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On 31 January 2007, Dell Inc. announced the return of Michael Dell, its founder, to the position of CEO, replacing Kevin Rollins in providing day-to-day leadership to the troubled PC maker. The radical decision came after a turbulent year that saw a sharp decline in both market share and profitability, and which ended with Dell losing its leading position in the industry to Hewlett-Packard, from which it took in 2003. Once a high-flying success case with its revolutionary direct business-to-customer model, Dell was now facing an obvious challenge in turning itself around. This is a management strategy case concerned with the applicability of the direct business-to-customer model in global expansion, further complicated by changing industry dynamics. The application of the model is dependent on many factors that are outside the control of the company. The combined effect of these factors-such as physical infrastructure, telecommunications infrastructure, political climate, transportation networks, availability of suitable staff-determines the market readiness of the country concerned. Meanwhile, the changing market conditions, such as consumer purchasing patterns and market growth patterns, may also impair the effectiveness of the model. The test is whether Dell can successfully apply its direct model in other markets with different social and economic contexts, notably China. In addition, should Dell unswervingly adhere to the direct model in the face of shifting market conditions, globally and regionally? What are the strategies it should develop to conquer the world's second-largest PC market-China?

Founded in 1881, Seiko gained prominence for introducing the world's first quartz watch in 1969 and is often associated with the "quartz revolution" of the 1970s that threatened to destroy the Swiss watchmaking industry. Competition from inexpensive Chinese watch producers, a resurgent Swiss watch industry, domestic rivals, and a profusion of new fashion brands have led the company to reconsider its sales-oriented strategy of offering numerous products at various price points. Having become nearly obsolete in the face of quartz technology, the mechanical watch business was thriving once more, as a number of predominantly Swiss firms attracted luxury watch buyers. Since the 1960s, Seiko has produced luxury and complex mechanical watches for the domestic market under the brands "Grand Seiko" and "Credor." In 2003, Shinji Hattori, a great grandson of Seiko's founder became Seiko Watch Company's president and CEO and felt that Seiko should raise its perceived image outside Japan. In management's view, Seiko could claim distinction as the only "mechatronic manufacturer" in the world--a vertically integrated watchmaker that excelled in both mechanical watchmaking and micro-electronics. The launch of an innovative new watch movement--the Spring Drive--presented an opportunity for Seiko to make a timely foray into high-price segments in the international watch market. Examines the legacy of Seiko's watch business and provides a basic overview of the world watch industry. Considers the manner in which watches have evolved as a product category, and how a company like Seiko has attempted to reconcile its competitive advantage with its brand positioning in a highly crowded market.

Wumart Stores (Wumart) is a privately owned, indigenous Chinese retail chain operation founded by a private entrepreneur in 1994. The decade after its inception saw the company grow from a small, suburban supermarket to the seventh largest chain retailer (over 500 stores) in China. By using regional market positioning focusing on one of China's wealthiest regions--Beijing; implementing low-cost expansion strategies; taking the opportunity to restructure state-owned assets; employing multi-format store development in both the most mature and fastest growing segment; and making the earliest commitment to information technology among its domestic peers, Wumart establishes strong competitive advantages that set it apart from its domestic competition. On the company's 10th anniversary, China fully opened its retail sector to foreign participation. Vying for a share in China's vast consumer market, but having been hindered by many regulatory obstacles, foreign retailing giants can now compete on a level platform backed by their ample financial resources, deep industry and management expertise, and long-term commitment to China. The market is becoming ever more competitive and is expected to experience massive consolidation. In the end, only the best performers with significant scale will survive. The test is for Wumart's management to develop strategies to sustain its competitive advantages in the face of challenges from both domestic peers and foreign giants, to carry on the success story, and to eventually realize its ambition of becoming an everlasting national brand.

An undisputed success story, Daksh eServices was one of the leading Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) service providers in India. Launched by a group of friends in 2000, it started by providing web-based customer support services for global clients. By 2004, having added voice capability to complete its service offering, it had grown into a 6,000 strong company with reported revenues of over US$50 million. Given the market conditions, Daksh had all the right numbers to be a sell out IPO. At the same time, IBM had expressed a concerted interest to buy out the company. What had emerged as the relevant question was, whether or not the IPO was the best way to go ahead. Alternatively, was the sell out to IBM a better option? If so, what should be the asking price? While the top management at Daksh evaluated both options, industry analysts reflected as to why a BPO company like Daksh made sense for IBM in the first place.

Huawei was China's largest telecommunication equipment provider. It boasted annual revenue of US$6.7 billion in 2005, 60% of which came from international sales. Globally, Huawei had a strong position in the market for low-end routers and switches, offering products that were 40% cheaper than its competitors. However, unlike the threat from most Chinese companies, Huawei's threat came not from low-cost manufacturing but from low-cost engineering. Can Huawei leverage its strengths to climb up the technology value chain, replicating its success with low-end telecom networking in high-technology products and services? Can it build a global brand?

