pakilia, a start-up with a social mission, was founded recently by students of ESB Reut-lingen and Universidad de las Américas Puebla. The company exports handmade silver jewelry from Mexico to Germany and distributes it to German customers thereby sup-porting artisan families in the mountain village Taxco in Mexico, where the jewelry is produced. Founded in Summer 2012, there has not yet been a business plan to improve organization and for strategy formulation. The work at hand elaborates an extended business plan for the company based on a careful evaluation of background infor-mation.

Kanndas S.A. de C.V. is a company operating in the renewable energy market in Puebla, Mexico, for which a communication strategy has been developed. The main challenges for the company are to be found, on one hand, within its own potential market, as there is a lack of knowledge about the photovoltaic technology as well as a restrained attitude towards mid- to long-term investments. On the other hand, Kanndas´ main competitor is the Mexican tariff system itself, which unsustainably subsidizes electricity tariffs as well as the lack of governmental promotion of renewable energy investments in general. In order to increase the efficiency of Kanndas´ communicational efforts, an integrated promotional campaign, mainly based on direct marketing efforts, reinforcing word-of-mouth publicity among (potential) customers, combined with targeted public relations activities has been developed. The objectives of the promotional campaign are, in a first stage, to create conviction about the investment/technology among carefully selected decisions makers of specific niche markets. The second stage of the campaign tries to move those persons to a final investment decision. The selling premise of the campaign is Kanndas´ price competitiveness, its main competitive edge. The communication strategy of the campaign is mainly supported by event concepts.

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Dry beans are an important crop in the Mexican agricultural sector. Production, commercialization and consumption of dry beans are part of the Mexican culture. Though, the situation of the producers in many cases is challenging. Climatic, structural and cultural factors difficult profitable operations. / This paper analyzes the situation of a specific group of producers in a village in the state of Puebla. The paper is part of a project intending to analyze and to improve the situation of these producers. It is realized in cooperation between the Universidad de las Américas Puebla (UDLAP) and the Foundation PRODUCE, an organization for agricultural development. / The analyses are based on the findings of precedent reports on dry bean production in Mexico and in Puebla. Principals and methods of strategic planning and management are the basis for the design of the investigation. / After the formulation of mission and vision statements, concrete strategic objectives and indicators to measure their achievement are defined in the form of a Balanced Scorecard. / (cont.) Subsequently, the internal and external circumstances are described and evaluated using SWOT analysis and the analysis of Porter?s Five Forces. The findings of these analyses provide a basis for crafting a strategic plan for the producers. This plan consists firstly, of a general strategic approach and secondly, of a list of concrete strategic initiatives and measures to be taken by the different functional areas:  operations/production, marketing, finance, and human resources. / The paper concludes that the producers face a difficult situation and need to approach the achievement of their objectives comprehensively taking advantage of all the support available. Important conditions for success are cooperation, entrepreneurial spirit and flexibility. / .

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Insurance companies transfer parts of the risk, they assume from their policyholders, to reinsurers. Underwriting reinsurance business is the process of relocating risks from an insurer to a reinsurer. A reinsurance business is considered to be in run-off, if the reinsurer discontinues to underwrite it. Various active run-off management approaches address the issue of such legacy business. The content of this paper covers the development and implementation of a specific run-off management project at the reinsurance company, Swiss Re, called the commutation initiative for small reserve value business in Latin America. In general terms, commutations are an instrument to prematurely terminate contracts. To reach a commutation agreement, the contractual counterparts negotiate a compensative payment, derived from the remaining contract value. By transferring this commutation payment, all contractual obligations are ceased and the contract reaches finality. This paper describes the prioritization of the initiative within the Swiss Re project landscape, the definition of the project scope, the estimated impact of macroeconomic factors and the valuation technique used for the calculation of commutation offers. / (cont.) Based on the mentioned aspects, the paper contains reasonable expectations on the project performance and potential. Finally the paper contains the evaluation of the initiative, discussing the reasonableness of the project targets and the adequacy of the project approach for the specific situation at Swiss Re as well as the suitability of the process structure and the performance measures. The content of this paper also includes the assessment of the project´s impact on operations, especially concerning run-off administration costs. A final judgement on the project performance cannot be rendered yet, as the project is still in progress. The indications displayed in this paper suggest, that further research and future initiatives should focus on improving the accounting system and contract structuring in order to reduce the occurrence of run-off contracts. .

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