Rakesh Gupta sits in his new office at Nariman Point, Mumbai contemplating the future of OceanCove, which in the last two years has grown from a single seafood restaurant to a chain of five restaurants. Aware that aggressive expansion is planned in 2002 and worried about the recent proliferation of moderately expensive restaurants serving international cuisine in India, Gunta must consider a proposal to increase the size of the existing restaurants from 120 seats to 160 seats. His immediate concern is whether accepting this proposal will necessitate changing OceanCove's operating processes.
In late September 1999, representatives from Telstri, Japan Telecom, and Teleglobe met to discuss the structure of the Australia-Japan Cable (AJC) project, a $520 million submarine cable system that would run from Australia to Japan. The sponsors, excited by the possibility of large returns, needed to move quickly to capitalize on the projected shortfall in Australia's broadband capacity. As telecommunications carriers, the sponsors needed additional capacity to serve their retail and wholesale customers. As cable system owners, they wanted to earn an appropriate return on their invested capital while mitigating ownership risks. The need to move quickly in the face of significant demand, competition, and technological uncertainty made it particularly risky to invest at this time.
In 2002, Hong Kong civil servants were the envy of many people. Their salaries, fringe benefits, and employment terms compared favorably with international standards. However, as civil servants staggered from one disaster and mistake to another, the public had an impression that their performance did not match their liberal remuneration. While private sectors were announcing massive layoffs, pay cuts, and reduced benefits in the sluggish economy, the Hong Kong government was under pressure to reduce civil service pay, and, at the same time, to increase public accountability and improve performance.
mGAMES is a manufacturer of game-based software for portable computers, PDAs, and cell phones. The company's new CEO was just informed of a potential hostile takeover of the company by a major PDA manufacturer. At the same time, he received a phone call from a senior executive at a Scandinavian telecommunications company expressing interest in forming a partnership. With all of this happening, the CEO faces growing pressure from the company's chairman to address ongoing performance problems. In a complex and changing environment, he must choose which customer group (traditional handheld gaming device manufacturers, telecom manufacturers, or PDA manufacturers) to focus on.
Introduces the central concepts involved in determining customer lifetime value, with detailed analysis and examples from the realm of direct marketing. Implications for marketing strategy and customer relationship management are briefly discussed.
In 2002, Great Dakota Bank's retail division is considering how heavily it should be promoting the company's online banking service. A recent promotional campaign appears to have significantly increased enrollments in online banking, but it is unclear whether the bank should continue to trade promotional incentives for online subscriptions. Contains data that force students to consider the impact of adding a new low-cost channel (the Internet) on consumer behavior; this analysis raises questions about whether the new channel does, in fact, lower the cost to serve customers.
Managing conflict and differences has always been an essential, but challenging, skill for effective managers to master. This case was designed to build expertise in conflict management and assertiveness. Grounded in the pedagogy of experiential learning, the case consists of three role-play scenarios that exemplify three challenging business situations. In each scenario, two individuals are faced with a possible difference in perspective or goals. The role-play requires students to assume the role of one of the individuals, and each scenario requires another student to initiate the discussion.
Sparta Glass Products has been losing significant market share over the last several quarters in the non-glare-glass market, with a price 10% above the competition. Lowering the price is under consideration. Unfortunately, fully allocated costs are such that the lower price results in a loss. Issues to be discussed and analyses to be conducted include the relevant costs for the decision and the reactions from competitors.
This technical note explains how group membership affects who a person thinks she or he is and how that person behaves in organizations. Hofstedes's levels of identity model are introduced and a simple description of Social Identity Theory is laid out. This note is a helpful tool for discussions about group differences because it argues that identification as a group member is not inconsistent with also being a unique individual. The note was written for use in Interpersonal Behavior and can be useful in a range of organizational behavior courses.
Describes the challenges Steve Grossman, a fourth-generation owner of a small commercial printing company, must face amid industry consolidation, technological changes, and his own run for public office.
Stone Group Corp., one of the largest electronics manufacturers and distributors in China, practices transfer pricing, an allocation process that assigns costs, sales revenue and gross profits to each of its five divisions. When a customer approaches the company with an order and requests a recommendation for a multimeter model, the general manager of the Instruments Division is asked to quote a transfer price for the multimeters. He must decide whether to sell some of his stock to another Stone division (losing the sales revenue, but perhaps gaining the gross profit needed to meet the division's monthly profit quota) or to keep the product in stock for possible sales (and greater revenue and profit) during the company's fourth quarter.
Northeastern Mutual Life is a large insurance company. As a result of falling profitability, the chief executive officer has to evaluate the rights of various stakeholders as he plans to reduce staff. He must quantify in dollar terms the moral claims of shareholders and various other stakeholders, and apply ethical analysis where legal requirements are unclear. In particular, he must decide how to manage the layoffs and the implications to the company of the payout of pension benefits.
Beijing Biotech Corporation is a leader in biochip research and development in China. The president and chief executive officer must decide whether his company should go ahead with the Biochip Scanner project - a process that would read and analyse the information on biochips. He has some estimates of research and development costs and variable costs of the expected final product, however he doesn't have enough information about the market and customers. He must analyse the industry and competition, and fully evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of his company.
Tricon Logistics China is the logistics department of Tricon Restaurants International (China) and is responsible for supervising the operations and cost management of supplies to Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut restaurants from 12 distribution centres in China. The market manager of one of the regional companies is concerned about the performance of his company's affiliated distribution centre in Suzhou. The director of Tricon Logistics China must determine why the actual cost of the distribution centre have exceeded the targets by analysing performance, cost variance and internal price negotiation.