This case outlines the history of JetBlue Airways from its inception, in 2000, until 2004. The case provides details of JetBlue's business model and reasons for success. It can be used in a course on service operations or strategy.

This case presents a firsthand account of a flying experience on JetBlue Airways in June 2004. The narrative reports on the cross-country flying experience of one passenger.

The vice-president of regulation at the Investment Funds Institute of Canada is reviewing the monthly statistics. It shows the continuance of three trends, prevalent during the last 12 months in the Canadian mutual funds industry. Net sales of mutual funds were declining, fund redemptions were rising and the rate of growth in mutual fund assets had been marginal. The vice-president must determine how the Investment Funds Institute, as the industry trade association for mutual funds, can influence these trends. He must decide on the message, who he should target with the message and the media through which he should reach his target audience, and present his plan at the next executive committee meeting.

Plant Nutrients is a medium-sized retailer of crop supplies. The general manager is preparing a proposed operating statement to send to the parent company. This statement must reflect an increase in volume of two per cent while maintaining the required 13 per cent on investment in business. He is considering a number of ways of improving performance: getting better utilization of fertilizer blending capacity, adding a new line of seed and adding precision agriculture services. Another option is to alter pricing.

The Ontario Machinery Ring is a cooperative set up to perform a matchmaking service for farmers who want to have custom work done and farmers who want to do custom work. This concept is widespread in Europe but has not been tried in North America. The general manager of the organization has set up a prototype operation and is looking at expansion opportunities. Expansion will take more funds than are available and the general manager has sought financial assistance from the provincial Ministry of Agriculture and Food. Before committing funds to this project, the ministry requires marketing research to measure demand for the machinery ring concept. Supplemental cases, Ontario Machinery Ring (B) and (C), product 9B04A022 and 9B04A023 look at questionnaire development and data analysis.

The general manager of Ontario Machinery Ring - a cooperative developed to match farmers with someone to do custom work - must develop a marketing research proposal and design a questionnaire to determine the demand of machinery ring concept. This is a supplement to Ontario Machinery Ring (A) - Problem Definition, product 9B04A021.

The general manager of Ontario Machinery Ring is looking at expansion opportunities but limited funding requires him to obtain financial assistance from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. The ministry requires an assessment of the demand for this marketing concept before they will provide any funding. He had developed a questionnaire and now must analyze the data that has been collected to prepare the marketing research proposal. This is a supplement to Ontario Machinery Ring (A) - Problem Definition, product 9B04A021. Data file is available, product 7B04A023.

The Walt Disney Internet Group Japan has recently launched an entirely new set of interactive mobile character/agents for the NTT DoCoMo iMode platform, called Dimo. Having built Japan's most successful mobile entertainment business using traditional Disney-branded characters and related content, these Dimo characters have been designed to go well beyond entertainment and become valuable guides, assistants and friends for users of the continuously evolving Mobile Internet and the increasingly complex tasks enabled by this platform. Although the Walt Disney Internet Group Japan team feels strongly that these types of character/agents will be the future of human-device interactions, subscription figures six months after Dimo's launch suggest that Japan's mobile consumers may not share this belief.

An undergraduate commerce student has just completed a group strategy project and is wondering what to do. She believed the group had done a good job but was disturbed by many things that had happened between her and her teammates during the project. She was unsure what she and her teammates could have done to stop the situation from escalating as far as it had and what action she should take now to let her teammates know how she felt and to prevent similar instances from occurring in the future.

The administration director at an assembly plant for optical communication products in a US-Chinese joint venture in Shenzhen is wondering what he should do about a recent situation with one of his peers. The director was responsible for all non-production staff and his peer was responsible for production-related staff, both working on a pilot project for the company. Shortly after the project started, the director noticed his peer was becoming more aggressive and making comments about firing staff inside and outside his department. Tension was increasing between them and among other members of the project. He decided to discuss the issue with his peer but was unprepared for the response. He must decide if he should bring this to the attention of senior officers or continue with his approach in resolving the situation.

