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In 1979, Philip Morris acquired the Seven-Up Co., the number three concentrate producer in the U.S. After four years of losses, Seven-Up had registered an operating profit in 1984. Industry analysts were debating the role that Seven-Up would play in Philip Morris's future.

Contains a description of some issues confronting management of CML Group as the company progresses toward making an initial public offering. Among the issues and topics addressed in the case are: considerations in choosing an underwriting team, the initial public offering market; IPOs as a mechanism for private investors to harvest their investment; and short-term management reactions to changing conditions in the stock market.

Contains a description of a decision confronting two entrepreneurs in mid-1981. They are considering purchasing a small manufacturer of precision electromechanical parts. Among the issues in the case are the following: 1) Should Taylor and Grayson buy Precision Parts, Inc.? 2) Should Shawmut Bank provide the loan? 3) Should the venture capital firms invest? 4) What should Taylor and Grayson do? The case is designed to expose students to a different kind of opportunity. Also, students will have to ask and answer the questions: What can go wrong and what can go right? They must develop a plan for managing the risk-reward ratio in their favor.

Spreadsheet Supplement for case 285131.

New projects, especially those involving high technology, are prone to cost overruns that may double, triple, or even quadruple original estimates. An inadequate design is often the cause. If necessary, management should abandon a project, and corporate environments should encourage honest appraisals and courage in their project managers. Suggestions for solutions include: verifying the nature of the problem, reengineering the project, and identifying underestimated areas.

In a letter to outside counsel, a hypothetical CEO comments that although corporate lawsuits are expensive, time consuming, and often counterproductive, business people and lawyers alike assume that litigating rather than settling is the normal way to deal with disputes. To alter this pattern, the CEO proposes that executives and lawyers recast their assumptions, treating prompt settlement of disputes as a primary goal and litigation as a last resort, and viewing lawyers, not as warriors, but as cost-conscious mediators. A cooperative effort by business people and lawyers, the CEO concludes, best ensures a reasonable and cost-effective approach to resolving disputes.

Many managers see the experience curve as out of date, but experience curve strategies can improve competitive performance in some clearly defined situations. Successful use of the curve requires understanding why and how it works and when to apply it. Industry examples explain how products have different experience curve slopes, experience bases, and cost reduction sources. Managers should study three critical variables to discover both the opportunities and traps in putting the experience curve to work for their companies: industry structure, the relative position of key competitors, and government impact.

Buyers need to be sold first on the selling company and on the salesperson before a sale can be made, says this industrial sales executive. He introduces a planned sales approach that can cover a period of years and he details creative selling techniques that have succeeded for his group. The author believes companies should be customer-driven and all areas should get behind the sales effort.

Entrepreneurship is a trait that is confined neither to certain types of individuals nor to organizations. A society can do much to stimulate or inhibit the development of entrepreneurship. Government policy decisions in recent years to lower the capital gains tax and deregulate certain industries have been instrumental in encouraging establishing new businesses. College and university business programs are also instrumental in stimulation. But it's up to individual organizations to foster conditions that allow entrepreneurship to flourish.

There are two radically different strategies for managing a company's workforce--a strategy based on imposing control and a strategy based on eliciting commitment. At the heart of control strategy is the wish to establish order, exercise control, and achieve efficiency in operations. Underlying the commitment strategy is a management philosophy that acknowledges a company's multiple stakeholders--owners, employees, customers, and the public. At first, most organizations adopt a limited set of changes--that is, a "transitional" approach. Evidence suggests that the rate of such transformations will continue to accelerate and the move toward commitment will extend to a larger number of plants and offices.

Contains a description of a set of related decisions confronting the management and directors of Business Research Corp. (BRC) in April of 1984. BRC needs more capital to finance continued development of the market for a full-text database comprised of Wall Street research and to finance a new business opportunity entailing electronic delivery of Wall Street research to institutional investors. However, in order to attract new money, the capital structure of the company must be changed. The pedagogic objectives in the case include: exposing students to the consequences of certain early stage financing decisions; raising the issue of conflict of interest among various stakeholders; and exposing students to the necessity for convergent iteration and flexibility in business plans.

Applichem has six plants in different countries making the same chemical product. The purpose of this case is to allow students to think about what costs are relevant to management in this process industry environment, about how to define a comparison of costs and productivity across plants, and about how it happens that plants in different parts of the world come to have quite different costs of producing the same product. Finally they can begin to think about what management might do to ensure that productivity improvements made at one plant would be routinely useful for other plants.

The CAD/CAM market in Japan is about to take off. Computervision wants its exclusive distributor to dramatically expand its sales and service coverage. The distributor wants a joint venture with Computervision before expanding. Several distribution alternatives (including going direct) are presented.

Outlines the elements of a temporary sales agreement between Tokyo Electron Ltd. and Computervision Japan.

Presents sales data for 1983 and 1984.

Arrow Electronics is the fastest growing distributor of electronic components in North America and the second largest. Its capital structure policy of heavy reliance on debt financing contrasts sharply with that of its leading competitor, Arnet. Students are asked to think through the whys, and how Arrow might go about reducing its business and financing risks.

Presents a general approach to diagnosing and solving problems in management, especially in production situations with ambiguous problems.

Describes what has happened since the introduction of just-in-time production techniques were developed to reduce inventory. Reviews the progress to date in such areas as process rationalization; set-up reduction; quality improvement and leveling the scheduling; and discusses options for the future. The aim of the case is to show students the details of implementing a new production method.

David Thomas takes his first sales management assignment and is faced with a sales rep revolt because of a possible territory reorganization. In addition, his sales division is performing well below the national average. Rewritten version of a case by R.Z. Sorenson.

Reviews and updates the structure and characteristics of the earth-moving equipment industry presented in the companion case, Caterpillar Tractor Co. After revealing that CAT has suffered major financial losses during the period from 1981 through 1984, the case describes how Komatsu grew from a $170 million local manufacturer in 1963 to become CAT's major challenge in the emerging global competitive battle. The case traces the strategy followed by Komatsu in developing its product technology, manufacturing capability, and marketing skills worldwide. The supplement, Caterpillar-Komatsu in 1986, provides an update to the global competitive interaction between Caterpillar and Komatsu. Caterpillar's response to Komatsu's growing market share is outlined, then the impact of rapidly changing dollar/yen exchange rates provides Caterpillar with an interesting pricing decision.