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In 1993, Quaker Oats paid $1.7 billion for the rapidly growing Snapple brand. In 1997, it sold the brand to Triarc for a mere $300 million. In 2000, Triarc sold it to Cadbury Schweppes for an estimated $1 billion. How could so much value be lost and regained so quickly? John Deighton's answer to these questions is one that many marketing professionals are likely to resist: There is a vital interplay, he says, between the challenges that a brand faces and the culture of the corporation that owns it. Quaker's textbook marketing approach backfired, whereas Triarc's revival of Snapple's original anything-goes attitude worked. Success in brand management stems from the quality of strategy execution, and successful execution is a matter of temperament. Some strategies are best entrusted to managers with cautious, prudent temperaments; others flourish in the hands of risk takers. So before you commit to a deal, don't just consider a brand's sales. Also give some thought to its soul and how it fits with yours.

An employee is diagnosed with cancer or loses a family member unexpectedly. An earthquake destroys an entire section of a city, leaving hundreds dead, injured, or homeless. At times like these, managerial handbooks fail us. After all, leaders can't eliminate personal suffering, nor can they ask employees who are dealing with these crises to check their emotions at the door. But compassionate leadership can facilitate personal as well as organizational healing. Based on research the authors conducted at the University of Michigan and the University of British Columbia's CompassionLab, this article describes what leaders can do to foster organizational compassion in times of trauma. They recount real-world examples, including a story of personal tragedy at Newsweek, natural disasters that affected Macy's and Malden Mills, and the events of September 11, 2001. The authors say compassionate leaders uniformly provide two things: a "context for meaning"--creating an environment in which people can freely express and discuss how they feel--and a "context for action"--creating an environment in which those who experience or witness pain can find ways to alleviate their own and others' suffering.

Once a business performs a complex activity well, the parent organization often wants to replicate that success. But doing that is surprisingly difficult, and businesses nearly always fail when they try to reproduce a best practice. The reason? People approaching best-practice replication are overly optimistic and overconfident. Getting it right the second time (and all the times after that) involves adjusting for overconfidence in your own abilities and imposing strict discipline on the process and the organization. The authors studied numerous business settings to find out how organizational routines were successfully reproduced, and they identified five steps for successful replication. First, make sure you've got something that can be copied and that's worth copying. Second, work from a single template. It provides proof of success, performance measurements, a tactical approach, and a reference for when problems arise. Third, copy the example exactly, and fourth, make changes only after you achieve acceptable results. Fifth, don't throw away the template. If your copy doesn't work, you can use the template to identify and solve problems. Best-practice replication, while less glamorous than pure innovation, contributes enormously to the bottom line of most companies. The article's examples--Banc One, Rank Xerox, Intel, Starbucks, and Re/Max Israel--prove that exact copying is a nontrivial, challenging accomplishment.

When Robert Herbold came to Microsoft from Procter & Gamble in 1994, he saw firsthand why Bill Gates had hired him as chief operating officer: Although certain practices promoted the company's innovative culture and ability to turn on a dime, others created chaos rather than creativity and actually impeded quick course corrections. The operational mess resulted from divergent practices and incompatible systems. Herbold's mission was to bring discipline to the organization without undermining the very characteristics that had made Microsoft successful. Herbold created central systems that gave managers instant access to standardized data on each business and geographical unit. Imposing this operational discipline not only slashed operating costs as a percentage of revenue but, somewhat counterintuitively, also made the company more flexible and more responsive to business changes. The article contains useful lessons for any large company attempting to improve profitability by balancing centralized discipline and individual innovation.

It's a big driver of business success, but one that executives are loath to talk about: upgrading the management talent pool by weeding out "C" players--those who deliver results that are acceptable but who fail to innovate or inspire the people they lead. In this article, the authors of The War for Talent explore the hidden costs of tolerating underperformance and acknowledge the reasons why executives may shy away from dealing decisively with C players. They recommend that organizations establish rigorous, disciplined processes for assessing and dealing with low-performing managers but still treat them with respect. The authors outline three ironhanded step for executives to take. First, identify C players by evaluating their talents and distributing employee performances along an assessment curve. Second, agree on explicit action plans that articulate the improvements or changes that C performers must achieve within 6 to 12 months. And third, hold managers accountable for carrying out the action plans. The authors also emphasize the need for executives to ensure that low performers are treated with dignity--offer candid feedback, instructive coaching, and generous severance packages and outplacement support. The authors' approach isn't about being tough on people; it's about being relentlessly focused on performance.

