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Corporate governance; General management; Strategy

Post Graduate/MBA

Tata Group is a conglomerate having 29 listed companies with consolidated revenues of $103bn in FY2016. On October 24, 2016, Cyrus Mistry, chairman of the group has been replaced in an unceremonious way from this job, in a boardroom coup, without being given any opportunity to explain his case. This news arrived in the media between October 2016 and December 2016 and wide and public debates took place on the corporate governance practices of Tata Group. Mistry’s ouster was attributed to non-performance, unethical practices and non-compliance to Tata culture. This case presents the Tata Group performance before Mistry, at the ouster of Mistry, the major trouble points and the corporate governance activities that took place in this saga at Tata Group. The real losers in this battle were the investors who lost $12bn between October 2016 and December 2016. Many of Tata Group companies’ stocks plunged.

The students will learn corporate governance, know how a non-listed company control and govern listed entities, know the way performance of a chairman of a company has been evaluated and learn how ethical and cultural issues impact the performance of chairman of a listed company.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS: 11: Strategy

Project structuring.

The case can be used for MBA, Executive MBA, Faculty Development Program (FDP) and Management Development Program (MDP) to introduce them to the selection of procurement method, concept of value for money and project structuring in the context of the education sector.

Saryu Secondary Schools of Excellence Samiti (SSSES) functioned under the chairmanship of the Minister of Human Resource Development and was running 584 Saryu Secondary School of Excellence (SSSE) as of March 15, 2013. SSSE were focused on providing quality education to poor children, primarily from rural areas. In January 2013, SSSES was given a mandate to open 75 additional schools within one year and 500 schools within five years in rural and semirural areas to meet the demands of secondary education in India.

The Managing Director of SSSES, was preparing for the meeting to be held on March 31, 2013 to discuss various options for development of the mandated schools including involvement of private player under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) model.

The case introduces the participants to the challenges in the education sector including public delivery system, poor economic status of students, selection of appropriate procurement method (public delivery versus buying of service from private sector) and project structuring issues. Specific objectives are: introduce participants to the challenges of delivering education services; establish the benefit of PFI in social infrastructure domain and introduce the participants to the concept of value for money; identify risks and returns under various structures; and impress on importance of non-commercial issues which may shape a project.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

The learning outcomes of this paper are as follows: to understand the characteristics of a natural monopoly such as telecommunications sector and impact of “network externality”; to understand the role of a regulator in maintaining a balance between competition and consolidation of telecom sector; to understand the importance of first-mover advantage in telecom sector and coping mechanism of late entrants; to understand different pricing mechanisms of “natural monopolies” that can be adopted to remain profitable; to understand social cost of price floor in telecommunications sector.

Indian telecom sector is going through a downturn where most of the private sector telecom service providers have reported huge losses, failed to pay adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues and reported decline in average revenue per user over a period of 3–4 years. Fierce competition in the sector leads to rock bottom calling and data charges. Bharti Airtel benefitted for being the first mover in terms of market share but with entry of JIO in 2016, the service providers have entered a price war. As a result, service providers have requested Mr. R.S. Sharma, Chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to come up with a floor on calling charges and requested the government for a bailout package. Currently, Mr. R.S. Sharma, Chairman TRAI is facing a dilemma whether to regulate and come up with a floor on calling and data charges or leave the sector for market correction. Mr. Sharma can also recommend to amend the definition of AGR. Telecommunications sector exhibit the characteristics of a natural monopoly where there is a need of a regulator to introduce “competition for the sector” and “competition in the sector.” In India, TRAI is the regulatory body responsible for introducing “competition for the sector” by auction and “competition in the sector” by deregulating calling and data charges, maintaining at least three private and one public service provider, decreasing “switching cost” of the customers, etc. The case deals with the issues of why there is a need of a regulator in natural monopolies, how different chairmen of TRAI have successfully introduced competition “for” and “in” the sector, and how Indian telecom sector went through a downturn? What should TRAI do to maintain competition in the sector?

