Darden Case Collection最新文献

{"title":"Safaricom 2018: The Emerging-Markets Payments Battle","authors":"G. Allayannis, Jenny Craddock","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3207041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3207041","url":null,"abstract":"The case discusses the decision of a hypothetical London-based hedge fund manager, Greg Rubin, who manages a fund primarily investing in emerging and frontier markets to decide whether to buy (or short) Safaricom, a Kenya-based telecom and financial services company that became globally known more than a decade ago (2007) for its use of technology to facilitate payments via mobile phones. There was a real need in Kenya for a different system of payments and money transfers, given the large underbanked population (almost 80% lacking a formal bank account) and the widespread use of cash. M-Pesa, the system introduced by Safaricom was an astounding success and quickly achieved a dominant position in the Kenyan marketplace. Kenyans embraced the use of mobile phones to transfer money and pay bills. More than 10 years later, at the time of the case (March 2018), Safaricom's dominance is challenged by a series of missteps expanding abroad (e.g., to South Africa), increased competition at home, as well as the introduction of 3G and advanced smartphone technology. The case allows for an examination of the investment thesis for Safaricom and its valuation. This requires the analysis of payment systems and their evolution in frontier markets as well as the analysis of country/political risk, among others. It is the combination of an innovative company from a frontier market and the introduction of new technologies that make this case interesting (and challenging) to analyze—by no means an obvious decision for Rubin. \u0000Excerpt \u0000UVA-F-1843 \u0000Rev. Aug. 22, 2018 \u0000Safaricom 2018: The Emerging-Markets Payments Battle \u0000SAFCOM is one of the best companies this author has ever covered over a fairly long career as a financial analyst, yet it is also one of the most challenging to value, owing to the dual nature of its business—on the one hand, an increasingly commoditized telecom business, where SAFCOM continues to deliver growth above the industry average; and, on the other, a fast-growing financial services business with a positive growth outlook. \u0000—Renaissance Capital, October 2017 \u0000In March 2018, Greg Rubin sat on his hedge fund's trading floor in Mayfair, London, working on an investment memo he planned to present to fellow members of his investment committee later that day. The investment option on the table for Rubin's absolute return emerging market fund was Safaricom, a telecommunications and financial services company based in Kenya. Ever since the company had achieved extraordinary success with the launch of its mobile payments solution, M-Pesa, a decade earlier, Rubin had considered the company a viable investment option. Even so, he still had more information to digest on the prospects for economic growth within this region of Africa and potential threats to the business before making a final recommendation to his colleagues. \u0000. . .","PeriodicalId":390041,"journal":{"name":"Darden Case Collection","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116644545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Facebook, Inc.: A Look at Corporate Governance","authors":"Luann J. Lynch, Almand R. Coleman","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3207040","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3207040","url":null,"abstract":"This case examines Facebook's corporate governance by reviewing information in the company's proxy statement. Students become familiar with the nature and type of information in proxy statements. They also learn how to examine various facets of executive compensation and corporate governance such as the use of stock options and restricted stock to compensate executives, dual class share structures, board composition and characteristics, controlled companies, and classified boards. \u0000Excerpt \u0000UVA-C-2411 \u0000Rev. Aug. 23, 2018 \u0000Facebook, Inc.: A Look at Corporate Governance \u0000Sarah Jones returned to her desk after the half-hour meeting with her manager, Joe Thomas. She was excited about her first assignment as an analyst at Salomon Partners, an investment research company that sold reports to a variety of clients. Thomas had asked her to write a report on the governance structure at Facebook, Inc. He had recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that technology companies were increasingly using multiple classes of shares when going public. He anticipated having to field questions about what that meant for his clients who had invested in, or were thinking about investing in, Facebook, as he knew the company had an interesting governance structure. Thomas wondered what he could learn from Facebook. He asked Jones to investigate, and he suggested she start by reading Facebook's annual proxy statement. \u0000Company Description \u0000Facebook was a large US social media and social networking company headquartered in Menlo Park, California. According to its website, Facebook's mission was “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.” In addition to the