This primer accompanies W39421. It is designed to provide essential background information for students, and should be read prior to the case discussion.
Based on client meetings, this case profiles a situation in 2014 where pension plan members are struggling to make decisions due to inappropriate account reporting. A sense of urgency permeates the case. The husband’s pension account has recovered much of the value he lost in 2007, but he is concerned that another loss could occur, at a point in his life where he will not have time to recover. Two themes are addressed through a discussion involving a couple and their financial planner: the first considers the differences between defined benefit and defined contribution pension plans, while the second considers appropriate performance reporting for pension plan members.
This case, previously titled Oasis of the Seas: The Largest Cruise Liner in the World, was updated by the case writers in May 2024.<br><br>The Icon of the Seas is the largest cruise ship ever built and was launched in 2022 in the midst of a financial crisis. Two analysts from ELP Equities, a Florida-based research firm, are trying to determine which cruise customer segments the Icon is targeted at. The information they have gathered allows them to conduct a customer segmentation analysis in preparation for a hypothetical meeting with the marketing director of Royal Caribbean International, the corporation that commissioned the Icon.
A publicly traded mining company has an opportunity to develop a mine containing gold, cobalt, and bismuth in Canada’s Northwest Territories and must determine the financial viability of doing so. In order to gauge the attractiveness of the project, the company needs to evaluate the net present value of the opportunity, given volatile and uncertain variables, such as commodity prices and foreign exchange rates. The company must also consider a number of qualitative considerations that may affect the project, such as relations with First Nations communities.
The managing director at a major investment bank is preparing his team for a visit to Lululemon Athletica, a yoga-inspired athletic apparel company. The investment bank has been following Lululemon’s development over the past few years and is impressed by the company’s unique positioning and rapid growth. The bank believes that there is a window of opportunity for Lululemon’s founder and private equity investors to either undertake an initial public offering or raise debt to fund Lululemon’s U.S. expansion.
Between 2001 and 2011, iSoftStone Holdings Ltd. grew from a small information technology services firm operating out of Beijing with 40 employees into a global IT consulting and services company with 11,000 employees, effectively competing with established Indian outsourcing IT providers such as Tata and InfoSys. The case discusses the particular go-to-market and growth strategies of iSoftStone and its evolution as a global player. The focus of the case is on addressing how iSoftStone approached the management of its human capital and intellectual property as both the vehicle for its rapid and successful expansion and as a differentiating factor between the enterprise and its competitors. The iSoftStone story also demonstrates the importance of enterprise-wide measurement of performance and the use of lessons learned in refining internal business processes and in developing project and service delivery teams.
Office romance has challenged sexual norms at work. Under the prevailing norms 40 years ago, a workplace affair meant a semi-clandestine liaison between a male executive (married or unmarried) and a female secretary or low-level assistant. Over the past few decades, sexual norms have become more flexible, and office romances are more likely to be out in the open. This case provides six real-life examples of office romance. In each case, students have an opportunity to consider how well the parties to the romance have conducted the relationship in a business context and what leaders could have done to manage the situation.
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.
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.
The chief executive officer (CEO) of Taiwan Taxi must assess the adoption of iCall by the firm's taxi drivers. When originally conceived, iCall was supposed to be the basis for substantial growth in the number of taxi drivers signing up with Taiwan Taxi. But even after many years, adoption still lags behind the plan. The CEO must assess the reasons for the slower adoption of iCall and make recommendations on whether to revise the goal or improve adoption in order to meet it. The case demonstrates the many complexities involved in realizing business value from the adoption of information technology.
DuPont had spent six years helping licensee manufacturers to develop the domestic market for non-stick cookware. While DuPont Teflon brand coating held 80 per cent of the non-stick market, the non-stick market overall represented 2 per cent of the domestic cookware market. Moreover, the amount of money spent on developing the non-stick market exceeded the revenue that DuPont received in the Chinese market. If DuPont decided to take a different role in the market, it faced many obstacles that required significant additional investment. It appeared that the domestic market offered tremendous opportunity, but it would require new efforts, skills, distribution channels and patience. The case examines the issues around leadership and product development that DuPont considered in their decision to go from licensing the manufacture of non-stick coating technology in China, to introducing a wholly owned brand of non-stick cookware.
This case describes the history and activities of the A-Team, a major alliance of bicycle assembly firms and parts suppliers in Taiwan, which was created in 2003. A strategic alliance with competitors posed challenges. For the A-Team, it was more complicated because the alliance was between both competing bicycle assembly firms and between parts suppliers. By 2006, progress had been made in making the alliance work but the senior executives were wondering what they could do to ensure future progress. The case can be used in a strategy module or course on alliances/joint ventures in a section examining the competition versus cooperation challenge.
