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This case study has been developed to facilitate discussion about current supply chain management issues and potential solutions. The scenario presented in this case is very representative of the pressures experienced by supply chain managers. Namely, the need to reduce costs while maintaining quality and customer service. This case presents some unusual challenges and constraints that are unique to the cruise line industry. These constraints can provide an opportunity to explore new supply chain paradigms.

This case study considers the supply chain redesign of a multinational company, with specific emphasis on production lot sizing, inventory policy and transportation decisions.

The material is intended for senior level students of business administration, logistics and similar departments. An intermediate knowledge of supply chain, purchasing and inventory concepts is required; therefore, the case is better suited for students who have taken one-semester courses on supply chain management and inventory management. This case can be used in graduate courses as part of discussions on physical distribution, supply chain design/redesign, risk pooling through process optimization.

Within the global market, establishing the right business model where cost of operations is optimized has become key for competitiveness. This necessitates the simultaneous consideration and reevaluation of production, inventory and transportation interactivities within the integrated supply chain. We first discuss the business procurement model of a multinational company with emphasis on critical aspects of the current structure. An alternative model brought into consideration by the managers of the company considers consolidation of shipments through supply hubs and distribution to regional manufacturers. We present an analysis based on perspectives of company managers for and against this new business model. We finally provide numeric evidence on relevant costs of both models in order to enhance further discussion on redesign decisions.

The discussion regarding the case will provide a better understanding of key concepts of supply chain integration and coordination as well as the significance of the optimization of underlying processes.

Teaching notes.

This case has three primary objectives. First, it allows students to think through a conceptual cost and benefit analysis associated with the decision-making process in line with basic economic thinking. Students will revisit core concepts of marginal benefit vs marginal cost, the notion of opportunity costs and the role of sunk costs in this type of analysis, while also highlighting the nature of market structure, oligopolies and competition across firms in an industry. The second goal of this case is to consider the role of business ethics in the DC-10 case: specifically, to consider the potential influence of moral awareness and moral disengagement in unethical decisions made by McDonnell Douglas. Students will develop an understanding of these concepts and solidify their learning by applying them to the case and engaging in active discussion. Finally, the third goal of the case allows students to explore organizational culture and specifically offer recommendations for organizations thinking about the link between decision-making, the role of ethics and culture.

The technical reports released by the National Transportation Safety Board along with secondary data such as available public data such as news reports were used to round out the synopsis of the case study.

This case explores the accidents of two McDonnell Douglas DC-10s in the early 1970s at the onset of the jumbo jet race between Boeing, Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas. It explores the series of events during the “Windsor Incident” in 1972 and the subsequent accident over Paris in 1974. It explores the reasons why the cargo door on the DC-10 was faulty and subsequently why the door was not fixed. It examines the interplay of industry suppliers such as McDonnell Douglas and how they interact with oversight authorities such as the Federal Aviation Authority. The Teaching Note focuses on the economic thinking at McDonnell Douglas, behavioral ethics and organizational culture.

This case is best explored over a 90 min session but could be expanded to take up one 3 h session. The authors have used this case format in an undergraduate organizational behavior class, an MBA Leadership and Organizational Change class, and an MBA Economics of Managers class. It works particularly well in the MBA setting, as students with work experience can see the links between the mistakes made by McDonnell Douglas and their workplaces.

Spark Publishing and Printing House is a comprehensive case on relevant costs analysis for short run alternative choice decisions. It stresses the importance of future differential cash flow analysis and highlights the irrelevance of past and non differential costs for managerial decisions. SPPH is a reputed publishing and printing house. It has two departments: Publishing and Printing and Distribution. SPPH has received a proposal from Fine Printing Press to take up its printing and distribution work for initial period of one year. The managerial decision involved is whether to outsource or to maintain status quo. Relevant cost analysis is to be used to determine which alternative is cost effective.

The cofounder of Compass Records, a small, independent music-recording company, must decide whether to “produce and own” the next album of an up-and-coming folk musician or simply “license” her finished recording. This case presents information sufficient to build cash-flow forecasts for either investment alternative. Discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis reveals that licensing will be the more attractive alternative unless the student assesses the value of the options for follow-on albums included in the “produce-and-own” contract.

