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The managing director and director of overseas marketing of Midea Group, China's largest air conditioner manufacturer, had concerns about the company's domestic and global competitive position. They felt the company needed to develop a strategy to defend its home market in the wake of more liberalized imports, and simultaneously, develop the resources and skills required to play in a global market where its cost advantages had been nullified because international players were also exporting from China. To do so, they needed to review the company's current international strategy and examine both branding and private label options.

CavinKare Private Limited has emerged as an important player in the Indian fast moving consumer goods market. It has not only survived cut-throat competition from formidable multinational companies, but also has recorded sustained high growth over the years. Its business model has included converting important consumer insights into superior products, innovation and experimentation, value pricing, and extending distribution access. The case discusses the challenge before the top management to put in place a strategy to translate the vision of making CavinKare a billion-dollar entity (Rs 52,000 million) by 2012 into reality.

Saffronart, a five-year-old online art auction company, leads the market for modern Indian art and now faces competitors in the market it created. Established in 2000 by the wife-and-husband team of Minal and Dinesh Vazirani, Saffronart.com is an innovative online auction firm that specializes in modern and contemporary Indian art. Having been the first firm to offer Indian fine art with authenticity guarantees in an auction setting that increased the transparency of prices, Saffronart succeeded in establishing the genre of modern and contemporary Indian art in the art world, and in creating a market for it. This market, and Saffronart's revenues, grew rapidly from 2000 to 2005. Saffronart's estimate was that the Indian art auction market would be worth $125 million in 2006, with their revenues being $45 million. While this success was gratifying, the firm and its founders faced new internal and external pressures; particularly worrisome was the entry of auction giants Christie's and Sotheby's into the market. The Vaziranis' main challenge now is to consolidate their leading position in the market they created in the face of the unpredictable cyclicality of the secondary art market and increasingly strong competitors.

This case examines the creative strategies that the Lauder family used to monetize their position in Estée Lauder Companies, Inc. in the 1990s while deferring their tax liability on the appreciated position. The strategies include the use of the company's initial public offering to engage in a short-against-the-box transaction and the issuance of hybrid securities known as TRACES. The case allows the students to consider a variety of monetization strategies and the tax and non-tax consequences to those strategies. Students are also exposed to estate tax planning, taxation of derivatives and tax risk issues.

This case challenges students to apply financial reporting concepts pertaining, most notably, to liabilities and expenses in a specific corporate situation. In the context of an interesting, but noncomplex, technical accounting issue, students debate the best way for Adenosine Therapeutics to present its compensation arrangements in its financial statements. In addition, this case also prompts students to debate the best way for a growing company, with cash constraints, to provide incentive and maintain top employees.

Berkshire Partners, a private equity firm in Boston, was pleased with their recent investment in the Holmes Group, a home comfort consumer electronics company. The portfolio company was exceeding key financial targets and Berkshire Partners was confident that it would be another successful investment. Holmes' management team then suggested acquiring a kitchen electronics company, the Rival Company. The management of Holmes believed that Rival would complement their existing portfolio of products and it was the perfect time to buy due to a depressed stock price caused by declining earnings. The investment team at Berkshire now had to decide if the possible returns from an investment in Rival were enough to risk the successful investment in Holmes, or if Rival could be acquired without risking Berkshire's investment in Holmes.

In October 2005 Andrea Jung is coping with a 30% decline in Avon's stock price--the biggest test of her leadership since she became CEO in 2000.

A recent Cuban immigrant establishes a new notions store. The initial 3-month, GAAP-based income statement differs from one prepared by an economist friend. The store owner wants to know why one shows a profit and the other a loss.

The student is starting his or her own business, baking make-to-order cookies. Basic times of each operation are laid out and the student is asked to determine the consequences for the operating system. Serves as an exercise and review of concepts such as capacity, bottlenecks, and throughput times. Students should be able to make several useful suggestions for improving the system.

When the Danish mobile phone service provider Telmore entered the market in October 2000, few people took notice. Its business model was not perceived as particularly aggressive or threatening to the industry. Less than three years later, Telmore's creative adaptation of the well-known, no-frills model of the airline industry had taken the Danish market by storm. With a combination of rock-bottom prices, simplicity, and a focus on customer satisfaction backed by a unique low-cost infrastructure, Telmore's business model, with its powerful virtuous cycles, proved to be the most successful innovation the industry had seen in many years.

Ever find yourself looking for the perfect case for an exam or mid-term? They can be quite rare. "Green Ox" was written specifically for a mid-term exam in an MBA Marketing Management class. Rather than focus on one particular concept or issue (e.g., segmentation, product line depth), the case challenges students to develop a marketing strategy for a food and beverage manufacturer's new line of sports beverages that contain beneficial antioxidants. Focal decisions include choosing a segmentation scheme(s), choosing a specific target segment(s), and articulating a positioning statement(s) for the new product - in light of market trends, customer information, and competitor positions. Students must also make recommendations regarding the product name, number of products in the line, and the price (including a break-even analysis). Distribution and promotion issues are downplayed, yet there is sufficient information to determine whether students' recommendations on the larger issues account for the necessary integration of the 4Ps.

