Susan Lyons, a vice president at DesignTex, a firm that develops high-end custom fabric collections, wants to create an environmentally responsible fabric that will provide a model for sustainable design. Lyons consults with William McDonough, a noted designer of environmentally sustainable buildings and materials, whose stated ideal is that "no environmental risk is acceptable." The A case follows the development of a new furniture fabric and asks students to decide whether McDonough's principles go too far--whether it is really necessary or feasible to redesign the chemical protocols to produce a completely compostable product that emerges from an absolutely clean manufacturing process. See also the B case (E-0100).
Erox Corp. is a biotechnology start-up that creates products containing synthetic human pheromones. It was founded in 1989, went public in 1993, and brought in a turnaround team in 1994. Sales ramped from $110,000 in 1993 to over $1 million in 1994, with prospects for continued hypergrowth. Pheromones are odorless biochemical cues secreted by people and animals to influence the behavior of others of the same species. Biotechnologists have discovered human pheromones, and Erox has patents protecting its use of synthetic human pheromones for men and women in cosmetic products such as perfumes, colognes, and body lotions. Realm is preparing a national U.S. retail launch of its fragrance product lines: Real for women and Realm for Men. Michael Stern, VP marketing and sales, has developed a successful direct-marketing campaign using a 30-minute infomercial. His challenge is to develop a leveraged marketing communications campaign to support the launch of Realm in Bloomingdales.
Rafferty Goldstone, the protagonist of this HBR case study, was one of Bulwark Securities' hottest sales reps, but he dreamed of management. So he was elated when he was chosen to fill a manager's slot that had opened up on the East Coast. Now, six months later, he's in deep trouble and doesn't know where to turn for help. But who's responsible for Goldstone's floundering? And can anything be done to direct him down the right path? In 96201 and 96201Z, Thomas J. DeLong, Ellen Hart, Kathleen Collman, John Doumani, Joseph L. Galarneau, and Julie Johnson offer advice on this fictional case study.
Rafferty Goldstone, the protagonist of this HBR case study, was one of Bulwark Securities' hottest sales reps, but he dreamed of management. So he was elated when he was chosen to fill a manager's slot that had opened up on the East Coast. Now, six months later, he's in deep trouble and doesn't know where to turn for help. But who's responsible for Goldstone's floundering? And can anything be done to direct him down the right path? In 96201 and 96201Z, Thomas J. DeLong, Ellen Hart, Kathleen Collman, John Doumani, Joseph L. Galarneau, and Julie Johnson offer advice on this fictional case study.
Rafferty Goldstone, the protagonist of this HBR case study, was one of Bulwark Securities' hottest sales reps, but he dreamed of management. So he was elated when he was chosen to fill a manager's slot that had opened up on the East Coast. Now, six months later, he's in deep trouble and doesn't know where to turn for help. But who's responsible for Goldstone's floundering? And can anything be done to direct him down the right path? In 96201 and 96201Z, Thomas J. Delong, Ellen Hart, Kathleen Collman, John Doumani, Joseph L. Galarneau, and Julie Johnson offer advice on this fictional case study.
To many managers, the idea of introducing process management to their development organizations sounds like a sure way to destroy creativity. Product development, they contend, is not the same as manufacturing: Each project has unique challenges that require unique solutions. In fact, the authors argue, managers who need to know how many projects their development organizations can handle and how quickly those projects can deliver new products to market must think of product development as a production process in which projects move through the knowledge-work equivalent of a job shop.
The notion that the future rests on more than just a whim of the gods is a revolutionary idea. It is also a very young idea. A mere 350 years separate today's risk-assessment and hedging techniques from decisions guided by superstition, blind faith, and instinct. More than any other development, the quantification of risk defines the boundary between modern times and the rest of history. Yet is today's sophisticataed approach to risk management and decision making an unalloyed blessing? What have we gained by the transformation from superstition to the supercomputer? What does it mean that the elaborate apparatus of probability analysis has supplanted hunches and intuition in business, finance, and other areas?
