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Group Retirement Services (GRS) is a division of London Life Insurance Company in London, Ontario. The vice president of GRS implemented the balanced scorecard in his division in 1994. Since that time, the industry and London Life have experienced significant change. Although the scorecard was not yet complete (after three years), the real issue here is whether the scorecard has been useful to GRS and whether the scorecard could be improved to assist the department in the future.

Phil Stephenson, the director of China for Bundy Asia Pacific (BAP), was preoccupied with Bundy's business in China. BAP's CEO, Tony Martin, had shown Phil the fax from Robin Thompson, the new marketing and product development director of Bundy International, BAP's UK-based parent company. Thompson had asked BAP about its strategy for the refrigeration business in China. Despite 10 years of experience in China, Bundy had not met its market goals. Whatever strategy was developed, it would be an important part of Bundy's proposed global refrigeration strategy. This rich case allows detailed discussion around issues including (a) business (re)development strategy, (b) joint ventures versus wholly owned subsidiaries, (c) organizational structure, and (d) expatriate and local staffing.

The Computer Shoppe has five year's worth of customer information of past computer system purchasers in its database. While sales are good, the owner is wondering how he can use the customer information available to him to increase sales.

The managing director and operations director of the manufacturing arm of a joint venture were experiencing severe difficulties. Transferred three years ago, they shared management responsibilities with other expatriates. The workforce was predominately locals. The performance of the company was not meeting expectations of either of the joint venture partners, a problem especially acute for the managing director, whose father was chairman of the partner's holding company. Problems included high turnover, changing roles with the recent departure of a firm originally in a 3-way partnership, intercultural communications and general confusions as to what to do.

The general manager faces a difficult decision whether to sell the family business to a publicly listed company with the needed resources and experience to bring the firm to the next level of success. Complicated by complex family relations, including the death of his uncle who ran an Indonesian subsidiary and his father's departure to attend to the large losses from this business, he wonders what the best course of action is. Not the least of his concerns is the increased importance of mainland China business to his Hong Kong company and the problematic nature of some of these activities. In addition, he has a personal ambition to practice law, after suspending these interests for several years to serve the family's needs. (A supplement to this case under the same name, case 9A98F003, addresses a number of social and emotional complexities.)

The new president of Black & Decker-Eastern Hemisphere, is convinced that he needs to significantly increase the number and quality of managers in the region. One tool available to him is the US-designed Appraisal Development Plan (ADP). After weighing the options, he decided to move forward full speed on the introduction of the ADP, despite concerns over huge cultural hurdles. Shortly thereafter the Manager of Human Resources resigned to take a promotion with a Japanese consumer electronics company in Singapore. Utilizing a senior Human Resource professional transferred from the head office, ADP is implemented. One year later, it was clear that the Management Advisory Committee still faced the challenge of developing the next generation of leaders in the Eastern hemisphere.

An employee has completed nearly one year in her first full time job and faces a decision about a pay increase offered by her headquarters office. A native of North America working in Hong Kong for an Italian fashion house, she unexpectedly assumed responsibilities well beyond her original contract. In addition, both cost of living and inflation in Hong Kong have exceeded her projections. She is concerned that the raise is insufficient for the circumstances and is wondering what to do. (A sequel to this case is available, titled Maria Mancini - Expatriate Compensation (B), case 9A98G008.)

Because of several factors, the employee decided that the raise offered by her company's director of operations was inadequate (see Maria Mancini - Expatriate Compensation (A), case 9A98G007). She had not had an answer to her carefully worded fax, nor to subsequent calls made by her from Hong Kong. Advised by the director's assistant to contact the Human Resources Director, she met personally with him while she was in Italy two weeks later. He surprised her by readily agreeing to her request for a larger raise, but despite this, she had received neither the confirmation letter nor the pay increase. Her work visa renewal requiring a formal contract was due soon and she was concerned about what to do.

The firm's chairman has announced a corporate goal of increasing revenues from $38 billion to $380 billion between 1995 and 2005. Most of this increase is expected to come from new international sales. As a consequence, the firm must add an estimated 1,400 new global leaders to its management ranks. The chairman and his team must determine what these new global leaders should look like and how to develop them.

As a central component of its Vision 2020 strategy, the city of Wellington, New Zealand has developed preliminary plans to transform itself into a wired city. The overarching project was called Info City. One of the sub-projects was called City Link. The objective of City Link was to create a high-speed digital communications infrastructure for the downtown business district. Fibre optic cable was to be used to wire up, simply and inexpensively, the city's downtown businesses, to provide a backbone network that businesses could utilize, however they wished, to make themselves more competitive. A consortium of interested parties had recently been formed, a telecommunications architecture was being developed, and plans for stringing cable were under way. While the project champion was unclear about the utility of the new system, he was confident that once the infrastructure was in place, ideas for its utilization would readily emerge. This case provides a setting for exploring the issue of the role of IT in competitive strategy. It also raises interesting social policy questions, about who should pay for such undertaking, who should benefit, and so forth.