It's difficult to find a company these days that doesn't strive to be customer driven. Too bad, then, that most companies go about the process of listening to customers all wrong. What usually happens is this: Companies ask their customers what they want. Customers offer solutions in the form of products or services. Companies then deliver these tangibles, and customers just don't buy. The reason is simple--customers aren't expert or informed enough to come up with solutions. That's what your R&D team is for. Rather, customers should be asked only for outcomes--what they want a new product or service to do for them. The form the solutions take should be up to you. Using Cordis Corp. as an example, this article describes a series of effective steps for capturing, analyzing, and utilizing customer input. First come in-depth interviews, in which a moderator works with customers to deconstruct a process or activity to unearth "desired outcomes." Researchers then compile a comprehensive list of outcomes that participants rank in order of importance and degree to which they are satisfied by existing products. Finally, using a simple mathematical formula called the "opportunity calculation," researchers can learn the relative attractiveness of key opportunity areas. These data can be used to uncover opportunities for product development, to segment markets properly, and to conduct competitive analysis.

When you think of marketing, chances are your mind goes right to your customers--how can you persuade more people to buy whatever it is you sell? But there's another "market" that's equally important: your employees. Author Colin Mitchell argues that executives by and large ignore this critical internal audience when developing and executing branding campaigns. As a result, employees end up undermining the expectations set by the company's advertising--either because they don't understand what the ads have promised or because they don't believe in the brand and feel disengaged or, worse, hostile toward the company. Mitchell offers three principles for executing internal branding campaigns. First, companies need to market to employees at times when the company is experiencing a fundamental challenge or change. Second, companies must link their internal and external marketing campaigns. And, third, internal branding campaigns should bring the brand alive for employees, creating an emotional connection to the company that transcends any one experience. It is a fact of business, writes Mitchell, that if employees do not care about or understand their company's brands, they will ultimately weaken their organizations.

Annette Innella is just coming into the lunchroom at Concord Machines when Bob Dunn starts screaming at her. After throwing his lunch tray against the wall, he stomps out, leaving Annette stunned. Naturally, Annette, the new senior VP for knowledge management, is beside herself. She knows her proposal to establish a cross-functional knowledge management committee is progressive thinking for this old-line manufacturer, but Bob's reaction is totally over the line. If Bob stays, she goes--that's all there is to it. Bob is contrite, but he's under a lot of pressure. The general manager of the Services Group, he's just returned from a two-week trip around the globe to gear up his troops to beat revenue targets again, despite shrinking budgets and hiring freezes. Now an e-mail from Annette requests that two of his best people devote half their time to what he calls her "idiotic" Knowledge Protocols Group. CEO Jay Nguyen is in a bind. Bob is his top manager--he brings in all the money. And even though future revenues are going to have to come from somewhere else, Jay is not totally behind Annette's initiative in the current business climate. He can't afford to lose Bob. But if he reins in Annette, it will look like he's condoning Bob's outburst. What should he do? In R0201A and R0201Z, four commentators offer advice on this fictional case study.

Annette Innella is just coming into the lunchroom at Concord Machines when Bob Dunn starts screaming at her. After throwing his lunch tray against the wall, he stomps out, leaving Annette stunned. Naturally, Annette, the new senior VP for knowledge management, is beside herself. She knows her proposal to establish a cross-functional knowledge management committee is progressive thinking for this old-line manufacturer, but Bob's reaction is totally over the line. If Bob stays, she goes--that's all there is to it. Bob is contrite, but he's under a lot of pressure. The general manager of the Services Group, he's just returned from a two-week trip around the globe to gear up his troops to beat revenue targets again, despite shrinking budgets and hiring freezes. Now an e-mail from Annette requests that two of his best people devote half their time to what he calls her "idiotic" Knowledge Protocols Group. CEO Jay Nguyen is in a bind. Bob is his top manager--he brings in all the money. And even though future revenues are going to have to come from somewhere else, Jay is not totally behind Annette's initiative in the current business climate. He can't afford to lose Bob. But if he reins in Annette, it will look like he's condoning Bob's outburst. What should he do? In R0201A and R0201Z, four commentators offer advice on this fictional case study.

