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Company turnaround, General Management.

Executive education, MBA.

This is a four-part case study in which the case of a company turnaround emerges as the students work through a series of decision-making processes. In teaching the case, the students would only be given Part A to begin with, about which they need to make decisions as to what they would do, as preparation for the first part of the lecture. After that has been discussed, they are provided with the second part which tells them what in fact happened in the situation and leads them to the next decision point, and so on. The case deals with an entrepreneur hearing about a business that has gone insolvent; it then tracks the process from investigating the small manufacturing and sales company through the various stages of its subsequent remarkable turnaround to the point where the protagonist was voted Entrepreneur of the Year in South Africa. It covers the period 2007 to 2012 and includes the annual financial statements.

Following are the expected learning outcomes: an understanding of the broad range of management competencies; an understanding of how to turnaround a small organisation; and to experience group-based decision-making.

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.

Aurelia Dimas had been sent to investigate the various properties being offered by the State of California in the form of a sale-leaseback agreement. The opportunity was perfect for her firm, Orrington Financial Partners, which had recently expanded its fixed-income portfolio to include real estate. The wide range of offerings in the Golden State Portfolio provided both diversification and stability over a period of decades. She had spent the last week walking the halls of each and every building to see the offering first hand. Now the task of valuing the portfolio rested on her shoulders.

By reading and analyzing this case, students will be exposed to real estate valuation and understand the issues with a sale-leaseback investment. The objectives are obtained by requiring students to justify how and why they make adjustments to the cash flow forecasts provided to them by a real estate advisory firm, explain their methodology for arriving at a specific value for a piece (or a portfolio) of commercial property, and debate the pros and cons of a sale-leaseback structure.

The specific learning objectives of the case are as follows: To contribute to the knowledge of environmental challenges faced by various financial companies while trying to foray into the rural markets, especially in case of insurance products’ expansion strategy; to understand the distribution strategy adopted by insurance companies in rural as well as urban markets; to apply the concepts such as mental accounting, designing and pricing of insurance products to develop an effective strategy for insurance products targeting the rural market; to be able to analyse the data available on products and the rural market structure that enables the students to derive from an implementable managerial framework and design an effective rural market strategy for insurance products; and to enable the students to evaluate the key rural market drivers, which will subsequently help them to develop a new structure of rural distribution channel.

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Limited (IPRU) was trying to reach the last mile customers of rural India to tap the opportunity and meet the Indian Government's statutory requirement of financial inclusion. Even though the leadership of IPRU was optimistic about the untapped potential of rural India, and launched a separate business vertical - Rural Business Channel (RBC) in the year 2002 to cater to this target segment, yet it faced many strategic issues while foraying into the rural domain. The company struggled with both the designing of products as per the rural customers' needs, as well as the distribution of these products in rural areas. The present case study is an attempt to bring out the strategic challenges that were faced by the IPRU management, with a major focus on designing, pricing and distribution of rural insurance products. The case study will help the readers in understanding what might go wrong while entering new rural markets and how to deal with these challenges.

The case study can be used to teach both undergraduate and postgraduate management students.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

The case compares two U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) programs from the 1970s and 1980s: (1) “stealth” combat aircraft, capable of evading detection or engagement by anti-aircraft systems, and (2) precision attack of hardened ground vehicles from “standoff” distances, i.e., far behind the battle lines. Conceived at roughly the same time, motivated by the same strategic challenge, and initially driven by the same DoD organization, stealth combat aircraft progressed from idea to deployment in less than eight years---an astounding pace for a complex military system---while a demonstrated system for standoff precision strike against mobile ground targets was not fully implemented. The case highlights the critical role of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), part of the DoD, regarded as one of the most innovative entities in the U.S. federal government.

The case highlights factors that facilitate rapid, successful implementation of radically innovative or disruptive concepts. Students are introduced to the organizational realities facing such projects, including issues of strategic clarity, interdepartmental competition and cooperation, executive leadership, and timing. Comparing the differences in implementation of the two programs in the case reveals issues relevant to any large organization seeking to bring innovative concepts to fruition.

In January 2012, the Jane Addams Hull House Association—one of Chicago's largest and oldest social service agencies and arguably its most iconic—announced that it might have to close in the spring due to financial difficulties. Just days later, the 122-year-old organization stunned the philanthropic world when it laid off its employees without notice, declared its intention to liquidate in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and shut its doors forever. In the weeks that followed, more and more people began to ask: What had happened to the board? Had bankruptcy really been inevitable? This case chronicles the organization's final decade and enables students to step into the shoes of the chairman of the board, Steve Saunders, as he led the board through its last two years. Students will examine the roles and responsibilities of effective boards and determine how internal and external factors contributed to Hull House's demise.

After reading and analyzing the case, students will be able to:

• Describe the roles and responsibilities of nonprofit boards

• Determine when the board is not performing its job and what the implications are for the organization

• Evaluate ways in which the board might change in order to do a better job

• Diagnose when external environmental factors threaten the security of a nonprofit and how the board itself might diagnose and work with such threats

Describe the roles and responsibilities of nonprofit boards

Determine when the board is not performing its job and what the implications are for the organization

Evaluate ways in which the board might change in order to do a better job

Diagnose when external environmental factors threaten the security of a nonprofit and how the board itself might diagnose and work with such threats