Led by CEO S.D. Darmono, Jababeka was a publicly listed real estate firm in Indonesia specializing in industrial estates. Due to infrastructure and logistics bottlenecks in Indonesia, the company had moved into various infrastructure projects, including a power plant and a port. Even though the company had identified substantial business opportunities in the form of a captive market of industrial estate tenants, both projects suffered from delays due to regulatory complexity. Darmono skillfully aligned the interests of private and public-sector partners, but was still unable to get quick returns on his considerable investments, necessitating an allocation of more funds. The case illustrates the opportunities and risks of emerging market infrastructure projects. Students are asked to evaluate the viability of Jababeka’s new infrastructure strategy and formulate an action plan.

For NUS Business School: (Faculty only)
To obtain a free copy of the case, please contact Ms Kwok Siew Geok (bizksg@nus.edu.sg)

Since November 2011, the director and chief scientist for Acumen Research Laboratories (ARL) had been conferring with Spring Singapore on ways to improve the current procurement practices of the biomedical science (BMS) industry in Singapore. As a senior chief scientist and the founder of ARL, she saw and experienced tremendous purchasing inefficiency as well as quality issues in the existing procurement practice in sourcing needed supplies and equipment. She believed that a centralized procurement structure and process among all members of the BMS industry in Singapore would be a more efficient practice and was finalizing a proposal, in April 2012, to Spring Singapore for initial funding to set up such a purchasing consortium. This consortium would be a new line of business for ARL.

For NUS Business School: (Faculty only)
To obtain a free copy of the case, please contact Ms Kwok Siew Geok (bizksg@nus.edu.sg)

This case presents a means by which students can explore how government policy can be influenced by the actions of stakeholders in an economy: firms, taxpayers and voters, unions and other such organizations. It highlights the point that policy-making can be a process endogenous to the interests and influence of private sector influence, and not an exogenous one, even in domains that are the power reserve of public policy makers. In 2010, the ruling party in Australia had devised a new tax, which they designated as the Resource Super Profit Tax (RSPT). This tax was devised to enable national and state governments to benefit from the boom in the mining industry by expropriating a greater portion of the earnings of the industry, via the imposition of a new tax. The RSPT was devised without any input from major mining companies in Australia, and if implemented it represented a substantial increase in their tax payable. The case is presented from the perspective of the CEO of BHP Billiton, one of the largest mining companies in Australia. The situation considers what, if any, action can be taken to combat a tax that has already been devised by the government, and is about to be implemented. Successful analysis of the case involves an evaluation of all interested stakeholders in the Australian economy that will be influenced by the imposition of the RSPT. After this is done, a strategy needs to be devised that will successfully influence a government to withdraw a tax to which it has already demonstrated a firm commitment.

For NUS Business School: (Faculty only)
To obtain a free copy of the case, please contact Ms Kwok Siew Geok (bizksg@nus.edu.sg)

This is a case of an ambitious techno-preneur with ideas that were at the forefront of technology. The business was successful initially but was soon swamped with challenges. The initial business model needed major changes in order to make sense in the fast changing environment. At the same time, the company was facing a lawsuit with a major client that could severely affect its survival. To make matters worse, the company did not have a strong and unified leadership necessary to pull it out of the difficulty it was in.

For NUS Business School: (Faculty only)
To obtain a free copy of the case, please contact Ms Kwok Siew Geok (bizksg@nus.edu.sg)

Lan-Ray in Singapore attempted to break into the prepaid cash card (PCC) business in China. Equity funds were sourced to acquire Protection Communications Network (PCN), a payment intermediary in Quanzhou, China, with a vast payment network, which could be instrumental to the success of the PCC business. However, PCN would need to demonstrate profitability before they could obtain the licence to run the PCC business.
Together, Lan-Ray and PCN ventured into the mobile phone campus e-card business, which was initially assessed to be able to help PCN achieve profitability in the short run. However, the campus e-card business did not prove to be as profitable as expected. At the same time, the acquisition of PCN by Lan-Ray hit a road block as PCN was unwilling to transfer shares to Lan-Ray.

