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PlaNet Finance was a French NGO providing technical support and training services to microfinance institutions (i.e., institutions providing financial services to the poor) and other microfinance actors, rating of microfinance institutions and management, and advisory services to microfinance investors and investment funds. Furthermore, it was creating a network of microfinance banks through a microfinance holding company. However, in a context of rapid change and explosive growth of the microfinance sector, Jacques Attali, the founder and president, wondered whether PlaNet Finance's scope was sufficiently broad to fulfill its mission or, on the contrary, whether it needed to be narrowed in order to eliminate organizational challenges and external perceptions of conflicts of interest.

Marcelo Alecrim, the owner of SAT, a gas distribution company in Brazil, envisioned many growth opportunities but lacked financial resources to pursue them. He was approaching an American private equity fund to raise money. Describes Alecrim's challenge in creating SAT and the way he leveraged his vision and a sound business model.

In 2002, Professor Nicholas Negroponte, a successful venture capitalist, author, and co-founder and chairman emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, announced his intention to build a PC so cheap as to make it possible to provide Internet- and multimedia-capable machines to millions of children in developing countries. The concept--subsequently often referred to as the "$100 PC"--was launched at the Media Lab in 2003 before being spun into a separate nonprofit association, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), founded by Negroponte in January 2005. At the time skeptics, including technology industry leaders, argued that it simply could not be done. Through innovative design and technology, Negroponte and his team proved them wrong but struggled to sell the concept and the machines to the world's education ministries, who would be purchasing the laptops for their school age children. Furthermore, by 2007, many other low-cost PC options had emerged and OLPC had not started shipping yet, leading some observers to wonder if the non-profit should reconsider its strategy and options

In 2001, accounting regulators, especially those in the U.S., began to reconsider the rules of consolidation with a move toward a requirement based on "control," with much less consideration of the size of the equity stake. The fundamental accounting and reporting issue for the Coca-Cola Company was whether the investment in, and operation of, anchor bottlers such as Coca-Cola Enterprises should be reported as a consolidated subsidiary or as an investment and, if the latter, whether that investment should be accounted for using the equity method of accounting, at fair value, or at cost. Includes a detailed history of the Coca-Cola Company.

Reviews the impact of SFAS 142--Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets--in the context of the AOL Time Warner merger. Under SFAS 142, companies were required to perform periodic testing to determine whether economic goodwill had been impaired. Includes a detailed account of the AOL Time Warner merger from its announcement in 2000 through its completion in 2001. Students are asked to assess what the likely impact is of SFAS 142 on the combined AOL Time Warner balance sheet.

The 'Dollar General Going Private' case is intended to improve students' understanding and encourage their use of financial statement analysis. The context is Dollar General Corporation's acquisition by private equity sponsor KKR, which took the company private in 2007. Although the proposed merger generated a 30% premium over the stock price at the time, and the enterprise value to EBITDA multiple was significantly higher than comparable transaction multiples in the retail industry, some shareholders claimed that the price was "grossly inadequate," making the decision whether to approve the transaction a difficult one for shareholders generally.

In 2006, AARP was one of the largest, most well known nonprofit organizations in the United States. Its membership base exceeded 38 million individuals, by far the largest nonprofit membership base in the country. In recent years, it had influenced major federal legislation on issues including Medicare, Social Security, and pension reform through a coordinated effort of professional lobbyists and grassroots volunteers numbering close to one million. In addition, AARP Services Inc, the organization's wholly owned, taxable (earned income activities) subsidiary, managed relationships with AARP-endorsed businesses that generated over $500 million in royalties from health insurance, life insurance, mutual funds, and other products--making it one of the largest social enterprises in the country. With activities in the commercial, charitable, and political arenas, AARP had adopted a truly cross-sector approach to achieving its mission to "enhance the quality of life for all as we age." Despite its size, influence, and visibility, AARP felt the public did not fully appreciate or understand the organization. In the face of growing public interest and media fascination with the application of business practices and market principles in the social sector--under the rubric of social entrepreneurship--AARP received relatively little attention from journalists, thought leaders, and academics for its enterprising approach. The organization also faced a public relations challenge over the fundamental principles of its cross-sector model. Left unchecked, AARP knew that such allegations, regardless of their validity, could undermine its ability to achieve its long-term goals. The organization also faced competitive challenges and the problem of increasing internal cooperation and synergy across the entire organization in order to improve its competitiveness and execute its social impact and member value agendas.

Provides a detailed description of the process of strategic management, particularly strategy implementation, at Zhujiang Iron and Steel Company (ZISCo)--a Chinese state-owned enterprise. ZISCo, established in 1997, is a steel manufacturer and produces a range of steel sheets and plates used in manufacturing containers, industry-used gas bottles, steel pipes, white good appliances, and automobiles. In early 2003, ZISCo faced many problems in the key areas of production, procurement, and marketing, which largely resulted from the niche market strategy it was implementing at that time. In March 2003, Ruosheng Zhang was appointed as the new president of ZISCo. Since then, ZISCo has implemented a "value creation strategy" and undertaken a number of important functional reforms, with active participation from its employees. Consequently, its financial performance improved substantially during 2004-2006. Nevertheless, ZISCo still encountered various challenges in 2007, particularly in the areas of cultural change, knowledge management, and development of organizational competence and learning capability.

