In the fall of 1991, Signet was just recovering from the downturn in the real estate market of the late 1980s. In an effort to improve business efficiency in the handling of the vast amounts of information Signet was maintaining, especially in light of its new credit card business, Signet decided to out source all commodity type information activities. Signet's goal was to establish a standardized, reliable, outsourced corporate-wide processing system. Given the amount of this style of work which ABC Information Systems was already doing for much larger banking institutions, Signet believed they would be the perfect match to capture the technology of an organization already far down the learning curve.
The partners of the newly formed Info-Tech venture are in the process of formulating their company's marketing strategy. They have spent over a year developing their company's product - a six-page, bi-weekly news service delivered to subscribers via e-mail that summarizes recent advancements in the computer technology industry. They must now decide on how to price and promote the service.
The president of Canadian-based Pacific Western Brewing Co. Ltd. is preparing a Japan market entry strategy for the company's newly developed organic beer. Although she has considerable experience in Japan, several factors are at play which make this product entry particularly challenging. First, the product is unlike any other in the market. Second, Japanese consumer behaviour is undergoing a revolution. Third, the company's last product launch in Japan failed. Therefore, there is a higher than normal level of risk associated with the product launch.
<p style="color: rgb(197, 183, 131);"><strong> AWARD WINNER - Regional Asia-Pacific Case Writing Competition</strong></p><br>The regional HR manager of a multinational conglomerate that operates in over 100 countries had to make decisions regarding the evacuation of its senior management from a politically unstable country. In particular, the firm's expatriate and ethnic Chinese managers and their families faced considerable risk. The HR manager is charged with executing corporate policies and plans. Some of the challenges to consider relate to the development and initial execution of the evacuation plan. These challenges are heightened by a decentralized decision-making process entrenched in the firm's structure and culture, as well inconsistent information from numerous sources in the field operations. Moreover, the issue of which employees to evacuate poses a moral dilemma for the decision-maker. Specifically, he must decide what criteria - rank, ethnicity, tenure - should dictate whether an employee and/or his or her family is offered assistance, and of what sort.
The regional HR manager of a multinational conglomerate faces increasing pressure to evacuate management as the crisis intensifies in the politically unstable country. Concurrently, it becomes increasingly clear that individual managers are making evacuation plans independent of central control, making implementation of a prearranged plan very difficult. The decision to evacuate ethnic Chinese managers and family members is made, and the offer of assistance is extended to all employees. Further logistical challenges in the evacuation plan become more problematic by increased pressure felt by the decision-maker due to the deteriorating situation in the country, as well as an increased sense of desperation among managers both in the country and those abroad with families present. Making matters even more difficult for the decision-maker is the loss of communication with his evacuation team, insufficient cash available to the evacuees, mounting costs to the firm, and an inability to clarify exit documentation requirements of evacuation employees and their families. This is a supplement to the A case, 9A99C001.
The decision-maker responsible for evacuating company managers and their families from a crisis situation now faces a political hot-potato due to second-guessing from superiors, peers and subordinates as a result of decisions he made during the evacuation. The employees who were scheduled for evacuation had dispersed and had unilaterally planned their exit itineraries, resulting in the company incurring a $75,000 bill to facilitate the evacuation of a group of employees from another company. Despite the organizational and logistical challenges, all expatriates and their families were safely evacuated. The teaching objectives of this supplement to the A (9A99C001) and B (9A99C002) cases are to expose students to the politics during the post-crisis review of decisions made during those stressful and ambiguous times.
Traces the evolution of Nike from 1987 through 1998. Through a series of eight assignment questions, it examines how the company has created and sustained a competitive advantage, and how that competitive advantage is reflected in growth, profitability, and share price performance.
Summarizes the core ideas about the microeconomics of markets that are most relevant to business strategy. Sections I and II develop two basic building blocks of any market, demand and supply. Section II discusses how demand and supply interact to determine the quantity of goods traded in a market and the price paid for those goods, with special attention to the way that external events influence the quantity traded and the price paid. Section IV presents the important benchmark of "perfect competition," in which equally matched firms compete so vigorously and market entry is so easy that no firm earns more than its cost of capital. Section V explores the ways that real markets depart form perfect competition. These departures lie at the heart of long-run profitability.
In 1980, Apple was the leader of the PC industry, but by 1999, it had suffered heavy losses at the hands of the Wintel camp. This case examines Apple's efforts to create sustainable competitive advantage as the PC industry evolves. After discussing Apple's history and past strategic moves (1977-1999), the case poses the question: Can Steve Jobs make Apple "insanely great" again?
