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Innomedia Logic Inc. produces and distributes voice over Internet protocol hardware. An increasing demand for this technology and the entry of other companies into the sector have created a highly competitive market. Despite these challenges, Innomedia Logic has grown to a successful operation in just a few years and has projected substantial revenue increases for the next two years. The president, and major shareholder, has received an unsolicited offer for 100 per cent of the company's equity. He must consider how an exit strategy will affect the other seven shareholders and determine whether he would receive greater value if he sells now or if he should continue to grow the company and contemplate a sale in the future.

A biotechnology and drug research company has an anti-cancer compound that is ready for further development. The company faces two options. It can form a licensing agreement with a large pharmaceutical partner that would fund the necessary clinical studies and bear much of the risk. The pharmaceutical company would assume an equity position within the drug research company and would also receive licensing rights to any compounds that successfully result from the research. The other option is to create a spin-off company with venture capitalists. The stand-alone company would be able to focus on realizing the potential of the new compound, but the drug research company would lose majority control. The vice-president of business development must decide how to proceed in order to maximize value to his company and to the investors.

An investment analyst has been asked to evaluate an investment in the project financing for Ras Laffan, a liquefied natural gas venture in the Middle East between Qatar and Mobil Corp. In order to make a suitable recommendation to the investment board, she must present, the potential returns, the various risks and their possible resolutions. Her analysis must address the political risks amid an atmosphere of instability of the Middle East, commodity price risks in an industry with a history of price volatility, possible foreign exchange risks of dealing in two currencies with historic fluctuations and the commercial risks of the reliance on a single customer who will account for 90 per cent of sales. Medium-term non-recourse financing is one option available for financing the project. She also knows that the quality of her analysis may influence whether or not the investment board will consider her capable of running her own fund in the future.

As a general manager and partner in a chain of restaurants, Graham Stewart is faced with a serious problem. His restaurants have been struggling to stay afloat for some time, and he has been concerned as to the reasons for cash flow problems. An innocuous question from the company bookkeeper set off an alarm bell in Stewart's head, and investigation reveals several problems in his partner's financial activities, both personally and professionally. At the time of this discovery, Stewart's partner is on vacation. The general manager must concern himself with the ethical and legal implications of his discovery, trying to assess what he might do and how and when he should do it. The A case outlines the history of the restaurant chain and the details of its current issues. Supplements Graham Stewart - General Manger (B), product 9B02C029 and Graham Stewart - General Manager (C), product 9B02C030 discuss Stewart's investigation of the problems and the meeting between the partners.

After making some disturbing discoveries about the financial activities of his partner, a restaurant general manager makes some decisions during his partner's vacation. The partner would soon be returning and the general manager wonders how to proceed. Supplement to Graham Stewart - General Manager (A), product 9B02C028.

A restaurant general manager meets with his partner to present his findings about some questionable business activities. The partner accuses the general manager of meddling in his affairs and angrily departs. The general manager wonders what to do now. This is a supplement to Graham Stewart - General Manager (A), product 9B02C028 and Graham Stewart - General Manager (B), product 9B02C029.

As a manufacturer and distributor of agriculture equipment, as well as a broad range of construction and forestry equipment, Deere & Company had a lot riding on the smooth flow of its logistics function. FedEx Logistics provided out-sourced transportation services to 11 Deere facilities across North America. But with each of Deer's individual business units responsible for its own logistics activities, and with each unit negotiating a separate service agreement with the FedEx facility, costs and services tended to differ across the units. Deere's manager of logistics design asked a summer intern student to evaluate the company's logistics agreement with FedEx, with a view to identifying opportunities for standardizing costs and services across the business units. The logistics manager is expecting a report containing details of each operation's work flow and cost information, as well as some recommendations for updating Deere's out-sourcing arrangements with FedEx Logistics.

McNutt Service Group, a heating, ventilating and air conditioning business, has grown to the stage where the president is considering moving the service division to a new location, to provide increased space, a greater degree of autonomy and more efficient access to the division's customer base. He must analyse the financial feasibility and evaluate the team dynamics, motivation and the morale advantages and disadvantages of a physical move.

A village leader must reallocate farmland and decides to hold a competition among the three most capable farmers in the village. The contract to the farmland will be awarded to the farmer with the best performance in the growing season. The growing season is over and the village leader must review the farmers' capital structure, capacity, and leasing costs, and make his decision.

Meyers Norris Penny is one of the leading chartered accountancy and business advisory firms in Canada. The vice-president of technology must decide whether to replace the company's practice management system or continue to upgrade the system as needs arise. The system has performed well, has stable hardware and software and staff are familiar and satisfied with using the system, however, he must consider the company's need to be innovative and proactive to maintain the firm's competitive advantage.

