Highlights the key role of selecting creative in brand communications, the challenges of building a brand in a turbulent cultural environment, the challenges of extending an advertising campaign, and the interpretation of ads as a crucial senior management skill. Includes color exhibits.
When tasks are highly complex, demand a diversity of skills, or require a commitment from the involved parties, teams are usually the most effective way to approach them. But a group of people working together does not automatically equally a team, and groups are often inefficient and ineffective. Provides detailed information on team development, team management, and team process. Also suggests specific interventions that any team member can make to improve decision making and participation, as well as ways to influence dynamics and resolve conflicts.
Brigitte Gagne, Le Petit Chef's director of microwave R&D, is deciding on the product development agenda for next year. She has to decide which of the available projects to fund, and evaluate the overall portfolio of projects currently under development. The recent poor performance of the firm prompts Gagne to think about reassessing the way projects are generated, evaluated, and selected at Le Petit Chef. However, Gagne has a pressing deadline to meet--the executive team is due to review the next year's agenda at a meeting in Paris tomorrow.
Provident Life & Accident Insurance Co. has made an initial bid to acquire a primary competitor, Paul Revere, from conglomerate, Textron. The due diligence process uncovers a significant block of problematic disability insurance policies. Provident is forced to assess the negative impact of this discovery on its initial valuation and revise its bid. In the process, the divergent views of the evolution of these policies by the bidder and seller have to be translated through discounted cash flow analysis into appropriate bid prices. Finally, this DCF analysis, in combination with multiples analysis, is used in negotiations with Textron and public shareholders.
The MinderSoft case explores the entrepreneur's attempt to raise a first round of venture capital. The founder and venture fund's valuation differ by a large amount. The founder must decide whether to accept this offer or search further. The case is designed to help students compare frequently used valuation frameworks including the venture capital method and discounted case flow methods.
When Hugh Price became president and chief executive of the National Urban League in May 1994, he knew he was taking the helm of an organization groping for new moorings in the post-civil rights, post-Great Society, post-welfare state era. During the Reagan administration of the 1980s, the large annual federal grants and contracts that had steadily grown during the 1960s and 1970s, sustaining the National Urban League and its network of 113 affiliates, were abruptly slashed. People wondered if the Urban League would dissolve. This case chronicles what happened with the NUL during this era of transition. Pair with the sequel (HKS 864). HKS Case Number 1634.0.
When Hugh Price became president and chief executive of the National Urban League in May 1994, he knew he was taking the helm of an organization groping for new moorings in the post-civil rights, post-Great Society, post-welfare state era. During the Reagan administration of the 1980s, the large annual federal grants and contracts that had steadily grown during the 1960s and 1970s, sustaining the National Urban League and its network of 113 affiliates, were abruptly slashed. People wondered if the Urban League would dissolve. This case chronicles what happened with the NUL during this era of transition. Pair with the first part of the case (HKS 863). HKS Case Number 1634.1.
