Mac Monroe had grand plans for Georgia Building Supplies, the company he had started with a friend almost 50 years ago, selling construction materials wholesale to contractors. In the mid-1980s, Mac bought out his disgruntled partner's share of the company and put his oldest son, Mac Monroe IV, at the helm. It was all falling into place. But Mac Four, as his parents called him, died tragically in a car accident. The family and the company never recovered. Mac sold GBS two years later. Now Mac is trying it again, bankrolling Carolina Construction Supply with his youngest boy, John "Little Bit" Monroe, at the helm. The tech-savvy Little Bit would like Mac and CCS to embrace the Internet for on-line transactions and service. But Mac keeps emphasizing sales, and he's lured two heavy-hitter salesmen from the competition--including his middle son, Mike Monroe. In its first two years, CCS has lost $1 million, and the ghost of Mac Four lingers at the company--Mac is constantly invoking his name, alluding to what Mac Four would have done if he were still alive. Complicating matters is the Monroe family's overprotective matriarch, Bea, who doesn't want to hear anything bad about her boys, and who'd like more time to spend with her 70-something husband. Mac's got plenty of doubts about CCS's future--that's why he's called on P. Dee Chambers, a consultant to small businesses, for advice. What should she tell him? Can Carolina Construction Supply be saved? In R00308 and R00315, five commentators, Gerry Boschwitz, Rudy Boschwitz, Mary F. Whiteside, Joe Mattos, and John L. Ward, review this fictional account and offer their advice.
Bob Gore, son of the founder of a privately held company (the inventor of Gore-Tex) is debating the pros and cons of going public, the main challenge of which will be the effect on a company that has developed a successful and innovative culture.
Francisco Partners (which focuses on buyouts of high-technology firms) aims to be the largest first-time fund ever raised. The rationales for the fund, fundraising strategy, and partnership terms and conditions are among the topics explored.
An entrepreneur is forced to analyze the tradeoffs between different equity providers through a detailed analysis of venture financing terms and cash flow forecasts. The founder of a Web-based IMS for schools must negotiate a term sheet, determine funding needs, value her company, and finalize a venture deal. To obtain executable spreadsheets (courseware), please contact our customer service department at [email protected].
Softbank Venture Capital (SBVC) has established a business incubator, Hotbank. Ellen Levy, a "Netbatsu Development Officer" with SBVC, is faced with a decision about which relationships among Hotbank/SBVC portfolio companies to facilitate.
Designed to explore the structure, implementation, and sustainability of an information-based strategy (IBS) undertaken by Capital One during the 1990s. Particular issues of interest are the impact of mass customization on industry structure, the ability to transfer IBS skills to new sectors, and the impact of the Internet on industry structure and competitor strategies.
Presents two situations: 1) two graduating MBAs from Harvard Business School compare and contrast their strategies for getting off to a good start in consulting, and 2) a junior consultant has to deal with of difficult feedback in his very first performance review.
Computer Power Group (CPG), an Australian-based consulting, education, and staffing placement firm in the IT industry, is contemplating a brand architecture capable of structuring its eight branded business units. CEO Peter James is particularly curious about whether a corporate brand is needed to unify the businesses. Extensive consumer research is conducted to inform the branding initiative, providing insight into the meanings of each of the sub-brands in key stakeholders' minds. The architecture solution must consider not only brand meanings and associations, but market performance and brand stewardship concerns as well. A pending merger with U.S.-based Interim Technology further complicates the task.
On the eve of Teach For America's tenth reunion, Wendy Kopp, the 32-year-old founder and leader of the national teacher corps, is considering how to increase the impact of the organization. To date, the organization has placed 5,000 teachers in under-resourced public schools. Kopp wonders how to expand the corps-both in size and scope-without compromising the quality of the teachers and the entrepreneurial culture of the organization. Critical to this endeavor will be understanding how to leverage her resource appropriately. She has just hired a COO and a director of site expansion to help with this effort.
Describes Destiny's use of "pattern language" concepts to structure its business activities. The innovative approach contrasts with a process approach and helps the company balance its needs for scalability with retained agility.
Examines the role of transaction costs in impeding the functioning of markets and shows how the concept of transaction costs sheds light on a broad range of issues in strategy.
This case is designed for an MBA course in management planning and control systems, an MBA course on mergers and acquisitions, an MBA course on strategy implementation, or any class on executive compensation systems. It gives students exposure to executive compensation plans, the design of performance measurement and incentive compensation systems to facilitate the implementation of strategy, and issues that arise in post-merger integration. Significant differences in executive compensation for British Petroleum and Amoco Corporation prior to the merger between the two companies pose interesting challenges to successfully integrating the two executive teams after the merger. Students are asked to evaluate the post-merger executive compensation plan for BP Amoco in light of company's post-merger strategy, differences in the pre-merger executive compensation plans, and issues surrounding post-merger integration in their preparation and class discussion.
Can two successful authors build a scalable consulting practice based on their unique view of customer relationship management (CRM)? Should they emphasize strategy or execution? The case describes how Peppers and Rogers grew from two people earning speaker fees to a 160-person publishing, consulting, and Internet technology promotion company. Now they want to grow faster and take advantage of the IPO capital market that has enabled the birth of competitors like Scient, Viant, and Zefer in the market for e-commerce and dot.com consulting.