In November 2005, Microsoft launched Xbox 360, its latest game console. It was an extraordinary event, not because of the glamorous business executives and journalists hanging around the event, the super cool festival mood soaking the Mojave Desert, or the graphic technologies dazzling the giant consoles surrounding the conference room. Rather, the air was filled with a mix of trepidation and excitement about the viability of the company's new strategy of moving beyond Windows-based PCs. Everybody in the room wondered whether the company could regain its past glory by entering new territories. What opportunities and challenges, they wondered, awaited the company in markets in which it did not have proprietary advantage? What specific strategies did it have to adopt to capitalize on the opportunities and counter the challenges? How best could Microsoft execute its diversification strategy?

In the spring of 2005, Dell, Inc., the world's largest personal computer maker, announced a new goal: to reach $80 billion in annual sales by 2009. The goal was fairly ambitious for Dell, which at the time had revenues of about $49 billion. In the second quarter of 2005, Dell significantly missed revenue expectations and lowered its outlook. Dell shares were down by about 28% from the end of 2004 to late December 2005, whereas those of its major competitor, Hewlett-Packard Co., had soared more than 36%. Given the dip in revenues, investors began to question whether Dell was still the high-flying growth company it once was. Could Dell get its revenue growth back on track to realize its bullish vision? Could the company capture the opportunities available outside the United States, where its presence was younger and its share smaller? As Dell expanded into new product markets, could it replicate past success with the direct model and find new drivers for growth?

The Hong Kong Jockey Club had grown from simple origins into an enormous gaming operator, with a statutory monopoly on horse racing, football betting and lotteries. At the same time, the Club served as Hong Kong's largest charity and community benefactor. It was also Hong Kong's largest single taxpayer, the operator of a prestigious membership Club and had undertaken some of the most sophisticated implementations of information technology in Asia. Under the leadership of Lawrence Wong, the Jockey Club's first ethnic-Chinese executive, the club had set about installing management discipline in the organization and raising betting revenues. He had also overseen the launch of football betting in 2003. By 2005 the emergence of local illegal and unauthorized offshore gambling operators, typically Internet-based and which paid no taxes, operated with little overhead, few regulatory restraints, and could thus offer bigger payout and more betting options posed a significant threat to the club's revenues. Wong would have to lead the club's efforts to defend gaming revenues against a host of threats and competitive forces.

The MTR Corporation Limited, the semi-privatised railway company in Hong Kong, was transforming itself from a local transportation company to become a global player. Despite MTR's proven rail-property model in Hong Kong, the company was faced with a new set of economic, cultural, regulatory and operational challenges abroad, particularly in China and Europe where it was expanding into. This case illustrated the growth model of a local company during internationalisation and analysed the trade-offs of different strategic decisions when entering into new markets.

Illustrates the underlying forces that erode a company's competitive advantage and are instrumental in converting its success into failure. Focuses on Motorola's strategic evolution in China, and shows how, over time, divergences emerged between the company's competence and basis of competition, and between its strategy and action. Provides an opportunity to examine how Motorola should strategically re-position itself in China to attain sustained competitive advantage.

In the late 1990s, IBM successfully moved up the value chain and became one of the largest business and information technology (IT) solution providers in the world. To achieve such a transformation, the company made a number of strategic moves to reduce its exposure in the commoditization of IT hardware manufacturing. A key success factor was the creation of IBM Global Services and its venture into the high-margin management consulting and technology services industries. Moreover, IBM orchestrated a series of strategic acquisitions, sold ailing business units, and outsourced low-value-added manufacturing to external contractors and joint venture partners. In 2002, with the success of its business model and the introduction of new computing architecture, IBM made a high-profile announcement about its new corporate strategy centered on the concept of "on demand business." Nonetheless, followed by disappointing financial results in the first quarter of 2005, IBM's stock price plummeted and hit the lowest point since Sam Palmisano took over as CEO in March 2002. The company announced a massive restructuring in its European operations to be carried out in late 2005. Although the second quarter results had improved, some began to doubt whether the "on demand" strategy would deliver the promised results. More specifically, many started to question why and how such a strategy was justified in the first place. What difficulties would the company encounter in implementing its new corporate strategy?

Examines the paradox of bringing in a charismatic leader to spearhead organizational change in a company renowned for its strong legacy and culture. On the one hand, in the face of a rapidly changing competitive environment, HP, a Silicon Valley icon, was looking to initiate an organizational transformation. On the other hand, it was a company embedded in tradition--with the charismatic Carly Fiorina having to struggle with the tensions between various organizational components, including company loyalists who opposed a change in the traditional systems, processes, structure, and culture. Also allows discussion of the strategic options available to Mark Hurd, HP's new CEO.