After reading and discussing this case, students will learn to identify the content and context of enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation that is important from an operations standpoint. Through this case, student will discuss and evaluate the scenarios of ERP implementation arising from different deployment alternatives. Students will also learn to comprehend the case organization’s unique operational context and explore the challenges of introducing change into workplace environment and stakeholders’ overall expectations.

This case introduces students to the dilemmas of managerial decision-making that large companies face while implementing organization-wide technological upgrades, such as ERP. The case is set at a time point where ABC Mining Company – a large public-sector mining company – was trying to identify the most optimal ERP option based on its organizational structure and organizational processes. The information related to ABC’s organizational context included their business, structural and operational scenarios at the time. The information related to ABC’s stakeholders’ expectations reflected their perception about ERP and future implications. The information related to managerial conflicts reflected the understandings of the managers, in terms of need for ERP, needed skill to handle ERP and different types of ERP implementations that others have adopted. The case calls students for extensive analysis of the gathered information to identify and evaluate impacts and risks of all possible ERP alternates, and finally pick upon the most optimal ERP alternate. The case assumes a live 90-min class session conducted by an instructor. The instructor is recommended to assign the case to students for mandatory pre-reading before coming to class. The instructor is provided with a teaching plan to navigate the case.

The case is designed as an introductory case for an undergraduate or a graduate course pertaining strategic decision-making of ERP systems implementation.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The case is targeted at undergraduate students in international finance, international business, entrepreneurship and strategic marketing classes.

At the broadest level, the case represents an opportunity for students to discuss internationalisation of local firms. It focusses on getting students to analyse the costs and benefits associated with the foreign entry decision as well as the strategies for foreign entry.

The Exploring International Markets: Unique Quality Heads to Kenya case study provides a chronological report of how Unique Quality, a cereal production company, grew locally up until the point when it considers internationalisation. It details the key considerations the firm makes as it considers its foreign entry decision. Unique Quality is a cereal production company in Ghana, which operates within the agriculture industry. The industry operates at almost all the points along the value chain including coordinating the growing of the cereal until it is harvested, packaged and marketed for sale. The company which started operations in 2013 has made great gains in penetrating the Ghanaian market. Salma, who is currently at the helm of affair at the company, together with the board is considering entering into Kenya. This decision is one that must not be taken lightly and has left Salma in a dilemma.

The expected learning outcomes of the case are:To enable students:a) identify the reasons why firms go international;b) identify opportunities for cost-cutting benefits or revenue maximisation opportunities for Unique Quality in Kenya;c) understand and identify the various sources of country risk that Unique Quality could face in its attempt to enter the Kenyan market; andd) identify and analyse the various foreign entry strategy options available to Unique Quality.

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 1: Accounting and finance.

The learning outcomes of this paper is as follows: to explain the importance of rationalizing business operations to achieve efficiencies. To explain the importance of constantly re-inventing the product portfolio and the business for the survival and growth of the business. To discuss the use of product-market expansion strategies as used by businesses for growth and sustainability. To evaluate the internal challenges faced by a company as they adopt business strategies for business growth. To discuss a firm’s strategy to exploit significant opportunities in an evolving business environment.

Panasonic Life Solutions India Limited (PLSIND) an electrical products company with operations in India – an emerging market has set a Vision 2022 to achieve INR 69.21bn revenue target by the year 2022. PLSIND is marketed through the distributor business to consumer sales channel. To achieve the new growth targets, it was imperative for them to expand the product portfolio and explore marketing through the new business to business (B2B) and business to government (B2G) sales channels. Dinesh Aggarwal the Joint Managing Director of PLSIND was tasked with this responsibility. Both propositions depicted attractive business potential but at the same time came with additional risks of a longer sales/revenue cycle. PLSIND to a certain extent had ventured into new business projects with the launch of home automation, solar solutions for industries and smart street lighting business projects. In 2019, they also made a modest beginning by achieving revenues of INR 3.4bnn (constituting 10% of their aggregate revenues of INR 34bn) from B2B/B2G sales channels. Aggarwal believed that this was a good beginning. However, to achieve 2022 growth targets, they had to aggressively move forward with the new business strategy. Aggarwal had to work with the management team to gain acceptance and then to manage these additional risks for growth that came with this new business strategy. How could he win the confidence of the management team? How could he best reorganize the business teams and processes internally to enhance the required operational efficiencies for business growth?

