Can a company base a major proposal on its good reputation, history with the client, and a perspective that differs from that client's own? Emphasizing both its engineering capability and 80 years' experience, Parsons Brinckerhoff spends one year and $1 million preparing a proposal to build a $17 billion subway line. Competition from four equally qualified firms is stiff, but PB is sure its history and top-level Metropolitan Transit Authority connections make it a shoe-in. Despite MTA's concerns about the finished line's functionality, PB believes the construction of the tunnel itself is the key to winning the bid. In the A case, the firm awaits the good news. The B and C cases reveal the result and the direction the company then chooses to take.

This note addresses the dynamics of supply chains as they affect profits--how profits may be both maximized overall and equitably distributed across the supply chain. Influences of pricing and stocking are discussed, as are the benefits and shortcomings of coordination by the most common types of contract.

Nike's Football division needs to devise a strategy to excel at the 2010 World Cup games in South Africa. Nike has gone from a niche player in the market for football apparel and footwear in 1994 to a formidable competitor to Adidas in 2008 (with revenues of over $1 billion for the sport). The case traces how Nike has gone about making this transformation and its activities at each of the World Cups since 1994. For the upcoming World Cup in South Africa, Nike has decided to change its target market focus and to use digital and social media platforms to connect more extensively with consumers. In addition, Nike plans to launch innovative new boots and engage in corporate responsibility and sustainability initiatives. The company has to do so in light of competition from archrival Adidas and the pressure of succeeding on the biggest stage in football, with billions of people around the world watching. The case allows students to analyze how a company can best integrate several value propositions into a cohesive plan and how it can best communicate with its chosen target market. It also allows for a rich discussion of the brand image the company needs to portray to leverage success beyond the World Cup event.

The general manager of Horseshoe Resort is finalizing the proposal for a new adventure park with his management team. Horseshoe is an all-season resort recently purchased and new ownership wants to increase Horseshoe's attractions to entice visitors to the resort in the summer months. The general manager wants to determine how best to use the land and investment dollars to cater to Horseshoe's target market and add to its portfolio of activities.

The general manager of Horseshoe Resort is finalizing the proposal for a new adventure park with his management team. Horseshoe is a recently purchased all-season resort, and new ownership wants to increase Horseshoe’s attractions to entice visitors to the resort in the summer months. The general manager wants to determine how best to use the land and investment money to cater to Horseshoe’s target market and add to its portfolio of activities.

Vlaad and Company, a recruiting firm specializing in the Canadian capital markets, has embarked upon an initiative to recruit more women to capital markets jobs. The case describes the early stages of this initiative and provides six examples of capital markets job candidates — four women and two men. The director of the women in capital markets initiative must decide which of these six candidates, if any, to present to client firms. She must also think about the design of the women in capital markets initiative.

The chief credit officer (CCO) at Seoul National Bank has recently faced numerous defaults on its corporate loans. To address this problem, the CCO must re-evaluate how the bank responds to defaults and determine a default strategy. The CCO must evaluate the payouts and risk profiles of 1) collecting on collateral, 2) partially settling, and 3) waiting and seeing. Further, the CCO must determine a systematic way to approve loans from companies. Analyzing both qualitative and quantities factors, the CCO must determine which companies to approve for loans given a certain size of its loan portfolio. Also, the CCO must determine whether or not to increase or shrink the size of the bank’s loan portfolio based on the expected outcomes and/or simulated results.

An equity analyst at Nova Funds, an investment firm, is in the process of analyzing an investment in SIGA Technologies (SIGA), and potentially its competitor, PharmAthene Inc. (PIP). SIGA is currently the only company in the world that has developed a treatment for smallpox, with its ST-246. In late 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the intention to award SIGA a contract valued at up to $2.8 billion, which significantly exceeds SIGA’s current market value, making the company potentially an excellent investment. However, SIGA is prevented from realizing the profit on this contract due to two uncertainties. First, PIP, a partner throughout the development of the ST-246, has sued SIGA over the rights of the ST-246, with the payout of the lawsuit unknown. Second, since the HHS announcement is for the intention to award the contract, the actual contract for SIGA may take on various possibilities. Given these uncertainties, the equity analyst needs to find ways to invest in the situations that produce the most attractive outcome. She may potentially invest by buying or shorting the stocks of the companies involved or through the use of options. Moreover, she may do this over multiple timeframes, if that is justified.

