Discusses the purchase and installation of automated cutting equipment in a medium-sized furniture factory. The equipment has so far failed to cut costs as expected and the management is attempting to discover what the problems are and what can be done to remedy them.
Describes Allied's cooperative approach to government relations and the approach of some of the regulatory agencies Allied deals with. Based mainly on quotes from Allied and government officials. Asks the student to evaluate Allied's government relations--in general and in the light of three product decisions.
Describes the structure of the chain saw industry in 1974, when it is on the threshold of a major period of growth. Data are provided on each significant competitor. The discussion should center around strategies in a growing market for differently situated competitors.
The hospital is reviewing its obstetrical services and trying to decide on future strategy relative to communications, pricing and service characteristics. Important environmental trends include increasing government health regulation, a declining birth rate, more intensive competition, and changing expectations of maternity care by women. Nine pages of exhibits include market trends, competitive profiles, and cost and occupancy data.
The process-product matrix can be used to explain company failures due to lack of coordination and focus on marketing and manufacturing functions. More importantly, however, it provides a framework for describing alternate business strategies. The matrix provides insight for planning product and process changes, coordinating marketing and manufacturing goals and functions, and avoiding internal problems brought about by evolving markets and technologies.
Citibank overhauled its service areas with a minicomputer and processing models copied from the manufacturing industry. However, this system was insufficient to provide personalized customer services. By decentralizing their system and reorganizing along market segments, the bank created National, World, and Industrial groups. The reorganization provides opportunities for advancement, better accountability of individual performance, and greater efficiency which markedly improves morale.
Policy-making executives can take steps to manage growing data processing resources by analyzing the stages of growth in a company's DP function in terms of six projected stages of growth. In 1977, half of the nation's larger companies were found to be in stage three or four. Levels of achievement can be measured against benchmarks, which, in the first stage of analysis, involve assessment of the data processing expenditure curve. Stage two of this analysis involves defining business functions for the organization unit, determining how data processing supports each function, matching the supports given to the system with the benchmarks of development, and finding mismatches between expenditure and need. After developing an effective strategy, the action of the senior management steering committee determines further managerial development.
General managers and chief executive officers generally determine the information they need through four basic approaches: the by-product technique, the null approach, the key indicator system, and the total study process. A new approach, the Critical Success Factors (CFS) Method, focuses on individual managers and on each manager's current hard and soft information needs. The four prime sources of critical success factors are the structure of the particular industry; the competitive strategy, industry position, and geographic location; environmental factors; and temporal factors. The CFS method is useful at each level of general management.
Examines the interrelationship between the maximization of the share value of a firm's common stock and the minimization of the firm's weighted average cost of capital. Presents a revised version of a case by J.W. Mullins, Jr.
The record-keeping, internal controls, and antibribery provisions of the Act provide the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) increased leverage to investigate and prosecute directly the various illegal activities of its registered companies. Enforcement and penalties incurred by violation include injuction by a federal court, imprisonment, fines and a special penalty of one million dollars maximum fine for foreign bribery prohibited by the act.
A survey, covering 25 years, shows that employees are increasingly dissatisfied with pay, supervision, and by lack of equitable treatment. Managers exhibit far greater satisfaction with working conditions than hourly employees do, which shows that a "hierarchy gap" exists. Most employees agree that their companies are declining as desirable places to work and that favorable pay fails to offset growing discontent. They say chances for advancement are poor and that improvement is unlikely.
Focusing on the manufacturing process gives a new dimension to strategy. The "process life cycle," related but distinct from the product life cycle, facilitates the understanding of strategic options available. Most companies occupy a particular region on a natural, diagonal matrix of the stages of the product life cycle and the choices of production process for that product. A company may seek competitive advantage off the diagonal, but should understand the implications of each move.
A survey of 1,250 executives reveals two-thirds of the respondents have had a mentor. Mentor relationships have become more common in business during the last twenty years. These relationships are most likely to occur during the first fifteen years of an executive's career and can develop into enduring friendships, in spite of the competitiveness of the working world. Executives who have had a mentor are on the average better educated, receive higher compensation and express greater satisfaction with their work than their peers who have not had a mentor.
Two young Canadian women have to deal with the threat of strike in a model factory started up in a rural African village. Cross cultural management problems arise as these two women with different management styles attempt to combine rural African norms, roles and expectations to the task of producing school uniforms in an industrial setting. A strike is threatened over a pay dispute, a result of differing perceptions and expectations in the work environment. A sequel to this case, Botswana Uniform Agency (PTY) (B), case 9A79C021, offers further insight.
The managers call a meeting of all staff as a strike is threatened over a pay dispute in this rural African company. They learn that the real issue is the disparity between the pay of some workers. This is the sequel to Botswana Uniform Agency (PTY) Limited (A), case 9A79C020.