1. Course website: http://www.chenzitian.net/teaching/MGMT3275/
MGMT
Friday Discussions
Course website:

2. Case background
Assuming you are part of the strategic planning team at Uber for its next foreign expansion. Uber has already established its operations in many parts of the world.
The current locations:
After careful examination of the rest of the world where Uber currently does not have active operations, you conclude that Iceland is a highly potential market, but you are not sure.
Before you present your plans and suggestions to the C-suite, you want to come up with a slides proposal, considering all pros and cons, opportunities and risks.
Each week, you sit down with your team to discuss the issues and summarize your weekly discussions into one or two PPT slides. due in three months.
In the last week, you will accumulate and synthesize all the slides together into a recommendation for the C-suite.

3. Weekly #1 What is this company about? What is its main business?
Where are its major customers, domestically or globally?

4. Weekly #2
What are the major competitive advantages (and disadvantages) of this company vis-à-vis the major domestic and global competitors?
1. Discuss what are the top N dimensions that are vital for Uber’s industry, list them below
2. Compare Uber with its local competitors in these N dimensions
3. Circle the areas in which Uber is a leader, and others in which Uber is a laggard
Uber
Lyft
Taxi
Public transit
Own 1 2 3 4 5 … N

5. Weekly #3
What are the major firm-specific advantages (FSAs) (and disadvantages FSdAs) of this company vis-à-vis the major domestic and global competitors?
Step1: Shortlist the competitive advantages from last week to only FSAs (and FSdAs).
Step2: What are the boundaries for each of the FSAs (and FSdAs)?
Step3: Present your findings below.
Geographic boundedness
Demographic boundedness
Sociocultural boundedness
Financial/economic boundedness
Legal/political boundedness
Other boundedness
FSAs 1 2 3 … N

6. Weekly #4
What are the top three economies where Uber still has no operations, ranked by 2018 real GDP?
Which economy is the BEST based on the fit between its location-specific characteristics and the ideal context boundaries identified from last week’s FSA-boundary chart?
Please give a comparison table with evidence to support your conclusion above. See a template below.
Geographic boundedness
Demographic boundedness
Sociocultural boundedness
Financial/economic boundedness
Legal/political boundedness
Other boundedness
Uber
Economy 1
Economy 2
Economy 3
Best fit

7. Weekly #5
Compared to Uber home (US), your finally selected target location may still have some disadvantages/misfits (as presented in the table in the previous slide), can you identify a local joint-venture partner in the target that can compensate these misfits? (a valuable source: Mergent).
What advantages this target can offer to compensate the location misfits?
What advantages you can offer to bring it to the table for a joint-venture negotiation?

8. Weekly #6
Synthesis of your PPT works for the first half of the semester into a coherent report.
Feedback for the first half of the semester
Survey by March 1st
Suggestions for improvement for the second half of the semester

9. Target’s regional comparator
Weekly #7
Please compare US, your target foreign market (e.g., Iceland), a top comparator in the target region (e.g., Europe) where Uber has already established a subsidiary (e.g., UK) in the following measures: US
Target
Target’s regional comparator
2018 Heritage Foundation Index:
1) Overall economic freedom
2) Investment freedom
3) Labor freedom
4) Business freedom
World Bank Doing Business database:
1) # of procedures and days to start a business
2) % of adults covered by credit bureau
3) Max. # of months of fixed-term labor contracts
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions website:
1) Individualism vs. collectivism score
2) Power distance score
World Values Survey, use the closest country in the linguistic family if this country is not covered:
1) % of people think work is “very important” in life
2) % of people think family is “very important” in life
3) % of people mentioned “would not like to have immigrants/foreign workers as neighbors”
4) % of people “strongly agree” or “agree” that “men make better business executives than women”

10. Weekly #8
Analyzing the financial/economic environment differences of your picked global market from the US (or wherever your current major market is) in detail through their effects on the net present value (NPV) of your foreign investments.
Scenario (see NPV table)
You are making an initial FDI of 140,090 (in local currency) in year 2018 in your target market, including 120,000 (in local currency) depreciable assets. Annual depreciation is 24,000 (in local currency). Salvage value in 2023 (if exit) if 30,000 (in local currency).
Your assignment: find and calculate the following indicators
Cost of capital in local currency
Your target market inflation rate (mean)
Tax rate on profits in your target market
Capital gain tax in your target market
Spot exchange rate 2018
Net present value in 2018 (in US$) %
1 USD=

11. Performance Implications
Weekly #9
Analyzing the legal/political environment differences of your target market and the home market (USA).
1) List again the enabling factors in the legal/political boundaries of Uber’s FSAs.
2) Compare your target market and the home market (USA) in these factors. Highlight factors (e.g., in red) that show significant differences.
Useful databases for legal/political measures: PRS reports; Doing business; WGI; official government websites
3) Discuss briefly how the differences would affect Uber’s performance in the target market, i.e., which factors make it more difficult to replicate Uber’s FSAs in this target market.
USA
Germany
Performance Implications
FSA
EDLP
Strong negotiation power over suppliers
Strong negotiation power over labor
Large zoning
Efficient distribution and warehousing centers
Satellite technology
One stop for everything
Customer first culture
24-7
2. Free bags
3. Easy credit
4. Bagging purchases
5. Sundown rule
No price control
No local sourcing regulation
No unionization/low employee protection
Liberalized land-use
Large-area construction allowed
No work hour restrictions
No plastic regulations
Liberalized credit market
Low employee protection
Regulated price competition
Strong unionization/high employee protection
Restricted land-use
Large-area construction allowed 
Work hour restrictions
High employee protection
Difficult to compete on pricing wars
Difficult to have labor cost advantage
Difficult to build economy of scale
Difficult to build economy of scale for one stop for everything
No night shifts after 8pm or Sundays
No work after hours

12. Weekly #10
Analyzing the sociocultural environment differences of your picked global market from the US (or wherever your current major market is) in detail.
Part1:
Part 2: Predict potential conflicts, and between whom.
Power distance
Individualism
Masculinity
Adam
Eve
Jesus
Confucius
Icelander/Kuwaiti

13. Weekly #11
Are there any existing/potential disruptors to your industry?
How would they affect your businesses? How do you prepare for the disruptors?

14. Weekly #12 A synthesis of the second half of the semester:
Discuss how the environmental factors and disruptors in the second half of the semester would affect the Diamond model of your business in your target market.

15. Weekly #13
Synthesis of your PPT works for both halves of the semester into a coherent report.

16. Week16 – 12/5 Final presentation (10 minutes each team)
Grade points of this semester-long project in the class:
[1] Team presentation: 12% (6% materials + 6% presentation)
[2] The final example (individual): 20%
The final example will be open-book, written example in the classroom. All questions are related to the semester-long simulation project.
It will consist of 10 single-choice questions (1% each x 10 = 10), and two short-essay questions (5% x 2 = 12).