The collapse of Enron will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the most notorious corporate scandals in the twentieth century. Enron's employees lost billions of dollars in retirement savings tied up in Enron as stock became worthless. The rise and fall of Enron was marked by inflated earnings and substantial amounts of hidden debt, enabled by the use of special purpose entities, the application of unethical accounting techniques, and an unquestioning board of directors. The transformation of Enron from a mundane natural gas transportation company into a financial trading empire, with operations in natural gas, water, broadband, electricity, power plants, and exotic derivatives, was masterminded by Jeffrey Skilling, one-time chief executive officer, and Andrew Fastow, the company's chief financial officer. In the aftermath of the company's collapse, the U.S. Congress enacted sweeping changes to corporate governance. But why did Enron's collapse take the financial community by complete surprise? Were there any warning signs that Enron was not as financially solid as it appeared? The case examines these issues using data from Enron's 2000 10-K and Compustat data for 1984-2000.
TransFair USA, the U.S. fair trade labeling arm of the Fair Trade Labeling Organization (FLO), faced strategic challenges in 2003. The Fair Trade label denoted coffee (and other products) sold at a price high enough to allow small certified farmers to earn a living wage. TransFair, like the other fair trade organizations worldwide, enjoyed an exclusive niche status in the United States. In 2003 Fair Trade Certified (TM) coffee accounted for 3-5% of all coffee sold in the U.S., a substantial accomplishment given that TransFair was founded in 1998. Paul Rice, founder, president, and chief executive of TransFair USA, wanted to push Fair Trade Certified coffee beyond its niche status into the mainstream. In doing so, he faced the challenge of convincing uninformed mainstream consumers and skeptical large scale coffee roasters to buy Fair Trade Certified coffee, and the FLO to allow TransFair to certify large coffee growing estates.
Takahiko Naraki is a young entrepreneur in Japan who is trying to make his Internet-based business model work in the challenging Tokyo business world and must make a key decision: whether and how to expand his business. Discusses the work-life balance of entrepreneurs in general and this one Japanese entrepreneur in particular. Also introduces aspects of the Japanese entrepreneurial environment, including the importance of networking, the business laws regulating entrepreneurial activity, social perceptions of entrepreneurship, and the capital market for small companies in Japan.
In 2003, officials in Mexico's Ministry of Social Development were debating whether to eliminate a long-standing program that provided subsidized milk to poor families. In its place, they would expand a new program that gave poor families educational and nutritional cash grants provided that they kept their children in school and made regular visits to health clinics. The milk program, operated by an agency called Liconsa, had been spared so far because it did not require direct budgetary resources due to its preferential access to imported powdered milk. Nevertheless, advocates of expanding the cash grant program argued that the milk program was redundant and less effective. This case can be used to discuss the choices in designing assistance to the poor in economics and social policy courses or to discuss the theory of the consumer in economics courses. HKS Case Number 1766.0
Companies enact defenses against hostile takeovers to protect their independence and current management initiatives or to help ensure that hostile bidders are pressured to present their best offers. The critical challenge for executives is to determine--in anticipation of attacks on their firm--which defense strategies best fortify stockholder investments. Reviews the motivations for hostile takeovers, discusses the effects of popular defenses, and showcases several high-profile takeover bids to provide executives with well-reasoned and empirically supported evaluations of the major strategies they can use to maximize shareholder wealth.
In the face of fierce global competition and soaring customer expectations, many companies have turned to supply chain management (SCM) to leverage the resources and know-how of suppliers and customers. To obtain an accurate view of what this requires, 52 in-depth interviews were carried out with supply chain leaders to answer the question, "What are the principles that drive successful supply chain design and collaboration?" The findings are summarized as the 10 guiding principles of high-impact SCM. Mapping these guiding principles to a maturity framework reveals that there is much work awaiting managers who embark on the arduous journey toward supply chain collaboration.
There is a rising concern that marketing research is drifting away from the practical. With an ever-widening gap between business and academia, people are asking: What do practitioners want from marketing research? What do the researchers provide? Do the two coincide? In the short-term, parochial point of view, practitioners will never get what they are looking for in academic research. However, in the long term, research increases knowledge crucial to educating future marketing managers and enhancing their scientific decision making. Its essence is to level the playing field and intensify competitiveness among all firms, with the result of improved market efficiency and benefits to consumers and society as a whole.
With worldwide sales topping $85 billion, the scope and scale of direct selling warrants greater understanding of its chief asset: the sales representative. Self-employed individuals, these reps are instrumental to their firms' success and growth. Interviews with direct selling executives have helped identify universally applicable sales force success variables: selecting the right individuals, maintaining their motivation, developing the appropriate skills, and providing high perceived value and supply. With an independent sales force framework, it is imperative for direct selling firms to implement programs that aid in finding and keeping strong individual sellers.
Customer relationship management (CRM) requires the alignment of three building blocks: insight into customer decision making, information about customers, and information processing capability. However, its emphasis on the latter has outpaced the first two, so that CRM rarely realizes its full potential. The guidelines presented here can help managers build a full-spectrum information portfolio for CRM that, through the thoughtful integration of existing tools, information properties, and communication channels, can provide a more complete picture of customers and form the basis for long-lasting and profitable relationships with them.
The president and chief executive officer of Progistix-Solutions Inc. has asked an analyst to prepare an annual review of the Xerox Critical Parts Network for presentation to management in two weeks. The president expected the analyst to review the performance of the network and establish an improvement plan for the coming year, supported by specific goals and objectives. Although Xerox and Progistix were satisfied with their relationship, after five years, both parties were interested in exploring ways to improve the network, especially because competitors had adopted similar approaches. In preparation for the meeting, the analyst wanted to explore opportunities in three specific areas: First, identify opportunities to improve depot operations. Second, determine how and where Progistix could work together with Xerox on such an initiative making additional improvements in the area of inventory management. Third, improve systemwide inventory turn performance by re-examining the cut-off point for filling the technicians' trunks with inventory. This case
San Diego City Schools embarked on an ambitious, districtwide reform effort to improve student achievement in 1998. Examines the role of resource reallocation in supporting the district's reform strategy, highlighting how resource allocation choices and processes affect organizational coherence and strategy execution. In the fall of 2003, the district leadership contemplates making substantial changes to its resource allocation system in response to a serious budget crisis and mounting internal and external pressures for change.