The Asian Newly Industrialised Economies (ANIEs)--Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong--have become masters and creators of advanced technologies despite various economic challenges since the 1980s. Fast becoming the next global economic power, it is speculated that China will be the next innovation powerhouse. Analyzes and compares the current innovation strategies of China and the ANIEs and determines the possibility of China repeating the ANIEs' success in technological innovation.

It was estimated in 2002 that the size of the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) market in China would be around $5 billion. A decade of Chinese regulatory reforms, Chinese pharmaceutical industry liberalization, changing Chinese lifestyle and demographics, and the Chinese pharmaceutical research and development facilities were factors explaining the huge TCM market potential in China. Multinationals wanting to enter this market might have to deal with inadequate intellectual property protection, corruption in health insurance reimbursement, complex regulatory procedures, and underdeveloped pricing, bidding, and distribution practices.

Describes the landscape of China's home appliances industry and its competitive environment in 2004. Depicts industry characteristics and new developments, including technology, distribution, and marketing. Also profiles the major local and foreign players in the market, analyzes major industry issues, and provides insights into the future development of the industry.

At the dawn of the 20th anniversary of its involvement in China's passenger car industry, Shanghai Volkswagen (SVW) found itself caught in changed external and internal environments, with factors critical to its past success gone or quickly diminishing. Although taking first-mover risks has rewarded Volkswagen with a dominant market position and high profitability, such dominance and profitability might not be sustained in the long run as the competitive landscape transforms. The test is whether SVW can quickly adapt to the new environment and establish a new set of competitive advantages that positions it favorably against its rivals.

The global apparel industry is known to be a buyer-driven industry, led by retailers, marketers, and branded manufacturers. In the United States, in particular, a handful of giant retailers (Wal-Mart, Sears, Kmart, Dayton Hudson, JC Penney), which account for over two-thirds of all apparel sales, dominate the industry. In recent years, these companies have increasingly deployed information technologies to gain market knowledge, streamline their value chains, and manage their extensive global sourcing networks. In response to market demand, TAL Apparel Ltd. (TAL), a no-name Hong Kong-based garment manufacturer, has developed a sophisticated information management system to manage the supply chain for its retailer customers, thus solidifying its position in the apparel value chain. By taking ownership of the customer ordering, inventory management, and shipment dispatch functions, the manufacturer has gained valuable access to real-time market information, allowing it to venture into the design and test marketing business. Explores how a traditionally weak member in the apparel industry uses IT to gain competitive advantage in the intensely competitive global marketplace.

Team and Concepts Ltd. (TnC), an IT company founded by David Lee and his partners in 2003, was not a typical small business. Its owners were innovative, business-savvy entrepreneurs with audacious goals who worked daily to grow the business and transform it into a successful company. Such a transformation required comprehensive changes in many aspects of the business. Facilitating this transition required enhanced managerial, financial, marketing, and R&D capacities. In 2004, the company was facing the challenge of working with new investors and partners who would likely set conditions for the business and require it to adopt new behaviors and a new management structure. TnC was also exploring the trade-offs between acquiring outside funds and retaining control to make wise decisions about its future strategy.

Gives an account of how a ship management company was able to set itself apart from competitors and from its clients' own in-house technical and crew management capabilities by embracing a culture of continuous improvement and implementing Total Quality Management systems. The shipping industry was not alone in being regulated, but its distinctly international nature made ship managers, as cost-cutting practitioners, particularly open to criticism. A ship management company's very existence hinged upon its ability to convince ship owners that it would preserve their valuable assets and maximize revenue-earning potential--demonstrating that its collective skills were superior and more cost effective. As a result, an effective quality assurance system that continuously improved the organization's human and business systems could enhance efficiency and have a significant marketing impact.

Craig Knight, Asia Pacific Digital Business and Customer Services Manager of Eastman Chemical Company, was given a mandate to sell Eastman's philosophy for an integrated electronic supply chain, otherwise known as the Integrated System Solution (ISS), to its business partners in the region, and to encourage adoption. Having invested in a state-of-the-art technical architecture that would support interconnectivity with all parties along the supply chain, Eastman was keen to realise the full benefits to be gained from an integrated e-supply chain on a global scale. Following numerous rounds of discussion with key business partners in the Asia Pacific region, some progress had been made. Nagase & Co., Ltd. of Japan had agreed to adopt ISS connections with Eastman, but had some reservations regarding the extent of integration. Although the benefits of integration were proven, suppliers, customers, distributors and other interested parties were faced with numerous limitations and considerations that would have significant implications on their established business processes and even the shaping of their corporate strategy. Adoption was not a simple choice. Craig understood these shortcomings and was making every effort to ease the adoption process by identifying the longer-term benefits to Nagase and other business partners of applying XML technology to their businesses.