Notwithstanding its reputation as a free market bastion, Hong Kong has long been home to a well-developed, government-supported "social sector." Although many non-governmental social service organizations began as purely private and charitable, the government, over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, began to pay an increasing share of their budgets through payments known as "subventions." In the mid-1990s, however, the leaders of nonprofit social service organizations become increasingly concerned that the conditions under which their organizations receive public support-including pay scales, job descriptions, and staffing levels set by the government-allowed too little management flexibility. This case describes the evolution of a replacement "subvention" system one which, instead of providing support for specific positions and supplies, would instead provide the social service nonprofits with "lump sum" grants-a single pot which NGO managers would apportion. The case details the complexity of planning and implementing such a transition, focusing among other things on the transition arrangements required to ensure continuity of services and minimum of workforce disruption. The government must deal specifically with fears of senior social workers that the new system will give managers an incentive to replace them with new, more junior hires. In addition to allowing for discussion of the specific dilemmas faced in Hong Kong, the case can be a point of departure for a more general discussion about the variety of imaginable relationships between the public and nonprofit sectors and how such arrangements are, as a practical matter, effected. HKS Case Number 1630.0
Nat Henshaw, president of CEI Ventures Inc. (CVI) a subsidiary of the nonprofit Coastal Enterprises Inc. (CEI), was involved in a balancing act. He was a manager of a for-profit venture capital fund, Coastal Ventures Limited Partnership (CVLP), with a social mission that valued good-quality jobs, employee ownership, and a concern for the environment. Henshaw and his board of directors were also thinking about the next venture capital fund, which they wanted to have in place when they began to wind down the investment activity of the current fund. Did they have the right balance between profit and social mission? Could they invest the remaining 60% of CVLP's funds in the next two years in a manner that struck the right balance? And did they have a good enough track record to attract investment into a new fund? Many students will be unfamiliar with this type of institution and the case provides sufficient details on the institutional structure of a community development venture capital fund and the way it operates to serve as an introduction to this subject. It demonstrates the way in which both institutionally and operationally the fund is designed to promote both profitable investments and a social mission. Nevertheless, the fund faces considerable problems in maintaining this balance. The case can then serve as a platform for a discussion of the effectiveness of such an institution in promoting community economic development. More generally, this case can be used to teach students about the "double bottom-line," where the bottom line is of a business which is the subsidiary of a nonprofit institution, which set up the business in the first place as part of its efforts to fulfill its mission. Such arrangements are becoming more common in the US nonprofit sector and they raise issues about the legitimacy of for-profit subsidiaries and the blurring of the line between the for-profit and nonprofit world. HKS Case Number 1669.0
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, high atop a great many of the older, concrete-block buildings of lower-income parts of central Hong Kong and the neighborhoods of the Kowloon peninsula, informal metal-framed wooden structures were built to house thousands of the city's families in austere, though inexpensive, quarters. These "illegal rooftop structures" comprised what could be a called a shantytown of the air, one made up of structures which, though built illegally, were nonetheless bought, sold, and rented on the open market. Such structures, moreover, were just one example of the larger phenomenon of so-called unauthorized building works in Hong Kong. These UBWs, as they were known in the city's Buildings Department, included balconies added to windows-sometimes used for beds on which people slept high in the air-as well as hundreds of thousands of storefront street signs and canopy extensions to the ground floors of buildings in commercial districts, the latter used to create spaces rented to stores and restaurants. By 1999, it was estimated that UBWs of all kinds in Hong Kong totaled a staggering 800,000. By one estimate, if authorities continued enforcement as they had been doing, it would take more than 130 years to effect the removal of all such structures-assuming that new ones were not built in their place. This case raises the thorny question of the extent to which and methods by which Hong Kong should use the law to minimize or eliminate such unauthorized building works-in a city where some parts of the public care most about public safety, while others-often much poorer-care most about shelter. HKS Case Number 1631.0
The power shortages and blackouts of late 2000 and early 2001 drew international attention to the electricity deregulation regime adopted four years earlier by the state of California. This case provides a definitive account of the nature of that deregulation, as well as the process through which it was developed and the options considered as it was crafted. It focuses on the choices California made as it put in place a system that would divide the electricity generation, transmission and retail distribution systems that had, historically, been integrated. The case describes how California regulators and elected officials sought to maintain the operating and coordination efficiencies associated with the existing vertically- and horizontally-integrated system while allowing a competitive market to flourish. Because it stops short of describing what exactly seemed to go wrong when the power crisis hit California, the case demands discussion and analysis of the unintended consequences of the deregulation regime chosen-including the decision to fix retail prices during a transition period. It provides detailed descriptions of the role of a key new institution, the "independent system operator" and the role California chose for it to play in facilitating power transactions. HKS Case Number 1633.0
