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This case concerns the development of a marketing plan for a southern Ontario dock builder, John Morrison, who is entering his second year of business. He has distribution and promotion decisions to make.

A pension fund manager was examining Bank of Montreal's recent financial performance in comparison with other large Canadian bank stocks, and large U.S. bank stocks as well, to determine what factors appeared to be driving the stock's performance. He then needed to consider whether to change the fund's investment in the stock. This case examines the usefulness of financial performance measures and examines what drives stock values.

The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, Canada's largest pension fund with over $40 billion in assets, had just listened to a presentation addressing a method for identifying and controlling the pension fund's exposure to market risks known as Value At Risk. The Board needed to understand what Value At Risk represented, what assumptions went into the risk management systems and how it might impact on policy decisions. This case introduces students to the risk management of investment portfolios, highlighting benefits and limitations.

The Executive Director of a non-profit organization must deal with the fact that over the past few years, the organization has experienced a decline in volunteers, men who offer consistent adult male companionship to boys from father absent homes. They must tackle the challenges of:<ul><li>Recruiting and retaining volunteers in the cash-strapped 1990's.</li><li>Motivating people within the organization without the usual motivational tools (raises and threats of dismissal).</li><li>Practicing persuasive leadership techniques where they must constantly communicate, reiterate and reflect the shared values of the agency's volunteers.</li></ul>

A manufacturing manager has been asked to develop an estimate of the production cost of a therapeutic wrist exerciser prototype. Automated assembly was possible long-term, but a manual assembly and test procedure was necessary until the product was firmly established. Teams of students can be asked to develop an assembly process for the new product using either an assembly line or single operator configuration. Hands-on experience in job design can be provided to the students. Students must use job design and work measurement methods to estimate overall product cost and propose alternative prototype designs that might reduce assembly costs. The performance of the two process configurations can be compared during an in-class student demonstration. Subsequent discussion can focus on the challenges of work design for an assembly line or single operation configuration, along with the quality, cost and management challenges implicit in each.

Simulation is commonly used as a decision tool by managers in marketing, engineering, production, finance and many other disciplines. Managers simulate processes to gain a better understanding of their processes, diagnose problems, train new employees, and explore possibilities. Both the advent of powerful personal computers and the development of graphically driven simulation packages have contributed to this greater adoption. This note describes process simulation and illustrates the techniques with a tutorial model of a deli operation. (An Extend simulation file, product 7A96D009, is available for this case.)

Two business partners of Hempline Inc. are trying to re-establish hemp as a feasible agricultural product in Canada. Their first request from a wood processing mill in Oregon, USA, has left them with a number of decisions to be made. Among the decisions, they must determine the number of labour hours, the number of machines to rent and the amount of land to rent for this specific order. Alternatives to renting machinery include purchasing new and used equipment. As well, they wanted to calculate the cost per ton of this experimental crop to meet effectively with the Oregon firm.

The president of Kitchen Helper Inc. is seeking financing for his new invention. Commercial banks have refused to provide any further financing, and the president has rejected offers from venture capitalists. A private investor has expressed interest but wishes to see a cash budget and a pro forma income statement and balance sheet.

On Wednesday, February 2, 1994, Ted Rogers, president and CEO of Rogers Communications (RCI), announced that a strategic merger was being sought with Maclean Hunter Limited (MHL). Over the course of the last several weeks, a private company controlled by Mr. Rogers had purchased a block of stock representing approximately 8 percent of the shares held by the public. The focus of the case is to formulate a presentation to RCI's board of directors, which discusses the price, strategy and terms of a planned offer to acquire all remaining MHL shares.

This case explores a proposal by Labatt management to purchase a 22% interest in a Mexican brewing business and strike associated agreements for cooperative activities throughout North America. An evaluation of the deal requires an assessment of the prospects of the venture in the Mexican and U.S. beer markets, the potential for synergies in the cooperative activities, and ultimately the pricing and financing of an investment in a developing economy. This case is similar to Una Cerveceria Por Favor: Labatt Buys Into Mexico, case 9A95G013, in that it varies primarily in the time perspective from which the issues are addressed. Only one of these cases is necessary in a course.

The focus of the case is on deal-making in the context of a structured note. The challenge for the student is the placement of US$125 million of Special Purpose Trust (SPT) paper. The financing was to fund SPT's forward purchase of a portion of the future oil production. The structure of the note has to be modified in order to place the paper in a short period of time.

The owners of Xantrex Technology Inc. are negotiating an injection of equity capital of $3 million. Students are asked to design a deal which is acceptable to both the venture capitalists and the owners. They must also design an appropriate shareholders' agreement. This case should be used in conjunction with Xantrex Technology Inc., case 9A96B051.

The case traces the story of Canadian Airlines from its early days of profitable regional operations, growth through acquisitions to the status of a national and international carrier, and ultimately to the crisis of the early and mid 90s. Fundamental questions of strategy need to be resolved. How is revenue generated? What are the sources of cost? How do airlines make profits? In pursuing these questions, students need to sort out the realities of the airline industry and the specific opportunities and challenges facing Canadian.

An entrepreneur's application for a loan to open a small restaurant is rejected. As a consequence, the restaurant's cash position is a concern. The case requires the student to calculate three cash budgets based on expected, optimistic and pessimistic sales projections.

The purpose of this note is to explain the concept of economic value added (EVA) and to show how EVA can be employed as a tool to assess managerial performance and assist in making strategic decisions.

Two partners who own a popular restaurant franchise must decide whether to open an outdoor patio. They must identify differential costs, categorize them as recurring flows (variable or fixed) or one-time flows (investments), perform sensitivity analysis, and calculate the projected return on investment to support their decision.

The chief financial officer of Sunshine Juice Company needs to finalize the company's marketing strategy for the upcoming year. Initial results for the launch of the company's product, a four-litre bag-in-a-box orange juice product, had been favourable. The case touches on all aspects of developing a marketing strategy, with emphasis on price setting and distribution.

The focus of this note is to present a risk management framework for current and potential corporate end users of derivatives products in the mid-1990s. Several high profile cases of derivatives problems are presented in the context of the framework. The note also examines where the process has failed and how the failures could have been prevented.

This case documents the origins and development of a collaborative interorganizational system. This system is an experimental broadband network being used to trial both ATM technology and new applications such as the transmission, retrieval and archiving of medical images. Director of LARG*net confronts the difficulties of technological innovation and interorganizational management. It provides an illustration of the technical difficulties in integrating different systems, ensuring security, and the ramifications to an organization's own systems when connectivity with other organizations is attempted. It highlights the fact that IT infrastructure is more than just physical hardware. At the same time it raises the issues of handling accountability and responsibility across organizational boundaries.

The vice president, finance of a firm notes that although performance of the firm as measured by traditional accounting measures has steadily improved, share price has been decreasing. She attempts to employ the concept of economic value added to get to the bottom of the puzzle.