social networking site Facebook.com, the company's products included Instagram, an online community for sharing visual stories using photos, videos, and messages; Messenger and WhatsApp, both messaging applications; and Oculus, a virtual reality platform. The company's revenues, which totaled $ 40.7billion in 2017, came primarily from advertising. The company had more than 25,000 employees at the end of 2017. (Facebook's consolidated balance sheets and consolidated statements of income are presented in Exhibits 1 and 2.) \u0000. . .","PeriodicalId":390041,"journal":{"name":"Darden Case Collection","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122577971","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Fintech, Payments Innovation, and the Acquisition of Worldpay","authors":"G. Allayannis, Gerry Yemen, David Lane","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3198435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3198435","url":null,"abstract":"This case uses the Vantiv, a US credit-card-processing company, acquisition of Worldpay, Britain's largest payments processor, to discuss broader themes in the payment space. Payments are a crucial function of financial institutions because of their sheer volume and revenue potential. Fintech has enabled more ways for financial institutions and consumers to make payments and has the potential for significant disruption. The material in the case allows for an exploration of the payment ecosystem, including acquirers, issuers, aggregators, e-commerce, m-commerce, gateways, processors, point-of-sale providers, card networks, mobile payment processors, and mobile wallets. The ecosystem is complex and the competition seems to only be rising.Without doubt, the imperative of globalization has forced a focus on the importance of payments. In particular, growth in emerging markets—such as India, which in 2016 rendered some of its high-value currency banknotes useless in an effort to foster electronic payments—pointed to the need to capture the global shift away from cash and checks toward credit, debit, account-to-account online, and other means of digital payment. Yet there are risks to financial globalization and payments, including security, changing regulatory environments, and unpredictable technology shifts. The case begins in mid-2017 when Vantiv acquired Worldpay, for $10.4 billion, in a deal that valued the merged entity at $28.8 billion. The acquisition was expected to achieve several goals. One was to combine Vantiv's integrated payment technology with Worldpay's global merchant base. In particular, Vantiv would have access to Worldpay's non-US merchants to process payments, and Worldpay would increase its access to the US market. Combined as Worldpay, the two businesses would scale up in size and functionality to gain global market share, accelerate long-term growth by 3%, generate more than $200 million in synergy savings, and integrate technology to innovate. As an omnicommerce payments provider, Worldpay was expected to process more than $1.5 trillion through 40 billion transactions (assuming performance similar to that in fiscal year 2016). The deal appeared poised to be a payments powerhouse. At the same time, the business unit of JPMorgan Chase & Co. that handled card transactions backed out of bidding on Worldpay. Had it found the price tag too high, or was it something else? Excerpt UVA-F-1829 May 31, 2018 Fintech, Payments Innovation, and the Acquisition of Worldpay As a financial analyst working in a global hedge fund in London, Monica Pearson was busy with a recent acquisition. Pearson worked on due diligence specializing in the financial-services and fintech industries. Financial markets paid a few highly specialized folks like Pearson very well to stay on top of recent mergers. . . .","PeriodicalId":390041,"journal":{"name":"Darden Case Collection","volume":"501 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129968444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Getting Rich on Crypto","authors":"Y. Grushka-Cockayne, Charles Goelz, Davis Willingham, Shawn Le","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3198458","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3198458","url":null,"abstract":"Dan Nickerson, a private wealth manager at a big firm, had just begun taking on his first set of clients when one of them asked his advice on whether he should add bitcoin to his investment portfolio. Nickerson noticed that the price of one bitcoin had risen from $276.30 in March 2015, to $20,089.00 in December 2017, and closed on March 2, 2018, at $10,977.40. This represented an almost unprecedented amount of volatility when compared to other asset classes, but also an incredibly impressive return over a short period of time. News about bitcoin was contradictory, with some analysts suggesting that bitcoin could replace gold as a means to hedge the risk of other asset classes and balance a diversified portfolio while still providing a positive return. Nickerson wondered how to advise his client. Did bitcoin represent a compelling investment opportunity? Furthermore, could cryptocurrencies as an asset class play a risk-reducing role in a balanced investment portfolio? How should he consider other emerging cryptocurrencies, like Ethereum and Litecoin, and