Describes two social ventures' experience of collaborating with each other through a replication project funded by Lemelson and the Schwab Foundations. Each venture served different purposes: IDEAAS installed and operated alternative solar energy equipment in locations without access to Brazil's electricity grid, and Saude & Alegria educated populations in the Brazilian Amazon jungle on matters of health, environment conservation, and self-sustainable wealth generation. The replication project entailed having Saude & Alegria help IDEAAS expand its service offering from the south of Brazil into the Amazon region. After describing the organizations, the replication project, and its results, highlights the core success factors that possibly led to the project's ultimate outcomes, allowing students to take positions and debate the critical success factors enabling the successful collaboration between social ventures.

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In 1997, the Philippines government privatized its water utility in the metropolitan Manila area. The East Zone concession was won by Manila Water Company and the West Zone concession by Maynilad Water Services. Over the next decade, Manila Water turned in an impressive and profitable performance, while Maynilad failed. Describes the management actions of Manila Water and poses the question of whether, and how much, they should bid for the vacated West Zone concession.

After significant changes in management, strategic direction and product focus, XenSource, a virtualization software start-up that relies on open source code, faces key decisions regarding the pricing and packaging of its products, a challenge which is compounded by two additional factors: the tension with all of the trappings of open source and the objective to catch / overtake the established incumbent, VMware.

Fiyta had long been on of China's foremost watch brands. However, as China's economy began to improve and the livelihood of many Chinese rose with it, their tastes began to change. Exposed to more luxurious foreign brands, many Chinese strived to purchase a Swiss or Japanese watch. How could Fiyta build up its brand image to a more sophisticated Chinese consumer? What marketing activities should it undertake to reinvigorate its brand? Is it meeting the needs of all segments of Chinese consumers? Should it?

Jan Muska, a financial analyst with Fidelity Investments, must evaluate Statoil ASA for possible inclusion in the company's Energy Fund portfolio. During the period January 1, 2001 - September 15, 2006, Statoil's stock, which was listed as an American Depositary Receipt (ADR) on the NYSE, outperformed the S&P 500 by a wide margin. In August 2006, an ING analyst issued a report changing the firm's rating on Statoil from buy to hold. In October 2006, ValuEngine issued a market "outperform" rating and set a target price of $28.40 per share. With conflicting analyst opinions on Statoil's value, Muska must prepare his own evaluation of Statoil's financial performance and valuation and make a recommendation to the portfolio manage of Fidelity's Energy Fund.

This case provides financial statement data for ten companies from ten different industries from Thomson Banker One-Analytics. Using knowledge of the industries' financial characteristics and financial ratios, the case asks student to match each of the ten financial statement data sets to an appropriate industry. The case provides common-sized income statements (all items scaled by revenues), common-sized balance sheets (all items scaled by total assets) and selected financial ratios. All data are averaged over three years-2004-2006-to smooth out one-time items.

South Africa had formally introduced a policy of inflation targeting (IT) in February 2000. By December 2001, the governor of the South African Reserve Bank after reading the latest statistics is concerned with the disappointing economic data. Economic activity had slowed drastically, to the point that the country appears to be heading for a recession. The gloomy statistics force the governor to consider whether the country had pursued the right policy. The persistently high unemployment, one legacy of the apartheid era, meant that South Africa did not have the luxury of waiting for new policies to bear fruit. With inflation forecast to exceed the mandated target, the governor would have to tighten monetary policy, which would further restrict investment. He questions whether it is time for South Africa to change course.

Looks at various international expansion models for a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley. Lightspeed Venture Partners believed that India had tremendous potential for venture capital returns--the question was how best to tap into that potential while also growing the firm's presence in the U.S., Israel, and China. The venture firm had recently hired partners in Israel and China, and subsequently opened offices in both countries. The firm was contemplating hiring a third international partner in India and potentially opening a third foreign office. This model seemed to be working in the other two countries, but other U.S. venture firms were entering India in a more aggressive manner. Some venture firms were purchasing local firms and raising money for dedicated India funds. Others were hiring a team of two or three local investors at one time. Lightspeed partners wondered which was the best long-term solution for their firm.

Codelco was a Chilean copper-mining company, widely considered to be one of the most professionally managed firms in South America in spite of the fact that it was 100% government-owned. A $10.5 billion company in 2005, Codelco faced the challenge of incorporating information technology into its production processes, which had historically been very manual in nature. CEO Juan Villarzu's initial turnaround attempts introduced a customer-centric corporate culture to his ranks, but he was still challenged by how to create an outsourcing strategy given his location and the traditionally low IT-to-total-spending ratio in the mining industry. Villarzu envisioned moving to a robust IT architecture, enhancing the solutions that were available, identifying further needs in the company and deciding how to fix them, and working together with Codelco's business processes to assess, plan, and build new IT projects.

This note explores how advertising works from a consumer behavior perspective. Following an overview of some of the traditional hierarchical approaches to studying advertising and limitations associated with these models, the elaboration-likelihood model (ELM) is introduced as a means of addressing some of these deficiencies. The ELM is then examined within an advertising context. Subsequently, subliminal advertising is briefly considered. Lastly, issues related to measurement of advertising effectiveness are discussed.

Describes the process by which the largest law firm in the world developed a unique framework for personnel management. In 2004, John Conroy is about to take the reins as the leader of Baker & McKenzie, the largest law firm in the world by employees, with offices in 38 different countries. Facing an intensifying war for talent and associate retention concerns in some offices, Conroy has spearheaded the development of a framework for guiding the hiring, development, and retention of employees. As he is getting ready to introduce his framework at the firm's annual meeting, however, he faces many questions about its implementation. Could a single framework effectively apply to lawyers across so many different regions and cultures? Had this framework properly identified the attributes needed to succeed at Baker & McKenzie? How would the firm's hundreds of partners react? Offers the industry- and firm-specific content necessary for students to explore these questions and more.