Addresses the challenges faced by Ben Rosen and the company board of directors as continuing problems force it to make a decision about the ongoing governance of the firm. The issues are complicated by the current CEO and founder, Rod Canion, who has had, until recently, a very successful track record and is very highly regarded within the company and the industry.
Nokia faces the challenge of implementing the global network model: global R&D and production networks for global learning and control combined with local sales and customer service for a local market presence. It launches an international logistics project to provide integrated solutions delivery and after-sales service. This case describes Nokia's IT strategy study, which clarified the need for, and architecture of the new logistics system.
A proposal for reengineering the order management process of an HVAC products and services company receives only half the funding it needs. The proposal appeared to offer a very high return on investment, but would require substantial funding and dramatic changes in work processes and the information technology required to support these processes. The firm's president must decide whether to fully fund the reengineering effort and how quickly to roll out the new program.
Examines the process of privatization and transformation the company underwent and identifies challenges facing the company as it seeks to become a global oil company.
This case exposes students to refinements in JIT (just in time) purchasing. It explains in detail Bose's concept of JIT II, how it operates, and what its advantages and disadvantages are. Students can critique the JIT II idea and decide if it should be extended to parts that are used in proprietary areas. Students should have some prior exposure to JIT purchasing concepts (e.g., partnering). The case could be used in an operations course or in a course on business-to-business marketing.
This note provides an introduction for a course or module covering the basic elements of production or service operations and how processes are managed. Begins by discussing the activities that take place in a "process." Analysis tools such as the process flow diagram are provided. The types of management choices involved in designing, operating, and improving processes are described. Measures of process performance and basic process analysis are introduced. The different cost structures, capabilities, and performance characteristics of alternative types of processes are touched upon. Finally, the note focuses briefly on the complexity stemming from uncertainty and variability in processes and their external environments. A rewritten version of an earlier note.
Dr. Prathap Reddy has created India's first corporate hospital, Apollo Hospitals of Madras. The hospital is managed according to an integrated philosophy of customer service and support to employees. A new hospital, in the city of Hyderabad, has not performed as well, however. Futhermore, the company is considering widely franchising the Apollo brand name, and establishing India's first health maintenance organization. Main subjects for analysis and discussion include: the connections between Apollo's management philosophy and its success in Madras, the reasons for Hyderabad's less impressive performance, and the merits of franchising and establishing the HMO given Apollo's expertise and conditions in India.
The Indian Hospitals Corp. (IHC), a branch of Apollo Hospitals Group, is considering building a hospital and primary-care medical center in Colombo, the capital of Sri-Lanka, a small island off the southern coast of India. This case describes economic, social, and political conditions in Sri Lanka, particularly in and around Colombo, and the proposed project. There are both promising signs and potential problems.
Harimann International, a small producer of finished textiles, receives a large, unexpected order at the beginning of the off-season. Unfortunately, none of the available embroiderers (subcontractors) can commit to finishing the goods in time for internal processing (bleaching, cutting, sewing, washing, and packing) to be completed in time to guarantee the shipping date. This case offers a rich context for analyzing problem solving under uncertain conditions and exploring risk-reduction opportunities.
Charles Hughes, president and CEO of Land Rover North America, Inc., is debating product positioning options for the new Land Rover Discovery. The positioning decision must consider the role of the Discovery vis-`a-vis other vehicles in the LRNA line, the brand's strengths and weaknesses versus competition, and the positioning of the Land Rover umbrella brand in the U.K. An allocation of marketing funds across brands and mix elements must also be determined and decisions on the company's innovative retailing strategy and experience marketing initiatives made. The case contains rich consumer behavior data. Includes color exhibits.
Too often when managers think about pricing, the first question they ask is, What should the price be? In fact, what they should be asking is, Have we addressed all the considerations that will determine the correct price? Robert J. Dolan describes two broad qualities of an effective pricing process and provides eight steps to enable managers to develop and use such a process. The pricing scorecard included at the end of the article will allow managers to evaluate how well their pricing practices meet these guidelines.
Reengineering efforts are sweeping the country as companies shift from purely functional organizations to those that better accommodate horizontal work flows. Broad, crosscutting processes such as product development and order fulfillment have become the new organizational building blocks, Managers, in turn, have begun to develop new ways of working. But much remains to be learned about how these new organizations are crafted and led. The critical questions involve strategy and management practice. In this roundtable, Xerox's Allaire, USAA's Herres, SmithKline Beecham's Leschly, and Pepsi's Weatherup, four senior executives who have helped pioneer the shift to process-based organizations, discuss their experiences. They represent diverse industries and a wide range of competitive challenges, but their observations about processes and process management are strikingly similar.
Achieving the full profit potential of each customer relationship should be the fundamental goal of every business. The logic is as simple as it is compelling: Profits from customer relationships are the lifeblood of all businesses. And, at the most basic level, these profits can be increased in only three ways: by acquiring new customers, by enhancing the profitability of existing customers, and by extending the duration of customer relationships. Yet the business models that drive decisions in most large companies were forged before it was possible to focus directly on these key drivers of business profitability. Today companies can use information and technology tools to link their investments in customer relationships to the returns that customers generate. In other words, companies can now optimize what the authors call the value exchange: the relationship between a company's financial investment in customer relationships and the return that customers generate in responding to that investment.
Information technology now permeates every aspect of a business, requiring CEOs today to involve themselves in IT planning and decision making. Which IT investment responsibilities should the CEO delegate and to whom? When senior executives consider IT investment options, what should they look for? How do they learn what they need to know to ask the right questions? What role should other managers play in the decision? Six experts--Bob L. Martin, Gene Batchelder, Jonathan Newcomb, John F. Rockart, Wayne P. Yetter, and Jerome H. Grossman--share their views.
Few managers of high-technology companies view manufacturing as a primary souce of competitive advantage. Indeed, companies in high-tech industries increasingly outsource manufacturing completely. In so doing, they hope to avoid the risks of investing in expensive manufacturing plants and losing sight of what they see as their true source of advantage: product research and development. The authors' research in the health care industry over the past decade suggests that such thinking is often costly and potentially dangerous to the competitive health of high-tech companies. In fact, it is not only possible but also necessary to excel at developing new products and new manufacturing processes simultaneously. In many high-tech markets in which product technology is rapidly evolving, manufacturing process innovation is becoming an increasingly critical capability for product innovation.
The lingering belief that environmental regulations erode competitiveness has resulted in a stalemate. One side pushes for tougher standards, the other tries to roll standards back. The authors' research shows that tougher environmental standards actually can enhance competitiveness by pushing companies to use resources more productively. Managers must start to recognize environmental improvement as an economic and competitive opportunity, not as an annoying cost or an inevitable threat. Environmental progress demands that companies innovate to raise resource productivity--precisely the new challenge of global competition. It is time to build on the underlying economic logic that links the environment, resource productivity, innovation, and competitiveness.