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Spreadsheet Supplement for case 299016

An updated version of the classic McKinsey "7-S" Model, this note is designed to help MBA students and practicing managers understand the dynamic relationship among an organization's superordinate goals, strategy, structure, systems, style, staff, skills, and shared values, and provides engaging, contemporary examples at each level of analysis. The note expands the classic model to include a fuller discussion of links among the external situation/stakeholders, internal Ss, and various metrics of organizational success. The note challenges students to provide leadership within their area of influence (e.g., to understand and promote corporate strategies in their business unit, function, or geography); to remedy misaligned aspects of the organization; and to foster change that would help the organization realize its superordinate goals, affirm its shared values, and enhance overall performance.

Supplements the (A) case.

Supplements the (A) case.

Describes a key decision-making process within Microsoft's Office products division. At a time when the PC software business has a great deal of uncertainty, Microsoft's management has to make a key decision regarding the future of software suites. A strengthening of suite development as a common platform would require significant organizational, process, and strategic alignments that may weaken the individual software divisions. Focuses on: 1) software development, with an emphasis on multi-applications suites; 2) different models of product innovation (common platform versus individual elements); 3) managerial challenges in aligning processes and the organization of several independent development units.

An MBA student has received an offer to join Kraft Foods, a leading consumer packaged goods firm. This unit is a wholly owned subsidiary of a holding company whose other major subsidiary is a leading cigarette manufacturer. The case raises ethical issues of marketing.

Amul Dairy has been a successful change maker in India's dairy system. How does it move from this success to the new challenges facing the Indian food system--is it an appropriate model?

Describes how the German automotive firm BMW is trying to reduce its development time by half with the aid of computer-aided technologies. To leverage these technologies fully in the very competitive automotive industry, BMW is faced with the challenge of changing its processes and organization, gradually building new development capabilities. This tension between the old and the new is played out in BMW's design area, which has historically been responsible for much of BMW's strategic product positioning. Focuses on: 1) managing automotive development, with an emphasis on exterior styling; 2) new computer-aided technologies and their potential impact on development performance; and 3) the organizational and process changes required to gradually build a firm's development capability.

Jeanne Lewis, after six years with Staples, Inc., is promoted to senior vice president of marketing. She is to work for fifteen months alongside her predecessor, a legacy in the organization, "learning the ropes" before he moves on. This case is set nine months after she begins working with the marketing department. Staples has just emerged from a period of prolonged litigation around an FTC antitrust suit challenging Staples' attempted merger with Office Depot. Post-merger, Lewis must determine how the marketing department can most effectively and efficiently help the company maintain its competitive edge in an increasingly competitive and complex market. Looks at the challenges a middle manager faces "taking charge" and managing change in a revitalization situation in which a more evolutionary approach is appropriate.

Supplements the (A) case.

Describes an Excel spreadsheet workbook that facilitates the analysis of PsiVest Capital.

Traces the founding and development of Houses for Africa, a firm established to build low-income housing in Zimbabwe. Explores entrepreneurship in an emerging market, the problems that arise when complementary markets do not function well, and the importance of distinguishing transitory opportunities from opportunities to establish first-mover advantage following liberalization.

The merger of Asea AB and BBC Brown Boveri required a restructuring of operations and a change in organizational cultures. Competitive success also necessitated the benefits of scale while remaining "local" for political and customer-responsiveness reasons. The case describes these competitive pressures, which resulted in the decision to adopt a matrix organization. To be used with Asea Brown Boveri: The ABACUS System.

A venture capital/private equity fund is preparing to negotiate with the two parties in a prospective PCS joint venture: the entrepreneur and AT&T Wireless. The negotiation will decide how equity and control are shared in the venture.

Danny Wegman, president of Wegmans Food Markets, is trying to decide how to evaluate the success of a nutrition-counseling program for diabetics, and whether and how to expand the program beyond the two stores currently involved. Wegmans, with 57 stores and $2.3 billion in revenues, implemented the program in conjunction with a local hospital and a disease-management company. Initially intended to stem the erosion of pharmacy margins due to managed care plans, the program filled a genuine social need--diabetes can be inexpensively controlled through diet if caught early. In addition to discussing how the program has been established, the case presents financials for the supermarket industry and Wegmans' competitors. The new role of supermarkets in addressing disease, health, and preventive medical needs is also presented.

This guide, written for students, is intended to help in case preparation and in understanding case learning.

A guide to writing case studies and the accompanying teaching notes for teachers and casewriters. Begins with generating case leads and moves through field interviewing techniques, case drafting, case release, and preparing the teaching note. Also deals with the instructor/casewriter relationship.

An Israeli high-tech start-up has developed an innovative simulator which makes possible non-patient training in medical ultrasound. The marketing function moves to the United States, the largest market, while other functions remain in Israel. The case describes a number of options for further growth.

In this article, authors James Anderson, professor at the Kellogg Graduate School, Northwestern University, and James Narus, associate professor at the Babcock Graduate School, Wake Forest University, illustrate several ways in which suppliers can figure out exactly what their offerings are worth by creating and using what they call customer value models. Field value assessments--the most commonly used method for building customer value models--call for suppliers to gather data about their customers firsthand whenever possible. Through these assessments, a supplier can build a value model for an individual customer or for a market segment, drawing on data gathered from several customers in that segment. Suppliers can use customer value models to create competitive advantage in several ways. First, they can capitalize on the inevitable variation in customers' requirements by providing flexible market offerings. Second, they can use value models to demonstrate how a new product or service they are offering will provide greater value. Third, they can use their knowledge of how their market offerings specifically deliver value to craft persuasive value propositions. And fourth, they can use value models to provide evidence to customers of their accomplishments. Doing business based on value delivered gives companies the means to get an equitable return for their efforts. Once suppliers truly understand value, they will be able to realize the benefits of measuring and monitoring it for their customers.

In New Rules of the New Economy, Kevin Kelly urges companies to rethink their business strategies--to base their decisions on a new set of rules in which networks are everything. Easy electronic communication is indeed altering business strategies in many industries, and Kelly's book provides colorful examples and analysis of the opportunities ahead. But are networks, in fact, everything? In reviewing Kelly's book, economics consultant Peter Bernstein reminds readers that networks have been influencing businesses for centuries. Consider the railroad, which boosted living standards enormously by connecting isolated economies into a worldwide market. The Internet is just one more step in the growing interconnectedness of business, and hardly the most important. Nevertheless, Bernstein agrees that a "new economy" has arrived. Network-based opportunities are just one of several facets of this new orientation, all made possible by the regime of low inflation and intense competition introduced in the 1980s. Paul Volcker and his colleagues at the Federal Reserve gave managers the monetary stability necessary for taking risks. T. Boone Pickens and Michael Milken successfully challenged the old guard of corporate leaders that had been slow to respond to competitive challenges from Europe and Asia. The companies emerging from the turmoil of this period are intensely focused on innovation, competitiveness, risk management, and profitability. Without the environment created by Volcker, Pickens, and Milken, Kelly's highly interconnected economy could not have become the dazzling reality that it is.