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“Suitable for MBA, Executive MBA, GEMBA, and executive education programs, this case uses CEMEX, a global cement producer based in Mexico, to set the stage for unfolding an analysis of a growth through acquisition strategy. It offers a discussion about the firm's overall strategy to acquire on a global scale instead of growing organically and provides an opportunity to introduce basic financial, marketing, and operational terms that can be explored in subsequent classes. The material includes a PMI process that further allows discussion on that technique.

The case opens with a conference call and another barrage of questions for CEO Lorenzo Zambrano about his bid to buy the Australia-based Rinker Group in October 2006. Until this point, CEMEX has had a long-standing habit of buying businesses in emerging markets; this acquisition would be a departure from that strategy. If the deal goes through, it would be the single largest acquisition in CEMEX's history, and it would be among its few forays into a developed market other than the neighboring United States. The company has grown exponentially and successfully. Why would this effort be any different? Was the acquisition a good idea or not? And if it was, how would Zambrano and his leadership team convince Wall Street and others of that?”

Macroeconomics: fixed exchange rate regime, external and internal devaluation, international competitiveness, comparison to ongoing eurozone periphery problems.

The main audience for this case is undergraduate students in economics and business or graduate students in business or political science related studies. More particularly, the case suits a class on applied macroeconomics or general economic policy.

The case investigates economic development in Latvia since it gained independence, the key focus is overheating in 2004-2007 and consequential extraordinary economic crisis of 2008-2009. This case gives a great starting point to discuss ongoing problems in peripheral eurozone (PIGS) in terms of internal versus external devaluation.

Students are expected to learn the differences between external and internal devaluation as well as a country's international competitiveness factors. Also, class discussion of similarities and differences between Latvia and PIGS should make students more aware of two types of devaluation.

Teaching notes are available. Please consult your librarian for access.

Firms that are selling a relatively new market offering have to create the need for that offering. House Wonders entered a market that was not that well-informed about their market offering, and thus, have experimented with several communication channels that had different cost, and naturally different results. The purpose of this case is to encourage the students to compare and contrast the different communication methods, discuss their usage by House Wonders and come up with the best communication strategy.

This case simulates the challenges faced by a department store that is specialized in home improvement and hardware that recently started operations in Egypt. The store heavily emphasizes the role of “do it yourself” products, which is relatively new to the Egyptian customers. The case study presents the current economic conditions in Egypt, the company profile of the store and its parent company. The following sections involve explaining the concept of “do it yourself,” and other competitive advantages the store, House Wonders, has and how the management team managed to make the best out of it. The case study is concluded by explaining that in spite of all their efforts, the team is still faced with a number of challenges that are yet to be resolved, the most important of which is how to better reach the targeted segment.

Undergraduate/ MBA.

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CSS 8: Marketing.

This case has multiple theoretical linkages at the micro-organizational behavior level (e.g. job enrichment), but it is best analyzed and understood when examined at the organizational level. Students will learn about shared entrepreneurship, high performance work systems, shared leadership and virtuous organizations, and how they can develop a sustainable competitive advantage.

The case was prepared using a qualitative approach. Data were collected via the following ways: literature search; organizational documents and published historical accounts; direct observations by a research team; and on-site audio recorded and transcribed individual and group interviews conducted by a research team (the authors) with organization members at multiple levels of the firm.

John Lewis Company has been in business since 1864. In 1929, it became the John Lewis Partnership (JLP) when the son of the founder sold a portion of the firm to the employees. In 1955, he sold his remaining interest to the employee/partners. JLP has a constitution and has a representative democracy governance structure. As the firm approaches the 100th anniversary of the trust, it is faced with multiple challenges. The partners are faced with the question – How to respond to the environmental turmoil?

This case has environmental issues – How to respond to competition, technological changes and environmental uncertainty and an internal issue – How can high performance work practices provide a sustainable competitive advantage? Both issues can be examined in strategic management courses after the students have studied traditionally managed companies. This case could also be used in human resource management courses.

Strategic and organisational change, adaptation responses under competitive pressure and uncertainty and transformational process.

For Executive MBAs or MBA programs.

