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In the summer of 2010, the landscape of university athletics in the United States faced the potential for groundbreaking change. U.S. university sports teams belonged to conferences — alliances of competing sports teams, often from similar geographic locations. Rumours of conference realignment were suggesting a significant shift away from traditional conference membership and structure. With renegotiations for a multi-year television contract looming, a prominent conference has announced plans for expansion, with the goal of securing a lucrative television agreement through new members. While considering factors such as resources, exposure and tradition, various conferences are actively pursuing one dominant institution in particular, the University of Texas. As a result, the Texas team faces a crucial decision: to leave its position for another conference and significantly alter the landscape of collegiate athletics or to remain a member of its current conference and face the ramifications involved in any additional fragmentation.

With roots in sporting and excursion goods, Abercrombie and Fitch Co. (A&F Co.) has grown into one of the most well-known men and women’s retail clothing brands by 2012. From the beginning, A&F has stuck to (its) knitting by not trying to be all things to all people” and adopted the philosophy of creating a unique brand experience throughout each of its subsidiary brands. The company’s CEO was faced with the decision to focus attention on expanding direct-to-consumer operations and international brick and mortar stores, while closing stores domestically. The brand saw growth in sales in recent years but, in 2011, saw a drop in shares after missing Wall Street’s projected estimates. A&F Co. was in an interesting position — the company had to decide where to focus its brand and which market segment it would cater toward.<p>You might also like: Abercrombie & #Fitchthehomeless, Mountain Dew: The Most Racist Soft-drink Commercial in History?, Domino’s Pizza

This case looks at how a new entrant into a market dominated by three established incumbents can win consumer support. Wind Mobile, a new entrant in the Canadian telecommunications industry, not only has to compete with rivals Bell Canada Enterprises Inc., Rogers Communications and Telus Corporation but also confronts Canadian regulations concerning foreign ownership. Although the regulatory body, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), has ruled that Wind is not Canadian controlled, the Conservative government of the day supports the company and the liberalization of the market. The contradictory stances of important regulatory players leaves considerable confusion as to the right of Wind to compete. In addition to its legal challenges, Wind has to secure customers and takes an aggressive stance against the incumbents, who deploy a variety of tactics, including fighter brands and long-term contracts, to retain their customer base.

The executive of Government and Corporate Affairs at Qantas Airlines faced a communication situation that was spiralling out of control. Qantas had launched a contest through the social media service Twitter, asking participants to use Twitter to describe their “dream luxury inflight experience.” However, the competition dissolved as thousands of people used the opportunity to express negative comments about Qantas. By the second day, nearly 15,000 people worldwide had used social media to vent their frustrations with the airline.<br><br>The executive needs to devise a plan of action, before additional damage is incurred by one of Australia’s strongest brands.

The case examines Harley-Davidson’s decision to enter the Indian market. Due to India’s rapidly growing economy and its swelling base of high-net-worth consumers, numerous luxury product companies lined up to enter India. The case enumerates the factors that such firms should take into account when selecting new markets to enter. Also discussed are the various post-marketing issues Harley-Davidson faced in India after its entry and the resolutions the company could implement to resolve those issues.<br><br>The case provides an opportunity for students to understand the dynamics involved in selecting new markets for the firm to maximize its gain while expanding its business.

On January 6, 2010, Stanko Grmovsek was sentenced to three years and three months in prison for making profits of an estimated US$9 million over 14 years based on insider tips from his best friend from law school, Gil Cornblum. Grmovsek and Cornblum had operated an illegal insider trading scheme from 1994 until 2008. Using his role as a corporate lawyer at various law firms, Cornblum had passed material non-public information related to 46 takeovers to Grmovsek, who then traded illegally using brokerage accounts located in the Bahamas and Ontario. On October 27, 2009, Grmovsek pleaded guilty to all charges against him in both Canada and the United States following a joint investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC).

The three-case series is about how a medium-sized Taiwanese company approached competition with 3M in global markets. The series covers a 14-year period. The A case starts in 1994, when 3M decides to launch a lawsuit against companies (including Hopax) selling repositionable notes that compete with 3M's highly successful Post-It notes in the United States. How should Hopax respond? The B case explains that, unlike the other players, Hopax decides to fight in court. Staples, Hopax's largest customer in the United States, decides to cancel its contract. What should Hopax do now? The C case recounts the events that follow until 2008 and explains how the company applies principles of judo strategy to become the second largest supplier of repositionable notes in the world. The series allows students to explore options to smaller innovative companies as they try to compete in global markets with large, resource-rich, players who do not hesitate to use courts to try to eliminate their smaller competitors.

