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The vice president of operations at Kuman Educational Institute USA is faced with the pressures of transferring a successful Japanese educational service concept to the United States. Kumon, a for-profit after-school supplementary educative center, specializes in teaching math to children. A highly successful model in Japan, Kumon has yet to be profitable in its 10 years in the United States, though significant progress has been made in the past 5 years. The founder is not satisfied with the results thus far and wants faster growth. In light of an upcoming meeting with Japanese headquarters, the vice president reviews potential strategies for positioning, marketing, and franchising to grow Kumon.

Habitat for Humanity, a not-for-profit, volunteer-based home builder, is coping with years of rapid growth and success. They now face a series of options to continue their successful course and must make corresponding organizational adjustments. Teaching objectives involve applying lessons learned in the Service Management course to this unique organization: specifically, can they think of themselves as a customer-focused organization and maintain their mission and culture, what are their best options for strategic growth, and how do they mobilize human resources and a headquarters organization at a grassroots nonprofit?

An entrepreneurial division within Corning, Serengeti Eyewear, has grown rapidly in its brief 10-year history. Now it must decide whether to launch a new line of sunglasses and take on the industry leader. The company has prospered by developing and cultivating relationships with suppliers, customers, employees, and retailers. Its leader, Zaki Mystafa, has created a remarkable, flexible, and responsive organization. The case describes Mystafas's highly informal managerial style, and his skill at managing "up" to his superiors at Corning.

Surveys a number of essential issues related to pricing and public policy in market economies. Begins with a brief review of the price-determination process in competitive markets, then examines a range of topics involving pricing and public policy in monopoly and oligopoly markets. Includes a number of graphs that illustrate the relationship between costs, demand, price, efficiency, and profitability under various market conditions.

Presents excerpts from a 1992 speech by Orit Gadiesh.

Spreadsheet Supplement for UV6185

Integrated Siting Systems, Inc. has developed a satellite-based tracking system that continuously updates and displays the location of every vehicle in its network. A recently signed contract presents new technical challenges that may make the normally installed system inadequate. While it is possible to augment the system so that it will definitely work, doing so is costly. Alternatively, it is possible to conduct an imperfect test that will improve the company's information about whether the normal system will work. An alternative to this system is Emergency Vehicle Positioning, Inc. (see UV0359). Except for the name, date, final paragraph (which mentions the other conditional probabilities), and the exhibit of conditional probabilities, the two cases are identical.

Matt Gruber is an effective and highly motivated executive, yet his inability to deal with superiors is shown by numerous instances of abrasive behaviour. Matt's rise and fall at Kapco is described in this case, which is one of a four-part series (see 9A93D016, 9A93D017, 9A93D018). The series' teaching objectives are to learn to manage and to maintain successful relationships with supervisors and to effectively manage an employee who has difficulty relating upward.

This (B) case in the Kapco series presents the situation described in Kapco Limited (A), case 9A93D015, but from the perspective of one of Matt Gruber's superiors.

Further information is provided to the situation described in Kapco Limited (A), case 9A93D015, which leads to a request for Matt Gruber's resignation.

In the final case of the Kapco series, Matt's firing, and how he handled it, are presented. See Kapco Limited (A), case 9A93D015, for the origins of the story.

Government intervention in markets may have significant effects--both positive and negative--on a firm's strategic options and its performance outcomes. Thus the ability to analyze the origins, implications, and dynamics of public policy is a critical managerial skill in today's market economies. This note provides managers with a framework for analyzing relationships between public policy, business strategy, and performance. Designed in particular for use in the Harvard MBA course Capitalism Constrained. The conceptual framework is applied to managerial settings in the environmental, energy, transportation, media and communications, financial services, and health and safety sectors.

Describes the rivalry between two competitors who have attempted to become the dominant force in the emerging British satellite television industry. Can be used to examine issues of competitive positioning, technology adoption, and scenario analysis. Helps students make decisions given competitive challenges and industry uncertainties.

Provides a short summary of John Reed's succession at City Bank from Executive Vice President in 1976 to CEO in 1984.

