Discusses issues related to government sources of financing for small business in the United States. In addition to presenting motivations for government financing programs, the note gives a detailed presentation of major federal programs to assist small business.
Presents an overview of the issues covered in Entrepreneurial Finance. The frameworks of analysis as well as themes of the course are covered. Additionally, provides references on entrepreneurial finance from both academics and the popular press.
In 1996, WESCO, a national distributor of electrical equipment and supplies, charted out a growth of 6 to 8 percent in sales, and 12 to 16 percent in profitability over the next five years. The centerpiece of this growth strategy is the National Accounts (NA) program that WESCO has developed to serve its major industrial customers in response to recent changes that they made to their business processes. However, as of June 1997, the NA program has not delivered the expected results. WESCO now needs to isolate the root cause of the NA program shortfall and implement changes that will put this program back on track. It needs to decide whether to continue to be proactive in initiating, building, and maintaining national accounts, or to be passive and offer the NA program only after customers have shown a legitimate interest.
The CEO of Sears faces issues involving the company's recent turnaround and ongoing transformation, including change management and the use of leading (U.S. lagging) indicators or measures.
Following a five-year search for a profitable, technologically-driven branded consumer products business with international growth potential, The Gillette Company announced its intended acquisition of Duracell. The focus of the case is on assessing the risk of Duracell and the measurement of a discount rate for valuation. The case is particularly rich because of the changing risk profile of Duracell.
The president of a Jordanian pharmaceutical company is contemplating how to further penetrate the U.S. market, either through its own manufacturing and sales efforts, or as a supplier to a third party
Dr. Franklin Lowe is CEO of a new kind of company in a new kind of industry--medical foods. He must select a business model and partners that will help make this a viable business.
Addresses the career decision-making process of Humphrey Chen as he graduates from HBS with an MBA. In choosing between an offer from a top-tier consulting firm and launching a start-up entrepreneurial venture, Chen must weigh the expectations of many people--family, fiancee, friends--as well as his own desires.
Richmond Engineering is a successful Vancouver-based entrepreneurial manufacturer of roadway light poles that has decided to expand into Asia rather than attempting to compete in Eastern Canada or the United States. The process of finding and qualifying leads for joint ventures, the stages for developing an agreement according to Chinese business practice, and the pressures of negotiating with the Chinese are all described in detail.
After early sales gains with a five-minute oil change offering, Delta Oils witnesses a slump in business. The owner decides to research the oil change consumer. The case introduces students to the design of a consumer study; specifically, the design, sequencing, formulation, administration and interpretation of a survey on consumer behaviours surrounding oil changes in passenger vehicles. A follow-up case Delta Oil Outlets (B) is available.
Why is it that successful strategies are rarely developed as a result of formal planning processes? What is wrong with strategy or the way most companies go about developing it? Andrew Campbell and Marcus Alexander, seasoned practitioners of the art of strategy, who consult, teach and do research at the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre, offer a "common sense" piece on why the planning frameworks managers use so often yield disappointing results. Strategy, they explain, is not about plans but insights. Strategy development is the process of discovering and understanding insights and should not be confused with planning, which is about turning insights into action. The answer is not new planning processes, better designed plans, or more effort. The answer is for managers to understand two fundamentals--the benefit of having a well-articulated and stable purpose and the importance of discovering, understanding, documenting, and exploiting insights about how to create value.
Companies find it difficult to change strategy for many reasons, but one stands out: Strategic thinking is not a core managerial competence at most companies. Managers are unable to develop competence in strategic thinking because they do it so rarely. Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen helps managers develop a creative strategy and a proficiency in strategic decision making. This article presents a three-stage method executives can use to conceive and implement a creative and coherent strategy themselves. The three-step process forces managers to dig deep in order to understand the forces affecting their business. This method is a useful tool for managers because it helps them link strategic thinking with operational planning: two processes that are often separate but are more effective when connected.
