Volkswagen of America introduced the New Beetle at the Detroit auto show in January 1998 to rave reviews from the automobile press and industry gurus. Elisabeth Vanzura, marketing director of Volkswagen American had the challenging task of converting this enthusiasm to sales. Her first set of decisions related to the target market selection and positioning of the New Beetle. Includes color exhibits.
CEMEX is a Mexican company that has become a major international competitor in cement while maintaining a higher level of profitability than other, longer-established majors. CEMEX's superior profitability supplies a basis for discussing the sources of superior performance in a global context. In addition, the wide array of benefits that CEMEX derives from its operations in different countries broadens conventional notions of why firms globalize.
Describes the start-up and first-year difficulties of Freeport Studio, a unit of L.L. Bean, founded in 1998 to sell women's clothing by catalog. First-year sales were far below plan, and projected profits did not materialize. Fran Philip must identify the problems and plan what must be done to make the unit profitable by year two. Includes color exhibits.
This note describes the basic elements and pricing of financial derivatives. Financial derivatives are contracts whose value is derived from the value of some other underlying asset, such as a share of common stock, a commodity (e.g., coffee, oil, or wheat), or a bond. Each derivative has its own special features and provisions, and each is used for a special financial purpose.
The efforts of Swatch to reposition itself in the increasingly competitive global watch industry are reviewed in this case. Extensive information on the history and structure of the global watch industry is provided and the shrinking time horizons decision makers face in formulating strategy and in responding to changes in the industry are highlighted. In particular, the case discusses how technology and globalization have changed industry dynamics and have caused companies to reassess their sources of competitive advantage. Like other companies, Swatch faces the difficult task of deciding whether to emphasize product breadth, or focus on a few key global brands. It also must decide whether to shift manufacturing away from Switzerland to lower cost countries like India.
Monsanto, a biotechnology giant highly committed to sustainable development efforts, needs to assess the attractiveness of the drinking water treatment industry before deciding its entry to it. Four dimensions of the global water treatment industry are described: types of products and services, applications, end-users and geographical markets. The drinking water treatment segment, which is classified into municipal drinking water treatment and residential drinking water treatment, is examined in depth. Players in these two categories produce the chemicals and equipment necessary to purify tap water supplied to consumers and residential water purification devices. The bottled water industry is considered a substitute of the drinking water treatment segment. The primary objective of the case is to answer the question Is the industry attractive? and to introduce students to industry analysis and industry segmentation.
Oak Valley Inc. is a $2.1 billion Toronto-based company operating in various consumer markets. In early 1993, the company launched a management development program with the objective of promoting a culture that thrived on best practices. Five years later, the chief executive officer is attempting to evaluate the impact of the program on participants. Hoping to generate new insights that could be applied to similar events in the future, he has asked a team of five past participants to meet to discuss what they learned. This short case deals with the attitudes and behaviors most conducive to individual and group-based learning. The case provides an excellent vehicle for discussing how people learn, how teams can accelerate the learning process, and how companies can create positive learning environments.
A non-profit manager faces a challenge in how to grow a network of informational services to patients, their parents and medical practitioners, including allied health professionals. To date, this service has been free. Should it now be priced, and if so, how and at what price? The service also links five hospitals who can share diagnostic information for greater system efficiency. All of these hospitals put up seed money for the development of the network. How to grow this business is the challenge, including marketing, organizational structure, pricing and operational concerns.
A senior manager in a hospital is determining a system-wide approach linking physicians, social welfare agencies, and single issue volunteer health organizations in a coordinated network. The approach taken will determine likely success or failure of this innovative approach. The hospital faces a problem as the initiator of the network, as it is a teaching hospital and is viewed by many in one community as too big. The decision maker has to be able to sell the idea to the board (who seek accountability), the various agencies (who seek direct benefits) and the community at large (who seek a seamless health care delivery system). Thus potential conflicts and trade-offs abound.
The vice-president of Robarts Research Institute is attempting to put together a financing structure for a biotechnology company, Diabetogen, being spun off by the Institute. He must assess the worth of the company, how the equity should be divided among its stakeholders, and how much of the company must be given up to first-round investors.
The emphasis of this case is on the deliberate governmental policy to foster industrial structure transformation, by examining the transition of the Taiwanese economy from a manufacturing-based economy to that of a successful high-tech-oriented economy. The case affords discussion on political and societal issues pertaining to the conflicts between China and Taiwan and risk confronting businesses in this peculiar environment. It also serves as a platform to debate portability of science park concepts among different geographic regions and the necessary conditions for the continued survival of an established science park.
The president director of Dharmala Manulife, a large, successful Canadian-Indonesian joint venture life insurance company, faced a significant disruption to operations due to social unrest in Jakarta. Moreover, the Asian financial crisis had resulted in a massive devaluation of the rupiah, in terms of the U.S. dollar. Thus, premiums on U.S.-dollar denominated policies had become prohibitively expensive almost overnight. Policy surrenders, redemptions, and lapses were occurring at an alarming rate. This erosion of the company's client base also meant that sales agents (who worked solely on commissions) were not only losing clients, but were also facing a tremendous challenge in writing new policies in light of the economic, political, and social chaos. Given the external situation, the president director and his senior management team were forced to develop effective strategic marketing decisions. The case asks students to consider the marketing plan for the launch of a new product designed to address the market realities and how to manage the commissioned salesforce in light of the disruption to operations.
Top management at Research in Motion (RIM) were considering a significant change in strategic direction. RIM manufactured two-way pager, wireless PC card and OEM radio products. With the anticipated convergence of wireless and Internet e-mail, RIM saw an opportunity to sell end users a two-way, e-mail end-to-end solution, including both hardware and telecommunication service. Management had to assess whether this was an attractive opportunity. If they did enter the market, RIM would have to decide whether to target individual users or corporate information technology departments and select channels to reach its targeted customers. RIM also faced some challenging marketing communication issues, since about 50 per cent of potential users showed no interest in a mobile e-mail solution.
In a 30-year career, a recently retired international manager of Xerox Corporation played a major role in the company's international expansion to emerging economies, assumed key responsibilities for the negotiation and founding of several international joint ventures, and served as an expatriate manager of these ventures in several countries (e.g., Mexico, Brazil, and China). The case provides a learning opportunity at both the individual and the organizational levels. As a manager or future manager, the student can learn about critical career decisions, development through international assignments, and the joys and frustrations of the portable life of an expatriate family. At the organizational level, the case provides useful examples of international growth/expansion strategies, challenges for managing joint venture operations, and international human resource policies and practices. Importantly, the case presents these examples/issues in the context of doing business in emerging economies. Frans Ryckebosch: An International Manager (B) case, (9A99C031) may be used as a supplement to this case.