Describes the launch of the innovative home video game company, 3DO, which had developed a groundbreaking system featuring 32-bit processing and CD-ROM software. Examines the competitive dynamics in the home video game industry from 1970 into the new millennium.
Outlines the events leading up to 3DO's exit from the home video game licensing business. 3DO's business model is considered flawed because of its incompatibility with industry structure and economics.
Nintendo must make some important decisions related to the launch and design of the successor to its 16-bit Super NES console. A rewritten version of an earlier case. This is part of a case series examining the competitive dynamics in the home video game industry from 1970 into the new millennium.
Nintendo must make some important decisions regarding relationships with third-party game developers. This is part of a case series examining the competitive dynamics in the home video game industry from 1970 into the new millennium. A rewritten version of an earlier case.
A video rental store is considering offering home delivery service. Management must value the project under different financing strategies and methods, specifically adjusted present value (APV) and weighted average cost of capital (WACC).
Balancing professional and private lives continues to challenge single and committed partners alike. Professionals are expected to work long hours. It is simply part of the ethos of professional service firms. This case focuses on the lives of three couples connected to professional service firms and their ensuing challenges in balancing professional and private life. A rewritten version of an earlier case.
When Jack Sindler founded Spir-it, Inc. in 1934, he was the company's sole employee. By 1999, Sindler's firm more than survived its first 55 years. Employment was up to nearly 200, with facilities in two states and work done in three shifts. The product line--which had grown to 20,000 items grouped into 800 distinct product families--supported annual sales of $12.4 million. Richard Oedel, Spir-it's manager and then its owner in the 1980s and the 1990s, faced a number of challenges. These challenges extended beyond managing a product line that had grown increasingly varied, a customer base that had become increasingly diverse and dispersed, and a technological base that had grown to include a greater number of manufacturing processes. Spir-it's workforce had become increasingly international. Most employees spoke English as a second language, so supervisors had to be multilingual to be successful. Orders between the two locations were sometimes garbled, vacation policies were different, and health care and other benefit plans were subject to three different state laws, as were workers compensation and other state-specific programs. Oedel had to develop a human resources policy that effectively met the particular needs of his workforce and also effectively addressed the idiosyncratic situations that arose unexpectedly each day.
Stella Artois, Interbrew company's flagship brand of beer, has experienced phenomenal success on the international market. The United Kingdom market has played a critical role in that success, and Interbrew needs to assess the reasons for this. Interbrew's managing director and chief marketing officer are meeting to have a discussion about how to proceed in developing the Stella Artois brand. First, they need to understand what part of the company's success was due to expert marketing practices and what part might possibly be due to being in the right place at the right time. They also want to assess what possible steps might be taken to spread these practices across the corporation for use in the company's global marketing strategy.
Stella Artois, Interbrew company's flagship brand of beer, has experienced phenomenal success on the international market. The United Kingdom market has played a critical role in that success, and Interbrew needs to assess the reasons for this. Interbrew's managing director and its chief marketing officer are meeting to have a discussion about how to proceed in developing the Stella Artois brand. First, they need to understand what part of the company's success was due to expert marketing practices and what part might possibly be due to being in the right place at the right time. As well, they want to assess what possible steps might be taken to spread these practices across the corporation for use in the company's global marketing strategy.
Welcome Pharmaceuticals was a joint venture between North China Pharmaceutical Corp. and Hong Kong Triple Well International and is a leading producer of vitamin C in China. The company's general manager had just returned from an industry wide meeting, and was disturbed by what he had learned: there was a worldwide oversupply of vitamin C and already sagging prices had not yet hit rock bottom. The general manager knew the only way for Welcome to survive was to reduce costs, and because Welcome's material costs were already among the lowest in the industry, the only area left to trim was labor costs. The management team was called together to decide whether this was, in fact, the company's only option. If so, the management team had to quickly decide how to go about effecting what was bound to be an unpopular change among several tiers of workers.
As a family man and the president of a small consulting company, Bruce Cruickshank has a lot of hats to wear. Bruce is passionate about his business and enjoys his work, but the pressures of balancing professional life and family life are beginning to take a physical and mental toll. Bruce has a plan in mind for streamlining and expanding his business, but, as it is, he already feels pressed for time to get things accomplished at the office. His assistant is just as busy with her own duties, and it's difficult to make the time to find, hire and train a new employee. At home, Bruce's wife wishes they could spend more time together. As well, Bruce is a devoted father, and being with his children is important to him. The challenges involved in successfully combining his professional life with his family life and leisure time are uppermost in Bruce's thoughts, and he wants to find a healthier balance for the future.
MessageTech, Inc. provides digital media technology and solutions that help clients customize advertising to their specific needs. The company's proprietary technology has the potential to revolutionize the way large, geographically dispersed retailers approach advertising and promotion by allowing clients the flexibility to customize advertising content, in real-time, to suit the conditions of each individual site. Results of beta testing indicate that clients' sales increase significantly after installation of the messageTech system. Yet, the company has been unable to close on any major sales of the system. The newly appointed chief executive officer has a mandate to commercialize the new technology. He must develop a strategy that balances the company's needs for short-term performance against the actions that will ensure a viable competitive position over the long-term.
Covers the history of IT management from 1960 to the present. Applies the Stages Theory as a basis to trace the evolution of the three dominant IT designs (mainframes, microcomputers, networks) and how companies used and managed IT in each era.
Managers are often confronted with the challenge of improving critical business processes so that their efforts are not merely ad hoc. This note provides a template by which improvement efforts are converted from unstructured efforts to bona fide, hypothesis-testing experiments that lead not only to process improvement but to the creation of broader and deeper understanding of how the process works. This is a tool for system improvement, learning, and creation of learning systems.