The chief executive officer (CEO) of a large consumer health conglomerate faces a controversial situation. Loyal consumers of a feminine hygiene product are outraged when they learn that a highly coveted product has been permanently discontinued. Unable to find their favourite brand in stock, consumers create a website and post online petitions to boycott, or rather “girlcott,” all products made by the company. The company has already suffered serious consumer, investor and government scrutiny after having experienced more than a dozen product recalls in recent years. The CEO needs to develop a strategy to deal with the mounting consumer anger and public speculation, or risk the negative consequences of a militant, brand savvy, population of female consumers.

In 2010, approximately 20,000 barrels of oil being shipped south by Enbridge spilled into Michigan’s Talmadge Creek, contaminating wetlands around Battle Creek and the nearby county seat of Marshall, including a stretch of the Kalamazoo River. The timing of the incident could not have been worse. The pipeline had been carrying controversial tar sands oil at a time when Enbridge and its competitors were seeking to greatly expand their pipeline networks across North America. Moreover, the pipeline failure came on the heels of BP's much larger oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, amid a period of heightened public intolerance toward oil spills. As a result, Enbridge faced massive public relations (PR) and regulatory challenges. Enbridge's reputation was clearly at risk since the company had promoted itself as a true believer in corporate social responsibility, which had raised the stakes when dealing with the industrial accident. The CEO of Enbridge faced an almost impossible challenge. He needed to prove to American citizens — and to industry regulators, market watchers, company shareholders and Enbridge employees — that his company deserved to be judged on its own merits, not as a Canadian version of BP. To meet this challenge, he needed to demonstrate that Enbridge was run by people who not only wanted to make amends but could be trusted to do so.

The chief public relations (PR) strategist for SG Media is using the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) as an example in her public relations training session. In 2011, the TTC has been in the news because of a combination of poorly managed fare hike announcements and the perception of lax service quality. Consumers have taken to publishing, on social media sites, images of TTC employees seemingly in violation of service standards. The strategist is thinking about an appropriate PR strategy that the TTC could rely on to rectify its image.

DLF was the largest real estate player in India, possessing a strong home market in Delhi and Gurgaon (the National Capital Region, NCR). The Indian real estate market was growing rapidly, and DLF wanted to convert this growth opportunity into a country-wide presence by building significant land reserves. With huge debt on its balance sheet, the company decided to raise finance through equity. The stock markets were on a rise, and the timing was perfect to raise funds from an initial public offering (IPO). The company filed its draft red herring prospectus (DHRP) in May 2006, but soon afterwards the stock market scenario changed, and the company faced complaints from its minority shareholders. The global macroeconomic scenario had become a cause of concern too. DLF was forced to withdraw its DRHP and put its IPO plans on hold. This case is positioned in January 2007, when DLF had resolved its minority shareholders’ issue and had added significant portions to its land reserves. At that juncture, DLF’s management began the process of trying to gauge the circumstances before reintroducing its decision to go public.

Developed as a companion to the Red Brand Canners (RBC) case, the starting point in this case is the improvement in performance resulting from the optimization approach in the original case. However, RBC’s vice president of operations is concerned about the quality and quantity mix of the most recent tomato crop received from Greenfield Farms (GF). RBC’s preferred quality and quantity mixes differ significantly from the current harvest. To RBC, the issue is how to motivate the supplier to produce a crop more in line with RBC’s needs. Initially, both firms in the B2B section of the supply chain try to find a combination that would be mutually beneficial — an attempt that fails because of conflicts of interest. RBC’s objective might be accomplished by taking a supply chain approach and modifying the delivery contract by an appropriate pricing scheme. The task is to identify and calibrate a pricing scheme that will realize the supply chain’s maximum performance and lead to a stable win-win solution. The derivation of the supply chain optimal prices is carried out by developing and solving a linear optimization model.

Facebook’s director of policy communications was faced with a situation caused by a YouTube video posted by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Greenpeace. This video publicly critiqued the environmental sustainability of Facebook’s decision to build a new data centre, its main objection being that the new facility would be connected to a local utility provider that supplied electricity mainly from the burning of coal, one of the largest sources of global warming. This video was only the latest of a series of actions, commenced by Greenpeace eight months earlier, immediately following Facebook’s decision to build the new facility. Greenpeace had dubbed these actions the “Unfriend Coal Campaign,” which now had 500,000 followers and had generated numerous media stories. Greenpeace’s goal was to pressure Facebook into adopting cleaner energy policies by leveraging Facebook’s own social media against the company. As Facebook had no plans to stop building the facility, its director needed to figure out the best course of action to take in response to the mounting pressure from Greenpeace, in order to alleviate the increasingly negative attention from media and consumers.