An executive must estimate the demand for rolls of film in various countries based on demographic data about the counties. She must determine the process and develop a spreadsheet model that will provide the results based on data (GNP per capita, population, income distribution) from the various countries. The purposes of the case are to show the relation between national statistics and company decisions and to provide training in advanced spreadsheet skills, conceptualizing a problem and modelling.

An executive wonders if it is possible to increase profits by changing the mix of products at a shipyard. The yard currently operates below the breakeven point, so must achieve profitability or default on loan payments.

IIF (Institute of International Finance) was eight months into the customized development of a customer relationship management system (CRM) by a small software development firm, QuaTeams. IIF, a member organization, wants to replace their current CRM, an Access database, by integrating member information from different departments: economic research, membership, events and finance. In addition, they want to be able to handle the growing number of members and track the interactions between their staff and their membership. With two months to go before the scheduled launch, both sides must make decisions to overcome the remaining technical hurdles they have with the database and security. The IIF must also consider implementation issues and think of creative ways that the customer relationship management system can be used once the system is operational. The objective of the case is to introduce students to the development of a custom CRM and how the process of developing and implementing a CRM can change the way an organization deals with its customers.

The Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society's management team knew that they had conceived a very unique project, Elephant Walk Thru. The success of this innovative ecotourism project would hinge on their ability to balance the needs of a diverse group of stakeholders as well as various economic and political-legal forces faced by the organization. Their primary task in the ensuing months would be to identify salient external opportunities and threats posed by stakeholder groups. Equally important would be to evaluate the continually changing political-legal and economic environments prior to constructing the facilities.

The founder of Kids Market Consulting, a market research firm dedicated to the kids, tweens and teens segment, was faced with increasing competition and slowing revenue, and was exploring a variety of possibilities for the future strategic direction of the business. In particular, she had to formulate the best plan for protecting the niche market and decide how aggressively to pursue expansion. In addition, there was the existing relationship with her business partner, and Kids Market Consulting was part of his group of marketing firms. Any changes the founder chose had to respect this relationship and she was therefore restricted to a limited number of options. The over-arching corporate objective for the company was to defend the market from larger businesses who were trying to increase their share of the market research industry.

The importance of responsible value creation is indisputable for society. How could we argue that the well-being of future generations is not important? The disagreement is with the role of corporations in this process. This technical note offers two sides of the argument of whether corporations should be involved in addressing societal issues. The purely economic argument says that a responsible corporation is one which fulfills its fiduciary duty to shareholders to maximize profits. The ethical argument is that corporations are morally obliged to give back to the societies in which they exist. Using a sustainability argument, this note shows that there does not have to be a trade-off between economics and ethics. There exists a compelling business case for corporations to operate in the overlapping area of our model where activities are both financially profitable and socially and environmentally responsible. Not only does this middle ground exist, but the activities in this area are likely to generate long-term stable profits and result in a higher level of employee, shareholder and corporate well-being.

The sudden resignation of the company's national sales manager has left the vice-president of sales and marketing stressed and concerned. He must decide on the successor from a pool of five candidates and is finding the decision difficult, not only because of the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate but this sudden resignation has him wondering about his authority and credibility within the organization.

An executive wonders if it is possible to increase profits by changing the mix of products at a shipyard. The yard currently operates below the breakeven point, so must achieve profitability or default on loan payments.

The Bonita Bay Marina, founded 20 years ago by the Bonita Bay Group, established a reputation of high-quality service delivery. According to the marina's manager, customers' high regard for their services was due to the organization's adherence to a well-defined customer service philosophy known as the E5 Customer Service Philosophy. The manager must decide whether the benefits of pursuing a Clean Marina certification program would bolster the level of service quality and, ultimately, the reputation of Bonita Bay Group in the marketplace. Further evaluation of the current customer service program is needed to determine whether the clean marina certification would complement the existing E5 Customer Service Philosophy and create synergies that would enhance customer perceptions of their services as well as contribute to profit margins for years to come.

The founder and CEO of a CRM software start-up must decide between an attractive acquisition offer and the opportunity to go public. Discusses the growth of the company--including a lengthy discussion of entrepreneurial bootstrapping--as well as an aborted IPO attempt in 2000. The central question is whether the company will create more value by staying independent or by joining a larger organization.