"Hey that was my idea!" How often have your students had that exact thought? Were they on a team when they felt most able to identify with that statement? This case is about a recent MBA graduate who faces challenges within her consulting team on her first post-graduation job. She is frustrated with one teammate in particular who she believes practices self-interest politics-he takes her ideas. The case allows for a healthy discussion on team dynamics and strategies to help students when the team mix is wrong. The case may also be used to discuss issues regarding women in business.
A successful Canadian jewelry manufacturer and distributor contemplates entering the U.S. market and how best to do it. Students are required to: 1) identify costs relevant to the decision and categorize them as either investments, fixed costs or variable costs; 2) calculate unit contribution, contribution-margin ratio and weighted-average-contribution-margin rates; 3) perform a breakeven analysis and interpret its meaning using relevant parameters; 4) project profitability of a chosen distribution strategy; and 5) perform sensitivity analysis with respect to the expected sales level. Students are required to understand and analyse the opportunities and risks associated with entering a new geographic market and combine their qualitative and quantitative analysis when deciding which distribution strategy to pursue.
A strong services brand is built and sustained primarily by customers' interactions with the provider. A services branding model depicts the dynamics of brand creation. From the interrelationships among the presented brand, external communications, and customers' experiences emerge brand awareness, meaning, and ultimately, equity. Illustrates the services branding model by showing how one organization has created, extended, and protected a powerful brand through an unwavering commitment to the well being of its customers. Managers outside of healthcare can benefit from three branding lessons embedded in the Mayo Clinic story: (1) attend to organizational values; (2) play defense, not just offense; and (3) turn customers into marketers.
Search engines are key to the operation of the World Wide Web. This centrality, however, presents challenges: search engine providers face the problem of revenue generation when users expect free content, whilst advertisers need to attract the interest of searchers. The innovation that effectively addresses these challenges is the use of text advertisements based upon search topic, known as paid search. The method entails advertisers competing for top listing position through bidding in ongoing auctions and then paying when users click on their advertisements, making paid search a flexible and accountable form of advertising. Since its introduction in 1998, paid search has become the dominant form of online advertising and led to Google's $140 billion market capitalization in 2006. Analyzes the emergence of paid search and the mechanics of its operation, and offers managers guidance on its effective usage.
Saving the rain forest from yet another palm oil plantation would certainly garner a company favorable attention from environmentalists, but how would its shareholders react? Shows that by strategically practicing corporate social responsibility (CSR), a company can 'do well by doing good'; in other words, it can make a profit and make the world a better place at the same time. CSR is regarded as voluntary corporate commitment to exceed the explicit and implicit obligations imposed on a company by society's expectations of conventional corporate behavior. Hence, CSR is a way of promoting beneficial social trends in order to enhance society's basic order, which we define as consisting of obligations that cover both the legal framework and social conventions. Due to globalization, companies are now less constrained by society's basic order than they have been in the past. Because different countries have different laws and standards, there are more ways to get away with less than ideal behavior in the quest for greater profits. Nearly everyone agrees that this is not a good thing, but what can be done? Offers an understanding of CSR that could be the answer and contends that practicing CSR is not altruistic do-gooding, but rather a way for both companies and society to prosper. This is especially true when CSR is conceived as a long-range plan of action.
A successful Canadian jewelry manufacturer and distributor contemplates entering the U.S. market and how best to do it. Students are required to: 1) identify costs relevant to the decision and categorize them as either investments, fixed costs or variable costs; 2) calculate unit contribution, contribution-margin ratio and weighted-average-contribution-margin rates; 3) perform a breakeven analysis and interpret its meaning using relevant parameters; 4) project profitability of a chosen distribution strategy; and 5) perform sensitivity analysis with respect to the expected sales level. Students are required to understand and analyse the opportunities and risks associated with entering a new geographic market and combine their qualitative and quantitative analysis when deciding which distribution strategy to pursue.
The coordinator of an introductory, required freshman course is responsible for managing the final exam for 25 sections every semester. Approximately 500 students took the exam at the same time on a Saturday morning. The students were notified several times throughout the semester about the date and time of the exam. The rules stated that unless arranged prior to the exam, anyone late or absent on the day of the exam would receive a zero on their exam grade. The (A) case has three scenarios, each requiring a decision.
Dr. Jack Perry, a sole practitioner dentist in a small town in Ontario, had a meeting with one of his employees who suggested that there were several problems in the office. These include: low morale, lack of motivation to grow the business, fill cancellations, follow up on collections, and engage in cross-sell procedures. He had noticed these problems previously but felt unsure about his personnel and business management skills. Using his notes from a presentation made by a business consultant at a dental conference, he must decide how to act in order to address these problems.
In the fall of 2002, the directors of process engineering at Rogers Cable had discovered that a significant portion of Rogers Cable's installations and service activities had been followed by repeat visits within the following 30 days. This meant that services were not properly completed the first time. If high numbers of repeat and rework problems continued, customers would readily take their business elsewhere in the highly competitive environment. Eliminating repeat visits is the focus and driving force behind the First Time Right initiative, aimed to satisfy customers on the first try. The directors must devise an action plan that will motivate and retain behavioral change among field service technicians.