Corporate success depends on breaking through the clutter of messages and products facing consumers in the marketplace. But the more innovative the idea--whether it is a new product, package, price, or promotion--the greater the risk. Traditional marketing research methods, such as test markets, focus groups, controlled field experiments, and even STMs, have limitations. Some are vulnerable to observation and manipulation by competitors; others are contrived and unrealistic, too expensive, or simply incapable of providing the information that managers need. But a new alternative--the virtual store--not only addresses those limitations, it also broadens the horizons of marketing research.
Will banks as we know them continue to exist in the twenty-first century? Today other financial institutions are usurping the roles traditionally played by banks--and banks themselves are reconsidering the services they offer. Some have narrowed their focus, while others are broadening their product offerings. The authors show how a functional perspective developed by the Global Financial System Project at the Harvard Business School provides a framework for explaining the changes under way and helps predict how the future will evolve.
A decade ago, many observers predicted Caterpillar's demise. Yet today the company's overall share of the world market for construction and mining equipment is the highest in its history. And the biggest reason for the turnaround, writes Caterpillar's chairman and CEO Donald Fites, has been the company's system of distribution and product support and the close customer relationships it fosters. The backbone of that system is Caterpillar's 186 independent dealers around the world. They have played a central role in helping the company build close relationships with customers and gain insights into how it can improve products and services.
We entrust nonprofit and governmental organizations with society's most important functions--educating our minds, uplifting our souls, and protecting our health and safety. Lately, however, the public's faith in these institutions has been seriously undermined by revelations of wrongdoing and mismanagement. Can anything be done to restore the public's confidence? Regina Herzlinger argues forcefully that the answer lies in accountability. She points out that nonprofits and governments lack the mechanisms that compel accountability in the business world. Thus they require regulatory oversight to help them accomplish their social missions effectively, efficiently, and responsibly.
A corporation's success today lies more in its intellectual and systems capabilities than in its physical assets. Managing human intellect--and converting it into useful products and services--is fast becoming the critical executive skill of the age. It is therefore surprising that so little attention has been given to that endeavor. Few managers have systematic answers to even these basic questions: What is professional intellect? How can we develop it? How can we leverage it? According to James Brian Quinn and his coauthors, an organization's professional intellect operates on four levels: cognitive knowledge, advanced skills, systems understanding, and self-motivated creativity. They argue that organizations that nurture self-motivated creativity are more likely to thrive in the face of today's rapid changes.
U.S. corporations lose half their customers every five years. But most managers fail to address that fact head-on by striving to learn why those defectors left. They are making a mistake, because a climbing defection rate is a sign that a business is in trouble. By analyzing the causes of defection, managers can learn how to stem the decline and build a successful enterprise. The longer customers stay with a company, the more they are worth. The key to customer loyalty is value creation. The key to value creation is organizational learning. And the key to organizational learning, says the author, is grasping the value of failure.
A large diversified steel and energy firm is pressured by a corporate raider to spin off its steel business in order to increase its stock price. As an alternative to the spinoff, management proposes replacing the company's common stock with two new classes of "targeted" stock that would represent separate claims against each business segment's cash flows, allowing the stock market to value each business separately (and more accurately).
Harvey Golub, CEO American Express, initiated and led a large-scale change process. The case describes the organization he inherited, two successive waves of reengineering, his "principles-driven" approach to decision making, and his goal of converting American Express from a diversified financial supermarket to one unified operating company.
Documents two problems in the product development process of Northern Telecom's new Greenwich key systems product line. These problems are due to the conflicting goals of the marketing, design, and manufacturing groups in the product development team. A rewritten version of an earlier case.
Organizational stimulants and obstacles to creativity are summarized. The management tasks of supporting creativity and encouraging innovation are described as a delicate balance between over-control and chaos. A technology used to assess the climate for creativity is presented.
In 1993 CIGNA Property and Casualty embarked on a full transformation effort under a new leadership team headed by Gerry Isom. This case presents progress through September 1995.
Two entrepreneurs face a tough decision when confronted with disappointing test results from the medical application they have chosen to commercialize their innovative process technology. They must decide whether to redesign the technology's current lead-application or to change applications altogether.