iVillage.com was a successful Web site that served as a point of entry to numerous sites (or channels) targeted to a female audience. With a solid strategic vision and a network structure that provided consistency and control of the customer experience, the founders were rewarded by the site's favorable online presence. The company's business strategy relied on creating revenue through sponsorship and advertising. As the marketing industry had identified women as their single largest target category, iVillage.com had little difficulty in successfully pursuing innovative sponsorships and creative advertising. The pursuit for women's buying power also meant, however, that iVillage.com faced competition -- for both audience numbers and advertising dollars -- from numerous online and offline businesses. More women were accessing information online, driving the demand for more sophisticated Web sites. At the same time, iVillage.com needed to capture the audience that was currently offline and those who were about to move online. The founders must determine how to proceed in the face of increased competition, and how to achieve profitability.
Nanjing Chuangqi is a small auto parts manufacturing firm. The general manager of the company is deciding whether the company should integrate its product line from existing universal joint and steering shaft to steering column and whether the major processes involved should be outsourced or made internally. Using breakeven and net present value analysis, he must consider the impact on the company and the auto industry when China joins the World Trade Organization and import tariff barriers are removed.
These two cases consider the capital investment decisions to be made by executives of this large chemicals firm in January 2001. The 'A' case presents a go/no-go project evaluation regarding improvements to a polypropylene production plant. The 'B' case reviews the same project but from one level higher, where the executive faces an either/or investment decision between two mutually exclusive projects. The objective of the two cases is to expose students to a wide range of capital-budgeting issues which include, among others, the identification of relevant cash flows, the critical assessment of a capital-investment evaluation system, the classic "cross-over" problem, in which project rankings disagree on the basis of net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR).
LaGrange, GA was the first city in the world to offer free Internet access to citizens. The city manager and mayor must assess the project and decide whether to continue. This case chronicles the city's efforts to build a telecommunications infrastructure and offer broadband Internet access to its citizens. Students are presented with information concerning adoption and use of the system and must decide whether the project has been successful and whether further continuation is warranted.
The history, current dynamics, and future trends of the $10 billion home video rental industry provides a platform to discuss revenue-sharing contracts between suppliers of home videocassettes and retailers.
The purpose of this case is for the student to build and evaluate a cash flow analysis of an investment proposal in an IT project. A central issue is the determination of the relevant costs for the analysis. The case also allows for the estimation of cost of capital for the company, which is decidedly less than the hurdle rate dictated for the project. The case provides information about the capital budgeting approval process within the firm and how incentives may not be aligned with shareholders for certain decisions.
Jim McDowell, VP of marketing at BMW North America, is debating how to follow up the success of his latest marketing campaign, "BMWFilms." This campaign features five short films for the Internet, directed by some of the hottest young directors in Hollywood. By all indications, the nontraditional campaign has been a huge success. Now the question is, what to do for an encore?
Casuarinas has developed a very successful elementary, now secondary, school based on excellence in teaching, service, and multilingual education. Peru lacks similar high-quality post-secondary institutions. This case focuses on the potential entry of Casuarinas into the post-secondary educational market.
Discusses the impact of limited market size on epilepsy therapies and shows how an early-stage venture fund can catalyze faster development of new treatments.
This case considers the transition at the head of British Airways (BA) from Lord Marshall, key architect of BA's spectacular restructuring and revitalisation in the 1980s, to his chosen successor Robert Ayling. In an increasingly deregulated market, Ayling's challenge is to sustain BA's position of leadership in the airline industry. He pursues an ambitious strategic alliance, a massive cost cutting drive and initiates a controversial change of corporate identity. Although the stock market initially approves of most of his strategy, he runs into trouble on the industrial relations front. A cabin crew strike in the summer of 1997 hits employee morale and triggers a sustained dive in the airline's share price. For all Ayling's efforts over the following three years, he does not manage to redress the slump and his eventual removal does not come as much of a surprise. What is surprising is the insistence by BA's chairman that Ayling had set the right strategy, but was the wrong person to implement it. The case explores what went wrong.
The global insurance industry is in the process of dramatic transformation. Whereas reinsurance has historically been highly globalized, life and nonlife insurance have traditionally been confined to national markets by legal, tax and regulatory regimes. With some of the major national markets often heavily saturated, major insurance groups have looked aggressively outside their home countries for growth, usually though acquisitions. At the same time, the way insurance has been made available to customers is undergoing significant change, not least through the Internet, even as competition for the insurance industry comes from the capital markets, asset management firms and banks. The industry is in a stage of competitive turmoil, and few pretend to forecast to it will all turn out. This case deals with two of the leading continental European players in the global insurance industry, which has made major acquisitions in the UK, the US and elsewhere in an attempt to be among the most competitive and profitable firms in their industry. The way they are going about this, however, is very different. This case requires students to assess the strategies of AEGON N.V. and Groupe AXA from the perspective of both positioning and execution, and come to a judgment which of them has the greater promise in terms of shareholder value.
The case describes the turnaround process of one of the worst car assembly plants in the world to a showcase plant ready to produce the new Baby Jaguar. It focuses on managerial, people and organizational issues. A companion case describes the product, process and supply chain changes in more detail.
The case describes how Sylvia Davey, HP, handles the product returns for the printer division. It discusses product returns from a holistic business perspective starting with what affects consumer returns and how to influence this. It then discusses the reverse logistics and remanufacturing issues. Finally, it looks into how to create markets for the ""as good as new"" remanufactured products.
The case describes a complete, radical three-dimensional concurrent engineering design of the system for the Baby Jaguar production at Halewood (UK). It shows how product, supply chain and process design are integrated to provide a lean solution. A companion case focuses on the managerial, people and organisational issues of the change process.