Grocery Checkout Inc., an online grocery delivery service, had experienced dramatic growth since its founding in 2005, but investors were pressuring the chief executive officer (CEO) for even faster growth. An improved distribution network and order fulfillment system meant that GCO could handle a greater volume of customers. The CEO considered a number of growth options, including a sell option, and needed to decide which would best fit GCO and how his role might change within the company.

After a two-year absence from the financial industry, Tom Henne evaluated his options and determined that he could exploit his knowledge of the inner workings of the pension fund business and start a new firm, Equinox Asset Management. Despite claims that many pension funds provided returns that did no more than mirror the average index, Henne believed his fund could beat the market or achieve alpha. He proposed that this success could be had by differentiating the Equinox fund in several ways from the typically large and well-branded funds of banks and insurance companies. Thinking he still had significant time to consider the details, Henne was surprised to receive a phone call from a local company wanting him to do a presentation on Equinox at its offices. Henne had only one week to decide the size of his fund, finalize his fee structure, identify his positioning and marketing strategy, and evaluate an appropriate client base. But most of all, he wondered whether the idea for his fund was even plausible.

In July 2009, as investors prepared to submit financial bids for the $3 billion Dharavi slum redevelopment project, considerable economic and political risks remained.

Process Mapping & Management, written by Sue Conger of the University of Dallas, is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press. The book comprises three sections: Process mapping mechanics, process improvement analysis, and process redesign and justification. Written for executives and graduate students, the text offers practical techniques for simplifying and improving business processes that are immediately actionable. The improvement analysis is based on lean six sigma techniques and discusses leaning for the removal of process waste, cleaning for improving the remaining steps, and greening for evaluating methods that either automate or off-load work. A call-center case study runs through the book to illustrate many of the techniques. This appendix to the book will provide a useful, concrete model to readers who have read at least a few chapters. It presents a final report on the processes examined in the SCI Call Center case that runs through the book. Headings include: Project Methodology, Overview of SCI Organization, Analysis, Technology Analysis, Summary of Recommendations, Financial Analysis, Proposed Process, and Benchmarks and Measures.

Process Mapping & Management, written by Sue Conger of the University of Dallas, is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press. The book comprises three sections: Process mapping mechanics, process improvement analysis, and process redesign and justification. Written for executives and graduate students, the text offers practical techniques for simplifying and improving business processes that are immediately actionable. The improvement analysis is based on lean six sigma techniques and discusses leaning for the removal of process waste, cleaning for improving the remaining steps, and greening for evaluating methods that either automate or off-load work. A call-center case study runs through the book to illustrate many of the techniques. Chapter 1 provides an overview explaining core principles of business process management and the advantages of employing the best process-mapping techniques.

Process Mapping & Management, written by Sue Conger of the University of Dallas, is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press. The book comprises three sections: Process mapping mechanics, process improvement analysis, and process redesign and justification. Written for executives and graduate students, the text offers practical techniques for simplifying and improving business processes that are immediately actionable. The improvement analysis is based on lean six sigma techniques and discusses leaning for the removal of process waste, cleaning for improving the remaining steps, and greening for evaluating methods that either automate or off-load work. A call-center case study runs through the book to illustrate many of the techniques. Chapter 2 describes project initiation and the development of a contract for a process improvement project, sometimes called a "statement of work" (SOW). Topical headings include: Organization Entry, Understanding the Organization, Process Mapping, Initial Project Understanding, Interviewing, and Creating an SOW.

Process Mapping & Management, written by Sue Conger of the University of Dallas, is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press. The book comprises three sections: Process mapping mechanics, process improvement analysis, and process redesign and justification. Written for executives and graduate students, the text offers practical techniques for simplifying and improving business processes that are immediately actionable. The improvement analysis is based on lean six sigma techniques and discusses leaning for the removal of process waste, cleaning for improving the remaining steps, and greening for evaluating methods that either automate or off-load work. A call-center case study runs through the book to illustrate many of the techniques. Chapters 3 and 4 explain process mapping in detail. Process maps are icon-based shorthand ways of describing the steps for performing some process. Chapter 3 picks up on the gathering of documentation covered in the previous chapter, discussing what to do with all that documentation, starting with its review and ending with its addition to a documentation archive.