The case asks students to develop a method for identifying individuals at risk of having chronic kidney disease. A 6,000 subject training set containing 34 potential predictor variables is provided along with a 2,819 subject validation set the instructor uses to evaluate student predictions. The case is based on an actual study which resulted in a simple nine-question survey that instrument health professionals use to help patients decide whether to be tested for chronic kidney disease.

The case documents how Naresh Goyal, chairman of Jet Airways (India) Limited founded the airline and related business group, and built the 'Jet Airways' brand from the early 1990s to 2004. Deploying new aircraft, maintaining young fleet, and focusing on passengers' convenience and service quality, he positioned the airline to the needs of Indian business travellers, garnered more than 40 percent market share and attained brand leadership by 2004. With prudent pricing, cost and yield management, Jet Airways enjoyed healthy profit margins of 20 to 30 percent since early 2000. On the back of strong profitability, market position, brand equity, and booming Indian capital markets and economy, the airline priced its 2005 public issue aggressively but investors' feedback on a red herring prospectus called for brand ownership, which it licensed from Jet Enterprises Limited, a group company promoted and owned by Naresh. The carrier appointed Mumbai-based auditors to value the brand and Jet Enterprises began registering the trademark globally. While Carl Saldhana, Chief Financial Officer, hoped that the auditors would arrive at a formula to value the brand and complete its transfer in six months' time, the trademark registration in some countries hit a snag.

CEMEX grew through acquisitions from a Latin American to a global company under the leadership of a CEO who believed in the importance of a "one enterprise" culture and benchmarking against world standards. As the CEO ponders an acquisition that would double the company's size and take it to new geographies, he wonders if the right capabilities are in place for what should be changed to manage the integration process effectively.

After having negotiated major financial and operating decisions with its parent company, the Chief Financial Officer of this small ready mix concrete subsidiary is then asked to provide a valuation of the subsidiary. A one year forecast of financial statements is provided along with information on long term operating expectations and capital costs. This otherwise straightforward valuation exercise is enhanced by (1) the need to select between the parent or comparable firm costs of capital, (2) sufficient guidance to perform an illuminating sensitivity analysis, and (3) a sufficiently clear and rich context in which to illustrate the linkages between operating and financing choices.

Rob Jones, a Business Development manager intern, has been asked to make a recommendation regarding the purchase of a key piece of intellectual property for use in the Xbox. The project requires collaboration with several functional groups within Xbox and, ultimately, their buy-in. Jones has collected assessments and perspectives (sometimes conflicting) and needs to assimilate them into a recommendation. Jones is surprised to learn that his manager has arranged for his recommendation to be presented to the Division's CFO.

Greg Mills describes his search for the perfect engagement ring which includes an analysis of the prices of 6,000 diamonds. An engineer, Greg hopes to impress Sarah Staggers by using regression to find an underpriced diamond. Students are asked to either select one of the 6,000 diamonds or provide point forecasts for prices of 3,142 diamonds in a hold-out sample. The instructor can use the actual prices of the held-out diamonds to evaluate student pricing models.

Nearly all environmental organizations have a similar aim: to stop the degradation of the natural environment. However, the strategies which environmental organizations choose to employ are sometimes starkly different. Compares the models of two dissimilar environmental powerhouses: Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF). Active in 100 countries, WWF works with governments, businesses, other NGOs, and communities to set up conservation programs to preserve natural habitat. In contrast, Greenpeace works to campaign for environmental change against governments and corporations and accepts funding only through individuals and foundation grants. Explores the detailed history and business models of both organizations.

Nearly all environmental organizations have a similar aim: to stop the degradation of the natural environment. However, the strategies which environmental organizations choose to employ are sometimes starkly different. Compares the models of two dissimilar environmental powerhouses: Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF). Active in 100 countries, WWF works with governments, businesses, other NGOs, and communities to set up conservation programs to preserve natural habitat. In contrast, Greenpeace works to campaign for environmental change against governments and corporations and accepts funding only through individuals and foundation grants. Explores the detailed history and business models of both organizations.

Describes the auction of Cable & Wireless America (CWA), a bankrupt subsidiary of the British telecommunications company Cable & Wireless. While an initial "stalking horse" bid valued the assets at $125 million, after a long day and night of bidding between eight groups, the best bid was in the high $60 million range. The sell-side team, comprised of bankers from the Blackstone Group and Greenhill, and lawyers from Wachtell Lipton and Kirkland & Ellis, is forced to regroup and reconsider their options for galvanizing the bidding process. Describes these events in detail, while providing information for students on CWA's history, the nature of Section 363 auctions, and the bidders who were involved in the process.