could he even begin to forecast the future returns of cryptocurrencies? This case is suitable in courses covering decision analysis, finance, portfolio management, and investments. Excerpt UVA-QA-0897 Rev. Aug. 29, 2018 Getting Rich on Crypto On March 5, 2018, Dan Nickerson pulled up pricing data for bitcoin on his laptop and contemplated how to advise a client who had asked him a tough question about an investment opportunity earlier that day. Nickerson, a private wealth manager at a big firm, had graduated from the Darden School of Business almost a year before and had spent the first eight months at his job getting up to speed on the finer points of financial planning and portfolio management. He had just begun taking on his first set of clients when he received this question from one of them. Nickerson's client had read a recent article in the Style section of the New York Times, which declared, “Everyone Is Getting Hilariously Rich [on crypto] and You're Not,” and wanted Nickerson's advice on whether he should buy bitcoin and add it to his current investment portfolio (Exhibit1). Nickerson wasn't sure how to respond. He had read about the recent rise and fall of bitcoin—but his firm's managers hadn't exactly trained him on how to think about the investment potential of cryptocurrency. Nickerson glanced at the data and noticed that the price of one bitcoin had risen from $ 276.30 in March 2015, to $ 20,089.00 in December 2017, and closed on March 2, 2018, at $ 10,977.40. This represented an almost unprecedented amount of volatility when compared to other asset classes, but also an incredibly impressive return over a short period of time. Nickerson then turned to his news aggregator and started to skim through recent articles on cryptocurrency. CNBC commentator Tom Lee stated that “Struggling Bitcoin Will Double by Midyear,” while Robert Shiller, the Nobel-laureate economist, said on the same n","PeriodicalId":390041,"journal":{"name":"Darden Case Collection","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130769035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Project Management and Transparency for Capital Projects","authors":"Y. Grushka-Cockayne, Rachel McKlindon, Jess Cornell","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3198460","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3198460","url":null,"abstract":"Program- and project-management best practices are typically implemented when a corporation aims to work efficiently and effectively to deliver its projects to the customers on time and to maximize shareholder value. In comparison, when looking at either the public or government sector, projects are typically funded primarily by taxpayer dollars, and reporting requirements and overall level oversight tend to be less consistent. Prior to leaving office, President Barack Obama signed into law the Program Management Improvement and Accountability Act, which focuses on the program- and project-management requirements of government-initiated projects. President Donald Trump succeeded Obama in office, and continued to focus on improving project-management governance and project execution. This technical note explores government-funded capital projects, the project-management practices implemented by select government agencies, and the current reporting requirements. Best practices are highlighted. Excerpt UVA-QA-0899 Jun. 12, 2018 Project Management and Transparency for Capital Projects “As with many other public agencies, far too many of the School Construction Authority (SCA) projects are over time and over budget. As this analysis shows, it is incumbent on us as a city to achieve capital project management reform and take serious steps to get them on time and on budget.” In August 2017, Brooklyn Councilman Brad Lander identified overruns in 63% of large-scale school-related projects and called for a task force to implement change. Using city data published on an online dashboard, he estimated that these overruns totaled over $ 300million more than estimated. While the data does not tell the full picture, with vague explanations for project overruns such as “scope” or “other,” elected officials and the public find themselves questioning the project-management practices employed by government agencies overseeing large-scale projects and calling for increased data transparency across publicly funded projects. At the national level, government project management practices also face a lot of scrutiny. Prior to leaving office, President Barack Obama signed into law the Program Management Improvement and Accountability Act (PMIAA), which primarily focused on the program- and project-management officers and establishing common templates and tools. The act also mandated that each agency identify a senior executive to serve as the agency's Program Management Improvement Officer, driving project-management strategy within the organization. President Donald Trump succeeded Obama in office, and while they represented different political parties and had vastly different views on many issues, President Trump has continued to focus on project management. Investments in areas like infrastructure are complimented by reforms related to government processes and “red tape.” In addition, Trump has been very vocal about reducing costs associated with government contracts,","PeriodicalId":390041,"journal":{"name":"Darden Case Collection","volume":"260 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129454584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Overheard at the Office","authors":"J. Detert, C. Black","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3185135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3185135","url":null,"abstract":"Note: This case contains language that some people may find offensive. It is left exactly as it was spoken in the real situation portrayed precisely because it is pertinent to how the situation affected those involved.