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A new production supervisor at an automobile engine plant has encountered his first challenging task. The production supervisor must find a way to diffuse the tension between his team leader and other machine operators on the line. The team leader, the hardest worker among the group, was repeatedly criticized for over-exerting himself in many areas of the line. The workers feared that their jobs would be in jeopardy if workaholics like the team leader started undertaking multiple tasks. In addition, the workers began to feel that they were receiving unequal treatment from the production supervisor as the team leader was given special permission to break team norms. As the morale of the group continued to deteriorate, the production supervisor wanted to confront the team leader about this unique quandary. The production supervisor needed to figure out a solution to best please the team leader and the entire group.

Rabobank decides to focus primarily on food and agriculture firms and farms on a global basis.

As his major-league pitching career was starting to wind down in 2006, baseball all-star Curt Schilling decided to become an entrepreneur. Looking to focus his tenacity and his passion for online role-playing games on a new challenge, he founded an online gaming venture, which later became known as 38 Studios. During the venture's first two years, he built a team of 70 people, including an executive team of business and industry veterans, and learned key lessons about the challenges faced by industry-changing entrepreneurs. Wanting to self-fund the venture initially, and later finding it hard to raise outside money, he put a substantial percentage of his net worth on the line to build 38 Studios. Now he is facing a critical acquisition decision that could either double his problems or help solve them.

How should the co-founders of an organization that provides patient sign-in and billing services scale their company after five years of successfully targeting small private physician practices? Phreesia had deployed a direct mail and sales force strategy that resulted in more than 10 million patient check-ins across 2,400 practices by its fifth year, but co-founder and CEO Chaim Indig knew that the company's venture funding was drying up and its Board was expecting new growth initiatives. Should Phreesia stick to its core competencies in the small practice or market, or should the company expand its services to urgent care centers, payers, and hospitals? Will its ad-based revenue model continue to thrive, or should the company proactively decrease its revenue concentration by shifting resources toward monthly subscription fees and claims processing? Perhaps Phreesia should simply lean into its original strategy and avoid the pitfalls of scaling a venture after a successful startup phase.

An entrepreneur must decide whether to proceed with the business plan for his startup business. This mini case exercise presents all startup costs to open a fruit juice outlet in a mall in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi Emirate, United Arab Emirates.

Appropriate for marketing and operations management courses. The director of CS at a customer-focused catalog electronics company has asked a Six Sigma Black Belt for assistance in evaluating several ideas to effectively obtain and analyze feedback from users of its CS department. A Design For Six Sigma project was run six years previously and discovering why the company used the Six Sigma project, as opposed to one of the many new customer-satisfaction-survey tools available from third-party vendors is a goal. Students are asked to discuss the Design For Six Sigma methodology as it applies to the project.

This case is comprised of three concise vignettes describing three different online commerce sites: eBay, StubHub, and Swaptree. All three have become viable companies very quickly. From their experiences, lessons can be learned about making a market. This case can be used for students to compare and contrast the three different systems as well as analyze who the beneficiaries are of the new markets these companies have created. This case is included in Module 1 of the course Business Thought & Action.

This case has been developed to highlight the challenge facing many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) all over the world. Many SMEs have successfully overcome the initial survival challenge. They have a stable base of loyal customers, are able to command attractive prices, and have built up a reputation for good quality. Yet they are unable to grow beyond a certain point. Why? What must they do to overcome the growth challenge? Swagruha Foods is a good example of an SME that has enjoyed considerable success, thanks to the dedication and commitment of the Chagarlamudi family, as well as to the changing socio-economic situation in India. Yet, there are several indications that it is unable to fully exploit its growth opportunities. The case discussion will help students/participants appreciate the key growth constraints in SMEs and how to overcome them. This case can be taught in an entrepreneurship course, to highlight the growth challenges faced by entrepreneurs who have successfully overcome the threat of survival. It can also be taught in courses focused on SME development.

The case opens with Dave Hersh, CEO of Jive Software, calling an all-hands meeting. After a record revenue year in 2007, Jive grew its sales force too quickly and missed its third quarter plan for 2008. Hersh was forced to conduct a massive lay-off, during which 20 percent of the workforce was let go. The company is facing increasing competitive pressure and a difficult economic environment, as well as a venture partner that is growing frustrated.

The case opens with a brief overview of the successful past of the soccer club FC Bayern. It introduces the major members of its leadership team, gives an insight into their aspirations for the European Champions League, and illustrates the club's indispensable demand for short-term success. It continues describing the many changes that Klinsmann introduced to the club and team leading to Klinsmann's dismissal and the club management's return to the exact same philosophies that were valid before Klinsmann's arrival.

CEO Michael Mendes has transformed a grower-owned cooperative into a publicly traded top marketer of snack foods. Diamond's organization, culture, product development process, advertising and promotion strategy, and specifically its marketing department have been built "from the ground up" to address fundamental changes in retail structure and consumer behavior. Can the Diamond model be successfully applied to other food categories?