Dr. Nicholas Burns, a sole practitioner dentist in a small town in Ontario, is considering the purchase of a new dental laser which allows dentists to perform certain dental treatments without anesthesia. He wondered if the benefits of the new dental laser would justify the expenditure. Dr. Burns knew he should consider whether the technological advantage offered by the new dental laser would improve his office's profitability and the possibility that a different technology may become the standard in the industry.
This case study discusses two related aspects that are becoming increasingly important in today's software development practice: re-engineering of a monolithic system into a component-based system (the focus of this case) and globally distributed work. Component-based (software) development (CBD) involves (i) the development of software components and (ii) the building of software systems through the integration of pre-existing software components (developed in-house or procured from the component market). For companies involved in software development, CBD offers agility in design by basing software development on methodologies that support the recombination of reusable components, being an approach that rapidly expands product variation and sustains the build-up of product families. It also promises significant improvements in software development through shorter time-to-market and reduced development costs. However, being an innovative approach to software development that emerged in the mid-1990s, the adoption of CBD requires companies to re-engineer existing software systems (products) or to develop new systems from scratch using component technologies and to deal with additional challenges associated with the management of CBD. LeCroy Corporation was one of the early adopters of CBD that decided to adopt CBD to gain competitive advantage in its markets. The case describes an actual situation at LeCroy Corporation, involving several decisions, challenges and opportunities faced by the managers of a globally distributed software development team over a period of time when they re-engineered a monolithic system into a component-based system.
The Packet Design case looks at successful serial entrepreneur Judy Estrin and her efforts to build a technology incubator immediately before the Internet bubble burst. The incubator's failure caused Estrin to look anew at the key drivers of success in any business. By her own definition, a leader must have vision and passion for a company and product. Further, building a business for the long run, not for sale, is a critical component to Estrin's recipe for a venture success.
Zimmer Holdings, an orthopedic devices company in the United States, is suddenly faced with the prospect of its British competitor acquiring one of the Swiss companies, which would have been an ideal target for its own acquisition. With the announcement of the merger already in the news, Zimmer Holdings has a narrow time window to decide its response. Students are asked to take the position of an advisor to senior management and provide a recommendation to management on actions to pursue. The case provides an ideal platform to discuss global competition and the imperatives of a global marketplace, evaluation of a target and assessing the uncertainties in the process, discussing negotiating strategies and post-acquisition processes.
When John Seybold and his partners founded Guidewire (originally Centrica Software) in 2001, he knew little more about the insurance industry than an informed consumer. But as chief architect of the startup company, he also knew he and the team had to learn quickly if they were going to convince mainstream insurers to scrap their expensive aging mainframes and adopt Java-based solutions from an unknown and unproven provider. Seybold felt the flexibility and speed they needed might be realized through current thinking on agile project management and a process called "Scrum." An outcome of the Agile Manifesto, Scrum defined a new way of organization: One that focused on creating products with the customer; that cut out middle management; where projects ran on a monthly cycle; and that enabled the team to rethink priorities and processes at the conclusion of each monthly cycle. Seybold and his partners imagined that this process would help them quickly create an opportunity in insurance software. However, the direction brought risk. Scrum had been used on a project basis, but as far as Seybold and his partners knew, never before to organize a whole company. Would it scale as the organization grew? Might clients reject a startup company with both radical new products and a radical new organization? And would building a new company, a new product and a new organizational form be more than Seybold and his partners could manage? In the hostile post-internet bubble environment where funding was limited and interest in new software from startup companies was even more limited - they would have to be right fast.
Supplement for IMD453 In addition to using Scrum and Sprint Teams internally, Guidewire has been successful at teaching their clients how to use the process as well. In these larger organization, the process has enabled: a) rapid customer feedback; b) flexible product implementations; c) fast development. If a large mainstream insurance company can derive these benefits from the process, where else might it apply?
The founder and president of I-Love-Stickers.com (ILS), a web-based sticker subscription service, was wondering how she could best continue to market the firm to increase subscriptions for all the sticker packs. Her final MBA exams, countless deadlines, the birth of her baby, and the June summer rush period for the business were all approaching rapidly. In addition to these concerns, she also planned to open a sushi restaurant in London later in the spring. She wanted to solidify her plan of action for ILS for the remainder of the year without delay.
Describes the joint efforts of the German health plan KKH and Essen University Hospital to develop an integrated practice unit (IPU), and the West German Headache Center's efforts to improve the quality of migraine care. Provides an overview of the German health care system detailing its provider, health plan, and reimbursement structure. Following new legislation in 2004, which allowed health plans and selected providers to contract outside of the regular group purchasing scheme, KKH and Dr. Deiner of Essen University Hospital developed a novel delivery structure for migraine care. Challenges and hurdles to implementation are described for both the health plan and the IPU. Provides detailed data to allow students to evaluate success, identify current challenges, and recommend improvements to the integrated care system.
Westin Hotels and Resorts adopted a new "lifestyle" brand strategy which provided guests with a new service experience. The dilemma Westin faced was how to operationally build a brand that delivered consistent service on intangible values.