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Jonathan Miller appeared in September 2009 on "Shark Tank", the ABC television reality show featuring entrepreneurs versus angel investors in a discussion of the business value proposition and to win a negotiation for an investment from one of the 4 Sharks. The company he founded, Element Bars, a maker of custom energy bars, needed investment capital. Prior to appearing on the show, Miller had considered several financing options available to entrepreneurs: loans and other debt capital and equity capital, each of which are evaluated in the case. Miller had a good feel for the different types of capital to use for this new venture, having started several ventures in the past and winning the Kellogg School of Management business plan competition, the Kellogg Cup, in 2008. The case includes Miller's decision to forego the investment offer he won on television, instead he pursued lower cost of capital equity.

This is part of a case series. Simon Cohen parked his Acura SUV outside his Monterrey office, let the fingerprint scanner check his ID to open the door, and jogged upstairs past the huge poster showing containers and cranes at the port of Manzanillo. He paused for a moment in the company's boardroom. Here, a week earlier he had agreed with his business partners how they would restructure the company's ownership, and build on the success of the last 10 years. 'How could Thomas change his mind?' he wondered. Simon shook his head and strode into his office, wondering what to do. Over the previous 10 years, Simon and his three business partners - his brother Jose, Manfred Jaekel and Thomas Kroeger - had built up a successful freight forwarding business, with offices in Monterrey and Guadalajara. Manfred and Thomas ran their own separate, and longer-established branch in Mexico City. Simon had won some large, multinational customers, and had benefited from the increase in imports from China. By focusing on customer service, and by building up a hard-working team, he had grown bigger than the original Mexico City operation. There had been some friction over the years, but Manfred had proposed combining the companies into a group, and after some negotiation a verbal agreement had been struck on 15 August 2007. But, a week later, Thomas had phoned to say that he would not go ahead with the deal they had agreed. Simon was forced to reconsider his options.

Agricultural commodities often are characterized by two aspects, viz., seasonality, and shelf life of the produce. Further, in countries such as India there are significant public policy dimensions (governmental regulation on pricing and markets etc.) that critically influence production, distribution, and marketing of several agricultural commodities. Furthermore, unlike their counterpart in manufacturing, agricultural commodity supply chains typically are not well-organized in such countries. Therefore, prevalence of cooperatives as an organization structure for managing several supply chain activities is also a common feature. This case has contextually been set under these conditions and it deals primarily with the issue of marketing of tea. In addition to the above-mentioned issues pertaining to marketing of agricultural commodities, tea poses unique challenges arising out of numerous varieties/grades. Owing to several of these aspects understanding the factors that influence profitability of a firm engaged in procurement, production, marketing and brand creation of tea makes an interesting study for a student of management. The case thus offers a multidimensional perspective to the problem of improving the profitability and points to various alternatives in the hands of the management to address the same. The case can be used in the core marketing course, perhaps, as a capstone case toward the end to highlight the interrelationships among different elements of marketing. The case can also be used in other courses to introduce challenges of managing cooperatives, use of auction as the procurement mechanism and also to illustrate the use of Internet as a primary marketing channel.

How do you reduce headcount when almost everyone gets the same scores on performance reviews? HR vice president Nils Ekdahl confronts that question at Circale Corporation, a fictional electronic-components distributor that has just completed a series of acquisitions. Ekdahl wants to make the personnel cuts objectively, but the company's new performance-review system yields disappointing results: On a five-point scale, virtually every employee gets a 4 or 5 on each dimension. So Ekdahl instructs managers to redo the evaluations, tells them they're not allowed to give just 4s and 5s, and requires an average score of 3 across each manager's direct reports. This time the scores indeed average 3, but they are nearly all 3s. Grade compression at the top of the scale has merely shifted to the middle. Should Ekdahl initiate yet another round of performance reviews or make do with the data he has? The authors of this fictionalized case are Brian J. Hall and Andrew Wasynczuk, both of Harvard Business School. Expert commentary comes from John Berisford, currently of The McGraw-Hill Companies and formerly of Pepsi Beverages, and from Stephen P. Kaufman, currently of Harvard Business School and formerly of Arrow Electronics (the company whose performance-review system was the seed for this case). HBR's readers also weigh in.

How do you reduce headcount when almost everyone gets the same scores on performance reviews? HR vice president Nils Ekdahl confronts that question at Circale Corporation, a fictional electronic-components distributor that has just completed a series of acquisitions. Ekdahl wants to make the personnel cuts objectively, but the company's new performance-review system yields disappointing results: On a five-point scale, virtually every employee gets a 4 or 5 on each dimension. So Ekdahl instructs managers to redo the evaluations, tells them they're not allowed to give just 4s and 5s, and requires an average score of 3 across each manager's direct reports. This time the scores indeed average 3, but they are nearly all 3s. Grade compression at the top of the scale has merely shifted to the middle. Should Ekdahl initiate yet another round of performance reviews or make do with the data he has? The authors of this fictionalized case are Brian J. Hall and Andrew Wasynczuk, both of Harvard Business School. Expert commentary comes from John Berisford, currently of The McGraw-Hill Companies and formerly of Pepsi Beverages, and from Stephen P. Kaufman, currently of Harvard Business School and formerly of Arrow Electronics (the company whose performance-review system was the seed for this case). HBR's readers also weigh in.

