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In Egypt, Genzyme's humanitarian commitment to treat all sufferers of the rare Gaucher disease worldwide first confronts its commercial imperative to recoup the huge investment required to bring the drug Cerezyme to market. Here Tomye Tierney must decide how to balance the demands of the sales organization that faces saturating developed markets, but major growth opportunities in developing economies. They believe that as long as the Gaucher Initiative-Genzyme's partnership with Project Hope-is providing free Cerezyme, they will be unable to convince the Egyptian government to authorize reimbursement, which can run from $200,000 to $300,000 per patient annually. CEO Henri Termeer believes Genzyme can hold firm to both the humanitarian commitment and its strong patient-focused commercial objectives. But it is Tierney who is on the front line and negotiates the delicate agreement between Genzyme sales, Project Hope, and Egyptian authorities.

This case details the implementation of the e-business initiative--the last of Jack Welch's four company-wide strategic thrusts. First, it summarizes the 20-year change process that Welch led, detailing the initiatives he put in place. It then traces how Gerry Podesta, the e-business head in GE Plastics, implemented the new initiative. In doing so, highlights how the "social architecture" (culture and values) and "operating systems" (systems and processes) help the company drive through changes that have it named Internet Week's top e-business of 2000. Ends with questions about the effectiveness of successive pushes on "e-sell," "e-buy," and "e-make" and whether the e-business teams should be broken up and rolled back into the company.

Supplements the (A) case.

Two new product launch decisions face Christopher Carson, managing director of BRL Hardy, Europe. Responsible for the European operations of a major Australian wine company, Carson has begun to globalize his strategy beyond selling the parent company's wines. After a difficult joint venture with a Chilean wine source, he is proposing to launch an Italian line of wines. His local team has also developed a new Australian brand that would compete directly with a parent company's global brand rollout.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 300-018.

Supplements the case. Designed as an in-class handout.

With a focus on Matt MacLellan and his careful development as a project manager under his boss and mentor, Jim Kaplan, the case describes the evolution of Microsoft's human-resource philosophies and policies and illustrates how they work in practice to provide the company with a major source of competitive advantage. It looks at employee development, motivation, and retention efforts in one of Microsoft's product groups. Dissatisfied with his project management role, MacLellan decides to become a developer despite the fact that he has never written code professionally. Kaplan is faced with the decision of whether to support his protege's radical career shift, and if so, how to do it not only to MacLellan's satisfaction but also in the organization's best interest.

Describes the evolution of Microsoft's human-resource philosophies, policies, and practices and how they used as a core of the company's competitive advantage. In particular, the focus is on how Microsoft tried to retain its ability to recruit, develop, motivate, and retain first-class talent as it grew from a start-up to a global behemoth. Triggered by high-profile, senior-level departures in 1999, the company must decide if it is time to change its "hard core" culture came to be.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 300-001.

Conventional wisdom says that companies from the periphery of the global market can't compete against established global giants from Europe, Japan, and the United States. Companies from developing countries have entered the game too late; they don't have the resources. But Christopher Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal disagree. The problem for most aspiring multinationals from peripheral countries, say the authors, is that they enter the global marketplace in low-margin businesses at the bottom of the value curve, and they stay there. But it doesn't have to be that way. They studied 12 emerging multinationals based in such countries--from emerging markets like Brazil to relatively more prosperous yet still peripheral nations like Australia to developing countries like the Philippines. These companies now enjoy global success because they treated global competition as an opportunity to build capabilities and move into more profitable segments of their industry. The path to globalization isn't easy, but the authors show that it is possible. Each company in the study overcame the same core challenges. They broke out of the mind-set that they were unable to compete successfully on the global stage. They adopted strategies that made being a late mover a source of competitive advantage. They developed a culture of continual cross-border learning. And they all had leaders who drove them relentlessly up the value curve. The companies discussed in this article are models for the thousands of marginal companies in peripheral economies that have the potential to become legitimate global players.

Supplements the (A) case.

GE is faced with Jack Welch's impending retirement and whether anyone can sustain the blistering pace of change and growth characteristic of the Welch era. After briefly describing GE's heritage and Welch's transformation of the company's business portfolio of the 1980s, the case chronicles Welch's revitalization initiatives through the late 1980s and 1990s. It focuses on six of Welch's major change programs: The "Software" Initiatives, Globalization, Redefining Leadership, Stretch Objectives, Service Business Development, and Six Sigma Quality.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 399-150.

Describes the strategic, organizational, and management changes that led Acer from its 1976 startup to become the world's second-largest computer manufacturer. Outlines the birth of the company, the painful "professionalization" of its management, the plunge into losses, and the transformation under founder Stan Shih's radical "fast food" business concept and his "client-server" organization model, which are put to the test when a young product manager in Acer America develops a radically new multimedia home PC with global potential. Shih must decide whether to give an inexperienced manager in a loss-generating subsidiary the green light.

Follows the development, national launch, and global rollout of the Aspire, Acer's first new product developed outside of Taiwan. Implementing a very promising new PC concept proves challenging to Mike Culver and his U.S. team, who are plagued by coordination problems with experts and resource managers in Taiwan. Leading the global rollout proves equally difficult, with local managers wanting to make local adaptations. After 2.5 years of missed forecasts and unexpected losses, CEO Stan Shih must decide whether to abandon the Aspire. More profoundly, what changes does this failure suggest for his radical "fast food" business concept and his "client server" organization model?

Noli Tingzon, newly-appointed international division VP at Jollibee, the Philippines-based hamburger chain, is faced with the challenge of expanding fast food operations in Asia in the face of stiff competition. The case describes Jollibee's six-year international expansion history and the lessons the company has learned. Against this background, Noli must decide among expansion opportunities in New Guinea, Hong Kong, and California.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 399-007.

Lincoln Electric, a 100-year-old manufacturer of welding equipment and consumables based in Cleveland, Ohio, motivates its U.S. employees through a culture of cooperation between management and labor and an unusual compensation system based on piecework and a large bonus based on individual contribution to the company's performance. Despite opening a few international sales and production ventures in Canada, Australia, and France, Lincoln remained focused on manufacturing in the United States until 1988. At that time, the company's new CEO expanded manufacturing through acquisitions and greenfields in 11 new countries, attempting to transfer its unique management philosophy to each. However, Lincoln was unable to replicate its highly productive system abroad. Operational problems led to a major restructuring in the early 1990s, supervised by Anthony Massaro, a newcomer to the company. In 1996, Massaro was named CEO and set about expanding the company's manufacturing base through a new strategy. The case concludes in Asia, where Lincoln's regional president is trying to decide whether and how to establish a manufacturing presence in Indonesia, and in particular whether to try to transfer Lincoln's unique incentive-driven management system.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 398-095.

This case describes the major strategic and organizational transformation at Komatsu aimed at changing it from a Japan-based producer of construction equipment to a truly global company with the ability to leverage its groupwide portfolio of resources and capabilities into a new, more diverse business base. Details efforts to build and acquire foreign operations, to specialize and integrate overseas units, to expand responsibilities of offshore operations, and to localize management.