“Overheard at the Office,” based on a true story, presents the case of an African-American woman who works as an accountant for the league office of the team owners of one of the four major US professional sports. One day, she is yelled at offensively by a team owner, who mistook her for a players' union employee, perhaps because the players and their union staff are predominantly African-American, in contrast to the majority white team owners and their staff. She has to decide whether and how to respond.The case is designed to surface students' instinctive decision-making tendencies. Thus, it is short enough to be read and responded to in class. Students are assigned readings and assignments related to the case after class discussion in which they are encouraged to reflect on their initial responses.The case is quite flexible and would work in any course that deals with leadership, ethics, difficult conversations, decision-making, organizational behavior, human resources, implicit bias, and related topics. It is appropriate for a range of levels and audiences, including undergraduate, MBA, and executive education. \u0000Excerpt \u0000UVA-OB-1212 \u0000May 10, 2018 \u0000Overheard at the Office \u0000Laura Cooper, an African-American woman in her twenties and a recent graduate of an elite MBA program, worked in the league office for the team owners in one of the four major US professional sports. Her role was accounting-focused—for example, she helped to comprehend the financial position of each team, and of the association as a whole, in order to do things like establish team salary caps (as a percentage of total revenue). In this role, she traveled around the United States to the different team headquarters with the players' association auditor, Noah Jarrold (who was also African-American), while he checked the accounting books of each team. Thus, while Cooper and Jarrold visited teams' headquarters together, they were employed by different parties representing different interests in the audit. \u0000The players' association functioned as a union for all players, collectively bargaining for pay and benefits. Its staff was predominantly African-American, as were most of the players, in contrast to the majority white team owners and their staffs. Jarrold worked to ensure that the team owners were not hiding revenue or otherwise manipulating the calculations in ways that would hold down the players' salary caps. Cooper's role, on the other hand, was to make sure both sides adhered to the collective bargaining agreement and to protect the integrity of the business as a whole. As an observer of the audit, she ensured, for example, that Jarrold was not counting inappropriate revenue toward the salary cap. She was also there to raise any red flags back at headquarter","PeriodicalId":390041,"journal":{"name":"Darden Case Collection","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116686668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Hp and Autonomy: Who's Accountable?","authors":"Justin J. Hopkins, Gerry Yemen","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3140854","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3140854","url":null,"abstract":"Written using public sources, this case uses Hewlett-Packard's (HP) purchase of Autonomy Corporation (Autonomy) to analyze the accounting treatment for the acquisition and subsequent goodwill impairment. While the case focuses on the accounting for mergers and acquisitions, it also provides for a variety of other discussion topics such as the effect of managerial incentives and CEO succession on accounting outcomes, managerial “spin” on disclosure of bad news, strategy in changing institutional environments, and financial reporting limitations of new economy firms with heavy investments in intangible assets.The case opens during the fall of 2011 (when HP purchased Autonomy). Some analysts applauded the shift in strategy that the Autonomy purchase signaled for HP. Others were unsure how Autonomy's cloud computing software fit HP's businesses. From there, events at HP suggested a sense of division and frustration between HP leadership, the board, and Autonomy executives. The board replaced HP CEO Leo Apotheker with Meg Whitman. For the next few quarters, Autonomy missed expected results, and by May 2012, HP removed Autonomy's CEO Michael Lynch. Shortly after, HP announced an impairment charge of $8.8 billion related to the Autonomy acquisition, driving the company to report a loss for the year, the first in 10 years. The HP disclosure emphasized the Autonomy acquisition (which occurred prior to Whitman's tenure as CEO) and accused