What makes for a good strategy in highly uncertain business environments? How do executives choose a clear strategic direction when no amount of sophisticated analysis will allow them to predict the future? The authors, consultants at McKinsey & Co., outline a new approach for dealing with the high levels of uncertainty that regularly confront managers today. This article explains how to make crucial distinctions among the levels of uncertainty managers face, and then how to choose a strategic posture appropriate for that level. This strategy framework helps managers to tailor a portfolio of actions--comprising big bets, options, and no-regrets moves--to the uncertainty at hand. An important and timely addition to the strategy arsenal, this article offers a discipline for thinking rigorously and systematically about uncertainty.
Companies all across the economic spectrum are making use of teams, but many senior executives and CEOs have become frustrated in their efforts to create teams at the top. Too often, they see few gains in performance from their efforts to be more teamlike. And they recognize that the rest of the organization knows that the senior group doesn't really work together as a team. Nevertheless, a team effort at the top can be essential to capturing the highest performance results possible--when the conditions are right. Good leadership requires differentiating between team and non-team opportunities, and then acting accordingly. Jon R. Katzenbach, a partner at McKinsey & Co. in New York City and the author of Teams at the Top: Unleashing the Potential of Both Teams and Individual Leaders (Harvard Business School Press, in 1997) explains why teams at the top are often ineffective--and when they can be essential to capturing the highest performance results for their organization.
This fictitious case study by Idalene F. Kesner, the Frank P. Popoff Professor at Indiana University, and Sally Fowler, assistant professor at Victoria University, explores the issues that arise when the wires get crossed between a team of consultants and their key client. The client is the CEO of a newly-merged company; the consultants have been hired to help knit together the two former companies' policies and cultures. Unfortunately, the client's impression of the current status of the new company and the consultants' assessment of the situation facing them are vastly different. In 97605 and 97605Z, John Rau, Charles Fombrum, Robert H. Schaffer, and David H. Maister advise the consultants and the client about their options, offer their perspectives on what makes a good client/consultant relationship, and discuss the difficulties that face newly merged companies.
This fictitious case study by Idalene F. Kesner, the Frank P. Popoff Professor at Indiana University, and Sally Fowler, assistant professor at Victoria University, explores the issues that arise when the wires get crossed between a team of consultants and their key client. The client is the CEO of a newly-merged company; the consultants have been hired to help knit together the two former companies' policies and cultures. Unfortunately, the client's impression of the current status of the new company and the consultants' assessment of the situation facing them are vastly different. In 97605 and 97605Z, John Rau, Charles Fombrum, Robert H. Schaffer, and David H. Maister advise the consultants and the client about their options, offer their perspectives on what makes a good client/consultant relationship, and discuss the difficulties that face newly merged companies.
This fictitious case study by Idalene F. Kesner, the Frank P. Popoff Professor at Indiana University, and Sally Fowler, assistant professor at Victoria University, explores the issues that arise when the wires get crossed between a team of consultants and their key client. The client is the CEO of a newly-merged company; the consultants have been hired to help knit together the two former companies' policies and cultures. Unfortunately, the client's impression of the current status of the new company and the consultants' assessment of the situation facing them are vastly different. In 97605 and 97605Z, John Rau, Charles Fombrum, Robert H. Schaffer, and David H. Maister advise the consultants and the client about their options, offer their perspectives on what makes a good client/consultant relationship, and discuss the difficulties that face newly merged companies.
Almost all companies today compete to some degree on the basis of continuous innovation. And many turn to customers for information to guide that innovation. The problem is that customers' ability to guide new product and service development is limited by their experience and by their ability to imagine and describe possible innovations. How can companies identify needs that customers themselves may not recognize? A set of techniques Harvard Business School Professors Dorothy Leonard and Jeffrey Rayport call empathic design can help resolve those dilemmas. Its basic principle is observation--watching customers use products or services. But the critical twist is that such observation is conducted in the customer's own environment--in the context of normal, everyday routines. In such a context, the company is privy to a host of information that is not accessible through other observation--oriented research methods such as focus groups or usability laboratories. This article explores a new way for companies to spark innovation--a new way for them to identify consumer needs, and thus design successful new products to meet those needs. The techniques of empathic design--effectively gathering, analyzing, and applying information gleaned from observation-are familiar to top engineering/design firms and a few forward-thinking manufacturers, but are not common practice.