The power shortages and blackouts of late 2000 and early 2001 drew international attention to the electricity deregulation regime adopted four years earlier by the state of California. This case provides a definitive account of the nature of that deregulation, as well as the process through which it was developed and the options considered as it was crafted. It focuses on the choices California made as it put in place a system that would divide the electricity generation, transmission and retail distribution systems that had, historically, been integrated. The case describes how California regulators and elected officials sought to maintain the operating and coordination efficiencies associated with the existing vertically- and horizontally-integrated system while allowing a competitive market to flourish. Because it stops short of describing what exactly seemed to go wrong when the power crisis hit California, the case demands discussion and analysis of the unintended consequences of the deregulation regime chosen-including the decision to fix retail prices during a transition period. It provides detailed descriptions of the role of a key new institution, the "independent system operator" and the role California chose for it to play in facilitating power transactions. HKS Case Number 1632.0
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, high atop a great many of the older, concrete-block buildings of lower-income parts of central Hong Kong and the neighborhoods of the Kowloon peninsula, informal metal-framed wooden structures were built to house thousands of the city's families in austere, though inexpensive, quarters. These "illegal rooftop structures" comprised what could be a called a shantytown of the air, one made up of structures which, though built illegally, were nonetheless bought, sold, and rented on the open market. Such structures, moreover, were just one example of the larger phenomenon of so-called unauthorized building works in Hong Kong. These UBWs, as they were known in the city's Buildings Department, included balconies added to windows-sometimes used for beds on which people slept high in the air-as well as hundreds of thousands of storefront street signs and canopy extensions to the ground floors of buildings in commercial districts, the latter used to create spaces rented to stores and restaurants. By 1999, it was estimated that UBWs of all kinds in Hong Kong totaled a staggering 800,000. By one estimate, if authorities continued enforcement as they had been doing, it would take more than 130 years to effect the removal of all such structures-assuming that new ones were not built in their place. This case raises the thorny question of the extent to which and methods by which Hong Kong should use the law to minimize or eliminate such unauthorized building works-in a city where some parts of the public care most about public safety, while others-often much poorer-care most about shelter. HKS Case Number 1631.0
There is a strong current trend toward globalization of the sales function, driven by increasing customer power, initiatives in customer relationship management, and the design of customer-centric organizations. This article questions the wisdom of rapid adoption of global account management by vendor companies. Drawing on field and survey research among global account managers, the authors highlight a number of ways in which vendors can fail to reap the benefits of global customer relationships and, instead, suffer falling prices. A number of managerial guidelines are suggested for a strategic approach toward global customer management and an effective implementation of global account management programs.
Internal competition evokes mixed feelings among senior executives. It is typically seen as wasteful, bad for morale, and indicative of a lack of strategic direction; but at the same time it can also be very beneficial--a way to create flexibility in the face of technological uncertainty as well as challenge the status quo. This article draws on a five-year study in ten companies to provide advice to executives on how to realize the benefits of internal competition. It describes two distinct forms of internal competition (competition among technologies and competition among lines of business) and the appropriate strategies for managing each one. It also identifies the criteria for deciding whether to allow competing units to coexist or whether their activities should be consolidated.
Delivering excellent service is a challenge for most organizations. Although many aspire to it, the evidence from customer satisfaction surveys indicates that too few firms are able to deliver service excellence. On the other hand, some organizations consistently deliver excellent service. This article reviews ten lessons these benchmark service organizations have learned and shows how these organizations use them to meet and exceed the ever-rising expectations of their customers. These lessons can be emulated by any organization seeking such excellence.
In studying strategic information systems (IS) alignment, it is important to examine the associated processes over time rather than view alignment as an isolated event. This article focuses on how organizations undergo a series of interdependent changes in business strategy and IS strategy to increase the alignment between them. Based primarily on detailed case studies of changes over long time periods in three organizations, the research suggests that this process of adaptation and change, which allows alignment to occur, is more complex than previously believed. Although efforts to achieve alignment between IS and the business do sometimes succeed, they often go astray. There are three such potentially problematic trajectories--excessive transformation, paradoxical decisions, and uncertain turnarounds. This article identifies some factors explaining why organizations might pursue these problematic trajectories and offers some suggestions for avoiding them.