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Anna Amphlett, a recent MBA graduate, was a newly hired financial analyst at Thor Industries, Inc., the largest manufacturer of recreation vehicles in the U.S. Amphlett was asked to benchmark the company's inventory management performance against other firms in the industry, and suggest areas where the company might eliminate waste and reduce costs. The company's Board of Directors, which now used free cash flows as a key performance indicator, believed that Thor could boost cash flows through lean management practices. Amphlett realized that comparing inventory management across companies was challenging, because inventory accounting methods differed across companies in the recreation vehicle industry.

discussion about the firm's overall strategy, post Gulf Oil spill, moving forward. The case describes how within a single decade, BP had emerged as one of the largest energy companies in the world. Within that scope, BP had an odd achievement: It had been building an alternative energy business and had gained a reputation as being an oil company with a regard for the environment. Then a series of preventable accidents, in the United States in particular, started to chip away at the firm's status. In a matter of five years, BP went from celebrating its most profitable period to finding itself selling assets while industry watchers wondered whether the company would survive after being responsible for the largest oil spill in the United States.

Nature plays an important role in maintaining the flow and purity of water. Human activities often degrade the quality and/or quantity of water flowing to downstream users, but the maintenance of natural ecosystems and the sound conservation management by those living upstream in watersheds can help provide a clean, reliable supply of water for downstream water users. Water funds are a way for downstream water users to preserve their water supply, by paying to restore and conserve natural ecosystems. They also enable upstream and downstream communities to work together for mutual benefit, preserving or restoring nature's ability to improve water quality and reliable flow while providing economic opportunities for upstream communities. This case introduces the concept of ecosystem services (the role that natural ecosystems play in sustaining and fulfilling human life) and payment for ecosystem services (PES), in which stakeholders pay in order to preserve or restore the ability of nature to provide these services. It describes water funds and other PES arrangements, as well as some of the challenges that water funds face. Several examples are provided of water funds and other PES programs.

Yoshito Hori, dean of the Graduate School of Management, GLOBIS University, was planning to launch a full-time English MBA program in September 2012. GLOBIS University was already offering successful part-time MBA programs in English and Japanese. The full-time English program was a necessary step to fulfill Hori's ambition to make GLOBIS the No. 1 business school in Asia, however it remained to be seen whether the school could attract international students who needed to relocate to Japan and compete with other world-class international business schools.

Stan Shih, founder-CEO of Acer, Inc., had proactively chosen and transitioned the "perfect" successor as CEO, but was now faced with major problems. Over the last two years, his heir apparent, Leonard Liu, had made the changes he had been hired to make, including revamping the organization structure and instilling a new corporate culture that emphasized accountability. However, such changes had caused numerous clashes between him and other cofounders of the company, in particular, Shih's wife, Carolyn. Liu had now suggested that "Carolyn should retire into her kitchen." Faced with office infighting and increasing clashes between the markedly different Western and Chinese styles of management, Shih needed Liu to manage the increasing complexity of global competition. However, Shih was now wondering if he had made the right decision to appoint Liu as his successor.

This case presents financial statements and selected ratios for 14 unidentified healthcare organizations and asks that each set of financial information be matched with one of the following healthcare companies: a biotechnology firm, a community nursing company, a distributor (medical), a DME licensee and seller, a DME developer and seller, a home care provider, a hospital (diversified), an insurer, a lab/diagnostic firm, a medical device manufacturer, a nursing home operator, a pharmaceuticals company (branded), a pharmaceuticals company (generics), and a private practice.

A partner and owner of the Sunset Grill at Blue Mountain in the village at Blue Mountain, Ontario had very mixed emotions. The restaurant had just finished its first year of operation and had broken even, and had been named Business of the Year in the counties of Simcoe and Grey. On the other hand, the owner knew that operations were still far from perfect. This case was written for courses on operations, particularly in the section on managing capacity and demand. It could also be used in a service management or service operation course.

A marketing company has collected a large dataset on brand equity for the fast-food and travel sectors. They have come up with their way of measuring "brand equity." Various statistical techniques are used to assess the concept of brand equity. These include descriptive statistics, crosstabs, ANOVA, and MANOVA.

The Chinese fireworks industry thrived after China adopted the open door policy in the late 1970s, and grew to make up 90 per cent of the world's fireworks export sales. However, starting from the mid-1990s, safety concerns led governments both in China and abroad to set up stricter regulations. At the same time, there was rapid growth in the number of small family-run fireworks workshops, whose relentless price-cutting drove down profit margins. Students are asked to undertake an industry analysis, estimate the industry attractiveness, and propose possible ways to improve the industry attractiveness from an individual investor's point of view. Jerry Yu is an American-born Chinese in New York who has been invited to buy a fireworks factory in Liuyang, Hunan.

By 2010, the National Football League (NFL) was still having trouble attracting both a global roster and fan base despite systemized attempts at internationalizing since 1989. Why? Was it simply a bad idea to try to export football, a sport that many considered uniquely American? Or was it a good idea that had been poorly executed?

This note identifies the key issues that must be addressed in the creation of a viable venture, and provides an overview of the processes and techniques available to resolve the issues discussed.

