Business Updates
Amazon Kindle: Pricing Issues
© 2009 ICMR. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic or mechanical without
permission. To order copies, call +91-40-2343-0462/63 or write to the ICMR,
Plot #49, Nagarjuna Hills, Hyderabad 500 082, India or e-mail: info@icmrindia.org. Website: www.icmrindia.org
The KFC Coupon Fiasco
© 2009 ICMR. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic or mechanical without
permission. To order copies, call +91-40-2343-0462/63 or write to the ICMR,
Plot #49, Nagarjuna Hills, Hyderabad 500 082, India or e-mail: info@icmrindia.org. Website: www.icmrindia.org
Case in Focus
Tesla Roadster: The Car of the Future?
V Namratha Prasad and S S George
The case discusses the efforts of Tesla Motors Inc. (Tesla) in developing and marketing the Tesla Roadster,
an electric car powered by Lithium-ion batteries. It describes how the company was set up by Martin
Eberhard and Elon Musk, their subsequent efforts to secure funding for the project, and the design and
development process for the car. The case also discusses some of the technical challenges and management
problems which complicated and delayed the development and production of the car. It also briefly touches on
the relative advantages of electric cars, and describes some of the challenges faced by Tesla, and the
future outlook for electric cars.
© 2009 ICMR. All Rights Reserved. For accessing and procuring the case study, log on
to www.ecch.com or www.icmrindia.org
Finance
Investment Management
at Harvard Management Company
Harish A and Vivek Gupta
The case examines the investment management strategies adopted by the Harvard Management
Company (HMC). HMC managed Harvard University's endowment funds, the largest in the industry. The case
explains the hybrid fund management strategy followed at HMC and how the strategy led to phenomenal growth
of Harvard's endowment funds over the decades. The case describes the investment performance of the
endowment fund, asset allocation, portfolio mix and risk management strategies under various fund managers of
HMC since its inception. The case also explains the recent problems faced by HMC due to the frequent changes
in its leadership and the subprime crisis that emerged in the US in late 2007 resulting in significant losses
for Harvard's endowment fund.
© 2009 ICMR. All Rights Reserved. For accessing and procuring the case study, log on
to www.ecch.com or www.icmrindia.org
Business Strategy
Home Depot: On the Road to Becoming
Customer-friendly Again?
Pummy Chatterjee, Indu P, and Debapratim Purkayastha
Home Depot Inc. (Home Depot) was started in 1978, to provide home improvement solutions to the
people. The case discusses the culture of customer service at Home Depot. It discusses in detail, how the
founders went about building a customer service culture from the very beginning. Its exceptional service became one
of the prime reasons for its rapid growth in the 1980s and 1990s. However, when the company started to
face some operational inefficiencies (including a watering down of its famed customer service culture), a
new CEO, Robert Nardelli (Nardelli) was appointed in 2000. The case highlights how, according to analysts,
the company further lost its service culture under the autocratic management style of Nardelli. As a
consequence, it also lost many customers to its competitors and its stocks started to underperform. In 2007, Nardelli
was replaced by Frank Blake (Blake). The case depicts several measures taken by Blake to revive the
customer service culture at Home Depot under challenging circumstances.
© 2009 ICMR. All Rights Reserved. For accessing and procuring the case study, log on
to www.ecch.com or www.icmrindia.org
| 
