A formal organizational chart won't reveal which people confer on technical matters or discuss office politics over lunch. Much of the real work in any company gets done through an informal organization, with complex networks of relationships that cross functions and divisions. According to the authors, managers can harness the power in their companies by diagramming the advice network, which reveals the people to whom others turn to get work done; the trust network, which uncovers who shares delicate information; and the communication network, which shows who talks about work-related matters.
In today's fast-changing competitive environment, strategy is no longer a matter of positioning a fixed set of activities along that old industrial model, the value chain. Successful companies increasingly do not just add value, they reinvent it. The key strategic task is to reconfigure roles and relationships among a constellation of actors--suppliers, partners, customers--in order to mobilize the creation of value by new combinations of players. The authors provide three illustrations of these new rules of strategy. IKEA has blossomed into the world's largest retailer of home furnishings by redefining the relationships and organizational practices of the furniture business. Danish pharmacies and their national association have reconfigured their relations with customers, doctors, hospitals, and drug manufacturers, to enlarge their role, competencies, and profits. French public-service concessionaires have mastered the art of conducting a creative dialogue between their customers--local governments in France and around the world--and a perpetually expanding set of infrastructure competencies.
Time-based competition, which yielded competitive advantage in the mid-1980s, revealed its dark side for many Japanese companies in the early 1990s. In industry after industry, a strategy that was supposed to produce variety ended up producing commodities. Pushing to get a greater number of products out faster, Japanese companies created a plethora of models yet stayed in the same place competitively. Today at least one strong competitor in every Japanese industry is leveraging a powerful combination of time-based competition and customer service. The success of these companies provides at least one crucial managerial lesson: strategy, to be meaningful, must link customer needs with employee capabilities and skills.
In this fictional case study, Adam Lawson is a promising young associate at Kirkham McDowell Securities, a St. Louis underwriting and financial advisory firm. Recently, Adam helped to bring in an extremely lucrative deal, and soon he and a few other associates will be honored for their efforts at the firm's silver anniversary dinner. George Campbell, vice president in mergers and acquisitions, is caught unprepared when Adam tells him that, after serious reflection, he has decided to bring his partner, Robert Collins, to the banquet. George is one of Adam's biggest supporters at the firm, and he personally has no problem with Adam being gay. But it is one thing for Adam to come out of the closet at the office. It is quite another to do so at a public company-client event. George is concerned with how Adam's decision will play with the firm's more conservative clients and senior management. Adam has not come to George for permission to bring Robert to the dinner. But clearly Adam wants some sort of response. Six experts comment on George's dilemma and discuss issues of diversity in the workplace.
Thoughts on choosing teaching methods and the advantages of the case method for achieving the objectives of a survey course in accounting. Criteria for selecting or preparing good cases, developing a course outline, and for evaluating student and teacher performance.
In the wake of NAFTA, U.S. retail firms begin to see Mexico as an attractive market for international expansion. This case examines the structure of Mexico's volume retail (grocery, discount, warehouse club, hypermarket) industry, the joint ventures between U.S. and Mexican firms, and the prospects for the future.
Considers a Pakistani company's decision to conduct a joint venture with a foreign multinational. In 1987, Milkpak Ltd. had successfully developed a market for sterilized milk and wanted to produce other value-added food products. The company was evaluating the best means for increasing its success in the Pakistani market and conducted negotiations with alternative joint venture partners.
General Mills and Nestle were meeting to discuss the possibility of cooperation between the two companies in the breakfast cereal business. Executives from General Mills were arriving in a week's time and an executive vice-president at Nestle was charged with preparing a briefing on General Mills before their arrival. The executive vice-president had recently decided that Nestle should consider taking a partner in the breakfast cereal business and had collected some information on General Mills. The joint venture was of interest to Nestle because its European breakfast cereal business had been performing poorly. General Mills was interested because it has no significant breakfast cereal business outside of the United States. However, the fundamental issue was why Nestle had not made a success of the business in Europe, and what changes the company would need to make for the business to be a success. The balance between global strategy and local operations is central to this case.
COMCO Martech was a new breed of joint venture for COMCO Holding, a mid-sized Swiss-German company that had grown over a five-year period through tie-ups with small, start-up companies. Whereas a typical COMCO venture provided services to a large German retailer, was based in a German-speaking country of Europe, and granted COMCO Holding clear management control, COMCO Martech was managed on a 50-50 basis with an American partner, was active in Eastern Europe, and supplied decontamination services to non-retail related clients. The venture got off to a rocky start. This case looks at the difficulties that arise in managing cross-boundary collaboration; the characteristics that promote compatibility between partners; and the factors that account for successful international partnerships.
A private company is considering an introduction of a long-run incentive compensation system in which payoffs to managers are determined by the economic value added for shareholders by their individual business units. The proposed new system is compared to a number of earlier incentive schemes utilized by the firm.
Top management of Univisa, the North American subsidiary of the Mexican media conglomerate Televisa, meet to determine how to pursue opportunities to serve the Spanish-speaking population in North America. They must determine how to relate Univisa's market penetration strategy in North America to the broader global expansion strategy of Televisa.
Bajaj Auto Ltd., the world's second-largest manufacturer of two- and three-wheeler vehicles, is facing increasing competition in its domestic Indian market. The case evaluates appropriate marketing responses both in the Indian market and export markets.
This case describes Pepsico's program to restructure its Mexican bottling network. It wants to work with existing bottlers and find an organizational arrangement that will allow the bottlers to grow and change with the Mexican soft drink industry.