In October 2003, a confluence in southern California of low humidity, dead vegetation, and Santa Ana winds created the conditions for a firestorm-multiple fires that burned for some two weeks, scorched hundreds of thousands of acres, destroyed thousands of buildings, and took 24 lives. One conflagration, the Cedar Fire in San Diego County, became the largest in state history. While California boasts one of the best firefighting operations in the world, with exhaustive coordination across federal, state and local boundaries, this set of fires sent the system reeling. In the midst of operational chaos, highly placed elected officials in San Diego entered the fray with offers of military aircraft and helicopters to fight the fire-which the firefighters did not want. This case tells the story of what can happen when the operational imperative-to fight fires effectively but safely-collides with the political imperative to override established procedures as necessary to protect the public.
Explores the interactions between China and its neighbors, and considers how those interactions will change as China emerges on the world economic stage in the coming years.
This note is about customer care: what it is and how to manage it in a retail operation. Customer care, often referred to as customer service, has become a very popular subject for retail consultants and commentators because retail managers and customers alike have discovered that customer care just doesn't happen; retail customer care must be designed, delivered and controlled.
In the spring of 2004, an engineering inspection revealed that a 100-year-old historic bridge had serious maintenance problems. Several options were considered including repair, removal and replacement. The director of public works for the region must present a summary of the options and his recommendations to the public works committee, which would then submit his recommendation to the council for approval.
General Motors (GM) had a history of bold strategies in a wide variety of areas, including the creation of Saturn, the development of global operations, and the formation of strategic alliances with Fiat, SAIC, and Daewoo. Nonmarket strategies included pursuing government financial assistance, coping with new environmental regulations, and agreeing to very expensive health care and pension schemes. Meanwhile, GM had failed to create strategies to compete effectively with foreign automakers. By 2005, many of GM's strategic decisions seemed to have been inappropriate. Some that were undertaken for short-term gain had disastrous long-term consequences, and GM performed poorly compared with other global automakers. Many strategies had seemed disconnected, lacking an overall vision or purpose: GM was facing a serious crisis. In 2005-2006, GM introduced several new strategies. Whether these strategies could achieve sustainable profitability, or whether they would also bring undesirable consequences, was a subject of importance to employees, shareholders, and governments throughout the world.
Trends emerging in recent years, such as divestitures, spin-offs and class action suits, make an understanding of valuation of companies with ongoing operations imperative, not only for investors, but also for managers and for a company's directors. The discounted cash flow method to valuation that is discussed in this note will be a guide, first, to business managers in their attempt to follow value maximizing strategies; second, to portfolio managers and security analysts in their effort to discover the true economic value of a company and its equity; and third, to investment bankers in their advisory role of companies involved in merger transactions and restructuring. This note will not demonstrate how to value companies in financial distress; in such cases, a contingent claims valuation will be more appropriate. The discounted cash flow valuation method is demonstrated through the valuation of a Canadian company using actual financial data.
The retail value proposition (RVP) is the package of benefits, the value offering, that a retailer delivers to its customers. In other words, the RVP is what the retailer offers to customers in exchange for their money, time, effort and loyalty. One way to think about RVP is to equate it to the retail brand or identity, that is, what the retailer stands for in the marketplace. This note describes a way of thinking about how all retailers differentiate themselves from one another on their customer value propositions.
This note is about customer care: what it is and how to manage it in a retail operation. Customer care, often referred to as customer service, has become a very popular subject for retail consultants and commentators because retail managers and customers alike have discovered that customer care just doesn't happen; retail customer care must be designed, delivered and controlled.
Much happens in a retail establishment or a shopping area such as a mall, that shapes how customers feel and behave. Why do customers seem to feel more comfortable in some stores than in others? Why do customers seem to buy more than intended in some stores? In short, this note explores the impact of the retail surroundings or retail environment on customers and explains how retailers manage the shopping experience.
Retail marketers succeed by serving and satisfying customers. Accordingly, every retailer should be vitally concerned with identifying and understanding both current and potential customers, also known as prospects. This note explores how retailers approach customer analysis, segmentation, trade areas, etc.
In the spring of 2004, an engineering inspection revealed that a 100-year-old historic bridge had serious maintenance problems. Several options were considered including repair, removal and replacement. The director of public works for the region must present a summary of the options and his recommendations to the public works committee, which would then submit his recommendation to the council for approval.
The chairman of Tallink - a ferry and cargo service running between Estonia, Finland and Sweden - is considering purchasing a new ferry and redeploying older ferries among different routes. One of the proposed new routes is from Tallinn, Estonia through Helsinki, Finland to St. Petersburg in Russia. The chairman needs to decide whether or not he should buy the new ferry and the optimal use of his fleet.
R.J. Thompson Data Systems sells, implements and maintains management information systems. The president of the company receives a call from a potential client to demonstrate a system that they had rejected earlier. The company would benefit from a large sale, however, the president reflects on the experience from the last presentation to this company; R.J. Thompson Data Systems spent considerable time preparing the presentation, only to be treated poorly and to have the offer rejected. He must decide if he should rally the team again.
In early 2003, WestJet's management was reviewing its plans for growth, and specifically considering whether WestJet should move its eastern Canada base of operations from Hamilton's Munro airport to Toronto Pearson airport. WestJet had grown rapidly since its launch in 1996, and was now the second largest airline in Canada. WestJet had originally focused on Western Canada, but had entered eastern Canada in March of 2000, with an eastern base of operations in Hamilton, a secondary airport in the greater Toronto area. Pearson was Canada's largest domestic and international airport, the primary commercial airport for the greater Toronto area, and a hub of WestJet's largest competitor, Air Canada. Compared with Pearson, Hamilton was less congested and charged much lower fees. WestJet's operations had been closely modeled upon Southwest Airlines. The use of a secondary airport such as Hamilton as a base of operations was consistent with Southwest's low cost, high utilization features. With higher costs and longer turnaround times due to congestion, a base at Pearson was arguably not consistent with the Southwest business model, however, it was hard for WestJet to ignore the growth potential.
Lingo Media is a leading publisher of English language learning programs in China. But market share leadership hasn't come easily for the Canadian-based company, and doesn't equate with impressive sales or tangible profitability. Described is the company's learning journey in China and looks at the lessons learned on choosing the right alliance partner, tailoring products to unique local Chinese customers, and what unique resources are necessary to successfully do business in 21st century China.
The New Business Development unit is part of DSM, a Dutch globally operated chemical company. The unit looks for promising new ideas to develop into start-up businesses. Stamypor is a new project that the New Business Development unit is working on and the team leader of the project must decide if it should be developed into a start-up company. Students will apply their knowledge about new product development, new product evaluation, the stage-gate process, customer value, business models, and corporate venturing.
Pleasure Craft Inc. is a manufacturer of snowmobiles and personal watercraft. The company is looking into expanding it business into either outboard motors or front-end loaders. A new team leader has been asked to prepare financial analyses on each project and to recommend whether one or both projects should be pursued. The team leader must determine initial costs, estimate future cash flows, and calculate the cost of capital.
As the funding requirements for international projects continues to grow, it is becoming increasingly important to understand some of the different tools which exist to raise capital for these projects while maintaining the risk within acceptable bounds. Project finance is a common way of doing this, especially in the mining and oil industries or for the financing of infrastructure developments. This note provides a basic introduction to the topic and discusses this within the context of a simple example.