Faced with the costs of building customer information systems, some managers question whether or not marketing technology can achieve competitive miracles. But the author believes that retailers and consumer goods companies can't afford to ignore the new economies of scale the best marketing information systems offer. Today's sophisticated technologies help companies sort massive amounts of information to target small groups of highly responsive customers almost automatically. The great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co. (A&P), for example, is using point-of-sale scanning and frequent-shopper programs to build a sophisticated customer database. The mail-order company Fingerhut bases every catalog mailing and promotion on statistically determined predictions about customer behavior. And R.R. Donnelley and Sons, the world's largest printer, is using leading-edge technology to offer customers everything from consumer and life-style data to customized individual publications. Through such technology, big companies can own niches the way smaller competitors do. But it's not just a matter of size. Large companies without the vision to develop their own marketing IT will be left behind.

Nine years ago, the author bought a small manufacturing company with marginal profits, poor union relations, nit-picking work rules, and high labor costs. Today he has flexible work rules, lower relative labor costs, fewer benefits, excellent union relations, and superior profitability. How did he do it? The simple answer is profit sharing and empowerment. The process began when Frey cut wages, vacations, and holidays. The ensuing strike failed, leaving him with lower costs but an angry, embittered work force. After a year of bickering, Frey decided he wanted to implement profit sharing. To get his employees to grasp the cause-and-effect relationship between the way they worked and the profits they shared, he used every means he could muster. He refused contract wage hikes but shared 30% of pretax profits. He opened his books to the union. He offered training in new skills. He hired new managers. He learned to listen. For workers, profit sharing is now a 36% increment to income, while productivity has risen by almost a third. Best of all, the workers themselves now push for ongoing change and increasing responsibility.

Rather than follow the make-and-sell strategies of industrial-age giants, today's successful companies focus on sensing and responding to rapidly changing customer needs. In order to survive in this sense-and-respond world, big companies need to consider a strategy called "managing by wire." In aviation, flying by wire means using computer systems to augment a pilot's ability to assimilate and react to rapidly changing environmental information. In a similar way, managing by wire is the capacity to run a business by managing its informational representation. Coherent corporate behavior needs more than blockbuster applications and network connections; it must be governed by a coherent information model that codifies "how we do things around here," and "how we change how we do things around here." This article describes managing by wire at Mrs. Fields Cookies, Brooklyn Union Gas, and a financial services organization that the authors call Globe Insurance.

George Stanton helped build Sannas Pharmaceuticals in his six years there, and when he is promoted to vice president and director of risk management, he thinks he is set for life. But then a new president is appointed, and George can't tolerate his shady practices. Atwater-Jordan looks like a better company, and George is impressed with Joan, his potential new boss. So he takes the job, even though it means moving his family and asking his wife to change her job too. But within a few months, Joan's flaws start showing up: she does all the talking at meetings; she doesn't give George information he needs; and she wants to control everything he does. Other people at Atwater call her "Phony Joanie," but when George discusses the problem with the company president, Harold doesn't help. "I'm sure you can handle her and keep her off other people's backs," he tells George. Facing a new year's resolution to try to solve the Joan problem, George doesn't know where to start. He wonders if there's something wrong with him or if he's just having bad luck. HRM and relocation experts give their views.

In an earlier, groundbreaking article, Balanced Scorecard -- Measures That Drive Performance, the authors proposed a new measurement system that provided managers with a comprehensive framework to translate a company's strategic objectives into a coherent set of performance measures. Now the authors show how several companies are putting the balanced scorecard to work. Effective measurement, the authors point out, must be an integral part of the management process. Much more than a measurement exercise, the balanced scorecard is a management system that can motivate breakthrough improvements in such critical areas as product, process, customer, and market development. Several examples--Rockwater, Apple Computer, and Advanced Micro Devices--illustrate how the scorecard combines measurement and management in different companies. From the experiences of these companies and others, the authors have found that the balanced scorecard is most successful when it is used to drive the process of change.