In 1987, IBM changed its strategy in an attempt to become a market-driven company rather than a product-driven company. The case begins with a description of the new strategy and the reasons for the change and then describes the top-down sales planning and quota system in use under the old strategy. Concludes with a discussion of the reasons why the new strategy cannot be implemented without changing the sales planning and quota systems. The challenge for students is to design new systems to support IBM's market-driven strategy.
The company has committed to major improvements in quality, cost, and on-time delivery performance. Despite strong senior management support, however, the actual rate of improvement was disappointing until a new measurement philosophy was introduced. The new approach specified expected rates of improvement and compared actual improvements to the expected rate. Operational people preferred the new measures to the monthly financial reports they continued to receive. The case explores the conflicts between financial measurements and operating improvements.
Concentrates on the evolution of MCI's strategy-setting process following a period of dramatic growth. Opportunistic strategies during MCI's early years have given top managers a dislike of formal strategic planning and a strongly-held belief in top down strategy setting. Questions whether the nature of planning will have to change as the company passes $6 billion in sales and is faced with increasing global competition.
Describes the background leading to the development of an advertising campaign to help prevention of AIDS in New York City. The three television networks, however, for various reasons reject the campaign, to the dismay of Saatchi & Saatchi executives.
Describes the incentive system by which Mary Kay Cosmetics motivates the sales force of 200,000 independent agents who comprise the firm's only distribution channel. Illustrates the powerful effect on sales-force behavior that results when creative types of employee recognition are combined with financial incentives. Focuses on the challenges that managers face when they try to reduce program costs by modifying the VIP automobile program that awards the use of pink Cadillacs and other cars to successful sales agents. A detailed description of the parameters and formulas that drive the recognition and reward programs is provided.
Focuses on Pennzoil's motor oil business. Designed to address the business strategy issues of how a firm chooses its scope to create competitive advantage in its core business. "Scope" can be broadly defined to include vertical scope (forward and backward integration), horizontal scope (multiple related products), and geographic scope (multiple market locations).
Describes Liz Claiborne, Inc.'s manufacturing and marketing strategy and details the significance of its supplier selection strategy. It begins to describe the company's relationship with Ruentex Industries Ltd., its largest supplier of piece goods. When used with Ruentex Industries Ltd. and Liz Claiborne, Inc. and Liz Claiborne, Inc. and Ruentex Industries Ltd.: Building the Relationship it details the evolution of a customer-supplier relationship in the textile/piece goods and apparel business. Also illustrates how a long-term cooperative relationship creates mutual value in the companies.
Describes Ruentex's operations and the piece goods production process and begins to describe the company's relationship with Liz Claiborne, Inc., its largest customer. When used with Liz Claiborne, Inc. and Ruentex Industries Ltd. and Liz Claiborne, Inc. and Ruentex Industries Ltd.: Building the Relationship, it illustrates how a long-term cooperative relationship creates mutual value in the companies.
Describes the innovative approach to organizing and managing employees by People Express and describes the company's eventual demise. This material can be used to inform about leading edge human resource management practices and to raise questions about what went wrong. Why did People Express succeed in its early years and why did it ultimately fail?
Over the last decade, power in the retailing of packaged goods has shifted from manufacturers to wholesalers and sellers. One result has been an increase in consumer and trade promotion. But many trade promotion practices are costly to manufacturers, retailers, and eventually consumers. The authors single out forward buying in the grocery trade and offer evidence of the costs of this practice to the distribution system as a whole. They suggest a policy called "everyday low purchase price", designed to smooth the peaks and valleys of demand and reduce the costs of distribution.
Large managerial enterprises have been the engines of growth and innovation in modern economies for more than a century. This essay lays out the logic and the nature of the competitive battles that ensue once an industry has been transformed by a first-mover company (companies defined by their large-scale investments in production, marketing, and management). History's lessons are clear: first movers quickly dominate their industries and continue to do so for decades. Those who fail to invest cannot compete--internationally or at home.
An interview with the founder and CEO of Raychem Corp., Paul M. Cook. Raychem's strategy since its founding has been to master a set of core technologies and to create thousands of proprietary products based on those technologies. Cook offers his ideas on innovation and encouraging corporate creativity.
Shareholder value analysis (SVA) is the subject of much debate. Some managers herald it as a great contribution to corporate planning; others say it is too restrictive, too easily manipulated, or too dependent on subjective forecasts. The shortcoming is not in the technique itself but in the way companies apply it. SVA can lead managers astray in three ways: by undervaluing a strategy, by overvaluing a strategy, or by excluding strategy alternatives.
CEOs must spend a certain amount of their time in the trenches, to learn first-hand how the business is going. Time spent on the road with the sales force is especially valuable. Executives learn whether the sales team knows its prospects and sets reasonable expectations; how much the salespeople know about the product, particularly in ways that differentiate it from the competition; whether the sellers keep abreast of changes in customers' businesses; and if the salespeople feel they have a stake in the business.
This hypothetical case, set in 1995, excerpts part of Dominion-Swann (DS) Industries' employee handbook. In 1990 DS implemented a personnel program using the latest advances in surveillance technology and subliminal persuasion to increase productivity and sales. Joseph Moderow, senior vice president and general counsel, UPS; Shoshana Zuboff, associate professor, Harvard Business School; Bill Howard, vice president of information technology, Bechtel Corp.; and Karen Nussbaum, executive director of 9 to 5, National Association of Working Women, discuss DS's use of technology to support and control employees.