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This case is an updated version of “Netflix Inc.: DVD Wars” (UVA-M-0763), and was written as a replacement for it.

A financial analyst is asked to appraise the value of Netflix’s stock at a time of unprecedented turmoil for the company. This case introduces customer lifetime value (CLV) as a useful metric for subscription-based businesses.

thyssenkrupp Steel Europe, a major European steel company, operates a so-called push-pickling line (PPL) in Bochum, Germany. The PPL produces a particular type of steel strips that are sold to B2B customers, mainly in the automotive industry. In spring 2014, a senior vice president of thyssenkrupp Steel's production operations and one of his production managers notice that over the span of ten years the production facility regularly did not meet its planned production volumes. They set out to determine the drivers for the deviations from planned production figures with the ultimate goal to improve the production planning process at the Bochum PPL. Students will step into the shoes of Markus Schulze a production manager at thyssenkrupp Steel as he searches for performance drivers at the Bochum PPL and analyzes recent production data to build a forecasting model for production planning.

ACC Limited, under Project 30-30, had targeted to produce and sell 30 million tons (mt) of cement in the year 2011. In May 2011, the Head of Central Logistics had found the target of the project to have become increasingly difficult to achieve. He believed that to sell 30 mt of cement, 30 mt had to be transported, thereby, advancing the role of the logistics function from that of a mere facilitator to a critical actor. As possible opportunities to increase sales, issues at the Bulk Cement Corporation (India) Limited (BCCI), and the plant at Wadi are being discussed in the case. The head of BCCI had raised concerns about the decreased logistical capacity of BCCI post a mandate from the Indian Railways on transporting 58-wagon rakes against 41-wagon rakes. A common belief was that with more wagons per rake, the quantity transited from Wadi would be higher. However, this was not the case and a capacity addition was being proposed. The President of Wadi Cluster had expressed that as an effort to reduce the transit time between Wadi and BCCI, priority was given to loading for BCCI. Though an improvement was observed with the introduction of 58 wagons per rake, Wadi was facing issues. This had affected Wadi's ability to serve other markets. The focus of the case is on analysing the options being considered by ACC to increase market presence, logistics capacity at BCCI, and the overall throughput at Wadi.

The learning outcomes of this paper is as follows: to review the basic differences between the two evolving bonds, i.e. green vs masala bonds in the Indian capital market; to comprehend the factors that need to be considered in deciding the type of bond to be issued; to assess complexities, such as process, timing, risk and location in relation to the issue of the green bonds; and to understanding the rudiments of bond economics, such as pricing, all-in-cost and yield-to-maturity of bonds and make a comparison of all-in-cost of the Reg-S bond and green bond to Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC).

In September 2017, IRFC, a public sector undertaking registered as a Non-Banking Finance Company with Reserve Bank of India under the administrative control of the Ministry of Railways, was planning to raise US$500m 10-year green bonds from investors in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The green bond proceeds were proposed to be used for low carbon transport and in this way, contribute significantly to the green initiatives of the Indian Railways. Many companies in India had issued regular bonds without labeling them as green but had used the proceeds of the bond for climate-aligned assets. Therefore, a bigger challenge before the IRFC management was the economics of green bond for getting a nod from the Board of Governors to go ahead. Some preliminary estimates on cost of green bonds were received from few bankers but to see that the terms of green bonds are met eventually, the Director (Finance) developed his own estimate of the cost of the new bonds. The Managing Director and Director (Finance) of IRFC were trying to figure out the economic advantage of green bonds besides its social benefits.

MBA Programme Executive Training.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

Kolkata Port (KoPT) had achieved a turnaround from having made a loss of Rs 7.5 crores (cr) in the year 2000–01 to a net surplus of Rs 465.1 cr in the year 2006–07. A variety of initiatives had been taken during the intervening years with a focus on tariff rationalization, revenues from alternate sources, infrastructure development and productivity improvements. While these had yielded results, there was a fundamental issue of operational complexity and inability to compete due to the locational disadvantage. KoPT was a riverine port with two locations, 232 kms and 115 kms upstream on the Hooghly with draft limitations.

Two significant studies having implications for future strategies of KoPT had recently been submitted in March and November 2007. The top management of the port, including the Chairman who was responsible for driving many of the initiatives, was concerned that it may not be possible to achieve long term sustainable growth continuing with the strategies used so far. A well thought out future roadmap, breaking away from the present thinking, was essential sustained growth.

Stahmann Farms Enterprises is an Australian company focused on farming, processing, and marketing of pecans and the high-end macadamia nuts. While the company owns pecan farms, it depends solely on farmers for the supply of macadamia, which poses a challenge with numerous competitors trying to attract the farmers. As an agro-processing business, it is dependent on the vagaries of nature and profits fluctuate wildly. Competition exists in the form of large processors as well as new entrants. Given the company's target of becoming one of the top five macadamia processing businesses in the world, volume and profitability need to be driven up. There are a number of paths open before the company and the MD and his team need to evaluate these and draw up a strategy to be presented to the board.

In January 1993, the senior management committee of this company has to decide which major projects the company should fund for immediate implementation. The board of directors arbitrarily set a limit of European currency units (ECU) at 80 million to spend on capital projects in 1993. But various managers have proposed projects totaling ECU208 million. Students must evaluate the completed discounted cash flow (DCF) analyses presented along with qualitative factors (mainly the strategic considerations and the internal politics of the company) and choose the projects to be approved.

The strategic management literature states that firms who wish to have a competitive advantage through high customer service (rapid response) and product differentiation need to restructure their organization into empowered, self-managed work units so as to ensure that there is “value-added” at each stage of the value chain. (Porter, 1985; Hill and Jones, 2001) In this case, Vanguard altered part of its structure through the development of teams in order to maximize its operations; and given their results Vanguard successfully put theory into practice. When the major supporter of team management, Mike Wesley, leaves the firm, he is replaced by Wendy Kiefer, a strong supporter of team structures. Her replacement, Shari Lastarza, however is the “old” assembly manager and does not buy into the team concept. Could this be anything but a formula for disaster?

The learning outcomes are as follows: to identify stakeholder groups in an inter-country training intervention and apply contextual intelligence to a leadership role and to apply the theory of constraints in developing solutions to research constraint environments.

On 10 September 2018, the Director-General (DG) of South African National Department of Health (NDOH) Ms Precious Matsoso pondered over the scheduled meeting that afternoon with the South African Committee of Medical Deans in Pretoria. She was leading the initiative of the integration of the South African Cuban-trained medical students into the local medical schools for the final phase of their studies. She needed to streamline the assimilation process. The case highlights the dilemma to identify actions to improve the level of integration of these students.

MBA M Phil in Healthcare Management

Teaching notes are available upon request for educators only. These teaching notes should be shared solely with the instructor and students should not have access to. Please contact your library to gain login or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 10: Public Sector Management

A midwest hospital purchases new CT Scanners which are much faster than the existing technology. Processes in the radiology department are optimized to the older, existing scanners and technicians are unable to take full advantage of the new scanner speed. The hospital finds itself working to change the processes to suit the new scanners capabilities and take full advantage of their speed.

This case allows students to analyze process capacity and time performance in different settings and understand how process structure impacts both operational and financial performance.