Analyzes the major home appliance industry in the U.S. in 1984 and gives a profile of the key competitors. May be used with Major Home Appliance Industry in 1988 and Maytag in 1984.
Signode Industries' packaging division manufactures steel and plastic strapping. In 1981 the company underwent the largest leveraged buyout in U.S. corporate history. The case focuses on the packaging division's need to maintain high profitability in a declining market for steel strapping. Since 1974, Signode has been losing 1% per year of the steel strapping market. Since then, there has also been significant erosion of prices. The division president is faced with 1) decreasing price to increase market share, or 2) maintain/increase prices to increase cash flow. The specific decision revolves around the potential adoption of a price-flex system that is designed to authorize selective discounting by the division's sales personnel.
Describes whether the company adopts the price-flex policy discussed in the (A) case. Price increase in steel strapping raw materials is rescinded by steel industry.
This game is a highly structured exercise in labor-management bargaining. If union and management cannot reach agreement within two days, then the union will strike. The costs of a strike are not the same for the two sides. Similarly, the cost of a settlement to management differs from its benefits to the union. Union and management players frequently feel that they are more powerful, hold out, endure a strike, and do poorly relative to other players.
Even as the notion of strategic planning has come to dominate business education and practice in the United States, manufacturing companies in this country often miss goals and lag behind foreign competitors. Under certain circumstances, the problem lies with the logic shaping the strategic planning process: establish ends, develop ways to attain them, and assemble the necessary means. A reverse logic--means-way-ends--may be more appropriate in a changing environment. A company can develop broad capabilities (means) and match these with technological and market opportunities as they arise (ways). A shared vision of what the company can become rather than a set of directions or controls provides the guiding force for such an organization.
Marketing has long emphasized the importance of being close to the customer. A research project that explored long-term relationships between industrial customers and their suppliers led to questions about how realistic this goal is and revealed other issues regarding patterns of customer-vendor behavior. Discussed here are the concepts of relationship marketing and transaction marketing and how customers' purchasing behaviors call for one or the other approach. To build and maintain lasting customer ties, and to outperform competitors, marketers will profit from careful and explicit consideration of their customer relationships.
Research on 38 entrepreneurs from a wide range of industries reveals them as achievement oriented, liking to take responsibility for decisions, and disliking repetitious work. Entrepreneurs tend to be visionary, creative, and have high levels of energy. The industries and jobs they create stimulate the economy. But their strong personality traits can make them difficult people to work with. Difficult characteristics include: a need for control, a sense of distrust, desire for applause, and particular defenses.
When introducing a new technology to their company, implementation managers must bridge the gap between the designers and the users of the innovation, and make the transition as smooth as possible. This task is especially difficult when they are met with employee ambivalence and resistance. Moreover, those employees who enthusiastically accept the innovation may not be regarded as leaders in the company. Implementation managers, then, must learn to see themselves as internal marketers, guiding the innovation from the laboratory to the workplace and meeting both developer and user needs, while preparing the organization to receive the technology.
Decision scenarios structure the future into predetermined and uncertain elements and aim to transform the thinking of managers during times of change and uncertainty. In the aftermath of the 1973-74 oil shock and in the midst of a serious recession, for example, managers at Royal Dutch/Shell turned their attention to the short term. Planners responded to their concerns in 1975 by analyzing the predetermined elements of change and developing two medium-term scenarios. By presenting managers with alternative ways of seeing the world, decision scenarios enable them to anticipate and understand risk and to discover new strategic options.
Describes the background to the recent agreement between Campbell Soup Co. growers and Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) settling a seven year dispute and boycott. This agreement serves as a possible model for resolving farm labor disputes and may provide a basis for legislation to regulate the two and a half million farmworkers in the United States.
The Heinz Ketchup product manager discovers she does not have sufficient finished inventory and production capacity to meet trade demand for a new plastic bottle ketchup. Alternatives include cancelling promotion events and putting the trade on allocation.
Describes the thought process an entrepreneur should undergo before committing to a course of action. Covers understanding the opportunity--assessing the critical skills, resources, relationships, and approvals--developing an action plan; forming a business entity; controlling the venture; harvesting the venture; and then a brief summary. Provides a useful framework to be used by entrepreneurs starting their own venture.
Population Services International (PSI) was a not-for-profit agency founded to disseminate family planning information and to market birth control products, primarily in less developed countries seeking to curb their population explosions. In 1976, PSI concluded an agreement with the government of Bangladesh to conduct a social marketing program, with the objective of using modern marketing techniques to sell subsidized contraceptives through commercial outlets. Seven years later, three PSI managers were meeting at PSI's Washington, D.C. headquarters to discuss 1984-86 marketing strategy for two products: Raja condoms and Maya birth control pills. Of particular concern was the fact that the marketing approach that had proven extremely successful for Raja was yielding poor sales results for Maya. The PSI managers needed to devise an action plan for improving Maya Sales.
Describes two different approaches to the process of action planning and implementation. Offers specific advice for action planning and for learning how to action plan.