The case describes the Risk-Reward framework that Morgan Stanley analysts use as a systematic approach to communicate a broader range of fundamental insights about a company rather than the traditional single point estimates. The goal of the framework is to focus the analysts' work on critical uncertainties and model a limited number of scenarios relevant to key investment debates. By outlining a bear, base and a bull case, the analysts can present the risk surrounding the expected outcome over the forecast horizon. The case outlines the key elements of the methodology and the process Morgan Stanley undertook to implement the framework on a world-wide basis starting in 2007, and discusses the challenges and opportunities that managers of the research department face as the framework is increasingly identified with their firm.

In late 2009, the management of Mochi Media, a venture-backed startup, must decide how to invest scarce resources to achieve continued growth. Mochi has developed a three-sided platform, connecting Flash game developers, sites that aggregate these games, and advertisers. The case describes the company's history from conception through 2009, when strategic options include broadening beyond Flash games into iPhone-, Android- and Facebook-based games, and vertically integrating into the game aggregator role, which would capture more value but put Mochi into direct competition with platform partners.

The case describes CME Group, the world's largest commodities exchange, futures and options on futures contracts, history, regulation, and the strategic choices the company faced. CME Group was formed from the oldest and most well-known exchanges in the world. Traders on the exchange bought and sold contracts in order to hedge risk or speculate on future price trends. In recent decades trading had undergone significant growth. From its roots in agricultural commodities, with trading typically occurring in face-to-face transactions in pits on exchange floors, CME introduced new hedging products in metals, energy, and finance, and electronic trading, which brought new market participants. Some of these new participants, such as pension funds, were significantly larger and had different strategic agendas than the traditional agricultural related participants. The case raises the question of whether increased speculation was helping or hurting the exchange or its participants. In addition, the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 was driving new regulation in the industry which brought new challenges and opportunities to CME.

Bob Williams, the CEO of National Public Broadcasting (NPB), was considering an unsolicited offer to purchase the company in the early spring of 2006. The company was a media underwriting representative for public television and radio stations throughout the United States. When Williams and his wife Linda Williams started NPB in 1996, they had imagined that it would grow quickly and be acquired by a larger media representation firm in a few years. But the business proved to be more complex than they had anticipated with slower growth and less interest from strategic acquirers and, as a result, Williams had been running NPB ever since. The unsolicited offer gave the Williams and their partners the potential opportunity to realize a significant cash payment for the business. The case explores the impact on the sale of the ownership structure decisions that were made when NPB was formed and the complexity of the sales process for small businesses.

Bert took a position to teach English in South Korea after graduating with his business degree from a Canadian University. It was his second time teaching English in South Korea, and since he had a fantastic experience the first time, he took a second position without doing a lot of due diligence before arrival. Soon, however, he realized that a city tax was being deducted from his pay, and he had suspicions that his boss was making up the city tax, in order to deduct money from the English teachers' pay. Since Bert's visa to stay in the country was tied to his employer, he could not look for a new employer, nor could he effectively find legal recourse against his employer, because foreign teachers had few rights in South Korea. This case was designed to be used in an undergraduate organizational behaviour, business ethics or international management course. It was written using casual language and a first-person perspective because the main character is only a few years older than the students in a typical undergraduate classroom, so many of them will relate to the main character and his experiences in this situation.

The huge growth of information technology (IT) and information technology enabled services (TIES) businesses in India and, in particular, in Hyderabad, led to the establishment of Indian and multi-national companies. With large numbers of employees and thousands of square feet of office space, these companies recognized that maintaining their premises was not part of their core competence and outsourced their housekeeping requirements, thus creating a new industry. A single mother who was unable to make ends meet on her salary as the principal of a catering college grabbed a tiny opportunity to provide cleaning services at the Oracle office in the Cyber Towers at Hyderabad and, over 10 years, built up Golden Star into the third-largest housekeeping services provider in the city, with over 2,000 employees. While maintaining her strong personal ethical values, she built a young, professional team and maintained high standards of professionalism and quality of service. The case is set at the time when she is faced with the typical dilemmas of organic growth: to take on allied functions of office management, such as maintenance of electrical and mechanical equipment - a growing trend in the industry; to expand geographically to manage the offices of her clients in several cities; or to make a huge amount of money by simply selling the business she had built from scratch.

A summer intern student at 3M Health Care must analyse the health care division's logistics systems and report her findings to the vice president of 3M Health Care Markets. The vice president is most interested in the recommendations for the proposed changes to the existing method of distributing products to Canadian hospitals. This case provides sufficient information for students to assess the quantitative and qualitative issues relating to direct distribution versus maintaining its current supply chain structure of using valu-added resellers

A Lieutenant leading a platoon in Iraq must make a complex ethical, military, and leadership decision: whether to risk his life and that of other soldiers to reenter a home rigged with an explosive and save three Iraqis.

This negotiation introduces a situation full of opportunities for hard bargaining and out-of-the-box thinking about value-creating solutions. The American supplier Reed Oilwell views this business opportunity as a side door into the Petroecuador supplier network. The cross-cultural elements of the relationship are important, especially in the context of the various political aspects that shape the relationship between YPEC and its major customer, Petroecuador. The negotiation illustrates the potential for a cooperative approach but also offers the opportunity for a competitive outcome. The parties are instructed to reach a deal that satisfies their short-term goals, but their decisions will impact their ability to establish a preferred supply position in the new oil field operations.