How do you reduce headcount when almost everyone gets the same scores on performance reviews? HR vice president Nils Ekdahl confronts that question at Circale Corporation, a fictional electronic-components distributor that has just completed a series of acquisitions. Ekdahl wants to make the personnel cuts objectively, but the company's new performance-review system yields disappointing results: On a five-point scale, virtually every employee gets a 4 or 5 on each dimension. So Ekdahl instructs managers to redo the evaluations, tells them they're not allowed to give just 4s and 5s, and requires an average score of 3 across each manager's direct reports. This time the scores indeed average 3, but they are nearly all 3s. Grade compression at the top of the scale has merely shifted to the middle. Should Ekdahl initiate yet another round of performance reviews or make do with the data he has? The authors of this fictionalized case are Brian J. Hall and Andrew Wasynczuk, both of Harvard Business School. Expert commentary comes from John Berisford, currently of The McGraw-Hill Companies and formerly of Pepsi Beverages, and from Stephen P. Kaufman, currently of Harvard Business School and formerly of Arrow Electronics (the company whose performance-review system was the seed for this case). HBR's readers also weigh in.

A successful Canadian road construction and maintenance company is contemplating U.S. market entry via a subsidiary in Texas. The case deals with market entry considerations: speed of entry, the need to invest in learning about a market, and the importance of staying focused on what is a reasonable, original strategy.

This is a supplement to Currie Road Construction Limited (A). Having operated for two years in the Texas market, the company is confronting a variety of difficulties. The case looks at the organization issues of reporting relationships, control systems, and staffing.

The case describes the process of integrating environmental, social, and governance issues into valuation models and research analyst recommendations.

Julie Bornstein, senior vice president of Sephora Direct, is seeking to double her budget for social media and other digital marketing initiatives for 2011. A number of digital efforts implemented in the past two years seem to be bearing fruit, and there is a desire to intensify Sephora's social media, online video, and mobile presence. Bornstein must justify the need for the additional funding, determine how best to allocate the money across the various platforms, and establish effective ways to measure return on investment (ROI) for digital marketing spending . She must also take into account that the funding requested will likely come at the expense of Sephora's traditional marketing programs. Importantly, Bornstein needs to begin thinking about a cohesive long-term strategy that clearly identifies the role digital platforms play and how they help Sephora maintain its leadership position in the prestige beauty care space. The constant emergence of new players, such as Groupon and Shop Socially, the growing power of social media platforms such as Facebook, and the way consumer behavior and user generated content are rapidly evolving in a digital era, make her task all the more challenging.

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 on, OSSCube created a social media presence on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Slideshare, Vimeo, YouTube, Blip.TV, Blog and Friendfeed. The primary objective of creating a presence on these social media platforms was to augment the company's SEO initiatives. This strategy did help OSSCube in gaining business leads; however, Kinshuk, the community manager of the firm, realized that this strategy was not building the brand identity of OSSCube. Also, the thought of having a wide presence on social media platforms to augment SEO activities created some sort of confusion in consumers' minds regarding OSSCube's expertise. Hence, in 2010, Kinshuk 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.

Many companies view financial variables independently from ecological and social variables. Is it possible to hold one's organization equally accountable for financial performance and social responsibility? This field-based case is suitable for MBA and undergraduate courses or modules in sustainability and innovation, ethics, and corporate social responsibility. For REI, an outdoor gear and apparel manufacturer, the challenge lies in how to expand sustainability awareness through consensus building across the organization and with outside collaborators. As it designs a new strategic framework for the operations footprint, the company seeks to adopt a corporate strategy on product stewardship and adapt its philanthropy strategy around sustainability objectives.

At a time of market turmoil, a university investment manager wants to unload the school's entire private equity portfolio, yet no public market exists, so the assistance of a partner at a PE firm is sought. This case provides an introduction to a range of secondary transactions and the valuation challenges that arise.

The president and founder of New Deantronics (ND), launched her sales office in San Francisco, California, in 1985 and then set up her factory in Taiwan in 1987. Without any technical background or prior experience, through her system of management strategy and management philosophy, the president built ND's reputation as a trusted manufacturer and developer of medical devices. All ND 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.