This case is designed for business students at the MBA or executive MBA level courses.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Strategy.

The case can primarily be used for a Strategic Management course for teaching the revival strategies for financially weak plants. The case highlights the need to shift from a product manufacturing perspective to a market orientation perspective and, hence, may add value as an add-on case in a Strategic Marketing course. The case also covers the topic of benchmarking which may be of use in an Operations Management course.

DJSL Ltd. is the largest engineering and manufacturing enterprise in India in the energy-related/infrastructure space in the public sector. Its Lucknow unit, manufacturing porcelain insulators and wear resistant ceramic lining (CERA LINING), has started reporting losses. A change of management took place in October 2015, whereby Mr. S P Singh was appointed as the Head of the Lucknow Unit. Mr. Singh had rich functional experience of 30 years, mainly in the domains of strategy, project execution and commercial aspects. He was asked to come up with a revival plan for the Unit by the top management of DJSL. The case highlights the importance of operational issues in turnaround management.

Students may be encouraged to debate the benchmarking practices that are best suited for the Lucknow unit. They can also discuss the impact of benchmarking efforts upon turnaround strategy. Students are also encouraged to understand the constraints which may limit the success of initiatives impacting operational improvements. Students need to develop the understanding of marketing strategy to perform a SWOT analysis of each product of the Lucknow unit and to sense the business opportunities in and around the environment. Students need to discuss how productivity may be improved with the adoption of appropriate people development strategies. Students are encouraged to discuss the revival/turnaround strategies and to identify the influence of improvement in operational efficiency/productivity upon revival plan.

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.

Rendering digital services have taken centerstage in the current ICT for development discourse. E-Government services are mostly under this discourse with the aim to provide citizen centric services in the public domain. Business and development organizations alike are also investing in developing their own digital infrastructure for rendering services to its stakeholders. This case describes scenario in which a cooperative organization wishes to use digital infrastructure and provide digital services to its farmer members. The cooperative continued investing in ICT since the last couple of decades and constantly upgraded it to ease the transaction and bring efficiency and reduce information asymmetry. This had greatly benefitted the members. However, the cooperative is aware that its communication network built on the wireless medium has its own limitations in introducing new services and integrating its databases and applications. The cooperative took note of “Digital India (DI)” initiatives to provide digital services to rural areas and build an ecosystem to empower the citizens in its governance set up. This DI policy has implicit provisions of better networking protocols with improved bandwidth. The organization has a dilemma to continue with investing its own resources or explore possibility of piggybacking on the DI initiative. The cooperative wished to examine the total cost of ownership in either case and assess the feasibility of converging with the infrastructure created by the government.

The Government Information Technology Policies are increasingly favouring citizens and in favour of shared infrastructure and services. It is worth the examination to evaluate strategies to deploy IT infrastructure and services with optimized cost and better returns in an enterprise. This is far more important for a social enterprise like AMALSAD cooperative (user-owned firm) that has deployed its own IT infrastructure and ITeS. AMALSAD cooperative deployed its IT assets long back and in the meanwhile, the Government policy is in favour of providing services over the internet.

The case serves to help students to understand the theoretical concept of Enterprise information systems infrastructure and services. It brings to the students understanding: the drivers of IT infrastructure to provide digital services; challenges that would make the social enterprise (in this case user-owned firm) to understand the opportunities and challenges of deploying the right digital infrastructure and get services on demand. The case presents the scenarios for the students to deliberate and find answers to the right approach for estimating the total cost of ownership (TCO).

The case situation presents a scenario for digital government services. Most of the customer-facing enterprises including social enterprises are also providing digital services. It is important that such services converge at an optimized TCO.

Masters in Business Administration with a concentration in Information Systems.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 7: Management Science.