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Supplements the (A) case.

Rubbermaid, a consumer-products company widely praised for its innovation, has instituted a company-wide experiment to stimulate innovation even further. The experiment consists of creating small cross-functional business teams within each division, with each team being responsible for the creation, management, and profitability of a particular product line. The staffing, reporting structure, and management of the business teams vary across divisions; and clear differences emerge in the performance of four highlighted teams. Specific topics include: options for staffing, structuring, and managing cross-functional business teams; the difficulty of implementing cross-functional teams in a company with a strong functional structure; the difficulty of balancing accountability and empowerment in "entrepreneurial" teams within established firms; and the impact of different management approaches on the functioning of business teams.

Hospital Equipment Corp. is a very successful maker of hospital beds. Due to outstanding performance in new product development, it grew to dominate its primary market and is searching for other opportunities to grow through new product development. It discovers that its internal system for identifying new, high-growth markets actually screens out some exciting growth possibilities.

The general manager of Gillette Singapore faces issues of managing change during the company's global integration with Parker Pen.

Supplements the (A) case.

Supplements the (A) case.

A bank loan officer must determine whether to waive convenants and extend terms on a line of credit granted to SureCut Shears. At issue is whether the inability of SureCut to pay down its line of credit is due to a temporary cyclical downturn or other long-term financial problems.

Provides background information on copper and zinc markets as of mid-1996. Discusses supply and demand conditions, forecasts of the spot prices of the metals, and contracts for future delivery (forwards, futures, and options).

Managers introduce a new performance evaluation system based on sales growth and return-on-investment (ROI). A branch manager wonders whether his new warehouse should be leased to mitigate the impact on ROI. Formulas and performance calculations are provided. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 197082

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 297013

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 297055

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 197082

This case describes the process that entrepreneur Paul Farrow went through to establish his kayak company between 1992 and 1996. After being laid off from a more traditional corporate position, Farrow came across an idea that suited his business skills, experience, and values. The case chronicles the steps he took to be the first in the industry to design and produce an inexpensive, high-performance recreational kayak from recycled plastic materials. Key to Walden Paddlers' $1-million sales in 1995 was the company's ability to forge close alliances with key suppliers and customers while keeping fixed costs down by managing a virtual corporation.

Prior planning prevents poor performance is the moral of this case about predicting bid prices on new personal computer display models based only on past vendors' bids. Students gain respect for a set of 71 data points that might be used to explore the relationships between bid price per unit and the specifications and quantities of previous displays. The case illustrates the importance of understanding the available data and circumstances surrounding its collection before using regression analysis to summarize relationships.

Spreadsheet supplement for case UV6210.

For years, small companies have experimented with forms of open-book management. Open-book systems have smoothed change efforts by giving workers the why instead of just the how of initiatives; they have enabled employees to think like owners. Now divisions of large organizations such as R.R. Donnelley & Sons and Amoco Canada are finding that opening the books can work for them, too. It isn't easy, and companies must adapt the principles to their own situations. AES Corp., for example, found that it had to declare all its employees "insiders" when it went public. One of the reasons for large companies' interest in open-book management is the success of a role-model company, Missouri-based Springfield ReManufacturing. Leaders of divisions of large companies have been able to visit and ask questions. Other early adopters are also showing competitive advantages. Among them are Wabash National, now the nation's leading truck and tractor manufacturer, and Physician Sales & Service, a distributor of supplies to doctors' offices. Hexacomb Corp. is another large organization that has done well.

Shakeouts are a fact of life in almost every industry--witness the shrinking number of players in areas as diverse as banking, software, and hospital supply distribution. The key to survival is sensing your industry's shakeout before the competition does. And the first hurdle for managers to overcome is the belief that it can't happen to them. It can and it probably will. This article outlines how companies can detect the early warning signs of a shakeout. Explains how adaptive survivors, such as Dell Computer, successfully adjust their businesses in the midst of a bust, and how aggressive amalgamators, such as Arrow Electronics, cut costs and acquire smaller rivals in order to remain standing after a seismic shift. But the fact remains that most companies will get squeezed out during a consolidation. Although it is enormously difficult for executives to come to terms with the grim news, the sooner they do so, the better. All is not necessarily lost: with the right timing, also-rans can make a profitable exit from an industry.

Many companies are not tapping the full potential of their foreign factories. They establish and manage foreign factories to benefit only from tariff and trade concessions, cheap labor, capital subsidies, and reduced logistics costs. They therefore give these factories a limited range of work, responsibilities, and resources. But there are companies that expect much more from their foreign factories and, as a result, get much more. They use them to get closer to their customers and suppliers, to attract skilled and talented employees, and to create centers of expertise for the entire company. The author provides a framework to help managers classify the current role their foreign factories play.

Never has so much technology and brainpower been applied to improving supply chain performance. But the performance of many supply chains has never been worse. Why haven't the new ideas and technologies led to improved performance? Because, Marshall Fisher says, companies lack a framework for deciding which ones are best for their particular situation. Fisher offers such a framework to help managers understand the nature of the demand for their products and devise the supply chain that can best satisfy that demand.