Global Entrepreneurship
Case study
_TCS: An Entrepreneur Air-Express Company in Pakistan_
Name: Choi Ying Kai
SID: 06523393
Date completed: 05-11-2007
Case Background:
This case introduces Khalid Awan, co-founder of TCS, an entrepreneurial air-express company in Pakistan. Awan has succeeded in building a sizeable company despite serious obstacles, including pressure from the public postal system, an environment prone to corruption, and a nonexistent market for venture capital. The firm largely made extensive use of leasing contracts to expand with small initial cash deposits. However, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, Awan is now faced with a number of questions regarding further expansion of the firm. The tragic events of September 11 will most likely put pressure on the firm's revenues and create considerable uncertainty.
Study Questions for Cases:
Given the tightly-regulated economy and corruptive government in Pakistan, Khalid Awan managed to negotiate with the government for a joint venture with DHL as well as the rights to offer limited domestic courier services. The former, which only limits to international courier services, benefits TCS with DHL's systems in terms of productivity, service standards, and customer endorsements. The latter, approved under a central excise duty, gave TCS a right to exploit this profitable market and TCS successfully obtained over half of the market share as shown in Exhibit 8.
TCS has been self-funded with the extensive use of leasing. Its key benefit is to provide leverage to those who do not have a significant asset base already on their initial cash deposit. Hence, it enables small enterprise like TCS to gain access to finance. Also, given the underdeveloped capital markets, creditors' rights and collateral laws and registries would be weak. Leasing thus offers a less default risk. With the extra consideration of tax advantage over leasing, in overall, the policies make sense.
Since a typical lease