Ford Motor Company's Social Sustainability Manager, David Berdish, faces the challenge of positioning Ford on the forefront of the new global transportation industry in a sustainable way while leveraging Ford's leadership in the automotive industry. This case takes a holistic look at the global transportation industry but places emphasis on mega-cities in bustling emerging markets and their increasingly congested transportation systems. With the company's strategic mobility initiative in place and Ford's Blueprint for Mobility launched as of February 2012, the question of resource and technology allocation and strategic positioning among traditional and new (car-sharing, traffic data management) competitors becomes critical to success. Students must decide how to balance innovation, market positioning, and long-term vision with near-term strategy to better serve the next generation of customers on multiple levels - access, community, and environmental.
The vice-president and general manager of the Canadian operations of a multinational vehicle manufacturer learns that the plant he supervises will be shut down in 15 months. In the months leading up to the shutdown announcement and subsequent winding down, he needs to manage the communications and followup with several stakeholder groups. The vice-president and general manager needs to balance several issues, including the need to keep production high and waste down, while preparing to lay off the workers who will be contributing to the plant’s short-term success. To be used with supplemental cases (9B13M019, 9B13M020).
The case is a series of four short, fictional vignettes. Each vignette shines a light on the case's macro-theme of ''motivating others in a management context," and discusses the considerations involved in getting subordinates to achieve specific company goals. The first vignette profiles Lydia Geller, a newly-promoted VP, as she publicly addresses her subordinates for the first time, each of whom had previously been part of her peer group. The second vignette profiles Jeremy Sawyer, the CEO of a software company, as he reviews the sales performance of the company and, in particular, its leading salesman, Victor Mason. Given Mason's disproportionate importance to the company, Jeremy debates the actions he can take to ensure Mason's continued satisfaction and motivation. The third vignette profiles Warren Soroka, the director of sales at a logistics service provider, as he is forced to have a conversation with a long-term employee who has just been "passed over" for a promotion in favor of a younger employee. He debates how best to communicate the decision to the "passed over" employee in a way that ensures his continued motivation and performance at the company. The fourth vignette profiles Rachel Murphy, the director of academics at Barrymore University, as she is forced to give a performance review that includes both positive and negative feedback. Given the mixed nature of the performance review, she debates how best to communicate such feedback in a way that ensures the employee's understanding and continued motivation.
Julia and Nate Burstein were living their dream running their own business and balancing the demands between their work and family obligations while creating a company that was responsive to their employees' and their customers' needs. The Bursteins had joined a large multinational manufacturing company after receiving their MBAs from HBS, but soon left to join Julia's family plastics business. After the business was sold, they struck out on their own to search for a similar business. They purchased Elasto Therm, with $8 million in revenue from manufactured rubber and urethane components, with their own cash, bank financing, and the seller, partly in the form of an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). Initially, Nate ran the business and after a few years changed roles with Julia to stay at home with their young children for three years. The two were in charge as co-CEOs before Julia relinquished her responsibilities to be at home again. The couple significantly strengthened the organization's talent, focused on innovation, growth, and provided a learning environment for their employees. Through cost efficiencies and pricing strategies, Elasto Therm was able to achieve higher margins than their competitors and focused on low-volume, short-run orders as they continued to expand the business. The 2008 recession forced them to reexamine all aspects of the business, and it retained profitability after painful cutbacks in the organization. To continue their growth into the next decade, they are faced with the choice of acquiring other businesses or growing more organically by adding to their sales organization to achieve geographic expansion.