For NUS Business School: (Faculty only)
To obtain a free copy of the case, please contact Ms Kwok Siew Geok (bizksg@nus.edu.sg)

The degradation of the environment has led many governments and customers to pressurize businesses to make their operations more nature-friendly. The case illustrates an effective example of corporate social responsibility. Specifically, it demonstrates how a small increase in a supply chain budget can drastically reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emission in the transportation of LCD TVs from their manufacturing bases to a distribution centre.

For NUS Business School: (Faculty only)
To obtain a free copy of the case, please contact Ms Kwok Siew Geok (bizksg@nus.edu.sg)

The Wang Group was created by Alfred Wang in Hong Kong after fleeing China during the turbulence that marked the beginning of the communist regime. After successfully building up the diversified trading business and expanding to various other Asian countries, in 1995, the business was taken over by his second son, Charles Wang, a charismatic leader. Charles wished to create a more sustainable family business, tuned in to today’s global trends, and run by non-family members. To this end, Charles hired an outside CEO to implement his vision after implementing a far-reaching corporate change program. The global economic crisis that started in 2008, however, caught the company halfway through the reorganization, and brought losses and the departure of the newly hired CEO. Charles Wang had no other option than to again take up the top job himself, and had to reconsider the path towards a sustainable future for the family firm.

For NUS Business School: (Faculty only)
To obtain a free copy of the case, please contact Ms Kwok Siew Geok (bizksg@nus.edu.sg)

A sports broadcasting firm, which is facing uncertain contract renewals by its current clients from several geographic territories, has to figure out the likelihood of making money if it goes ahead and purchases the global broadcasting rights of the Portuguese Soccer League (“Liga Zon Sagres”) for the upcoming 2011/12 season.

For NUS Business School: (Faculty only)
To obtain a free copy of the case, please contact Ms Kwok Siew Geok (bizksg@nus.edu.sg)

Marco Polo Marine (MPM) Ltd is a medium-sized Singaporean shipping company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange, involved in regional shipping and shipbuilding. The company was part of a larger Indonesian family business group, and had been built from scratch by the CEO, the heir to the group. MPM had started off providing barges to transport mining products and sand, initially for the group’s mining operations, but increasingly for third parties. It subsequently entered the shipbuilding industry by establishing a shipyard in Batam, Indonesia, an island near Singapore. As a next step to grow the company, the CEO intended to become an international player in the much more sophisticated offshore marine services sector, but he had yet to decide what strategy to take to achieve it. The case study allows students to analyze a global industry and present recommendations to the CEO for positioning the company within this industry. As a company from an emerging market, MPM is an example of an aspiring “emerging market multinational” and the case discusses the challenges such companies face in catching up with more advanced incumbents in global industries. In order to penetrate this market, decisions are required as to what types of vessels to build or buy, which countries to target and how to enter this market given financial constraints and limited technical expertise.

For NUS Business School: (Faculty only)
To obtain a free copy of the case, please contact Ms Kwok Siew Geok (bizksg@nus.edu.sg)

The case discusses the story of the IOI Group, one of the largest palm oil players in Malaysia that has seen rapid growth in the past two decades. Controlled by the Lee family since 1982, the IOI Group’s main businesses initially were property and palm plantations. As a relative latecomer in the palm oil industry, it grew both organically and through acquisitions, and it currently has sales of about US$4.3 billion and employs 30,000 people. Over the years, the IOI Group moved away from producing crude palm oil (CPO), a key commodity, and pursued a strategy of vertical integration by moving into downstream activities such as food ingredients manufacturing and oleochemicals. This transformed IOI from a Malaysian plantation company to a global ingredients manufacturer, making it a good example of a so-called “emerging market multinational.”
The case takes the point of view of Dato’ Lee, the second-generation family leader who is currently in charge of the downstream businesses, and discusses three challenges he faces in IOI’s transformation process: 1) optimizing and integrating the global value chain; 2) determining the most suitable way to coordinate a multinational company with substantial global sales and operations; and 3) adaptation to changing needs of global customers. All this is supported by extensive information on the changing dynamics in the palm oil industry, where emerging market players are moving up the value chain and snapping up manufacturing assets from global fast-moving consumer goods companies like Unilever, while the latter increasingly focus on branded goods and seek to exit the lower margin and capital-intensive manufacturing of ingredients. Students are asked to analyze the changing industry dynamics and provide recommendations to executive director Dato’ Lee given the goal to make IOI a leading palm oil player.