Following the revelation of a US$2 billion loss on trading at JP Morgan’s chief investment office (CIO) in London, the company’s board of directors is tasked with recommending changes to its risk management practices and corporate governance structure. The case provides background on JP Morgan's well-respected risk management infrastructure and discusses how the CEO focused on its historic strength in risk management to argue against the need for the United States to implement the strict regulations contained in the Dodd-Frank Act and the associated Volcker Amendment. The role of regulation is significant. As a result of trying to meet the tighter requirements of these U.S. standards as well as the new Basel III accord, the CIO took on significant derivative positions that were not well understood and, rather than decreasing the firm's risk exposure, actually increased it. Of further interest is the concurrent change in JP Morgan's method of calculating risk, which allowed for a significant reduction in risk measurement and thus an improvement in the firm's level of risk-weighted assets.

In 2008 the Supreme Court of India revoked the 2G spectrum licences issued to many local and international companies because of major violations in the granting procedure by the Telecom Ministry. One of the worst affected companies was Norway’s Telenor communications company, which was involved with a local company in a joint venture, Uninor, which had all of its licences cancelled. The case provides students an opportunity to assess and understand the implications of the political as well as legal risks involved in entering uncertain markets, such as India’s, and to devise appropriate coping strategies to establish and successfully operate in such markets. The case drives home the significance of political and legal business environmental factors that have an impact on the successful conduct of business. Multinational companies tend to be vulnerable to political risks, and the case suggests to students how to handle such situations.

The board of directors of Symantec Corporation asked a consultant for an independent opinion on an important financing decision. Symantec had been working with several investment banks on a plan to raise debt to repurchase common shares. The consultant found it to be an interesting financing plan; whereas repurchasing shares immediately would increase Symantec's financial leverage, converting the notes in the future would reduce leverage at a potentially significant dilutive cost to the firm's equity. More interestingly, the company negotiated with the investment banks to buy a call spread on its own stock, covering the same number of shares as would be issued to noteholders upon conversion. After reviewing the proposal, the consultant tried to understand the motivation behind the structure of the transaction. Why would Symantec choose to issue convertible bonds, and why would it intend to buy the call spread?

This supplement to Reinventing the San Miguel Corporation (A) provides a brief update on the diversification strategy pursued by the company.

This case presents a means by which students can explore how government policy is influenced by the actions of stakeholders in an economy: firms, taxpayers, voters, unions, and other organizations. It highlights how policy-making can be a process endogenous to the interests and influence of the private sector, and not an exogenous one, even in domains that are the power reserve of public policy makers. <br><br>In 2010, the ruling party in Australia has devised a new tax, the Resource Super Profit Tax (RSPT). This tax has been devised to enable national and state governments to benefit from the boom in the mining industry by expropriating a greater portion of the industry’s earnings. The RSPT has been prepared without any input from major mining companies in Australia, and if implemented would represent a substantial increase in their tax payable. The case is presented from the perspective of the CEO of BHP Billiton, one of the largest mining companies in Australia. The situation considers what, if any, action can be taken to combat a tax that has already been devised by the government and is about to be implemented. Successful analysis of the case involves an evaluation of all stakeholders in the Australian economy that will be influenced by the imposition of the RSPT. After this is done, a strategy needs to be devised that will influence the government to withdraw a tax to which it has already demonstrated a firm commitment.

The El Coyote Mexican Café, more commonly known as El Coyote, is a family-owned restaurant located in Los Angeles, California. The restaurant faced criticism from pro-gay rights activists after the manager (the daughter of the owner) made a personal donation to support California Ballot Proposition 8, which activists associated with the restaurant rather than the individual. The case transpires over an eight-day period from November 4, 2008, which was the election day when the ballot proposition passed, to November 12, 2008, which was when the manager held an open breakfast at El Coyote to publicly discuss the issue. The central tension in the case revolves around how the manager’s donation to support a measure that legally defines marriage as “between a man and a woman” has gained the restaurant unwanted attention despite being a personal contribution separate from and not endorsed by the business. The goal of the case is to challenge students to think about tensions firms face in managing the external environment of their businesses in the face of both: 1) campaign finance and election issues; and (2) activists who may not understand all of the underlying facts.

The president of SinYi Group was contemplating various ways of growing his highly successful Taiwanese real estate company in the mainland China market. SinYi had initially opened up company-operated branches and in 1999, in an effort to expand more quickly, he had obtained a Coldwell Banker master franchise under a joint SinYi/Coldwell brand. But SinYi’s growth in company-operated and franchised branches in China was still slow. He was considering whether he should establish a new company to run the franchise business exclusively using the Coldwell brand and reserve the SinYi brand for company-owned branches. This new approach would require a revision to the agreement with Coldwell Banker, which the president would need to evaluate.