Established in 1938, Highly Confident Transportation ("HCT") is a leading third-party logistics ("3PL") company in Taiwan. Originally a trucking and en-route transportation company serving domestic customers, HCT has transformed into a company providing integrated logistics services to global customers. Throughout its history, the company has prospered despite fierce competition, economic hard times and a rapidly changing market environment. HCT now competes against both domestic and foreign players. Despite these challenges, Chen Rong-chuan, chief operating officer of HCT, sees immense opportunities in the trend since the 1990s of outsourcing logistics functions to professional logistics companies such as HCT. In order to increase profits for the company, he has pushed for innovation and a service-oriented approach to be the future directions for HCT and has implemented a complete cultural change throughout the company. He has stressed the vital role of information technology throughout HCT's development into a leading 3PL company that offers logistics solutions both within Taiwan and around the world. This case can be used as a teaching tool for logistics or supply chain management courses.
In late 2006 and early 2007 a number of imports from China, including toys, were found to pose health risks. With safety concerns about Chinese imports on the minds of readers, on July 26, 2007 the New York Times carried a feature article on the precautions Mattel, the world's largest toymaker, took to ensure the safety of its toys. In contrast to other toymakers, Mattel owned the factories in China where its most popular toys, such as Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars, were made. Mattel's precautions, however, were not sufficient to shield it from health hazards in the toys it made in China. This case follows a number of product safety snafus, mainly around high lead levels, that Mattel faced from its various suppliers in China. In each situation, Mattel must weigh legal, ethical, and business considerations in determining how to best react.
Alex Sharpe's Portfolio provides an introduction to the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), portfolio diversification and risk management. Sharpe currently holds the Vanguard 500 Index Fund, but is considering a more active management strategy. Students must assess the risk of the two stocks she is considering adding to her portfolio. Students are provided with monthly stock returns and must calculate the standard deviations of the individual stocks and of the portfolios when one of the stocks is added to it. Students must calculate the stock's beta using regression and will learn that beta is the appropriate measure of risk to use in decision making since risk-averse investors do not hold stocks in isolation.
The year 2007 had to have been one of the worst in the history of British Petroleum plc (BP). In the span of four months, two separate independent reports (the first one commissioned by BP itself) had identified a deeply rooted culture of risk within BP where money and profits were valued above worker and environmental safety. These reports were in response to an explosion in 2005 at an oil refinery in Texas City, in the United States, which killed 15 people and injured more than 180, but the reports also referred to pipeline leaks in Alaska as well as other serious safety lapses throughout BP's global operations. The Texas City explosion was the worst but not the first major incident at a BP facility, and the revelations in the reports severely damaged the credibility the so-called super-major oil company had earned over the last decade. The job of restoring investor and stakeholder confidence as well as the firm's reputation fell to the BP board and its star group chief executive, Lord John Browne. The B case, product 9B08M003, examines the role played by the board with respect to the personal integrity of Lord Browne. The teaching objectives are to introduce students to examining the role of the board with respect to risk management as well as its social responsibilities to various stakeholders.
This supplement to product 9B08M002 examines the role played by the board with respect to the personal integrity of Lord Browne, who had been several times identified as the chief executive officer of the year by the Financial Times.
In November 2006, two members of the FLIR Commercial Vision Systems (CVS) executive team attended a week-long program at Stanford University entitled "Customer Focused Innovation." Upon returning home, they created an "Innovation Center" based on what they had learned. Over the next 18 months, the Innovation Center was used to develop product ideas, improve manufacturing processes, and other tasks requiring creative thinking. FLIR CVS was a division of FLIR Systems, a manufacturer of thermal imaging cameras that used infrared radiation to "see" even in the total absence of light, or in adverse visibility conditions such as smoke or fog. The CVS division was developed and marketed products for commercial applications such as security monitoring, night vision cameras for automobiles, systems that allowed boat captains to see in foggy conditions, or imaging equipment for fire-fighting. The case provides a detailed description of one day-long session at the Innovation Center. The case explores the cultural bases of the Center's success during its first 18 months, and the impact of the Center on the company culture. It also poses problems facing the FLIR executives, such as how to make use of the large number of ideas generated at the Center, how to improve the Center's innovation sessions, how to expand the concept to other company divisions, and how to scale the program as the company expanded.
In Africa, the usage of insecticide treated bed-nets (ITNs) has shown to be one of the best ways to prevent malaria. USAID, the principal U.S. agency for providing assistance to countries, has just announced that by mid-2008, it will provide an additional $5 billion for malaria prevention and treatment in Africa. Specifically, the agency would like to see Tanzania improve not only ITN coverage (currently at only 14%) but more importantly ITN usage by the country's 35 million citizens. As of 2004, only 10% of children under the age of 5 were sleeping under bed-nets. USAID's goal for 2010 is to increase this to 80%. In this simulation, students need to develop a compelling proposal for USAID for reducing the malaria burden in Tanzania. View Video.
Coloplast's future global manufacturing strategy was based on relocation of volume production of mature product lines to low cost countries like Hungary and China, whereas most creative and innovative activities (pilot production, ramp-up and range care) were held captive in Denmark. The large scale project of offshoring, first volume production and later perhaps other activities, to Tatabanya, Hungary constituted a major shift in the operational strategy for Coloplast, which resulted in a series of organizational and managerial challenges. An important feature of the case is the surprise to the management team of how challenging it was to globalize the operations despite Coloplast's international experience operating a network of subsidiaries in more than 26 countries. The management team learned a lesson of how important it is to have the structure, the organization and the mindset in place when offshoring production. Sourcing internationally is obviously very different from selling internationally as it involves the entire organization. The learning process of the management team and the challenges they faced is unfolded in this case.
