To be successful, senior executives need to cultivate five skills. First, they need to develop a network of information sources in order to keep informed about a wide range of operating decisions being made at different levels in the company. Second, they need to husband their energies and time and concentrate on a limited number of significant issues. Third, they need to cultivate a sensitivity to the power structure in the company. The fourth skill of successful managers is knowing how to indicate that a company has a sense of direction without ever actually committing themselves publicly to a specific set of objectives. The final, most important, skill is that of developing opportunities. The effective senior manager is, in essence, an opportunist who avoids debates but tries to piece together particles that may appear to be incidentals into a program that moves at least part of the way toward his or her objectives. McKinsey Award Winner.
Reviews important concepts related to the marketing mix, and summarizes key relationships within the mix and between the mix and other parts of the company's marketing approach.
In two cases consolidated for decision, the Court articulates the tests to be used when deciding whether an item is income or a gift and therefore, not income. Both cases are colorful. The first involves the unsolicited receipt of a Cadillac. The second involves transfer by the much photographed Trinity Church which sits at the end of Wall Street.
Describes and explains the marketing process and its six phases: implementation, programming, allocating and budgeting, analysis and research, marketing planning, strategy formulation, and monitoring and auditing.
Describes the issues an entrepreneur faces in the process of raising private funds, and the securities laws which impact the process. Based in part on a note by R.E. Floor of the law firm of Goodwin, Procter & Hoar.
Describes the relevant securities laws which pertain to the public offering of securities, as well as the business issues and process of a public offering.
In April 1984 Deborah Raymond, president of Raymond Mushrooms was deciding whether or not to raise prices on Raymond canned mushrooms in conjunction with an advertising promotional program to build consumer preference.
Describes events at Cleveland Twist Drill between April 1982 and February 1983. Jim Bartlett's approach to the union and the implementation of the "move strategy" are described. Students are asked to evaluate these actions and to develop plans for dealing with current problems and with recent overtures from the union president.
Four managers of Hugh Russel, Inc. had to change their management style when the company was acquired by a corporation that had no plan and no money on the eve of a major recession. To deal with the new, unsettled environment in which creditors were banging on the door and plants had to be closed, the managers had to develop a "soft", intuitive framework that offers a counterpart to every element in their traditional "hard", rational model. The executives found that the key to effective management is knowing whether you are in hard "box" or a soft "bubble" context. The soft model is conducive to trust, which generates a sense of mission or common purpose. Once the mission is established, the managing group can enter the hard box of strategy.
The reduction in the cost of information systems has allowed computers to offer significant competitive advantage. This new technology allows companies to redeploy their assets and rethink strategy to produce gains in market share. Interorganizational systems can change the balance of power between the buyer and the supplier. New products of higher quality and custom design can also be generated by IS technology. Management must change the way it operates. The CEO must insist that the end product of IS planning communicate the true competitive impact of the expenditures involved. Managers should ensure the confidentiality of strategic IS plans and thinking. They should not allow use of simplistic rules to calculate IS expense levels. Interorganizational IS systems have repercussions in other parts of the business; managers must encourage creativity in R&D and must not be too efficient in IS resource allocation.
The difficulty of segmenting industrial markets has dissuaded companies from trying, despite the benefits they lose in terms of market analysis and selection. The problem is to identify the most useful variables. One way to do this is to arrange the five general segmentation criteria of demographics, operating variables, customer purchasing approaches, situational factors, and personal buyer characteristics, into a nested hierarchy. The segmentation criteria of the largest, outermost nest are general characteristics about industries and companies. Innermost nests are specific, subtle, and hard-to-assess traits.
Competition in the industrial marketplace is growing steadily more intense. Consequently, managers are beginning to take a close look at the logistics systems of their companies as a means of gaining competitive advantage. A well-designed system can help advance a company's strategic goals - and a poorly designed system can lead a company to disaster.
Explores the problems and opportunities associated with export controls--one of the most widely used tools of international trade policy in the 1970s and early 1980s; and the role of the United States and Soviet Union as major players in the international economy. Briefly reviews examples of government-initiated export controls--their purposes and methods--from the 1930s through 1983.
Loss of a major contract has reduced production volume below the level expected when budget and standard costs were determined. Apparently favorable results for monthly operations result from reduced volume rather than operating efficiency. Rewritten version of a case by the same author.
Discusses the experience of waiting and the factors that affect customers' tolerance for waits. Eight (testable) propositions concerning the psychology of queues are presented, together with specific managerial advice.
Describes systematic methods for process debugging and improvement, based on statistical quality control. Examples are from manufacturing settings, but techniques are also useful for services and sales, and to quantity improvement as well as quality improvement.