The case deals with the issue of managing telecommunications sector (a natural monopoly) by a regulator in the context of India. The regulator had successfully introduced “competition in the sector” and “competition for the sector.” This led to sharp increase in subscriber base and decrease in calling and data charges. Presently, fierce competition in the sector has left the service providers cash crunched. The case deals with the dilemma faced by the chairman of the regulatory body in India on whether the regulator should come up with a price floor or market correction. Study level: MBA, Executive MBA.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 10: Public sector management.

The 12^th South Asian Games were held in India in Guawhati and Shillong in February 2016, after repeated rescheduling. There were a number of challenges to organizing the games such as lack of infrastructure, legacy of corruption from past games, shortage of time etc. However, the games were held within 90 days of the announcement of venues and final dates. Sri Yadav, the Secretary, Department of Sports wants to understand the key drivers of success behind organizing the event. He also wants to understand how the success of Indian athletes at SAG could be leveraged for success at larger events.

On March 7, 2013, ThyssenKrupp Group CEO Heinrich Hiesinger was shocked to receive a resignation letter from Gerhard Cromme, chairman of the company's supervisory board.

Hiesinger had been CEO since 2010. Early in his tenure, ThyssenKrupp incurred massive losses from disastrous steel investments and faced allegations of colluding with other companies to fix prices in its railway steel operations. As a result, Hiesinger had been forced to dismiss three executive board members, one for violating company policy. After a supervisory board member also was dismissed for violating company policy, the company's offices were raided in an investigation of price-fixing in steel contracts to the automotive industry.

Cromme had been sharply criticized by shareholders and analysts as an impediment to the cultural, strategic, and governance changes Hiesinger was trying to make to address the scandals at ThyssenKrupp, but for months he defiantly had resisted calls for his removal. With no warning, he resigned without naming a successor or creating a plan to select one.

Now that he no longer needed to deal with the distractions created by Cromme's presence, Hiesinger was free to finalize a plan to address the defects in ThyssenKrupp's governance.

The case describes the strategy of a large Indian Public Sector Bank (PSB) to enhance financial inclusion and financial literacy of less privileged people located in poorly accessible parts of India. While pursuing the developmental objective ‘imposed’ by the Central Bank/government, being a listed entity, the PSB had to be mindful of the financial viability of the strategy so as to protect the interest of its minority shareholders. The issues covered are endemic to most developing countries where public enterprises often become instrumentality of the state.

The case deals with an Urban Cooperative Bank situated in Ahmedabad, known as Ahmedabad Peoples Urban Cooperative Bank (APUCB). The bank had come under the scanner of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during 2009 because of mismanagement. It had failed to resolve its liquidity crisis even after the Reserve Bank of India imposed restrictions. The Government then appointed an external administrator, Hemant J. Rindani, to resolve APUCB's liquidity crisis. The bank had started paying claims but had lost people's trust. The last option for Rindani was to liquidate the bank. Rindani was however contemplating on various other options to come out with amicable solutions like, merge with other branches or pump in fresh capital and restart the business.

This case describes the challenges faced by Amul in organising dairy farmers into a co-operative and creating continuous opportunities for value addition. Participants in the case discussion are required to review the developments in the organisation and recommend a strategy for the future.

This case provides an opportunity to discuss the design and implementation of a Public Private Partnership project. It describes the Delhi Airport Metro Express Line project from conception to completion, and the subsequent dispute between the Public and Private partners leading to the Concession Agreement going into arbitration. Students discuss the reasons for failure and come up with suggestions for another metro rail project currently in the design stage.

The Employee Provident Fund Organization (EPFO), established by the Government of India is one of the World's Largest Social Security Organizations. The purpose of EPFO is to ensure social security for Industrial workers and their dependents. EPFO maintains more than 15 crore accounts of its members. Traditionally EPFO had been functioning as a legacy organization, administered and managed by Indian bureaucracy. Operational processes were riddled with over emphasis on rules and regulations, but were weak on transparency, accountability, effectiveness and efficiency. The 120 EPFO offices established all over the country operated in silos. Consequently, the very purpose of social security and welfare of the industrial employees suffered, while all other stake holders enjoyed significant controlling power. Recent interventions at EPFO were focused on process reengineering and ICT enablement to make EPFO more customer-centric. The case documents the transformation of EPFO from a bureaucratic, opaque organization to a customer centric, stakeholder friendly, transparent and accountable organization through IT enabled operations.