Lynch and Autonomy executives of cooking the books to inflate the purchase price. However, analysis of the financial statements and related footnote disclosures reveal that this $8.8 billion was less than half the $18 billion total impairment that HP recorded in 2012. \u0000Excerpt \u0000UVA-C-2408 \u0000Rev. Jul. 19 2018 \u0000HP and Autonomy: Who's Accountable? \u0000In the fall of 2011, Hewlett-Packard (HP) purchased Autonomy Corporation (Autonomy), a British software leader in processing, managing, and delivering unstructured information for real-time analysis. Some analysts applauded the shift in strategy that the Autonomy purchase signaled for HP. “Given lackluster growth in PCs long term and increasing trends towards data and analytics,” Credit Suisse analysts wrote, “the transformation is necessary.” Others on the street were unsure how Autonomy's cloud computing software fit HP's businesses, and were less positive following the acquisition announcement and ensuing HP's stock price decline of 20%. Meanwhile, Autonomy's stock bumped up 79% following the announcement (see Exhibit1). \u0000. . .","PeriodicalId":390041,"journal":{"name":"Darden Case Collection","volume":"119 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132996495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Panera Bread Company (Spanish)","authors":"M. Lipson","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3101109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3101109","url":null,"abstract":"This is a Spanish translation of the September 3, 2009 version of UVA-F-1575. As 2007 drew to a close, Panera Bread Company faced a new challenge. To date, it had relied on retained earnings and minor equity infusions to finance operations. But a decline in margins would limit future financing from internally generated funds. Complicating matters was the fact that its stock price was at historic lows and management was contemplating a large equity repurchase. This case can be used to discuss multiperiod financial forecasts and the relative desirability of various financing sources. A teaching note and instructor and student spreadsheet are available. \u0000Excerpt \u0000UVA-F-1827 \u0000Rev. 3 de set. de 2009 \u0000PANERA BREAD COMPANY \u0000A medida que se acercaba el final del ano 2007, Panera Bread Company se enfrentaba a un nuevo desafio. Hasta hacia poco, los grandes margenes obtenidos le permitieron a Panera financiar su rapido crecimiento principalmente a traves de utilidades no distribuidas y pequenas inyecciones de capital propio como resultado de programas de compensacion. La compania no utilizo financiamiento permanente mediante deuda y, de hecho, habia dejado vencer una linea de credito por USD 10 millones. Pero ahora Panera se encontraba frente a una caida de los margenes que le limitaria su capacidad de sustentarse con fondos internos. La compania se dio cuenta de que efectivamente necesitaria capital de los mercados externos, tanto en el corto como en el largo plazo, ya que se esperaba que el crecimiento continuara y estaban considerando una recompra de acciones por USD 75 millones. \u0000Historia y modelo de negocio \u0000Panera Bread Company tuvo sus comienzos con otra panificadora exitosa, Au Bon Pain Co., la cual fue fundada en 1981. El exito de Au Bon Pain en la decada de 1980 dio lugar a la compra en 1993 de Saint Louis Bread Company, una pequena panaderia-cafe ubicada en St. Louis, Missouri. Hacia finales de 1999, el concepto de la panificadora Saint Louis Bread Company se expandia bajo el nombre Panera Bread, Au Bon Pain habia vendido todas sus unidades excepto Panera Bread, y el mismo Au Bon Pain habia adoptado el nombre Panera. \u0000. . .","PeriodicalId":390041,"journal":{"name":"Darden Case Collection","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124326390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Jw Sports Supplies (a)","authors":"Luann J. Lynch","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3081128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3081128","url":null,"abstract":"James Jones and William West started a company to make what they considered the ideal gym bag, one that would incorporate the features they both desired and that would be of a sufficient quality to withstand a regular workout schedule for several years. They each made a modest investment to start their new company—JW Sports Supplies—and began operating on the side while they continued their respective professional careers. In this case, the owners attempt to better understand the impact that alternative decisions they could make about managing costs, changing prices, and different sales volumes would have on the company, so that they could better determine whether pursuing their venture full time was even a possibility. They both agreed that if they could see annual profit climb to around $300,000, they would consider making this a full-time endeavor. The case focuses on concepts related to cost behavior and cost-volume-profit analysis. \u0000 \u0000Excerpt \u0000 \u0000UVA-C-2402 \u0000 \u0000Rev. Feb. 6, 2020 \u0000 \u0000JW Sports Supplies (A) \u0000 \u0000James Jones and William West had worked out together almost daily for several years. Both were professionals pursuing demanding careers, and both saw exercise as an escape