Prepared originally for new instructors in a first-year marketing course. While certain references are to cases in marketing, the note has applicability to case method teaching generally.
Details an instructor's attempt to motivate his section to raise its classroom performance standards. Outlines the situation when the section was performing well, the decline in standards, the action the professor took to revise the situation, and the final outcome.
Provides students with an in-depth understanding of the channel decision from the manufacturer's point of view. The two issues addressed in the note are selection of channel design and channel management.
The prevalent hiring tenets for salespeople are myths. A survey of 18,000 individuals and a control group of equal size shows that age, sex, race, experience, and educational criteria are irrelevant in deciding who will make the best salespeople. What is significant is matching a candidate's personality dynamics with the job. The survey indicates that the job-matching approach is far superior to standard ways of hiring.
A study of 64 U.S. manufacturing companies indicates that achieving the lowest delivered cost and/or highest differentiated position was the most successful corporate strategy in the 1970s. Inflationary pressures and foreign competition had a negative effect on the profitability and sales growth levels of eight basic manufacturing industries. Analysis of various companies within these eight industries reveals that some companies were still highly successful. These companies had clear, long-term objectives. They invested heavily in modern, automated production technologies and in marketing and distributing their products. Diversification was a less effective way of dealing with hostile market forces.
Freemark Abbey must decide whether to harvest in view of the possibility of rain. Rain could damage the crop but delaying the harvest would be risky. On the other hand, rain could be beneficial and greatly increase the value of the resulting wine. This decision is further complicated by the fact that ripe Riesling grapes can be vinified in two ways, resulting in two different styles of wine. Their relative prices would depend on the uncertain preference of consumers two years later, when the wine is bottled and sold.
A three-man skylab crew, after repeatedly unsuccessful attempts to influence Houston Mission Control to slow down the work pace, turns off radio communication and refuses to talk. Questions for the class: What leads up to this break? How does one repair it?
A four-phase model of multinational corporate planning proves useful for evaluating and improving corporate planning systems. Advances in explicit formulation of issues and alternatives, quality of preparatory staffwork, participation and guidance by top management, and effectiveness of implementation mark each phase.
Those responsible for selecting leaders may use these 20 dimensions of personality to evaluate candidate's behavior. A psychologist's experience offers a list of personality dimensions and a scale of characteristics with which to measure behavior. The 20 dimensions are classified into three groups according to psychological themes: thinking; feelings and interrelationships; and outward behavior and characteristics.
Venturing is serious business, requiring skill, patience, and entrepreneurial flair. Most new ventures involve entering unfamiliar markets, employing unfamiliar technology, and implementing an unfamiliar organizational structure. An approach of particular promise is the new-style joint venture, in which a small company with vigor, flexibility, and advanced technology joins forces with a large company with capital, marketing strength, and distribution channels. The most intensive corporate involvement occurs in the internal venture, in which a company sets up a separate entity within itself in order to enter new markets or to develop entirely new products.
The management of Boston's historic Parker House, owned by Dunfey Hotels, has received a request from a tour wholesaler to book a large number of rooms at the hotel during summer and fall 1980. This booking is tied to bookings at two other Dunfey hotels that need this business. Parker House management would prefer to cultivate more lucrative individual and corporate business, which they see as more in tune with the hotel's carefully developed market position. What should they do? Dunfey's detailed segmentation strategy is central to discussion of this case. Five pages of exhibits include financial data on the Parker House and details of requested reservations and space availability.
Discusses the role of market research in a product manager's decision process. Traces the development of market research information for the introduction of a new product, and presents a manager's dilemma of receiving market data that are inconsistent with expectations and plans. How should the product manager merge this information with the decision?
Deals with the problems of developing indigenous personnel to take over expatriate positions. Human relations cases, they deal specifically with the problems of communications and misunderstandings between people of different cultures. A rewritten version of three earlier cases.