as a way to "sweeten" the deal. Under the current terms of the proposed JV, Merck would pay Bayer $1 billion upfront for access to their pipeline of drugs and could pay up to another $1.2 billion in contingent payments based on actual sales. Alternatively, the Bayer team could hold fast on both fronts and let their final bid stand. With only an hour to make a decision regarding one of the industry's "transformational assets", the Bayer team had to move quickly and carefully as they were determined not to overpay for the asset.

To transform IBM for the next technology wave, Ginni Rometty, who became CEO in 2012, led divestment of declining businesses, made acquisitions in digital innovation and cloud computing, formed partnerships with former competitors such as Apple and tech startups, and invested in internally developed cognitive computing/AI platform Watson, a big bet directed at applications for healthcare, education, and cybersecurity. Revenues declined, criticism grew, and challenges of change remained. Watson businesses were new, unproven, and required change in nearly every aspect of legacy operations and culture. To increase speed and agility, Rometty used methods such as online Think Academy, design thinking, and startup contests. In mid-2016, questions remained about the pace and magnitude of change, the scale-up and profitability of Watson, and Rometty's leadership of change. What was left to do?

Co-founders Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler have grown SoulCycle from a business idea in 2006 to a major presence among urban boutique fitness studios in 2015. In March 2015, fitness company Equinox approaches them with an offer to buy them out. Evaluating the offer requires an assessment of market or industry attractiveness and of SoulCycle's (potential) competitive advantage.

By January 2017, Paytm, a mobile payments company that started in 2010, became India's largest mobile payments platform with over 142 million users and a $5 billion valuation. Could Paytm become the $100 billion company its founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma envisioned it to be?

L'Itineraire Community Group was a not-for-profit organization located in Montreal, Quebec. It published a French-language magazine that was sold by homeless and socially marginalized people in the city. The group's management committee was examining ways of raising additional funds because of the reduction in contributions from traditional sources such as government subsidies. Options included targeting the magazine to the Anglophone and immigrant communities in Montreal, targeting regions outside of Montreal, and producing a digital version of the magazine. The digital option had the additional constraint that the vendors of the magazine, the homeless and socially marginalized, would not be involved in selling. How should the organization deal with this issue?

This case examines the October 2015 initial public offering pricing decision for legendary Italian sports car company Ferrari by Fiat Chrysler management. Students are invited to model the value of Ferrari in light of Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne's interest in expanding production despite the company's long standing tradition of severely limiting production strategy to maintain an exclusive brand image. The case is designed to showcase corporate valuation using discounted cash flow and peer-company market multiples for a company that exists in two sectors: automotive and luxury goods.

Elizabeth Mok was the second born and the only daughter in the fourth generation of the Lee family. She was also the only one of five siblings who did not own shares in the family business, the world-renowned sauce maker Lee Kum Kee, headquartered in Hong Kong. For Elizabeth, it seemed natural not to own shares, as she had high respect for the traditional approach to succession planning, where females did not inherit a family business. Besides, she believed her brothers worked hard to build the firm's international reputation and therefore deserved the shares more than she did. Elizabeth was once again asked by her family to reconsider her decision not to own shares. This time, she could sense their determination to change the state of things.

A few months after launching a new fitness technology product, the small staff of New York startup Classtivity gathers on a Saturday in April 2013 to take stock. With one successful pivot under their belt, Classtivity is finally generating revenue and enthusiasm among customers. But cofounder and CEO Payal Kadakia has some doubts. There are signs that customers love the offering, but studios are less enthusiastic. Efforts to get customers to return to the studios after their monthly packs expire have largely failed. Kadakia must decide, preserve the product or pivot to a new business model?

In early 2016, David Sin, founder of the Singapore-based private equity group SIN Capital and chairman of its primary holding, Fullerton Health, was deeply involved in preparations for taking Fullerton public on the Singapore stock exchange. Three years after SIN Capital had invested in Fullerton, a provider of enterprise health management, and two years ahead of the original plan, it had attained a valuation of over S$1 billion. Listing the company would provide a number of important benefits as the management team and the investors expanded the operation throughout South Asia. This case describes the benefits and drawbacks of Fullerton's planned IPO, along with the strategy that had propelled its impressive growth. It also presents David Sin's vision for SIN Capital as a different type of private equity firm.

Medical errors both in the U.S. and worldwide occur at alarming rates. In the U.S. medical errors were the third leading cause of death. Southwick experienced the consequences of preventable medical errors firsthand. As a physician and a professor, he researched and wrote about the causes and solutions for medical errors over the years. Southwick also launched pilot programs applying different quality improvement frameworks from other fields to medicine. Although the results were positive, he encountered resistance from many physicians. To build more skills, Southwick became an Advanced Leadership Fellow in 2010 and a Senior Advanced Leadership Fellow in 2011. He used his time at Harvard to develop solutions that would address the root causes of medical errors. The complexities in healthcare and the entrenched cultural norms presented strong barriers to creating change. The case explores Southwick's efforts in getting medical professionals to work collaboratively, communicate effectively, and create a new sustainable culture that improves healthcare outcomes. Southwick's experience raises the question of how one person can best make a difference in a large, complex, entrenched system.

Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, is deciding how to structure the firm presence in Cloud computing. He can pursue the opportunity in multiple ways: doubling down the investments in an internal and nascent cloud offering, partnering with established third parties, or through an acquisition. At the same time, he also needs to continue ensuring the success of VMware virtualization business, and a recent acquisition in mobile. How will the different decisions affect his use of time?

In 2016, a recent business graduate entered the workforce as the manager of a radio station in a small town. His new employer, RSM Broadcasting, led the way in serving small Canadian communities and took steps to provide radio content in the most relevant way possible, but it might be time to quicken the pace. He faced a number of obstacles because the industry had been changing and internal politics made it challenging to enact any of his own ideas for strategic renewal. He had three options: support a current initiative, bolster his own idea for change, or focus on his own development. His newness to the organization, his youth, and his position as a middle manager could get in the way of promoting change in the short-term.

The case charts the growth of Blk71 and related developments in Singapore's startup scene. It explores the factors that came together to help the startup hub grow from 2011 to 2015. The focus is on how a startup ecosystem can be nurtured; in particular, why Blk71 and government schemes from the late 2000s took off when earlier schemes have met with limited success.

In early January 2017, Vanessa Teo, Director of Global Learning and Talent Development at the DFS Group, is outlining the airport retailer's e-learning strategy. The Group had already invested significant resources in various training, learning and development programmes. These programmes, housed within DFS University, focused on building a deep knowledge and appreciation of the various luxury products sold by incoming sales associates. Associates in these programmes learn different types of sales tactics, and promising employees are enrolled in leadership programmes to fast-track their management potential. Nonetheless, these programmes were expensive. DFS first embarked on an e-learning initiative three years earlier with the development of an e-campus, which was a social learning platform akin to Facebook. This platform was piloted at many locations throughout DFSs' worldwide network of airport duty free stores. The hope was that such social learning could simultaneously reinforce and scale up the learning and training development programmes. Now, Teo seeks to advance into the next stage of developing the e-learning initiative, envisioning a broader type of blended learning experience that could digitise some of DFS's learning content into something even more scalable. However, e-learning at DFS is still a relatively new and untested tool. Teo needs to convince her counterparts to look past the development costs and embrace a more digital approach.