This exercise explores the operational and strategic challenges faced by Philanthropy Insight (PI), a Canadian non-profit organization founded by Emily Hayes, which aims to provide donors with information to make informed giving decisions. Despite significant growth in website traffic, PI struggles with chronic underfunding, leading Hayes to continually finance the deficit from her personal savings. The case delves into PI’s data management issues, including its use of disorganized and error-prone Excel spreadsheets, and looks at the potential value of structuring its data into a centralized database to better analyze donor behaviour and content effectiveness. Students are tasked with analyzing PI’s current data practices, understanding the implications of data structuring, and recommending strategies to improve operational efficiency and financial sustainability through better data management and analytics.
In late 2019, the Mississauga, Ontario–based NetDynamic Consulting Inc. (NetDynamic) faced intricate challenges related to aligning and standardizing enterprise resource planning (ERP) processes on a global scale in a large multinational enterprise while simultaneously safeguarding the distinctive operational nuances specific to each of the company’s local subsidiaries. <br><br>NetDynamic had undertaken the challenge of integrating the operations of its client, SodaStream Canada, into a unified ERP system. SodaStream Canada was a subsidiary of SodaStream International Ltd. (SodaStream), headquartered in Israel. While SodaStream was part of the food and beverage multinational PepsiCo Inc. (PepsiCo), it was also a multinational in its own right, with 10 global subsidiaries under its purview. NetDynamic’s leaders needed to make crucial decisions regarding how to roll out the new ERP system, how to efficiently address end-user concerns, and how to learn from the ongoing integration to serve future clients better.
Entity-Relationship (ER) data modelling is a critical technique used by data experts to help design new systems, utilize existing systems, and replace old systems. This note describes the different levels of data modelling, as well as its objectives and benefits, provides a brief history of graphical modelling approaches, and focuses on a particular graphical rule set for creating logical data models called Barker notation.
Andrew Chen, chief executive officer of Andrew’s Dental Chain (ADC), faces the challenge of managing and scaling his rapidly growing dental business, which operates 15 clinics across Guangdong Province, China. ADC plans to double its locations within three years, but the current system of manual oversight is proving inadequate. The clinics function as independent entities, raising concerns about the consistency of patient care, staff qualifications, and operational efficiency. To support this expansion, a comprehensive data model for a new standardized information system must be designed to integrate data across all locations and enable better decision-making.
Mastry Maltings, founded in 1990 in rural Saskatchewan, Canada, supplies malt to brewers, distillers, and food manufacturers. As the company expands, new regulatory traceability requirements challenge its reliance on Excel spreadsheets for data management. The malting process—from grain procurement to blending—requires detailed documentation for quality control and compliance purposes. This case focuses on designing a scalable data model to track grain lots, malt batches, machinery, operators, and customers while integrating quality control. Students will develop a database system to ensure compliance and efficiency and support business analytics.
In late 2019, the chief people officer at World Vision Canada was feeling overwhelmed. Eighteen months earlier, she had exited her intense and successful career in the private sector to join World Vision Canada, a leading international development charity. While she embraced the organization’s mission-driven ethos of collaboration and collegiality, it had led to an excess of meetings. In just the past week, she had attended more than 100 meetings. Was it time to resurrect the organization’s previous attempts to address its meeting culture? What roadblocks had prevented the success of those previous attempts? How could the chief people officer continue to be an advocate for a culture of collaboration and inclusivity while also ensuring a change to the meeting culture?
In 2016, Toronto entrepreneur Andy Hoang was working to launch a new business, Aviron Interactive Inc., a developer and marketer of interactive rowing machines that would use gamification to allow users to work out with others through a virtual connection and an innovative, remotely-activated resistance adjustor. Hoang wanted to create the new business by wrapping an outsourced services model around a central core that included the key business insight, key differentiating product and technology features, and the leadership of a founding team. The other elements required of a startup—engineering, product design, product development, software coding, testing, quality assurance, marketing, sales, and so on—would be outsourced to various niche suppliers, and the central core would oversee the governance of the supplier portfolio. Hoang knew the company would be competing with similar video-based rowing machines as well as indoor rowing apps. He had a limited budget and wanted to design, develop, and launch the product quickly, to stay ahead of his competition. Would a traditional business model or a lean, agile model be best for this project?