In 1984, Trung Dung fled political persecution in Vietnam, the country of his birth, to arrive in the United States as a refugee with only $2 in his pocket. Over the next two decades, he proved his mettle as one of the most astute and successful Vietnamese-American entrepreneurs. Although Dung had never thought that he would return to Vietnam, the instinctive entrepreneur inside him recognized the opportunities presented by country's rapidly developing and modernizing economy. Dung returned in 2007 to found MobiVi, an Electronic Financial Transactions (EFT) firm. This case explores the intersection of mobile network operators, the ETF industry, and social entrepreneurs to pursue an innovative approach to providing financial services to the approximately 2 billion people worldwide who lacked access. The focus is on three of MobiVi's areas: the Nationwide Distribution System (NDS) unit, MobiVi's innovative offerings around financial services (MFS), and MobiVi Foundation. In 2012, Dung was looking at how to address market inefficiencies, help MobiVi's investors and business partners create and capture more value, and make credit more accessible to the middle and lower income classes in Vietnam. Dung was optimistic given the positive state of the Vietnamese economy, the patented MobiVi payments processing technology, and the most recent developments in telecommunication technologies.
The Diamonds Foods, Inc. case describes the major accounting blow up at the company in late 2011 that was triggered by a report by Off Wall Street, a prominent short selling research firm. Diamond Foods, a high flying growth company in 2011, grew from a walnut farmers' cooperative in 2005 into a branded snack foods manufacturer on the strength of a series of acquisitions. The accounting scandal that involved improper accounting for walnut purchases led to Diamond dropping its high profile acquisition of Pringles, an SEC and DOJ investigation, departure of the CEO and CFO, and the grounding of a high flying growth company. The case describes the history and growth of the company, the investigative and analytical work conducted by OWS and allows students to understand implications of the growth strategy for financial performance and valuation. Additionally, the case highlights the role of corporate boards and audit committees in managing strategic and financial reporting risks.
In late 2012 Adeline Herzog Memorial Hospital in Castle Rock, Colorado, was facing a problem with patient satisfaction. The Press-Ganey scores for the third-floor nursing unit-the primary destination (70 percent) for patients admitted through the emergency department-were at the 15th percentile, and the key HCAHPS score for inpatients was well below the Colorado average. Over the past six months Jeri Tinsley, director of medical, surgical, and intensive care services, had made various changes to try to improve the patient satisfaction scores for her 32-bed unit, but the scores seemed stuck at an unacceptably low level. Tinsley worried that if improvements were not made soon, patients would start "voting with their feet" and take their business to competing hospitals. As a registered nurse, Tinsley's expertise was helping people heal; it was not analyzing data. In particular, she was overwhelmed by the patient comments included in the surveys; she had no idea how to analyze them and could not decide which issues to address first.
The soup division at Brannigan Foods contributes over 40% of the firm's revenue. The general manager is concerned that the soup industry is declining and that the soup division shows declining profits and market share, especially among the important baby boomer segment. Hoping to reverse these trends, he asks four key managers to review a consultant's analysis of the soup industry and recommend a turnaround strategy. Each manager presents a different plan, from investing in core market segments and products to acquiring new product lines and customers. Students must perform a quantitative analysis of each proposal while considering the feasibility and risks associated with each option before making a final recommendation.
An aftermarket brake component manufacturer, VC Brakes, is bought out by a global automotive parts corporation after the 2008 financial crisis. Unlike its previous parent company, the new owner attempts to change VC Brakes' autocratic management style and finger-pointing culture with a Total Quality Management (TQM) program. Andrew Ryan is a senior manager at VC Brakes. With the guidance of a strong mentor and a reputation as a successful change agent, he is selected as a TQM site instructor. His initial excitement turns to concern when organizational challenges cause the quality initiative to falter. A subsequent restructuring puts Ryan on the wrong side of politics, and he must decide whether to leave VC Brakes or stay with the losing initiative.
This is an update to GS-61, describing developments at the company through 2011, including a major acquisition, distribution in China, and an initiative to cultivate start-ups that might grow into future clients.