The case illustrates the role of performance measurement and analytics in translating TD-Canada Trust's service model of "comfortable banking" into operational terms. In 2000, in a banking market where consumers and regulators were typically hostile to mergers and acquisitions, Canada's fifth largest commercial bank, Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Bank), undertook a merger with a relatively small trust company, Canada Trust, which was known for exceptional customer service. To assuage the concerns of regulators, consumer groups, and newly acquired customers, TD Bank made several public pronouncements promising to maintain Canada Trust's high customer service standards and to deliver a "comfortable banking" experience. Chris Armstrong, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, was now faced with the task of defining the comfortable banking model and consistently delivering on these promises. Armstrong and his team undertake a systematic analysis of the drivers of customer satisfaction and branch network profitability and, based on the results, must decide how to change TD-Canada Trust's branch compensation and performance reporting systems to consistently, and profitably, deliver a "comfortable banking" experience.

A manager of Student Services at a small college was very concerned about the delays and costs of processing student registrations during the annual orientation week. She glanced at recently collected data on processing times for the six major steps that the registration process required. She wondered how the process might be improved while balancing budgetary pressures to reduce costs.

Engro Chemicals Pakistan Limited (Engro) was a very large manufacturer and marketer of fertilizer in Pakistan. It had a number of subsidiaries and joint ventures in a variety of businesses. The company was listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) and was among the top companies as ranked by the KSE. In August 2007, the company's head office was completely destroyed by a fire. The office was located in Karachi and the fire destroyed all the equipment as well as the hardcopies of the accounting records. The company was suddenly faced with a catastrophic loss as the records were critical to Engro's day to day operations. The information technology (IT) department had developed a disaster recovery plan (DRP) in 2005 that was exclusively related to reestablishing the IT facilities after any event that could make the business systems inoperable. The company invoked the DRP as soon as the news of the complete destruction of the office facilities was received. The IT and finance staff had to use the backup equipment and data files to restart the transaction processing.The case includes a description of various business systems used by Engro and the data security processes that had enabled the company to restore the accounting and other systems needed at its head office. The main teaching objective is to focus on minimizing the business risks arising due to the destruction of the IT facilities. The case also has details of the DRP, which can be analysed as to its contents, and details of the management processes of Engro, which allows for a discussion on corporate governance within the company.

Mozilla launched its Firefox web browser in November 2004, when Microsoft's Internet Explorer had a market share of over 90 percent, and was giving its browser away. Five years later, Firefox had a 25 percent share, and more than 300 million people were using the browser. Firefox, and other Mozilla products, were open source programs. A small Mozilla staff worked with tens of thousands of volunteers to develop, test, debug, and promote its software. This case study discusses ways that Mozilla developed and cultivated its community of volunteers, motivated them, and channeled their passion.

"GPS-to-GO is a successful company that has a wealth of brilliant researchers and scientists who have created advanced global positioning systems (GPSs) for complex air-traffic control and logistics systems. Now, the vision of one of the up and coming managers is to use GPS-to-GO's knowledge to dominate the consumer market with premium-priced and feature-rich GPS units. Even though GPS-to-GO is far ahead in terms of GPS technology, the consumer market demands low-cost units and yearly follow-on products, which requires drastically different skills than GPS-to-GO's typical five- to 10-year cost-plus government projects. One of the managers is tasked with how to meet the cost target and market window for the new product, while working with the same engineering group that caused the unit manufacturing problem and launch delays in the first place. The key issues concern 1) engineering-centric companies and their culture, business strategies and processes for managing new product development 2) the implications these strategies and processes have on addressing the needs of customers, shareholders and employees in a totally new market segment 3) the role managers can play in making critical decisions with a keen eye on roadblocks to success, such as culture, inadequate skills and overly optimistic and myopic visionaries. The case includes an Excel spreadsheet with break-even scenarios that professors can use to complement the teaching note. The case is intended for courses in managing new product commercialization, managing technology and innovation, strategic thinking, operations management and leadership."

One of the most basic revenue management problems is how to allocate a fixed capacity to various types of classes of customers so that the total profit is maximized. Using the example of a flight traveling from Toronto to Vancouver, the revenue management problem is to decide, in each period, how much of the realized demand to accept and how much to reserve for the latter classes in order maximize the revenue. The crux of the problem revolves around the trade-off between spoilage and dilution. The author uses various mathematical formulae (including the static model, Littlewood's Two-Class model and n-Class model of expected marginal seat revenue) to model optimal seat-allocation outcomes.

Describes the development of the global strategies and organizations of two major competitors in the consumer electronics industry. Over four decades, both companies adapt their strategic intent and organizational capability to match and counter the competitive advantage of the other. The case shows how each is faced to restructure as its competitive advantage erodes.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 910410.

The case illustrates a sports betting product offered by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission. The particular game involved has odds that favour the bettor over the game provider under certain settings. The supplement B case, product 9B09E015, summarizes the results from a series of bets made and provides an email response from the game provider following the discontinuation of this particular game. The case provides an interesting introduction into probability or simulation and expected value calculations.