This case describes a user-centred approach to public services and is a result after a pioneering collaboration between Hongkong Post and Hong Kong Design Centre. Since operating as a Trading Fund in 1995, Hongkong Post has managed to reinvent itself as a dynamic, customer-focused and market-oriented service organisation. Leveraging its extensive retail and distribution networks and a strong brand, Hongkong Post has grown beyond the traditional postal service to providing a wide and comprehensive range of services in the logistics supply chain, at the same time diversifying into new markets. Hongkong Post recognizes that the current design of the post offices at the retail level may not be able to meet the growing needs and changing patterns of its users. The collaboration between Hongkong Post and Hong Kong Design Centre is an attempt to adopt the user-centered design research approach to public services and to apply the concept at the Mongkok Post Office with a view to understanding users' needs, providing a better user experience and improving operationally efficiency of the Mongkok Post Office. Users in this context, include both customers and post office staff. Case (A) focuses on the internal design, while Case (B) focuses on the external design.
AIC Systems, located in Taichung, Taiwan, is a manufacturer of printed circuit boards, primarily for motherboards and video cards for personal computers. The firm is considered an original design manufacturer (ODM) and takes an active role in innovating and designing each new generation of components. By doing in-house design and development, the company has been able to foster exclusive, long-term relationships with its customers. The firm decides to diversify its portfolio to include consumer electronics with a particular focus on mobile technology. The goal is to move from manufacturing components for other computer companies to developing the firm's own line of branded consumer electronics. The new "netbook" market provides an opportunity for AIC Systems to design and manufacture a branded product in the mobile electronics industry. The production manager has created an assembly line for producing the new netbooks, and after three months of production he must consider ways to improve efficiency and reduce production costs. Students must perform a quantitative analysis of the existing assembly-line system and make recommendations to reach optimal efficiency.
Jeff Brown wondered whether now was the right time to call his boss, and friend, Bernard Tubiana. Brown was a rising star at Deloitte Consulting and three weeks into an important project for Aflac. He was about to receive an offer from Aflac's major competitor, Colonial Life, to become its Chief Marketing Officer.
One of the leading publishers of textbooks and other educational materials for the U.S. K-12 educational instruction market has suffered a dramatic decline in sales and profits in the wake of the 2008-2009 financial market crisis and economic recession and is now overburdened with debt. To regain its competitiveness, the company has to significantly reduce its debt by billions of dollars. Company management is trying to decide which of several options is best for achieving this goal, including filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, restructuring its debt out-of-court, or filing a "pre-packaged" Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Talent Partners' CEO was very successful at growing the business and establishing its leadership position. He was compensated with a mix of salary and options and he did not own any equity in the company. The options were set so that if Talent Partners achieved its financial plan over the next five years, about half of his total compensation would come from the options.
In this role play case, you are the new general manager of the Elmwood Group and have scheduled a meeting with your direct report, Darcy Gallagher, who is a sales manager. Gallagher, who had been consistently rated as an exceptional performer over his career at Elmwood, excels in business development, problem solving and customer focus and delivers strong results. However, Gallagher has significant gaps in his leadership competencies and skills, and in your view, he meets, not exceeds, current job requirements. Gallagher's prior managers have vaguely referenced his need to improve his "soft skills" but have not followed up with him. For a proud, over-rated manager like Gallagher, recognizing and accepting the gap between perception and reality will not be an easy pill to swallow. Gallagher, who believes that he has sponsors in higher places, may challenge the general manager's authority.
This role play case follows the case "Darcy Gallagher: Performance Coaching Discussion." You are the new general manager of the Elmwood Group and four weeks ago you conducted a performance review with your direct report, Darcy Gallagher, who is a sales manager, and outlined three leadership gaps that Gallagher needed to address. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss Gallagher's career aspirations at Elmwood Group. In advance of your meeting, Gallagher has submitted his career development plan to you and he aspires to be a vice-president at Elmwood, which is unrealistic. In this career coaching discussion, Gallagher needs a reality check about his career plan, and his capability and motivation to develop the strong skills in leading and developing people that are required in leadership roles.
Although demand for enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems in China has been steadily increasing, many such implementation projects have ended in failure. Keda Industrial Co. Ltd. (Keda), a manufacturer of large-scale machinery in China, had successfully deployed its ERP solution. This case study documents Keda's ERP initiative from conception to its deployment and offers insights into the factors and practices that contributed to its success in the Chinese cultural context.
Wildcat Capital Investors is a small real estate private equity company. Its MBA intern, Jessica Zaski, is asked to develop a financial model for the purchase of Financial Commons, a 90,000 square foot office building in suburban Chicago. By simple metrics, the property seems to be a good value, but with credit conditions tight, Jessica must consider whether outside investors would be comfortable with the risks of investing in the midst of a severe commercial real estate downturn. Wildcat is designed to give students exposure to both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of investing in commercial real estate through a private equity structure. Beyond the numbers, the case allows for a discussion of the process of finding suitable real estate investments. The importance of the simultaneous negotiations that Wildcat must have with the seller, the lender, and the outside investor can be emphasized.
Emerging markets are being pursued by large multinational companies. With radical changes in the lifestyles of consumers and proliferation of categories and brands, the Indian context offers unique marketing challenges to marketers. The case deals with the perspective of how cultural values can provide the differentiation platform for brands in the categories of hair oil and fairness creams, the ritualistic categories used in the grooming habits of consumers in the country.
Dropbox is a venture-backed Silicon Valley startup, founded in 2006, that provides online storage and backup services to millions of customers using a "freemium" (free + premium offers) business model. The case recounts Dropbox's history from conception through mid-2010, when founder/CEO Drew Houston must make strategic decisions about new product features, how to target enterprise customers, and whether to pursue distribution deals with smartphone manufacturers.
Robert Eberhart is an American electronics executive living abroad in Japan as market president. He's ready to move on to something new and discovers that the changing distribution laws in Japan may provide him a chance to upend the supply chain for California wines. Legal, marketing, operational, and executive management challenges ensue.
This case study is based on a high profile issue facing the Canadian Federal Government - still ongoing as of December 2010 - that had begun in 2008. Industry Canada, working from a set of policy objectives crafted over the period of three years, decided that, in the auction sale of wireless spectrum set for 2008, it would set aside 40 per cent of the spectrum for new entrants. This decision had come about because research indicated that Canadian usage of wireless services had lagged behind that of other developed countries and that this was primarily due to the high relative cost of wireless services. This was in contrast to only a decade earlier when Canada was seen as a global leader in the implementation of wireless technology. It is well understood that telecommunication adoption rates have a direct implication to the productivity of the Canadian economy. One of the new entrants was Globalive Communications Corporation (Globalive), a startup which was funded by Orascom Telecom Holding S.A.E. (Orascom), an Egyptian company. Despite the fact that Canada has well defined foreign ownership restrictions for the telecommunications sector, Globalive was allowed to bid. It won, and paid $442 million for its spectrum, began to hire hundreds of staff, and committed another $300 million to investing in wireless infrastructure.<br><br>From the time Globalive applied to participate in the spectrum auction to the period prior to its official launch, the firm met several times with Industry Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), and the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to ensure that its ownership was structured so as to fit within the foreign ownership restrictions.
A Canadian online floral delivery company considers whether to source more flowers from its existing growing locations and which of those would be optimal given its current market. What would be the advantages of opening a logistics facility in Miami?
A board's decision-making and process in investigating and terminating a company's CEO are explored and the company's policies and contractual obligations considered.