ZS Associates is a consulting company with offices in the United States, Europe and plans to establish an office in Canada. The manager of scheduling realizes that the company's scheduling system would not be able to keep up with the needs of the firm. The current system tracks the consultant's skills and their assignments to various projects. An MBA student working as an intern with the firm must provide a recommendation whether to develop software in-house, have new software custom built externally or purchase off-the-shelf software. He must analyse the options while considering the growth needs of the firm, features required in the software and cost.

Terralumen is a family-owned agricultural company that has expanded into consumer products. A senior executive with the company has helped build a successful joint venture over a period of 16 years with Delta, an American fast food chain. After a directors meeting, he senses that the American joint venture partners want to end the partnership, but he is unsure why. The joint venture has been profitable, and he also believes his company contributed the most to its success and that prior to the joint venture Delta had limited success in foreign markets. With the break up of the joint venture pending, he must determine how to extract the largest return on Terralumen's investment.

SW Construction (Holding) Limited is a construction company that develops and manages properties. After a number of successful years in exclusively developing its own properties, the company has suffered a loss in revenue. The executive director is concerned that they have not been able to obtain a government contract. He must determine how the company can win more government contracts by collecting and analysing data from the last 20 auctions.

Visteon Inc. is a manufacturer of integrated systems for the automotive and electronic equipment industries. An engineer was asked to examine the manufacturing process of one of its products to recommend changes that would reduce the failure rate at the final assembly pressure test. He conducted experiments to collect data, and now must analyse the data to determine what changes will improve plant throughput.

The Canadian biotechnology industry generates nearly $1 billion in revenues annually. This note provides a sense of the key success factors associated with competing in this rapidly-evolving business area, including an exploration of the key sectors of economic activity, current scientific and social issues affecting development of biotechnology-based businesses, the role of clusters in building an infrastructure for biotechnology activity, and the key steps involved in patenting and developing biotechnology-related products. Issues associated with financing biotechnology-based businesses in Canada are also reviewed.

The growing popularity of the Internet for shopping has launched the latest round of multiple retail channel integration as traditional stores, cataloguers, online stores and others all seek to provide customers with the choice of when and how to do business with them. Multi-channel retailing presents both significant opportunities and challenges. Success depends on how well a retailer addresses these opportunities by creating a seamless, fully integrated, multi-channel operation focused on providing high-quality, cost-effective service to consumers. Multi-channel integration is a complex strategy to undertake. This note discusses the major issues that retailers have to address.

Stamford Machine Corporation is a market leader in the manufacturing of photocopiers and office equipment. The director of corporate business ethics and compliance has been notified that the company is being served with a discrimination lawsuit. A newspaper announcement was released to the public outlining details of the charges and before the director could leave his office, he receives a call from a journalist asking for the company's comments. He must determine if there has been a breach in the company's policy on discrimination and plan how the company will deal with the media.

A recently hired co-ordinator of a cross-docking facility has been assigned the task of designing an efficient layout for the facility, assessing the equipment requirements and workflows, and training and supervising the floor staff. Since this is his first managerial position, he is eager to prove himself. He wants to show senior management that they were correct in their decision to hire him, despite his young age. A long-term employee seems determined to thwart the co-ordinator's efforts at every turn. The much-older man never misses a chance to point out that the old company's system was superior to the one the co-ordinator is trying to implement. When a costly shipping error occurs twice in two days, the co-ordinator and the employee have a heated exchange the forces the co-ordinator to do some serious thinking about what his next move should be. Should he fire the employee? Should he rethink his system? Or should he simply try a more diplomatic approach to managing the employee?

N.K. Builders and Contractors was a construction company newly formed by an experienced contractor and a young project manager. The project manager was very knowledgeable of the construction industry but not familiar with the bidding process for contracts; for this he relied heavily on the experience of his partner. The company's first project was a government contract that required the partners to go to the divisional office to apply for the tender, where they found out they were one of 15 interested in the highway project. The bidding process was similar to an auction, the highest bid won. Money generated from the highest bid was shared equally among the remaining contractors, and the higher the bid the more commission government officials received. Winning the contract is only the beginning. Once a company receives the project, they are expected to begin work within a month; however, many things can happen between winning and the completing of the contract and he would discover there would be a number of times when it would be necessary to pay various officials to proceed with the project. The project manager was disappointed in the way the company was awarded the project and now must decide if he should quit and lose the money he invested in the company or remain with the business.

Helped the Aged Canada, a non-profit organization, has hired Kate Archer to manage their prosthetic clinic in Haiti. After her arrival in Haiti she learns that its key employee does not meet her performance expectations. Communicating with the employee, a deaf-mute, however, was very difficult and required the use of another employee as translator. She must communicate her performance expectations to the employee. The supplement to this case, Kate Archer In Haiti (B), product number 9B01C036 describes how Kate develops a contract and finalizes the agreement with the employee.