from the daily stresses of the workplace. While they continued to update their workout wardrobes to take advantage of the latest in apparel technology, they lamented the lack of the perfect gym bag each time they met at the gym. One day, it was that lack of good storage space for their sneakers; the next, it was the lack of a pocket to conveniently store their phones, keys, and other small necessities; and finally, it was the problem of the seams splitting far beyond what one would consider normal wear and tear. Jones and West were sure they couldn't be the only ones who found current gym bags inadequate in meeting their needs. Eventually, they decided to pursue a venture to make what they considered the ideal gym bag, one that would incorporate the features they both desired and that would be of a sufficient quality to withstand a regular workout schedule for several years. They each made a modest investment to start their new company—JW Sports Supplies—and began operating on the side while they continued their respective professional careers. \u0000 \u0000That had been more than five years ago. The company had grown substantially, had achieved annual sales of over $ 1.5 million, and had begun to generate a healthy profit (Exhibit 1 provides an income statement for the most recent year of operation). As Jones and West reflected on their success to date, they contemplated what might be possible if they could devote themselves full time to JW Sports Supplies. They decided to dive deeper into the numbers. They wanted to better understand the impact that alternative decisions they could make about managing costs, changing prices, and different sales volumes would have on the company, so that they could better determine whether pursuing their venture full time was even a possibility. T","PeriodicalId":390041,"journal":{"name":"Darden Case Collection","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126040898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Retention Modeling at Scholastic Travel Company (a)","authors":"Anton Ovchinnikov","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3081129","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3081129","url":null,"abstract":"This case, along with its B case (UVA-QA-0865), is an effective vehicle for introducing students to the use of machine-learning techniques for classification. The specific context is predicting customer retention based on a wide range of customer attributes/features. The specific techniques could include (but are not limited to): regressions (linear and logistic), variable selection (forward/backward and stepwise), regularizations (e.g., LASSO), classification and regression trees (CART), random forests, graduate boosted trees (xgboost), neural networks, and support vector machines (SVM). The case is suitable for an advanced data analysis (data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence) class at all levels: upper-level business undergraduate, MBA, EMBA, as well as specialized graduate or undergraduate programs in analytics (e.g., masters of science in business analytics [MSBA] and masters of management analytics [MMA]) and/or in management (e.g., masters of science in management [MScM] and masters in management [MiM, MM]).The teaching note for the case contains the pedagogy and the analyses, alongside the detailed explanations of the various techniques and their implementations in R (code provided in Exhibits and supplementary files). Python code, as well as the spreadsheet implementation in XLMiner, are available upon request. \u0000Excerpt \u0000UVA-QA-0864 \u0000Rev. Aug. 23, 2018 \u0000Retention Modeling at Scholastic Travel Company (A) \u0000On a sunny Monday afternoon in early spring 2013, David Powell entered his new office and took a deep breath. He pondered his first few days as the new data analyst for Scholastic Travel Company (STC), an educational tourism firm. Powell had filled his first week of employment meeting the firm's departmental leadership and attending a company-wide new-employee-orientation program, and he was eager to get started on his first project. \u0000Just a few hours earlier, at the weekly marketing strategy meeting, Powell's new supervisor, Stephen Blackford, stressed the urgency of a new data initiative centered on customer retention. As Blackford outlined, in less than two weeks, contract renewal opportunities would begin for customers who had gone on an STC trip in 2012. During the meeting, he presented a dataset with all of the known information about the previous year's client base (see Exhibits 1 and 2). From his past experience, Blackford was confident that models could be constructed to predict whether or not a customer would book again in 2013. With such a model, he hoped to design a more nuanced marketing strategy that would target certain subsets of the client population to save cost and improve yield. With multiple plausible methodologies in mind, Powell knew he needed to get to work immediately so he could give Blackford an accurate prediction model before the end of the week. \u0000Company Background \u0000. . .","PeriodicalId":390041,"journal":{"name":"Darden Case Collection","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127606559","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}