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Due to differences in incentive compensation, work experience, and objectives, sales and marketing, in many organizations often clash. At Microsoft Canada, the national sales manager, Home & Entertainment Division and the group product manager for PC marketing are considering investing a recurring $1 million a year - 10 per cent of their combined promotional budget - to produce and maintain a consumer-focused website, "Microsoft Home Magazine." This proposed investment comes at a time where sales growth is slowing in the firm's PC business. As a surprising twist for students, this case is unique in the sense that it highlights an example where sales and marketing work together to achieve a common goal.

The founder and chief executive officer of Global Source Healthcare was struggling with how to allocate sales resources among acquiring new accounts, penetrating existing accounts and up-selling existing accounts. Global Source Healthcare provided domestic and international staffing services to healthcare facilities. The company had been operational for a year and growth had been considerably slower than expected. What made this decision especially important was that the healthcare staffing market was experiencing a substantial downturn. Consolidation was occurring in the industry. Given the limited sales and financial resources of the company, this decision was critical to ensure the very survival of Global Source. Other issues that may be raised include understanding the sales strategy in the business and marketing strategy, motivating a sales force in a difficult, limited-resource environment, and understanding the trade-off between the length of the sales cycle and the size of the potential account.

The president of Mcavan Advertising, a full advertising, marketing and design agency, was trying to decide what to do about a long-term client's request. The client, Floos Inc., had referred the president of Ryl Enterprises to Mcavan Advertising and Mcavan began work on the new account. Later, Floos Inc. claimed that Ryl Enterprises was a competitor of Floos and asked Mcavan not to work further with Ryl. Students have to identify and evaluate Mcavan's various options.

An entrepreneur was contemplating leaving his job at Goldman Sachs to start Global Source Healthcare, a healthcare outsourcing company focused on international nurse recruitment. He had researched the healthcare staffing market extensively, written a business plan and raised some funding. While this appeared to be an excellent opportunity, there were some very real risks that had to be considered. His greatest concern was the limited amount of funding at his disposal. Since international recruitment required a considerable amount of working capital, the lack of funding brought the long-term feasibility of the business into question. Students will learn about screening the business venture in terms of the entrepreneur, the resources and the opportunity; determining the strategic direction of the company and balancing the long-term vision with short-term cash flow needs; assessing different business models to determine which is the best fit for the company; and the importance of executing the business plan and selected strategy.

Representatives of the technology transfer office are preparing a commercialization strategy of a new peptide. The function of the technology transfer office at the University of Western Ontario is to prospect for suitable technologies for commercialization, to manage the patent protection for such inventions, and to identify ways to develop such inventions. Two licensing opportunities are being considered, both of which entail creation of a startup company. The representatives must evaluate options to determine which offers the best potential for the commercialization of the invention for everyone involved.

The case describes the development of a radically new product within a large automobile company. It illustrates the difficulties encountered by the development team, both technically and concerning the organizational conflicts arising due to competition for resources, differing views of strategic priorities, internal resistance and insufficient relationship management with internal and external partners.

A description of the events leading to the collapse of China Aviation Oil under US$550m of derivative trading losses and subsequent attempts to identify the causes and save the company from liquidation via a debt restructuring scheme of arrangement.

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