In the fall of 1998, Dan Frye, member of IBM's emerging technologies and business team, is trying to decide whether to forge a strategic alliance with the Linux Development Community (LDC). Just two years earlier, IBM had its first exposure to an "open source" software program when it selected Apache as the web server program for the web site of the Atlanta Summer Olympic Games. Based on its success with Apache, and Frye's intuition that Linux could be a critical, strategic step in the new "network-centric" computing environment, Frye and his colleagues are trying to decide whether an alliance between IBM and LDC would serve their interests--and, if so, how IBM could manage the alliance with a loosely affiliated group of software developers.
This technical note describes many of the issues, techniques and resources available in the field of shelf space management in the early 2000s. It assumes basic familiarity with category management and merchandising techniques.
Orion Bus Industries is a manufacturer of transit buses that are purchased by transit authorities across North America. The majority of Orion's sales are made through competitive bidding processes. The company's goal is to either increase margins while maintaining sales levels or to increase the total volume of sales. The chief executive officer would like to know whether historical contract bidding data can be used to improve the success of future bids for bus contracts.
Jonathon Elderslie, recently retired after running his own company for 30 years, must decide what questions he should ask before deciding whether to join the board of directors of a publicly traded company. While flattered by the invitation, he has some concerns given the current climate of concern about corporate governance and, more specifically, the views about the role of a director expressed by one of his business acquaintances.
Zhongda Optical Cable Engineering Company is a small company that provides optical cable engineering services to contractors who are installing intranet applications in a province in China. As an early entrant in the market and a high quality service provider, the company had been able to charge premium prices, however, the market has changed. There are now many competitors who provide similar services. Furthermore, contractors - and sometimes end-users - were learning how to do Zhongda's major task, optical cable welding, for themselves. Zhongda has three options: aggressively target end-user accounts; retreat from cable engineering services and focus on distributing cable components or start manufacturing optical cable welding machines. None of these is a perfect match for Zhongda's capabilities, but the prospects for continued prosperity in its current role are bleak.
This technical note describes many of the issues, techniques and resources available in the field of shelf space management in the early 2000s. It assumes basic familiarity with category management and merchandising techniques.
Hayward & Guzman researches and develops contact lens products and has recently developed a new disposable contact lens. Two segments with different price sensitivity have been identified. In order to reach these segments, the products will need to be packaged and sold differently. A marketing representative for Hayward & Guzman must develop a marketing mix for the two segments and determine pricing for each product.
John McCulloch takes a job as assistant general manager at a meat packing plant. After a short time in the job, he discovers it was nothing like he expected, worker safety is constantly compromised, the safety of the public from consuming tainted food is compromised and everything is subordinated to the production line's constant movement. He must decide whether or not he will stay with the company.
Orion Bus Industries is a manufacturer of transit buses that are purchased by transit authorities across North America. The majority of Orion's sales are made through competitive bidding processes. The company's goal is to either increase margins while maintaining sales levels or to increase the total volume of sales. The chief executive officer would like to know whether historical contract bidding data can be used to improve the success of future bids for bus contracts.
Jonathon Elderslie, recently retired after running his own company for 30 years, must decide what questions he should ask before deciding whether to join the board of directors of a publicly traded company. While flattered by the invitation, he has some concerns given the current climate of concern about corporate governance and, more specifically, the views about the role of a director expressed by one of his business acquaintances.
Three managing directors at Peabody Simpson had just returned from a firm-wide recruiting event at Columbia University, which they had covered together, as all were alumni. They were commiserating about having to submit revised forecasts to their division heads by the end of the week. Alec Hastings, head of Global Institutional Securities, wanted an update on year-to-date expense. They sat at their favorite watering hole and discussed the challenge of cutting $600 million out of the operating budget.
In early 2000, the trustees of the pension scheme at Boots considered a proposal to move 100% of the pension assets into a bond portfolio, which would be passively managed. The Boots Co. PLC was a leading retailer of cosmetics and toiletries in the United Kingdom, and the company pension scheme was one of the largest in the country, with 2.3 billion British pounds in assets. If implemented, Boots would depart significantly from its prior pension investment strategy, which had been similar to that of other large U.K. pension funds. In general, such funds used external managers for active and passive portfolios of roughly 75% equities, 17% bonds, 4% real estate, and 4% cash. This unprecedented investment policy change would more closely align pension assets and liabilities and, according to long-standing academic principles of corporate pension fund management, it might also have significant effects on Boots itself, its shareholders, and other stakeholders. In making their decision, the trustees would have to consider these effects as well as the practical feasibility of such a plan.
Provides an opportunity to analyze the Argentine financial crisis of 2001/2002, which culminated in the abandonment of the convertibility plan introduced by Domingo Cavallo in 1991. Focusses on the role of the financial system.
Describes how Siemens Medical Solutions (MED) accomplished a remarkable turnaround from a money-losing operation to one of Siemens' most profitable divisions. By late 1996, a challenging market environment in the health care industry as well as inefficiencies in the company's manufacturing, logistics, and sales/service processes had a negative impact on MED's profitability. Reacting to these challenges, CEO Reinhardt defined and implemented a comprehensive turnaround program centered around people, processes, and products. The case highlights the most important aspects of the company's turnaround and later expansion and provides an outlook for the company's future challenges and opportunities.
Describes the evolution of the handheld operating system market. Describes the rise to dominance of Palm's operating system and the significant challenge to that dominance posed by Microsoft's Windows CE.
Helps students understand the multiple forms M&A deals can take, while framing the underlying dimensions that managers must consider when designing or assessing a given deal. Begins by introducing students to the ways in which M&A activity creates value, proceeds by identifying challenges and responsibilities managers assume when planning and implementing M&A deals, then concludes by presenting a conceptual framework to depict the managerial spectrum spanning pure acquisitions to pure alliances.
Students are introduced to the basic framework for corporate governance. Begins by describing the complex role of the modern corporation, then proceeds by discussing the fiduciary duties to which a board of trustees is bound (duty of care, duty of loyalty, etc.), and concludes by proposing seven factors officers and directors should consider when overseeing the sale or purchase of a company. Recounts the precedential case Smith vs. Van Gorkom.