Describes the challenge of creating, communicating, and committing to a "vision" for an organization. Visions are characterized as a critical building block for stimulating a successful major change in an organization. Considers characteristics of a good vision, an effective visionary, and a process for giving commitment to a vision.
Banc One Corp., an innovative and financially successful super-regional bank holding company, has a track record of upgrading performance of acquisitions while retaining previous management--doing better with the same people. In June 1989 Banc One made its first acquisition out of its home base region by purchasing McCorp's insolvent Bridge Bank in Texas, with assets almost half that of the entire Banc One system. Banc One is now much larger and operating on new territory at a time when its decentralized operating philosophy is already strained by growth and innovation. Chairman John B. McCoy, who describes himself as "chief personnel officer," has been active as a general manager in developing and upgrading people through a variety of means. What should he do to meet the performance challenges of the future?
Explores how a cost system can help support a firm's decision to change strategies. In the process, students are exposed to a simple activity-based cost system. Also examines Siemens policy for transferring products between sales and manufacturing divisions. Transfer pricing is based on standard costs generated from their cost system. The case is unique in that the organizational linkage between the product costing system and the transfer pricing system is explored.
Describes 15 years of change at Navistar. Highlights changes in strategy, name, products, services, size, human resources policies, and programs. Underscores the brisk pace and scope of changes. Students are asked to categorize the types of change, evaluate them, and consider how well Navistar is positioned to deal with future change challenges.
Traces the career development of People Express founder Don Burr. Shows how an individual's evolving set of needs and values influences career choices and how each successive working environment meets these needs or spurs the individual to move on. Concludes as Burr is faced with the difficult choice of what he is going to do after the sale of People Express.
Explains the concept of a family of performance curves. The most well known is the price/performance curve relating the prices of items in a product line to their performance. Also discusses the cost/performance curve and its impact on product positioning, product line length, and technological options. Also introduces a reservation price or value/performance curve. All are considered in the context of competitive behavior.
For over half a century, Caterpillar, Inc. (CAT) had been a world leader in the manufacture of earthmoving and construction machinery. In 1982, just months after it recorded the highest sales and profits in its history, CAT experienced its greatest crisis. Demand fell away, its UAW workers went on strike, and Komatsu began challenging CAT's market position. The company lost almost $1 billion over the next three years. The case focuses on George Schaefer as a general manager and the series of actions he initiated on becoming CEO to restore CAT's position. Details a series of strategic and organizational initiatives that are transforming the company, but also raises some risks and questions Schaefer and the company must face. A rewritten version of an earlier case.
Describes the process of decision making (establish objectives, generate alternatives, and so on) emphasizing the human side of it (using rules of thumb, favoring one's own pet projects) yet demonstrating the role an analytic/quantitative contribution has to make.
Responding to changes in Pepsi-Cola's competitive environment, Roger Enrico, president and CEO of PepsiCo Worldwide Beverages, formed a task force to investigate a possible reorganization of Pepsi's domestic soft drink business. The task force recommends reorganizing along geographic lines. The group has put forth two options: 1) full decentralization or 2) a matrix organization. Students are asked to analyze the options and make their own proposals for carrying out a reorganization. They are also asked to consider other options to deal with Pepsi's problems that don't center on reorganization.
Outlines the steps PepsiCo actually took in reorganizing its domestic soft drink business. Students are asked to analyze the pluses and minuses of the change.
Describes the major challenges associated with managing change. Highlights the focus for change, the different degrees and types of change, when change is to be introduced, what factors enable that introduction, and what reactions change evokes. Underscores the paradoxes and tensions inherent in managing change effectively.
Depreciation policies of Delta Air Lines and Pan Am Corp. are compared and contrasted against a summary of operating data from each airline. Questions with the case require projection of future depreciation on a new aircraft using the policies of each company.
Describes the role of state lotteries, lottery marketing, and the operation of the Massachusetts State Lottery, including reference to Massachusetts lottery advertising. Highlights the success of state lotteries while also noting growing criticism, particularly of their advertising. Teaching objectives: To consider 1) truth in advertising, 2) the ethics of marketing gambling, and 3) the marketing/public policy interface.
Traces the career development of a well-known British entrepreneur who, as a young girl, was forced to flee the Nazi's occupation of Central Europe. Details her early work experiences in the heavily male dominated workplace of post-war Britain and follows the development of her highly successful career as founder and chairman of F International, a software consulting company that employs primarily young mothers working from their homes. Clearly illustrates the evolution of an entrepreneur's career and the struggles involved in balancing family concerns with high pressure work life.
Business ethics is a challenge with three parts: 1) developing managers as moral individuals; 2) building an environment in which standards and values are central to the company's strategy, just as economic purpose is; and 3) formulating and implementing policies that support ethical performance--as well as safeguards to assure they are observed. The essence of management responsibility is to make decisions when there are no clear choices or absolute answers.
When conflict arises between the tenets of competitive analysis and those of financial analysis, it's not the theory at fault but the practice. Good project evaluation considers all relevant factors, including hard-to-quantify costs and benefits. It takes into account the consequences of not investing and also recognizes the value of opening up options. Finally, it doesn't undervalue projects by arbitrarily restructuring the time horizon or setting discount rates too high, and it considers separately investments that may be proposed together.
Senior management's expectations before launching a particular product program directly affects whether they see the product as performing well or poorly. Optimism and enthusiasm are essential for making any project work, but being realistic is important too. Therefore, program and brand managers should not overpromise their marketing plans to senior management. For their part, senior managers should ask marketing subordinates to make confidence levels explicit. To ensure this, management can link bonuses to the accuracy of marketing forecasts.
The publicly held corporation has outlived its usefulness in many sectors of the economy. New organizations are emerging. Takeovers, leveraged buyouts, and other going-private transactions are manifestations of the change. A central source of waste in the public corporation is the conflict between owners and managers over free cash flow. This conflict helps explain the prominent role of debt in the new organizations. The new organizations' resolution of the conflict explains how they can motivate people and manage resources more effectively than public corporations. McKinsey Award Winner.
Many proponents of just-in-time manufacturing see MRP II systems as a thing of the past, believing that true JIT leaves control of production to computerless systems such as kanban. Many MRP II advocates fear that computer automation is under attack and perceive kanban as a replay of older systems. Advanced manufacturing companies do best with hybrid systems, both kanban and MRP. Managers must ask basic questions of manufacturing strategy to get the best mix.