Founded in 1948 by Adrian Urquía, Aceitera General Deheza (AGD) transformed itself from a small oil-processing factory into the biggest indigenous firm in the industry. Nowadays AGD is a leading edible oil export company and also one of the frontrunners on the retail market for bottled oil with several successful brands. It ranked 40th among the 1,000 top companies in terms of turnover in Argentina in 1999 (Revista Mercado, 1999), and it is considered the fifth most important exporter in the country (Revista Mercado, 1999).After the changes the country went through in the 1990s, the company was able to adapt and thrive in an industry in which most indigenous businesses did not manage to survive. Nevertheless, the roots of AGD's success do not date from the 1990s but long before, in their thinking ahead about ways of improving technology, scale and cost-effective measures – a trio of decisions that would prove to be the right combination for survival and success.

An understanding of the process of business transformation: type and pace of change. The study of the transformation process of a firm will be complemented conceptually with the understanding of the adaptation process under the Argentinean context characterised by uncertainty. Students will also examine organisational flexibility. Defining organisational flexibility, the determinants of whether a firm is flexible or not and why we can consider AGD as a flexible firm.

Teaching note.

After working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to critically analyze a firm's international partnership strategies for its export market; assess international markets and a firm's entry strategies in them; identify various problems that a firm can face in international markets; and recommend strategies for growth in international markets.

Bajaj Auto's (BA) strategy to be a global motorcycle manufacturer had enabled it to hold its ground in the difficult times posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. For the first time, two-wheeler exports from India between January and May 2021 were equivalent to domestic sales showing increased exports and decreased domestic sales. This reinforced BA's belief in its global expansion strategies. Rakesh Sharma (Sharma), the Executive Director at BA, was increasingly buoyant of BA's ambitious plans to enter new markets in Latin America (LATAM) and South-East Asian (SEA) Market.Sharma knew very well that though the LATAM and SEA markets were up-and-coming and lucrative, there were innumerable challenging factors pertaining to Indian and foreign competitors, domestic and international economic and business environment, supply chain and logistical issues, as well as uncertainty brought by the COVID-19 pandemic that BA had to face before tasting success in these markets. Was BA moving in the right direction with its global business expansion strategies? Would Sharma be able to handle the challenges and successfully take BA toward its goal?

The case can be taught in advanced undergraduate, MBA or executive-level programs.

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CSS 5: International Business.

This case study was intended for MBA/postgraduate level courses, or for high-level executive courses. It provided a complex international business context to analyse the intricacies and dependencies between emerging regions, wherein a company (Grupo M) established an entire manufacturing cluster and invested all its assets in a place that has never hosted any industrial activity – in a country whose culture and traditions differed significantly from those of the neighbouring country that provided the investment. The case included a discussion of the negotiations that a private company undertook with two governments (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) to secure access to the free-zone facilities granted by the importing countries.

The case could be seen as a stimulating international business context to examine central tenets around “shared value creation” (Porter and Kramer, 2011): the practice of creating economic value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges. As per these authors, there are three ways to create shared value: by reconceiving products and markets, by redefining productivity in the value chain and by enabling local cluster development. The latter is the one best exemplified in this case. Additionally, the case brought intriguing insights on international business that can be related to ethics, corporate social responsibility and its many facets (Banerjee, 2007), as well as concepts around “responsible lobbying” (Anastasiadis et al., 2018).

This case presented the expansion challenges of CODEVI, a Dominican company, which established and operated an industrial (free zone) park in Haiti. Grupo M decided to move its operations when The World Trade Organization eliminated the quota system for apparel imported from the Far East Countries, and its CEO, Fernando Capellán, foresaw that the Dominican Republic would soon become non-competitive. At the time, an agreement between the US and Haiti, which gave preferential access to production from this extremely poor country, was being negotiated. In 2003, there were two sleepy towns at the Haitian-Dominican border: Dajabón, with about 18,000 inhabitants in the Dominican side, and Ounaminthe in Haiti, with about 40,000 inhabitants (with 90 per cent unemployment and over 80 per cent living below the extreme poverty line) on the Haitan side. These two locations were at the heart of a case that narrated how a complex international business operation resulted in an industrial park that has enjoyed considerable economic success, while simultaneously improving dramatically the living conditions of both border towns: Dajabón now has about 35,000 inhabitants and was a booming town, with a prosperous middle class; Ounaminthe now had 170,000 inhabitants (17,000 work directly at CODEVI), and was a city that essentially remained outside the chaos that often plagues the rest of Haiti. Additionally, a major impact of CODEVI was that it stopped the area’s illegal emigration of Haitians to the Dominican Republic, one of the Dominican Republic’s most pressing problems. But as the CODEVI industrial park has no area to expand, a decision must be made to either expand next to the present park, or at one of the three sister towns along the border. Such a park would have to be built from nothing, as was the case for CODEVI almost two decades ago.