This case shows how two operating departments-transportation and police-translate the high-level corporate scorecard for the city into departmental balanced scorecards. The transportation department follows a highly structured approach designed to link initiatives taken at the departmental and local levels to the accomplishment of high-level strategic objectives. The police department uses the scorecard to enact a complete change in culture, focusing the police department on crime prevention and community building and away from its previous emphasis on dealing with crimes after they occur. This demonstrates the two very different approaches for refining the scorecard accommodate to local operating departments.
In the early 1990s, Merck faced a series of challenges because of significant changes in its competitive and regulatory environment (e.g., growth in power of pharmaceutical buyers like managed care organizations led to price pressures and President Clinton's review of the entire U.S. health-care industry). The case describes the company under its previous CEO, and primarily under Ray Gilmartin, the new CEO. Discusses the strategic, organizational, cultural, and management challenges that Merck faced, as well as Gilmartin's change program from 1994 to 1998, which was aimed at helping Merck address these issues.
In 1998, Newell Co., a manufacturer of low-tech, high-volume consumer goods, acquired Calphalon Corp., a high-end cookware company, and Rubbermaid, a $2 billion manufacturer of consumer and commercial plastic products. The case focuses on Newell's strategy and its elaboration throughout the organization, as well as the importance of selecting appropriate acquisitions to grow the company. Do Calphalon and Rubbermaid fit with the company's long-term strategy of growth through acquisition and superior service to volume customers? A rewritten version of an earlier case.
In 1998, Metropolitan Life's first vice president of Interactive Commerce faced a plethora of opportunities, challenges, and decisions in charting MetLife's strategy for e-commerce. He wanted to move quickly into transacting Web-based commerce, but he had to consider executive support, infrastructure requirements, possibly disenfranchising the sales force, fast-moving competitors, and the frenzied rate of technology change. The case covers almost all e-commerce start-up issues, but from the perspective of a large, established bricks and mortar business. (A 19-minute video is available for purchase with this case.)
DuPont had spent six years helping licensee manufacturers to develop the domestic market for non-stick cookware. While DuPont Teflon brand coating held 80 per cent of the non-stick market, the non-stick market overall represented 2 per cent of the domestic cookware market. Moreover, the amount of money spent on developing the non-stick market exceeded the revenue that DuPont received in the Chinese market. If DuPont decided to take a different role in the market, it faced many obstacles that required significant additional investment. It appeared that the domestic market offered tremendous opportunity, but it would require new efforts, skills, distribution channels and patience. The case examines the issues around leadership and product development that DuPont considered in their decision to go from licensing the manufacture of non-stick coating technology in China, to introducing a wholly owned brand of non-stick cookware.
Through acquisitions and innovative management, Moscow Joint Stock Commercial Bank Vozrozhdeniye (V.Bank), had grown to be one of the largest banks in Russia. In a market with many competitors of varying strength and reliability in an unstable business environment, V.Bank was attempting to become a true commercial bank, fashioned after the operations of western banks. The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce had undertaken a World Bank contract to assist V.Bank in this process. However, in October 1998, as the Russian economy grew worse, management of V.Bank wondered if it would be able to survive the crisis, let alone continue towards its goal of transforming its operations into those that were competitive with the western banks. This case is appropriate for courses where the goal is to provide students with the ability to understand and forecast broad economic forces and incorporate this information into a decision-making process. The student is forced to make strategic decisions in a situation of uncertainty and instability, and in crisis mode, in an emerging market. Issues that need to be resolved include privatization, economic and monetary policy, IMF and World Bank intervention, societal stability, and government regulation.
Presents a model or theory about the competence or capability of organizations. Written to help managers be more precise about what the capabilities and disabilities of an organization are, and to be able to put their finger precisely on the place in the organization where capabilities and disabilities reside.
Entrepreneur Doug Levine runs a fitness company with an incredibly powerful brand. His company leverages the brand to expand, both in terms of facilities and lines of business. But he may need to make significant organizational changes in order to continue the growth.
Describes Mandic BBS, one of Brazil's first Internet service providers. In April 1998, with competition increasing, its venture capitalist financier is looking to exit their investment. Aleksandar Mandic must decide which potential investor offers the best fit with his company and at what valuation and under what terms he is prepared to sell. Interested parties include a group of U.S. financial investors, an Argentine company with broad telecommunications ambitions in Latin America, and another Brazilian ISP.