On April 2, 2017, the two founders of Foxcore Retail were preparing for a third summer managing their small retail business in Ontario, Canada. They had spent the weekend reviewing budgeting, staffing schedules, and inventory planning for their biggest expansion to date. There was only one pressing concern that had not been solved. In the past, employees had tracked sales by hand, on paper, which led to headaches when it came to calculating sales representatives’ commissions. Additionally, the two partners knew that by not documenting key information about each sale, they were missing the opportunity to collect valuable data that could provide insight into the performance of employees, events, and products. As the business grew, they were starting to notice the impact of these inefficiencies on customer service, and it was clear that this was the right time to implement a more disciplined database system.
In the summer of 2017, after completing his third year of business school, a student was eager to apply his newly developed business and technology skill sets at his father’s company during his four-month summer position. His father’s business, Custom Closet Contractors, designed and manufactured custom home organization solutions for home builders and individual clients. In the past year, the successful company’s sales growth had slowed, while expenses as a percentage of sales had increased. The company had experienced operational problems leading to higher expenses, and the student had found that part of the problem was the lack of data organization, which led to miscommunication between the front office and the production staff. To solve the problem, he proposed to design a centralized database and set to work trying to understand the business processes in order to design a data model.
If you want to capture the hearts and minds of globally dispersed virtual team members, you must consider two key factors: situated learning and identity construction. Situated learning encompasses questioning, proposing ideas, discussing issues, and seeking feedback, whereas identity construction is “a process of understanding who one is, what one can do, and to what extent one becomes more or less legitimized and valued by the other members.” As individuals engage in situated learning and identity construction, they move from being peripheral participants to central players. Although individual reasons for joining a virtual community (such as an open-source software community) vary, the authors question: “What motivates and propels people to continue to actively contribute?” Though many open-source software (OSS) projects have failed, others have yielded world-class software like Linux, WordPress, and Firefox. <br><br> The authors split a 715-member community OSS community into three groups of participants: highly active/sustained (9), partially active/unsustained (7), and inactive (699). They suggest four steps to increase virtual team member engagement. First, the success of the project relies on sustained contributions from a few core contributors with strong expertise and skills. Second, to identify and foster the development of core contributors, every contribution must be recorded, tracked, and publishable. Third, to retain core contributors, special privileges should be granted to them. Finally, for contributors to gain recognition and reputation within the community, both direct contributions (e.g., solving software coding problems) and indirect contributions (e.g., offering advice) are needed.
In 2017, a successful online dating company, Mate1.com, based in Montreal, was pursuing a two-year goal of increasing revenue by 50 per cent and net operating margin by 15 per cent. However, its ambitions were being hampered by unavoidably high advertising costs, an inadequate reporting system, and a maturing industry life cycle. Should the firm explore new business models and consider acquiring a competitor—or was it time to divest and sell the firm?
In 2015, the executive director of Furniture Bank had successfully managed the Toronto social-service agency by turning a $300,000 net loss two years prior into a $100,000 net income. He had employed a variety of strategies and information technologies to integrate and rationalize business processes that resulted in significant productivity and performance improvements. However, Furniture Bank, which collected unneeded furnishings from donors and distributed them to those in need, had been a victim of its own success; it had maximized its capacity and was struggling to meet growing demand for its services. The executive director had to explore growth opportunities, specifically those accessible by leveraging information technology (IT), and choose from among four likely options.
In the spring of 2016, the director of finance and administration for the Calgary Drop-In & Rehab Centre was frustrated with the organization’s legacy donor and volunteer information system. The technology platform was outdated, data integrity was out of control, costs were spiralling, and most importantly, required information was not available on demand. The director was concerned that these issues with the organization’s information systems would interfere with its ability to maintain positive relationships with existing donors and to secure new financial supporters—ultimately, that it could have an impact on the agency’s efforts to achieve more good in the community. He was contemplating three options to solve this problem: build a new in-house system to replace the current Microsoft Access database system; purchase customer relationship management software specifically developed for non-profit fundraising and relationship management and install this on personal computers and servers in the offices; or adopt a cloud-based fundraising solution, where the organization’s data would be stored on a secure, shared platform administered by the vendor.
In October 2015, WestJet, Canada’s second largest airline, needed to expand its social media presence. The vice-president of marketing and communications and the manager of social media were excited about the prospects of continuing to grow their customer base and reach even more guests through social media. WestJet had developed a highly successful approach to managing social media, and now the two executives were faced with two new possible social platforms: Snapchat and Pinterest. With an economy in decline and a flat marketing budget for 2016, they had a decision to make. Should the company pursue either of these platforms for the coming year, and if so, how? Which one would be best for the growth and evolution of WestJet’s social media presence?