Robert Davidson, pricing manager for Tupelo Medical, was concerned about the variability in price paid for its top-selling product, the Micron 8 Series blood pressure monitoring system. Using historical transaction data, Davidson must determine the appropriate price floor. Setting a price too high risked the loss of a large number of customers, putting the company at substantial risk due to the importance of the product. Setting a price too low would impact Davidson's ability to meet the stated objective of increasing margins by 3 percent. He wondered what the optimal price floor would be and what the expected profits would be for that new price floor. Additionally, the company's business varied considerably by geographic region, account size and account type. As a result, he needed to consider whether it made sense to set a single price floor or whether he could improve profits by allowing some variability in the price floor by customer segment.
Madison Ayer, Honey Care Africa (HCA) CEO, is looking to scale the business to generate more benefits for Kenyan small-holder farmers. He is seeking a better assessment of HCA's impacts on farmer families, especially children age 8 and under, to attract investors for the expansion. Ayer is also attempting to reduce side-selling by building stronger relationships with farmer families and perhaps hiring brokers. Students are asked to identify opportunities to generate greater impact and enhance the enterprise's value proposition.
In 2012, two years after a major restructuring project had begun at German skin care producer Beiersdorf, the process was still ongoing. The new chief executive officer (CEO) inherited several challenges from his predecessor, including the difficult implementation of the new transnational strategy, opposition from employees and the work council, and ineffective market-entry strategies (especially in China). Strong competitors and a slow rate of economic recovery in Beiersdorf's main markets provided additional complexity. Questions remained about how the new CEO should address the ongoing challenges facing the company.
The sole proprietor of a small cake-baking and cake-decorating business needs to make some decisions regarding the company's future. The company's growth has brought new challenges including possible space constraints. The desire to improve profitability and to take the business to the next level leads the owner to consider increasing prices and the development of a new advertising strategy.
The founders of Zaggora reflected back on a tumultuous year-and-a-half in which they had generated, from just $40,000 in personal savings, a multi-million dollar sportswear enterprise selling Hotpants to women. These were hotpants not of the 1960s hipster variety, but instead the first sportswear product of the new brand Zaggora that was made with a specially developed multi-ply fabric technology that heated up during a workout. While the founders had faced several challenges including averting bankruptcy, now they faced an equally difficult time ahead. Should they grow the enterprise by continuing with their current bootstrapped online approach, or attempt to get their product into retail stores? Should they continue to self-finance and keep control, or cede some control by taking on venture capital funding?
Samsung Electronics had experienced a series of quality-related problems, including the recall of one of its LCD TV models. Unfortunately for quality director Kevin Sarni, there was no single root cause behind these problems: Samsung's supply chain management, product design, and testing/quality assurance functions all played a role. Sarni regularly worked with quantitative data from Samsung's customer complaint database, but recently he had been shown comments about Samsung products posted on the website ConsumerAffairs.com. The number and emotional tone of the website postings concerned him; he worried these kinds of complaints might touch off a social media-fueled public relations firestorm that would make his job more difficult. He wanted to analyze this feedback, but had no experience with qualitative data. An internal Six Sigma Black Belt consultant suggested he start by creating an affinity diagram and use that to create a Pareto chart to determine which issues to address first. Once Sarni completed the unfamiliar diagrams he had still another task ahead of him: examining the results to see if they justified taking short-term action to address the quality problems raised in the complaints.
Cargill Inc., a U.S.-based multinational company, is known for its skills in business-to-business (B2B) marketing. It processes food products and markets them in bulk to large institutional buyers with whom it has a strong customer orientation. However, the head of the refined edible oils business at Cargill India, the company’s fully owned subsidiary, is facing a problem with the parent company's value proposition around B2B. While developing the annual marketing plans for the next financial year, he finds that the volatility of commodity price movements has made the task of revenue forecasts at Cargill India difficult. This volatility is compounded by frequent changes introduced by the federal government to official regulations governing the edible oil business in India. In order to gain control over the two variables, he is examining the prospect of moving into the business-to-consumer (B2C) space in India. This is a new strategic direction not only for the Indian subsidiary but also for Cargill Inc. Can he achieve buy-in not only from the parent company but also from his own managers? Will he be able to attract marketing professionals who can promote his new brands successfully to the Indian consumer?