The purchasing officer at the Hillview Hospital in London, Ontario, was reviewing four suppliers' quotes for antiseptic handsoap. He had asked for new quotes after receiving a large number of complaints from hospital staff about sudden problems with the current handsoap. Testing revealed that the current supplier had changed the soap's formulation without informing the hospital.

Sandra Hawken is faced with the challenge of developing a marketing plan for Romil Reyes, vice-president of operations of Purely Gr...8! Water Company Inc., a premium purified bottled water company in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. Romil, a 20 per cent owner of the business, wants to expand the target market from its current client base of Filipino home users. Romil's father, the majority shareholder, enjoys servicing the small client base and does not want to take risks with his business. Sandra is left with the task of making product positioning, pricing, promotion and distribution decisions that will appease both owners.

FastLane Technologies was a young entrepreneurial software company that had developed a powerful language that could help organizations manage, administer and control large enterprise networks. In late 1996 they received an infusion of capital from Newbridge Networks and Celtic House, a venture capital firm. In May 1997, the new vice-president of marketing at FastLane must make his first presentation to the Board of Directors about his proposed marketing strategy for FastLane. The company faced a number of important issues, including whether to focus on the language or application tools based on the language and the most effective strategy for rapidly moving its products into a dominant position in its segment of the emerging market for Windows NT services. Developing effective channels to reach the large organizations that were its target customers was a particularly challenging issue. The case can be used in business-to-business marketing, marketing strategy, strategic market planning courses or in small business or entrepreneurship courses. (A 43-minute video can be purchased with this case, video 7A98A006.)

A bank supervisor must contend with various personnel problems, specifically highlighting individuals- both subordinates and superiors. his immediate supervisor said that the new group was supposed to be great, his new position fun. In the view of his boss' boss, the group had major problems. He soon discovered that he had more problems than he had anticipated. How was he to deal with a dysfunctional group when his superiors disagreed about whether or not there were problems and were also personally antagonistic.

The rapidly changing environment of the pharmaceutical industry has lead to the acceleration of a rift between marketing and sales in a pharmaceutical firm, and to a stronger need to tightly integrate these two functions. The case is a vehicle to initiate discussion around potential structural, systems, and informal approaches to building bridges between marketing and sales.

The general manager of a beverage company must decide what to do about the declining performance of its' Vietnam-based operation. Employees seem unmotivated and lackadaisical about their work and these same workers blame the weather for the poor results.

The president of Bristol Compressors, Asia-Pacific, chaired a meeting of his top management team to discuss the company's ongoing management challenges in the region. The Hong Kong-based team, known as the management committee, was made up of the president and seven other senior functional managers. Despite attractive markets in the region, Bristol Compressors' growth in Asia-Pacific had not met expectations. Some individuals attributed this to a slow entry strategy, weaker markets than anticipated in the region, unexpectedly fierce competition and ineffective strategy and execution. However, over the last two years a consensus was emerging among committee members that there was a lack of management depth that was contributing to poor performance. Although everyone was convinced that something had to be done, a specific plan of action had not yet been developed. The president charged the committee members to come up with a set of recommendations to increase significantly management bench strength in the region. This case focuses on the challenges of building a high performance organization in a short period of time in Asia.

An entrepreneur is hoping to open Caribbean Internet Cafe in Kingston, Jamaica. He has gathered data on all the relevant costs: equipment, rent, labor, etc. He has also found a partner in the local telephone company, Jamaica Telecommunications Limited (JTL). JTL has provided equity and a long-term loan at favourable interest rates. He is now faced with the task of analyzing fixed, variable and start-up costs, contribution margin, and the concept of break-even to guide his decision.

A senior product manager at Abbott Laboratories Limited (Abbott) must develop a comprehensive marketing strategy to launch Abbott's ground-breaking drug, Norvir, into the Canadian market. Norvir has recently been launched in the U.S. and was used to treat patients with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). With fewer than six months before the scheduled Canadian launch date, he must make a number of decisions concerning product positioning, sales representation and promotion.

Ellen Moore, a systems consultant, was sent to Korea to manage a project involving a team of North American and Korean consultants representing a joint venture between a major Korean conglomerate and a significant North American information technology company. The Americans were to be involved for the first seven months in order to transfer expertise and knowledge to the South Koreans, who had little experience in this area. Ellen's superior had played an integral part in securing the contract in Korea due to his depth of knowledge on the subject. He chose Ellen to be the key North American project manager because she had significant project management skills and impressive international experience. Upon Ellen's arrival, she discovered that the Korean consultants were far less skilled than she had expected. In addition, Ellen had understood that she and the Korean manager were to be co-managers, but immediately tensions arose regarding who was giving direction to the team, and the scope of the project. Tensions escalated until it was clear that the project was behind schedule and the Koreans were not taking direction from Ellen. The Koreans insisted that Ellen was the problem. Ellen’s superior disagreed; he and Ellen needed to decide how to proceed. The challenge was to balance strategic goals with individual action.