The executive team at Corning has committed to double the rate of new business creation per decade, while at the same time growing the company's current businesses, including glass substrates for LCD displays. Their strategy, built on more than 150 years of successful innovation, is to invent "keystone components" which uniquely enable other companies' products and earn high margins from its proprietary technology. As part of the company's mission to be around for another 150 years, the executive team is also committed to devote considerable resources to basic research "in faith" that it will create new, high-margin businesses that will drive corporate growth in 10-20 years and enable the company to "reinvent" itself, even though they will not be around to reap the benefits of this investment. The executive team must choose how to allocate finite RD&E resources between (1) "pushing" one, or more, of four brand new businesses with considerable potential in the development pipeline to the market sooner; (2) allocating more resources to six new products being launched from existing businesses; or (3) spending more on exploratory research. In making these decisions, the executive team must consider the impact of their decision on not only near-term earnings, but on how it will enable Corning to diversify over the medium to long term in terms of the quality and quantity of its portfolio of new technologies in the development pipeline and new businesses being launched, especially so that it is not overly dependent on sales of a particular business like LCD glass. 

Novartis is a science-based drug company, which has important implications for its business strategy. It is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world with over $38B in sales in 2007. Pharmaceuticals account for slightly over $24B of that total. In 2007, corporate R&D spending was $6.43B, or almost 17% of net sales. Novartis executive leaders believe in scientific progress and that large-scale investments in science will therefore result in long-term pay-offs in terms of profits and discoveries that benefit mankind. Novartis' business strategy is closely tied to its research strategy, which emphasizes extensive internal discovery and development capabilities leading to organic growth along with explicit external alliances and collaborations to supplement its core capabilities. Like its competitors, Novartis faces many challenges in terms of moving research from the bench to the bedside.  Five years after undertaking the restructuring of the discovery research organization, CEO Daniel Vasella is pleased with its progress, including many more development projects in the pipeline and new molecular entities. Nevertheless, the company faces a number of challenges, including generic drugs, patent infringements in developing countries, and pricing pressure from governments and health insurers in the United States. Given these challenges, Novartis must decide how much to spend on R&D overall, how to arrive at the right mix between organic growth and external collaboration and in-licensing, and how to measure success when it takes so many years to develop and launch a successful drug.    

Computer science departments were new to universities in the 1960s, and the one created at the University of Utah by David Evans and Ivan Sutherland had a research mission to invent the field of computer graphics. Details the research process that led to many of the critical breakthrough concepts and algorithms for the field and the training of PhDs, who then created companies that brought the new technology to the marketplace.

Jack Smith had a stellar career at Chrysler managing major design teams and manufacturing plants before deciding to join industry leader and benchmark Toyota. It is his first day on the job; what will his orientation entail? Cursory walkthroughs and introductions before assignment to a job commensurate with his experience and accomplishments or something else to help him acclimate to Toyota's unique management approach?

After two and a half years of effort, Fraser Bullock, COO of the 2002 Winter Olympics, faced projected deficits and post-9/11 security requirements only five months before the opening ceremony. Summarizes the organizational structure and processes put in place by Bullock and CEO Mitt Romney, as well as how they created systems and culture to endow effective working knowledge to the 90% of their staff who started working two weeks before the games began.

As the engineering of state-of-the-art jet engines becomes more and more complex, Pratt & Whitney leaders face major competitive problems. Product development projects are not meeting the cost, quality, and lead-time targets. The leadership develops a design, development, test, and launch system that treats the engineering resources as a factory and carefully designs and manages the work flows, engineering activities, and hand-offs between tasks. There is promising initial success but some question whether the "engineering standard work" system stifles creativity and whether it is appropriate for the work of other professional functions.

A gifted project leader lacks significant new product development experience. The case highlights the issues and procedures related to defining the project strategy: organizing senior management approvals and support for creating a "heavyweight" team; aligning the disparate perspectives, interests, and biases of project members; and implementing best-practice tools for managing teams within the project. Creates a framework for establishing organizational design rules and key new product development processes, and also provides insights about models of leadership for new product development.

Traces the development of Hewlett-Packard Co. from a small start-up company in 1938 to a world-class manufacturer of electronic instruments and computer products. Examines the challenges of starting and running a small company, including financing, human resources management, product strategy, human relations, and management succession. The creation of a unique and enduring set of values and a philosophy of running and growing a company, known as the "HP Way," is emphasized.