This case lends itself to courses covering the topic of rapid expansion of an enterprise. By 2012, Rick Berry, the founder and CEO of Demandforce (DF), and his team had built a company with annual revenue of approximately $70 million. DF provided small businesses with software tools used by more than 23,000 individual businesses and 50,000 business users to communicate with their customers. DF's business model was software as a service (SaaS) for a monthly fee. The company's value creation for its clients was evidenced by a high client renewal rate of 88%. But after DF was acquired by Intuit in April 2012, Berry knew that the game had changed dramatically. He was now confronted with a new challenge-one he had never faced: building a big company. He had to take his business and grow it into one with $750 million of revenue as quickly as possible.
Cycle-stock ordering decisions, including cost-element considerations, are examined. As materials flow from suppliers through a firm's operations to customers, the cost-effectiveness of inventory investment is improved by the development and implementation of an inventory management system.
This overview of inventory management covers ways to categorize inventories and measure performance. The financial implications of inventory, inventory management systems, economic order quantities, and decision rules for determining safety stocks are discussed.
One of the few remaining producers of lead additives must decide whether to continue producing them for use abroad. Banned in the United States, lead additives were still legal in developing nations. Ellie Shannon, the division manager overseeing bromine production for the Indiana-based Great Lakes Chemical Corporation (Great Lakes), must advise Great Lakes' directors on whether the company should 1) continue production for the foreseeable future, while developing countries moved from leaded vehicles to unleaded vehicles; 2) wash its hands entirely and immediately of the lead additive business; or 3) aggressively phase out its participation in this marketplace, with a five-year deadline, while lobbying for developing nations to switch to unleaded gasoline. Each of the options had its downside, however, financially, operationally, and in terms of reputation. Great Lakes placed a great deal of importance in its shareholders' well-being and in remaining a viable company, but it also wanted to be-and to be seen as-a respectable corporate citizen.
This note examines a firm's decisions about its cycle-stock ordering activities and the cost-element considerations behind those decisions. Students learn that, as materials flow from suppliers through a firm's operations to customers, the objective is to develop and implement a management system that can improve the cost effectiveness of the investments in inventory.
This note addresses inventory-planning and -control activities using periodic-review systems. The reorder point system is addressed in a separate technical note (UVA-OM-0936).
This case exposes students to refinements in JIT (just in time) purchasing. It explains in detail Bose's concept of JIT II, how it operates, and what its advantages and disadvantages are. Students can critique the JIT II idea and decide if it should be extended to parts that are used in proprietary areas. Students should have some prior exposure to JIT purchasing concepts (e.g., partnering). The case could be used in an operations course or in a course on business-to-business marketing.
This note traces the evolution and broadening of Goldratt's thinking from his OPT finite-scheduling software to his theory of constraints. The note discusses the bottleneck thinking that Goldratt presented in his novel, The Goal, and his book, The Race.
This note serves as an introduction to the topic of inventory management. It covers ways to categorize inventories in measuring inventory performance, the financial implications of inventory, inventory-management systems, economic order quantities, decision rules for determining safety stocks, and the effect of multiple stocking points on average inventory.
This note reports the results of a study of 10 U.S. and Japanese companies with regard to their purchasing practices and vendor/buyer relationships. Particular attention is given to just-in-time practices in the purchasing area.