AMD management needs to make a critical decision on the launch sequence of its next-generation technology called Fusion. The Fusion processor concept merges the central and graphics processing units (CPU and GPU) onto one chip-- yielding advantages in performance (particularly graphics related), power consumption, and suitability for new computer form factors (tablets, all-in-one machines, etc.). AMD planned to launch Fusion at the beginning of 2011 with a high-end processor, code-named Llano, to impress the industry and consumers with the best the technology could offer (suited for high-end desktops and notebooks), and subsequently to launch low-powered versions, code-named Brazos (suited for small notebooks and netbooks). However, the development of Llano suffered delays while that of Brazos was ahead of schedule. AMD's executive committee raised the possibility of reversing the launch sequence and going with a "Brazos First" strategy. The case describes the microprocessor industry, its main competitors (AMD and Intel), and the evolving world of PC selling and buying. The case further provides a host of market research that AMD conducted to better understand the market. Students need to address the advisability of a reverse launch vs. waiting to launch all versions together and whether AMD can advance its competitive position relative to Intel with Fusion. Students need to outline their marketing approach (sales effort, pricing, consumer marketing, etc.) in the event that a reverse launch strategy is pursued.

In the fall of 2010, Sarah Endline, CEO and Founder of sweetriot, an organic chocolate company, was deciding the best way to grow her organic chocolate company, while keeping her chocolate physically and conceptually on the shelf. She wanted to grow the offerings and profits of her company, while maintaining its social mission and unique flair. The case tracks the origins of sweetriot from Sarah's formative early career experiences, to the company's launch and beyond as Sarah prepares future products, establishes production channels, and seeks future funding. Sarah was not content to just be a small New York City candy company. Her goal was for sweetriot to be the number one natural chocolate company in the world and to thus be a vehicle to drive change globally. How can she meet that objective while also keeping the company true to its social roots?

An advisory company has to decide how to sell their client's hedge fund holdings in the secondary market, and thinks about their future. Shelley Capital was a a European advisory company operating in the hedge fund secondary market, a market that boosted in 2008 with the world financial crisis. Shelley had identified four final bidders for the $84.5 million portfolio of illiquid hedge fund holdings that one of their clients had commissioned them to sell and had now to decide to whom they should sell the holdings, if they should split up the portfolio, or if they should postpone the sale. At the same time, they needed to decide about their future business. The financial crisis was behind the exceptional growth of the hedge funds' secondary market, yet another crisis could follow and boost the secondary market again. What direction should Shelley take once the hedge fund industry fully recovered? But what if a second global crisis threw the hedge fund industry into disarray once again?

The China Investment Corporation (CIC) was China's sovereign wealth fund (SWF), established with $200 billion of registered capital in September 2007 to diversify China's foreign exchange holdings and increase risk-adjusted returns on those assets. CIC was unusual in that it had a strictly commercial orientation and market-driven investment mandate to invest in foreign assets but also served as the parent company of a 100 percent-owned subsidiary, Huijin, that invested solely in key state-owned financial institutions in China. Moreover, the fact that CIC was an SWF presented broader political challenges for it, its shareholder the Chinese government, its direct investments and their governments, and the world economy generally. This case involved two decisions CIC faced in early 2011: the first was how to best and most accurately articulate the relationship among CIC, Huijin, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) to the Federal Reserve Board (the Fed) so that ICBC could expand its business in the United States while exempting CIC and Huijin from certain types of Fed oversight. The second was whether to appoint a board director to Morgan Stanley, a company in which CIC had directly invested close to $6 billion and held 9.9 percent ownership. Additionally, the case discussed SWFs generally and their rights and responsibilities to the global community.

This case describes the precarious fiscal situation of the Illinois public pension system in the spring of 2009 and the accounting of pension plans by nonfederal municipalities more generally. In February 2009, in the midst of a recession, recently appointed Governor Quinn had to lay out his budget for the coming fiscal year and tackle the state's underfunded public pension, its largest liability. Immediately, the governor needed to raise funds to make the state's annual contribution to the pension plan, and at the same time he needed to come up with a plan for pension reform to prevent the future insolvency of the state. Governor Quinn had a number of levers he could employ, including changing the asset allocation of the pension funds; directly tackling entitlements through a defined benefit or defined contribution plan; or implementing a package of pension bonds, taxes, and employee contributions. Through this case, students should more fully understand pension accounting and the hard choices that many states will face because of their outstanding pension liabilities.

In 2010, Sino-Ocean Land Holdings Limited was a highly successful, large real estate developer based in Beijing, China. Sino-Ocean Land had three main business segments-property development, property investment/management, and other real estate related businesses. From 2005-2009, the company focused on becoming a leading regional developer with a multiproduct offering. That strategy was successful, riding the wave of spectacular growth in the Chinese real estate sector from 1998-2008, following a loosening of Chinese state real estate regulations. Although Sino-Ocean Land had gone public in 2007, its key shareholders were still state owned enterprises. The state maintained significant influence on the company and the real estate market, in general. The case explores the interactions between the company and the state, examining land acquisition, financing, and corporate governance. Following the global financial crisis of 2008, Sino-Ocean Land must devise a new five year strategic plan. CEO Li Ming must grapple with the changing market dynamics and regulatory environment, to decide the best course for the company. Key issues that he must determine are: whether the focus should be local or national; whether to continue with multiproduct offerings, or specialize in one product type; and whether to continue to pursue primarily development, or to shift to property investment and holding.