As a multi-generational family business with a 100-year history in industrial engineering, the Nash Engineering Company had turned many challenges into opportunities. But in the late 1990s, the market for their products collapsed. The family and executive managers were faced with several options. Should they try to continue as a stand-alone organization? Should they pursue a strategic acquisition? Should the family sell Nash Engineering? There were many factors to consider, among them individual shareholders' need for dividends and liquidity, and the family's sense of pride in their heritage. What was the best solution for the business and the family?
Cumberland Entertainment, a niche music producer, was looking for capital to finance its planned expansion. CEO, Tom Smith, entered into negotiations with private equity firms, and struck an agreement that turned out to be incomplete. As a result, serious problems arose between financial investors and management. The case series describes how the parties dealt with these problems as their relationship evolved.
Cumberland Entertainment, a niche music producer, was looking for capital to finance its planned expansion. CEO, Tom Smith, entered into negotiations with private equity firms, and struck an agreement that turned out to be incomplete. As a result, serious problems arose between financial investors and management. The case series describes how the parties dealt with these problems as their relationship evolved.
Cumberland Entertainment, a niche music producer, was looking for capital to finance its planned expansion. CEO, Tom Smith, entered into negotiations with private equity firms, and struck an agreement that turned out to be incomplete. As a result, serious problems arose between financial investors and management. The case series describes how the parties dealt with these problems as their relationship evolved.
Cumberland Entertainment, a niche music producer, was looking for capital to finance its planned expansion. CEO, Tom Smith, entered into negotiations with private equity firms, and struck an agreement that turned out to be incomplete. As a result, serious problems arose between financial investors and management. The case series describes how the parties dealt with these problems as their relationship evolved.
The primary purpose of this case is to describe the challenges facing Rasurel, the swimwear brand of Lejaby, a French lingerie company that has set itself the ambition of revitalizing the image of Rasurel in the minds of consumers. The case focuses on the issues facing the company as it considers the launch of the Rasurel Summer 2004 collection. The Lejaby management team has envisaged various options, favoring one where it would keep Rasurel in the company¿s portfolio and work on its repositioning. Bruno de Lalande, the newly appointed Marketing & Sales Director, has the task of leading the repositioning.
Todd Wilson, manager of partner development at Educational Technology Corp., needed to determine the targeting, positioning, and selling strategy for its innovative Interactive Mathematics software for the college market. This required determining what types of colleges to target and which stakeholders to focus on within institutions. His task was complicated by the unclear objectives of nonprofit institutions and the differing motivations of teachers, students, and college administrators in adopting software-based learning technology. Highlights the difficulties in innovation adoption within large nonprofit institutions and the challenges in marketing to institutions with complex decision-making processes, multiple influencers, and conflicting motivations.
It is 2004 and David Tennenhouse, the director of Intel Research, is reviewing the organization he has built since 2000. Intel Research was charged with exploring new and disruptive technologies that lay off the "silicon roadmap" that drove most of Intel's R&D efforts. This exploratory research was conducted using an approach that Tennenhouse oversaw during his years at the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. Predicated on the funding of university grants, internal research efforts, joint labs run with universities, and selective corporate venture investments, the idea was to build a network to give advance warning of important new technologies. In 2004, Tennenhouse was reviewing its performance.
China is one of the oldest continuous civilizations in the world, with organized society existing for more than 10,000 years. Although the country has a complex and dynamic past, the scope and pace of change in China within the past 25 years have been unprecedented in the nation's long history. Since 1979, when China's reform era began, the country reduced the number of its citizens living in poverty by 200 million and achieved a sixfold increase in per capita income. China accounted for nearly 4% of the worldwide gross domestic product in 2004 and had become the sixth-largest economy and the leading recipient of foreign direct investment. While these results are impressive, this is only the beginning for China. As the most populous nation in the world, China needs to create 100 million new jobs by 2013 and quadruple its GDP by 2020 to achieve and sustain a reasonable standard of living for its people. To do so, the country must further open itself to foreign investment, trade, and the market-oriented ideas that will stimulate domestic productivity and build its competitiveness as a nation. As Michael Porter asserts, "National prosperity is created, not inherited. It does not grow out of a country's natural endowments, its labor pool, its interest rates, or its currency value. A nation's competitiveness depends on the capacity of its industry to innovate and upgrade." Over the last two and a half decades, China has proven its ability to capitalize on its innate advantages and make meaningful reforms. Whether the country can build on these successes to create a lasting competitive advantage under competition remains to be seen.
The focus of this case is on the policy alternative choices for preventing boom-and-bust behavior in the Northern Forest sawmill industry. A simulation analysis is also accessible for faculty to use to demonstrate the results of various policy alternatives. Landowners, sawmill owners, government officials, and environmentalists do not want sawmill demand to "overshoot" the productive capacity of the forest resources, a problem that the region had experienced approximately a century earlier. Students use systems-thinking skills (analysis of reference modes of behaviors, causal-loop mapping, and stock-flow mapping) to create their casual hypotheses of the underlying-systems structure. The case is based on the article, "Resource Sustainability in Commodity Market Systems," System Dynamics Review Summer 2002.
The CEO of Amtelecom Group Inc. (AGI) must make a recommendation to the board of directors regarding the best way to sell its Amtelecom Communications subsidiary. AGI owns and operates ICS Courier, a national fixed-route courier business, and Amtelecom Communications, a regional telecommunications, cable television, and Internet business. Amtelecom Communication's capital requirements are not being satisfied because cash is being diverted to ICS Courier to cover its losses. In addition, AGI's stock has been performing poorly. To alleviate these problems, the board has decided to sell off Amtelecom Communications. The three sales alternatives being considered are: selling to a strategic buyer, IPO via a common share offering, and IPO via an income trust offering.
In April 2004, Google announced that it was launching its long-awaited IPO. Looks at the unconventional auction format of the IPO of the world's most popular search engine, the role of investment banks in the IPO process, and the implications for corporate governance and stock valuation of a dual-class share structure.
The three founders of a London-based, start-up smoothie company must decide between three growth options: expansion of the existing product line into Europe, extension of the brand into other product categories, or continued organic growth within the United Kingdom.
In June 2004, members of the Material Flow Committee at Stanford Hospital and Clinics were faced with the challenge of implementing important process improvements in the operating room. Though notable progress had been made in the recent past, complaints from surgeons, nurses, and technicians regarding the availability of surgical instrumentation had reached an all-time high. Finding a solution was urgent, but opinions varied widely regarding the best course of action. Some individuals believed that instrumentation sterilization and processing should be adopted as a core competency (and made central to employee training and compensation). Others felt the hospital should invest in additional instruments and information technology to improve efficiencies. A third faction believed that instrumentation issues resulted, in large part, from low morale and a lack of cross-functional camaraderie and teamwork within the operating room. A decision had to be made to devote Stanford's limited time and resources to the solution that would have the greatest, most immediate impact on its operating room effectiveness.
This case details the history of Southwest Airlines from its inception, in 1971, until 2004. The case provides details of Southwest's business model and reasons for success. It ends with a description of the company's competitive pressures in 2004. The case can be used for a course in service operations or strategy.