Charles Grace and Jerome Hicks were seated beside each other at a meeting the president of Chase Manhattan Bank Delaware had called. Hicks and Grace were financial associates at Chase Manhattan and members of the Urban Bankers Coalition. As they listened to the president's speech they were staggered to hear him say, "...we need more people to become involved in our community enhancement programs-dedicated employees like Jerome Hicks and Charles Grace who helped Chase Manhattan be named bank of the year for two years straight." His sentence lay like an unexploded bomb between Hicks and Grace. They were aware that all eyes had turned towards them. They had already sensed that some of their colleagues and superiors were uncomfortable with the relationship they had developed with the president. Why did they feel like this would be the last step over the edge???This case opens the door to discuss relationship building and special challenges those in the minority face in building relationships.

This note is an introduction to the first-year course Management Communication: Module Four. See also "A Note on Management Communication: Module One" (UV0925), "A Note on Management Communication: Module Two" (UV0926), and "A Note on Management Communication: Module Three" (UV0927).

In this disguised case, newly appointed Vice President for Corporate Communication Andrea Tilman must choose among different strategies to align corporate philanthropy programs with long-term corporate philosophy and business strategy at the U.S. subsidiary of a Japanese multinational corporation. The guiding corporate philosophy is the principle of kyosei, or "living and working together for the common good." In selecting the strategy, Tilman must consider factors such as the company as a whole, straightforward measurement of results, budget size, and how and to whom she should communicate the new program once it was implemented. This case illustrates the key strategic role of corporate communication and philanthropy in enacting social responsibility. The topic leads to spirited discussions about the value of corporate philanthropy and whether it is in the shareholders' financial interest.

Case B describes the aftermath of Ben & Jerry's being acquired by Unilever. While there was public sadness and dismay over the socially responsible company appearing to "sell out," Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield tried to put it in the best possible light: "Under this new arrangement, Ben and Jerry's will be independently operated, our values will continue and we hope our efforts to make positive change will even expand. Unilever has contractually agreed to increasing socially beneficial activities as a percentage of sales every year. Ben and Jerry's will be doing more good than it does today."

General Motors (US) and Avto VAZ (Russia) are, in the spring of 2001, in the final stages of forming a joint venture (JV) for the manufacture of a new automobile in Russia, the Chevy Niva. The car would be largely the result of Russian engineering and construction with limited GM input and the GM Chevrolet badge. The JV, if completed, would represent a $300 million combined investment by the parties and be a totally new approach used by Western investors in penetrating emerging markets. .

Autostrada Wielkopolska S.A. (AWSA) is a consortium of 18 firms that won a concession to build and operate Poland's first private toll road. In June 2000, AWSA's chief financial officer, Wojciech Gebicki, is preparing for a meeting with the projects' lead bankers to discuss concerns they have regarding the traffic forecasts and revenue projections. Based on their concerns, the bankers are asking the sponsors to inject an additional e60 to e90 million of equity into the deal, a sizeable increase given the projects' total cost of e934 million and the sponsor's current equity commitment of e235 million. This request presents a serious problem for Gebicki (AWSA) because the concession is scheduled to expire in six weeks if financing has not closed and because he has very few options available to address the problem. This case describes the deal structure and invites students to accept or dispute Gebicki's view that the major risks have been identified, assessed, and mitigated in such a way that the senior lenders are adequately protected without further equity support.

Designed to show how Cisco has taken its U.S.-based infrastructure and applied it to China. It is stunning in its impact as one notes how so much of what is being done in the United States in terms of the intranet has been transferred to China.

Peter Brabeck wants to focus Nestle as a wellness company in the global food system and do so in a way that provides both growth in sales and margins in both developed and developing countries.

The challenges the largest Chinese electronic commerce company faces many challenges at the end of 2001. This case describes how it has completely reoriented its strategy in the past 12 months to become a B-to-B company. The key question is: Will it work and what should be done now?

Presents a follow-up one year later. Shows how this online steel distributor has now reached breakeven. Focuses on the new challenges for the future.

Supplements the (A) case.