By 2009, China's exports had increased dramatically from $250 billion in 2000 to a projected $1,500 billion in 2009. This enormous growth of exports severely damaged competing businesses in the advanced nations, particularly the United States and Europe. China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 guaranteed China's right to export to these nations, but at the same time the WTO required China to adhere to certain rules that sought to support fair trade and create a level playing field. Several broad subjects each gave rise to a series of trade disputes: the protection of intellectual property, health and safety concerns about China's products, labour and environmental standards, China's manipulation of their currency, and costs and prices determined by the government rather than free markets. This case examines each set of trade disputes and China's attempts to resolve them. Many disputes were embedded in cultural practices and ideological positions and so they might not disappear quickly. Shortcomings in China's legal and judicial system hampered enforcement. In addition, many rested on the government's desire to protect the interests of Chinese businesses and their employees, and so China might alter its practices only if confronted with credible retalitory threats. China's central government experienced the principal-agent problem where its wishes and decisions could be ignored by local governments and firms. Meanwhile, changes in industry structure within the advanced nations were altering the negotiation positions of Western governments. The case examines the WTO dispute resolution procedures and enforcement mechanisms that have been directed at China's trade disputes.
The chief executive officer (CEO) of Fortune Motors, the largest Mitsubishi dealership in Taiwan, has to consider his vision for the survival of the company. Fortune Motors' sales in 2003 had fallen below 50,000 units for the first time in 10 years, and market share had been falling for several years. The CEO had a plan to enter the business of financing used-car purchases. He thought that the balanced scorecard would be a useful tool to help him implement this change. The first step was to construct a corporate scorecard.
The founder of Kids Market Consulting, a market research firm dedicated to the kids, tweens and teens segment, was faced with increasing competition and slowing revenue, and was exploring a variety of possibilities for the future strategic direction of the business. In particular, she had to formulate the best plan for protecting the niche market and decide how aggressively to pursue expansion. In addition, there was the existing relationship with her business partner, and Kids Market Consulting was part of his group of marketing firms. Any changes the founder chose had to respect this relationship and she was therefore restricted to a limited number of options. The over-arching corporate objective for the company was to defend the market from larger businesses who were trying to increase their share of the market research industry.
The Scotts Miracle-Gro company is the world's largest marketer of branded consumer lawn and garden products, with a full range of products for professional horticulture as well. Headquartered in Marysville, Ohio, the company is a market leader in a number of consumer lawn and garden and professional horticultural products. The case describes a series of decisions regarding the ownership and organization of the assets used to manufacture fertilizer spreaders. This case is intended to illustrate the application of and tradeoffs between financial, strategic and operations perspectives in a relatively straightforward manufacturing make-buy decision. The case involves a well-known, easily-described product that most students would assume is made overseas. Sufficient information is provided to roughly estimate the direct financial cost associated with internal (domestic) production, offshored (non-domestic) production and outsourced production. In addition, information is included that may be used to estimate potential transaction costs as well as costs associated with foreign exchange risk.
The account manager at the Canadian Commercial Bank (CCB) in Barron, Ontario, reviewed his latest loan request. The co-founder of Druthers Forming Limited (Druthers), a long-time CCB customer, was requesting a $350,000 loan to construct a new building to house Druthers' existing operations. Construction was already well underway. The account manager also noted that Druthers was currently operating without a line of credit and he wondered whether the business could generate enough cash to cover expenses, including the new loan payments. He had one week to decide whether to lend funds and provide supporting rationale for his decision. To aid in his decision, the account manager began by assessing financial performance using statements of cash flows and ratio analysis; financial statement projection; and consideration of working capital requirements, including performing a sensitivity analysis on the days of accounts receivable, inventory and/or accounts payable.
The chairman of Taiwan-based Polaris Securities Co. Ltd. (Polaris Securities), announced approval of Polaris' investment plans in Singapore, Vietnam and Abu Dhabi. The chairman's name was known in Taiwan as synonymous with innovation and entrepreneurship. He had experienced great success in launching an information technology strategy and related complementary assets for online stock trading and online transactions. With a prominent performance, the chairman had made Polaris Securities stand out conspicuously in Taiwan's securities market. He also copied Polaris Securities experiences, such as computational finance, trading platform and customer service, to Polaris Securities (Hong Kong) Ltd. (Polaris Securities HK) to expand his business scope. The chairman contemplated whether Polaris Securities and Polaris Securities HK experiences could be duplicated in Singapore, Vietnam and Abu Dhabi.
Dr. C.V. Chen received news that one of Lee and Li's senior assistants had found a loophole in a power of attorney from one of the firm's clients, SanDisk Corporation (SanDisk), that had allowed him to illegally sell the client's shares in a Taiwanese company and to sneak out of Taiwan with over NT$3 billion. Unfortunately, Lee and Li had no insurance to cover this embezzlement. Chen knew that the three senior partners needed to develop a plan of action to save the law firm, take care of the lawyers and other employees, maintain the reputation of the firm within Taiwan and abroad intact, do what was best for SanDisk and Lee and Li, and keep the more than 12,000 clients from deserting the firm.
The owner of a small scuba diving operation in the Bahamas is reassessing his strategic direction in the light of declining revenues. Among the changes being considered are shark diving, family diving, exit, and shifting operations to another Caribbean location. These options are not easily combined, nor are they subtle. The case is intended to provide a work-out on the relationship between strategy, organization and performance, and how changes in strategy will dramatically affect the organization. The case also highlights the importance of understanding demographic changes as part of an environmental analysis. (A nine-minute video can be purchased with this case, video 7B08M041.)