MBA, executive and postgraduate.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 5: International Business.

The case covers capital budgeting practice in a real estate company in Vietnam.

The case is ideally suited for participants in MBA, Executive MBA, and Masters in Finance programmes. It can be taught near the end of a course on corporate finance/financial management. It can also be taught as an advanced topic in financial management courses.

A real estate company in Vietnam has prepared a capital budget for, what it claims is, a 600 billion VND project. The weighted average cost of capital used by the company is 10.64 percent. An analyst in a consulting company is asked to thoroughly review the capital budget of what appears to be a project that is too good to be true. Lending rates in Vietnam at this time were around 15 percent.

Participants will learn how to correctly apply the principles of computing: net after tax cash flows from a project; and weighted average cost of capital, particularly in the context of real estate companies.

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 are as follows: to teach the concept of mutual fund as whole, how mutual fund works and who are the investors; discuss how any asset management company can work and what is their investment process; discuss how mutual funds are affected by changes in economic outlook/macro-economic variables; discuss the alternative risk-adjusted measures of performance evaluation, such as the Sharpe ratio, Treynor, Jensen’s alpha and measure of risk-adjusted performance; and discuss which index to use as a benchmark and how to improve funds’ performance.

In April 2019, Khaldoon Bin latif, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Faysal Asset Management, reflected on the changes that had occurred during his two and a half years at Faysal. He was quite pleased with the recent performance of Faysal Funds and the company’s relationship-oriented approach to money management for individuals with high net worth. Yet, he wanted to ensure that both the investment-process and performance-evaluation measures that he had implemented at Faysal would continue to provide superior returns. Latif also wanted Faysal to outperform the relevant indices, not only on an absolute basis, but also on a risk-adjusted basis. He pondered which indices and models Faysal should use in the future based on their performance.

Undergraduate/graduate

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

The learning outcomes are as follows: what tasks are to be done by medical representatives in pharmaceutical industry? This study also highlights various competencies required to do effective selling in this industry; analyzes and discusses different unethical practices going on in the market; explains why ethical norms are necessary in sales context when sales targets are already achievable with unethical means; and develops and comments on strategies Flori Pharmaceutical can make to overcome on these unethical issues. What should be the response of Dahar to the email of Naveed khan? What course of action should be taken by Dahar in the deceitful reporting case of Mohsin Ali?

Flori is considered a leading and growing multinational organization in the highly competitive environment of Pakistan pharmaceutical industry with over 40 years of experience. The company aims to command a leading position in developing new health-care products as it offers a wide range of diabetic, cardiovascular, respiratory and vitamin products based on quality as a result of high research and examination. Recently, an email to Bilal Dahar on March 2017 from Flori’s star sales person Naveed Khan has forced management to take some strong decisions regarding ethical norms and values to be adopted by medical representatives of Flori pharmaceuticals. The email highlighted the issues related to sales pressure which are leading toward unethical sales practices. Dahar just not have to maintain Flori’s ethical code of conduct but he and his team also has to work hard to achieve more than 26% growth rate in sales revenue as compared to last year. Dahar knew that the highly competitive environment of pharmaceutical industry has led most of the stake holders to indulge in unethical behavior to achieve their individual targets. He knew that this is dangerous in long term for the multinational organizations such as Flori pharmaceuticals as if the similar behavior continues, the sales culture and values of the organization would be on stake. He also has to decide what decision to be taken against deceitful reporting issue of one of the top-performer territory managers, who was key person in helping Flori to close the sales year 2016 with the revenue of Rs. 6.4bn, a 26% growth over the last year. The case is rich enough to provide a platform regarding management of several ethical challenges in pharmaceutical selling and developing strategies based on them.

BBA, MBA final year.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.