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An abridged version of Workbench, most notably the results of two customer surveys, given in their complete form in Workbench. Focuses on the pricing decision for a small contemporary furniture retailer. Should Workbench continue its highly promotional pricing policy or adopt Everyday Fair Pricing?

Describes the engineering effort at Campbell Soup Co. to develop a microwavable package and product for the growing convenience segment. Focuses on the role of engineering services in developing the production process, acquiring and installing equipment, and getting the process up and running. Students must address not only the status of the current project, but also the future steps that must be taken to complete that project successfully. Even more broadly, engineering's role as a reactive service organization vs. increasing demands that will require a proactive strategic advantage-based organization must also be addressed. Written from the perspective of the head of the engineering group at Campbell Soup Co.

Provides a framework that helps explain these real-world observations about accounting and financial statement analysis. When managers have superior information on firms' strategies, and when investors suspect that managers have incentives not to fully disclose this information, financial reporting becomes an important managerial issue. Managers' superior information is a source of both value and distortions in accounting data. Accounting conventions and standards evolve over time to restrict managers' ability to distort financial data, but they leave considerable room for managers to reflect their superior knowledge of their businesses. The net result of these forces is that accrual accounting data are biased and noisy, and investors can assess firms' performance only imprecisely. Managers can improve investors' evaluation of their firms' performance through sound disclosure strategies. Financial analysts attempt to create inside information from public data and therefore play a valuable role in the communication between managers and investors.

Presents a non-technical description of the conjoint analysis methodology. Discusses the process by which such a study is done and cites areas of application.

A diversified chemical company must decide whether to sell its basic chemicals division and expand the specialty chemicals division.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 590059.

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 290059.

Traces the 12-year career of a pharmaceutical salesperson, Bob Marsh, from recruitment to termination. Mr. Marsh has had an uneven career with Cooper Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (CPI) and, after a probationary period, is asked to resign. Following his termination, a number of Marsh's former customers complain vigorously, and CPI's vice president of sales is asked to investigate the matter and to decide what, if anything, to do about it. A rewritten version of an earlier case by D.A. Newton.

Traces the development of a Swedish furniture retailer under the leadership of an innovative and unconventional entrepreneur whose approaches redefine the nature and structure of the industry. Traces IKEA's growth from a tiny mail order business to the world's largest furniture dealership. Describes the innovative strategic and organizational changes Kamprad made to achieve success. In particular, focuses on his unique vision and values and the way they have become institutionalized as IKEA's binding corporate culture. The trigger issue revolves around whether this vital "corporate glue" can survive massive expansion into the United States and the Eastern Bloc and Kamprad's replacement as CEO by a "professional manager."

Describes the highly successful recall of the Black & Decker Spacemaker Plus Coffeemaker. Objectives include: 1) factors in product recall effectiveness and success, 2) the use of direct marketing in product recall, 3) the role of public relations in product recall, and 4) impact of product recalls on product brands.

Attention to how much CEOs are paid diverts public attention from how they are paid. A statistical analysis of executive compensation concludes that top executives are not receiving record salaries and bonuses; annual changes in executive compensation do not reflect changes in corporate performance; and with respect to pay for performance, CEO compensation is getting worse. Compensation policy not only shapes how top executives behave, it also helps determine the kind of executives an organization attracts. Boards of directors must reform their compensation practices and adopt systems that reward outstanding performance and penalize poor performance.

The ability to commercialize technology is linked to competitive leadership in a variety of markets, such as copiers, computers, automobiles, and pharmaceuticals. Leaders like Canon, Xerox, and Hewlett-Packard describe their approaches to commercialization in similar terms: they treat commercialization as a system and apply to it the same discipline they use in manufacturing; they make it a priority, state it in terms of measurable goals, build cross-functional skills, and encourage aggressive action.

A company's competitiveness derives from its core competencies and core products. Core competence is the collective learning in the organization, especially the capacity to coordinate diverse production skills and integrate streams of technologies. First companies must identify core competencies, which provide potential access to a wide variety of markets, make a contribution to the customer benefits of the product, and are difficult for competitors to imitate. Next companies must reorganize to learn from alliances and focus on internal development. McKinsey Award Winner.

The economics of serving on the board of a publicly held corporation are fundamentally off balance. The risk to a director's time, money, and reputation is far greater than the rewards. No matter how conscientious directors are, shareholders can easily file frivolous lawsuits against them. Resolving a lawsuit saps a director's time and money; settling one appears to be an admission of guilt and is a black mark on his or her reputation. The boards of public companies should be more like those in LBOs or venture capital situations, where directors have a big financial stake in the company and thus the incentive to make it successful.

Shortly after installing a new computer system designed to provide quick and accurate service, the president of Presto Cleaner received an angry letter from a customer whose laundry had been lost by the system. The case study looks at the questions: How much service does a company or store owe a customer? Is the customer always right? In 90304 and 90316, four authorities on customer service--Leonard A. Schlesinger, associate professor at the Harvard Business School; Dinah Nemeroff, corporate director of customer affairs at Citicorp/Citibank; Ron Zemke, president of Performance Research Associates; and Claus Moller, president of Time Management International--consider Presto Cleaner's customer complaint.

Shortly after installing a new computer system designed to provide quick and accurate service, the president of Presto Cleaner received an angry letter from a customer whose laundry had been lost by the system. The case study looks at the questions: How much service does a company or store owe a customer? Is the customer always right? In 90304 and 90316, four authorities on customer service--Leonard A. Schlesinger, associate professor at the Harvard Business School; Dinah Nemeroff, corporate director of customer affairs at Citicorp/Citibank; Ron Zemke, president of Performance Research Associates; and Claus Moller, president of Time Management International--consider Presto Cleaner's customer complaint.

A new kind of marketing data enable managers to measure incremental sales of a product due to advertising and promotion. Single-source data correlate actual consumer purchases with corresponding television advertising or promotion events. Single-source data challenge much of the conventional wisdom on advertising. To take advantage of the data, managers must continually examine the appropriate balance between advertising and promotion.

Four concepts--statistical quality control, the new manufacturing accounting, the "flotilla" organization of the manufacturing process, and systems design--are transforming manufacturing theory. This new theory sees the factory as little more than a wide place in the stream of producing value, rather than as a collection of machines isolated from the rest of the business. Manufacturing and business decisions are one and the same. Though these concepts represent different constituencies with different agendas, together they are reconciling classic conflicts of twentieth century mass production.

Shortly after installing a new computer system designed to provide quick and accurate service, the president of Presto Cleaner received an angry letter from a customer whose laundry had been lost by the system. The case study looks at the questions: How much service does a company or store owe a customer? Is the customer always right? In 90304 and 90316, four authorities on customer service--Leonard A. Schlesinger, associate professor at the Harvard Business School; Dinah Nemeroff, corporate director of customer affairs at Citicorp/Citibank; Ron Zemke, president of Performance Research Associates; and Claus Moller, president of Time Management International--consider Presto Cleaner's customer complaint.

A study of 25 auto-parts salespeople comparing behavior with performance indicates that: top performers focus the conversation on the catalog and sample boards, weak performers allow customers to control the talk; strong performers waste little time waiting for the customer's attention, weak performers are willing to wait for the customer. Most important, strong performers do not take refuge in the notion that some days are good and some are bad and nothing can be done about the bad. They shrug off a string of unsuccessful calls and continue calling. Sales managers should not try to hire only those who will become top performers, rather they must nurture their salespeople with potential.