Coloplast's future global manufacturing strategy was based on relocation of volume production of mature product lines to low cost countries like Hungary and China, whereas most creative and innovative activities (pilot production, ramp-up and range care) were retained in Denmark. The large scale project of offshoring, first volume production and later perhaps other activities, to Tatabanya, Hungary constituted a major shift in the operational strategy for Coloplast, which resulted in a series of organizational and managerial challenges. An important feature of the case is the surprise to the management team of how challenging it was to globalize the operations despite Coloplast's international experience operating a network of subsidiaries in more than 26 countries. The management team learned how important it is to have the structure, the organization and the mindset in place when offshoring production. Sourcing internationally is very different from selling internationally as it involves the entire organization. The learning process of the management team and the challenges they faced is unfolded in this case.
Betting exchanges provide an electronic platform that allows ordinary consumers to not only back teams to win, but also to lay odds for other punters to back. This business model allows punters to cut out the middle-man of the bookmaker, and leads to a much more efficient 2-sided market. Betfair.com's domination of the betting exchange has threatened to undermine the core of the traditional bookmakers' business model. The case examines two aspects of the industry: 1. What specific choices did Betfair make to become the dominant betting exchange, winning the competitive battle over Flutter.com? 2. At what stages do Betfair.com's business model and those of the bookmakers interact? Will Betfair.com naturally come to dominate the industry, and if so how should the bookmakers react?
The marketing director of a new minor-league baseball team must design, conduct, and then interpret survey research to determine optimal ticket pricing that will yield large attendance figures and contribute to the owner's goal of breaking even in the first year of play. The pricing assignment becomes more challenging when other variables like concessions revenue are considered. Students are asked to complete a quantitative assignment as part of case analysis, but they must grapple with less quantifiable factors as well.
Cruzsalud was a medium-sized company, founded in November 2004. The company's business model was based on the concept pre-paid health care, by means of which low-income subscribers obtain a set of health services in exchange for a fixed monthly payment, with prices ranging from 9 to 40 thousand bolivars (US$ 4.00 to 18.60) per month. Once operations were under way, Cruzsalud had to face several management problems linked to expected sales and subscriber fee collection mechanisms. Moreover, Cruzsalud faced a dilemma related to its business model. The Law for Workplace Prevention, Conditions, and Environment, which was passed in July 2005, forced companies, regardless of size, to provide workplace health and safety services. In response to that mandate, and the determination shown by authorities to comply with it, business demand for health services spiraled. This opportunity, together with the difficulties faced in reaching the required volume of customers, led the shareholders to wonder whether Cruzsalud should continue to focus on the low-income sector, as managers proposed, or move towards the market for employee health plans.
Google had become an extraordinarily popular website because of the efficiency of its search engine and that popularity spiraled through its applications. The key to Goolge's financial success was placing advertisements tailored to the search queries of each user. Google's objective was "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible," and it's strategy had three components: search, ads, and applications. An expanding set of nonmarket challenges accompanied Google's success and growth. Challenges came from all areas: competitors, producers of complementary products, content producers, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and the public. This case explores Goolge's nonmarket challenges, including privacy issues in both the United States and European Union, the spectrum auction, intellectual property, corporate social responsibility, and Google's business practices in China.
On the return to their homeland of Croatia following a six-year visit to the United States, a couple has decided to open their own coffee house, one that is unique to the Croatian environment - a California-style coffee house that offers the quality, service, product assortment, ambiance and efficiency found in sophisticated coffee shops in developed markets, and all for a locally affordable price. The major challenge faced by the couple is how to grow. Specifically, should they consider franchising over organic growth? If so, how should they go about franchising in a country where the market is developing and where franchising is under-regulated, underdeveloped and misunderstood? This case can be used in entrepreneurship, retailing, international marketing or international business classes. The case provides a practical example of when and how to use franchising.
This is Part B to the "Arauco: Forward Integration or Horizontal Expansion?" case. This short case looks at the company in late 2007 after it has decided to invest in a Brazilian joint venture involving forests, saw mills and a paper mill. The case acts as an epilogue and allows students to revisit the concept of forward integration into paper in the Brazilian context.
Philip McCrea is dealing with the aftermath of the move of his company and family from San Francisco to New Jersey (from the A case). Although the move goes well from a family perspective, his business runs into challenges when he merges it into a Canadian company and winds up with 30% ownership. McCrea eventually resigns and has to deal with his role in the failure of the company, and the transition to the next step in his career.
The purpose of this exercise is to explore the challenges of information collection and analysis. Students will, experientially, gain insights into how information is used, and be exposed to a framework for identifying and evaluating information. In addition, the exercise will enable students to explore the processes and dynamics of teamwork in decision-making, the challenges of group decision-making, and the strategies for engaging team learning skills and attitudes to improve both the quality of and commitment to group decisions.
This case analyzes the Hilton Hotels Corporation's CRM strategy at a key juncture in its history, immediately after the firm has been taken private by Blackstone. The case provides students with a comprehensive history of the evolution and IT enablers of Hilton's CRM Initiative, as well as the proprietary OnQ enterprise system. The case thus offers a rare opportunity to engage in a longitudinal evaluation of the firm's CRM initiative, and to enable students to propose the future evolution of the initiative based on their analysis.