Process Mapping & Management, written by Sue Conger of the University of Dallas, is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press. The book comprises three sections: Process mapping mechanics, process improvement analysis, and process redesign and justification. Written for executives and graduate students, the text offers practical techniques for simplifying and improving business processes that are immediately actionable. The improvement analysis is based on lean six sigma techniques and discusses leaning for the removal of process waste, cleaning for improving the remaining steps, and greening for evaluating methods that either automate or off-load work. A call-center case study runs through the book to illustrate many of the techniques. Chapters 3 and 4 explain process mapping in detail. Process maps are icon-based shorthand ways of describing the steps for performing some process. Chapter 4 continues the discussion of process map variations and different methods of depicting aspects of processes. As the chapter explains, many maps are so complex that they are difficult to understand unless summarized in logical "chunks"; this chapter explains the reasoning for creating summary maps. It also introduces the challenges of validating and verifying a process map.

Process Mapping & Management, written by Sue Conger of the University of Dallas, is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press. The book comprises three sections: Process mapping mechanics, process improvement analysis, and process redesign and justification. Written for executives and graduate students, the text offers practical techniques for simplifying and improving business processes that are immediately actionable. The improvement analysis is based on lean six sigma techniques and discusses leaning for the removal of process waste, cleaning for improving the remaining steps, and greening for evaluating methods that either automate or off-load work. A call-center case study runs through the book to illustrate many of the techniques. The techniques presented in Chapter 5 are a representative mix of idea generation, graphics, and diagramming and analysis techniques that can all be used on a single project in developing the organization view. Main topics include Creative Problem-Solving Techniques, Graphics for Problem Finding, and Other Methods for Problem Finding.

Process Mapping & Management, written by Sue Conger of the University of Dallas, is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press. The book comprises three sections: Process mapping mechanics, process improvement analysis, and process redesign and justification. Written for executives and graduate students, the text offers practical techniques for simplifying and improving business processes that are immediately actionable. The improvement analysis is based on lean six sigma techniques and discusses leaning for the removal of process waste, cleaning for improving the remaining steps, and greening for evaluating methods that either automate or off-load work. A call-center case study runs through the book to illustrate many of the techniques. In Chapter 6, the author examines the objective of eliminating process steps that do not contribute to organization profit or customer satisfaction. The first technique, value-added analysis, evaluates a process and "leans" out superfluous activities in preparation for developing proposed changes. Next, she evaluates how to improve processes by eliminating defects and variations from processes. Finally, she introduces quality function deployment (QFD) as a tool to help in identifying and choosing between means for making changes.

Process Mapping & Management, written by Sue Conger of the University of Dallas, is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press. The book comprises three sections: Process mapping mechanics, process improvement analysis, and process redesign and justification. Written for executives and graduate students, the text offers practical techniques for simplifying and improving business processes that are immediately actionable. The improvement analysis is based on lean six sigma techniques and discusses leaning for the removal of process waste, cleaning for improving the remaining steps, and greening for evaluating methods that either automate or off-load work. A call-center case study runs through the book to illustrate many of the techniques. At this point in the book's coverage of process mapping, all current mapping is complete, and waste or non-value adding steps have been removed from the process to the extent possible. In Chapter 7, cleaning techniques are applied to remaining process steps to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. The author explains two techniques critical in complex process control: statistical process control, which is discussed in terms of its use in surfacing areas for improvement, and root cause analysis, a technique used to determine all possible causes of an error or outage incident. She then turns to several simple "cleaning" techniques that improve the functioning of individual process steps.

Process Mapping & Management, written by Sue Conger of the University of Dallas, is a 10-chapter book published by Business Expert Press. The book comprises three sections: Process mapping mechanics, process improvement analysis, and process redesign and justification. Written for executives and graduate students, the text offers practical techniques for simplifying and improving business processes that are immediately actionable. The improvement analysis is based on lean six sigma techniques and discusses leaning for the removal of process waste, cleaning for improving the remaining steps, and greening for evaluating methods that either automate or off-load work. A call-center case study runs through the book to illustrate many of the techniques. Once a process is lean and clean, the next step is to decide on the following factors: whether to outsource, how to engage customers to do the work for you, the extent to which automation can speed and reduce the cost of the process, and finally, the extent to which the process can become environmentally safer without adding to its cost. Chapter 8 covers those topics through the following sections: Outsourcing; Co-production; Automation, Mechanization, or Both; and Environmental Process Greening.