This case study describes Mark Lund's journey in starting and growing two different businesses. The businesses are set in Brazil. The time period of the businesses span two decades, the 1980s and 90s. Mark is firstly a surfer, musician and philosopher. Yet, he had an uncanny ability to identify business opportunities, develop and shape these opportunities and to capture opportunities.
The Black Duck case describes the transition of a 14-year-old software start-up that was languishing with outdated technology, low growth, and modest margins, to a rapidly growing innovative company that had become attractive enough to be an acquisition target for major software houses. The new incoming CEO, Lou Shipley, had to make some tough decisions and a number of changes - some major and many minor - to set Black Duck back on a growth path and ready the firm for a sale, so that the investors could get their exit.
Crystal Lagoons has developed a pioneering, innovative, and environmentally sustainable technology that has been patented worldwide, which allows crystal clear lagoons of unlimited sizes to be built and maintained at very low costs anywhere in the world, using minimal amount of chemicals and energy. This case describes the early journey of the founder and inventor Fernando Fischmann. It is a tale of the challenges that Mr. Fischmann had to overcome over a 7-year period that resulted in the first ever crystal lagoon.
This is a best practice case. The WLGore is a very successful firm and the case describes in detail the culture of the enterprise. WLGore differs from the mainstream enterprise in a number of ways -strategy, structure, ownership, leadership, and operations. This case allows the participants to delve into each of these elements and see how they are all consistent and reinforcing one another. The main focus of the case is its "culture of innovation." Both "culture" and "innovation" are two items discussed and debated incessantly inside large organizations, but there is always confusion and clutter. This case was written with the sole purpose of shedding light and putting some concreteness around these slippery concepts. Please note that this case has been written entirely using publicly available material.
This case is intended to highlight entrepreneurial thought and action - a specific style of entrepreneurial leadership - inside the context of a large enterprise. Based on both primary and secondary research, the case protagonist is Mike Fisher, Sr., Director of Lean and Six Sigma at Best Buy. The protagonist as well as his direct reports were interviewed for the case, and articles were accessed to support the general environment around which the case was developed. The setting is the HQ of Best Buy, a large U.S. based electronics and appliance retailer. The case spans the years 2005 to 2011.
This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. When people think of services, they often think about offerings that are neutral or routine. These tend to be services they use regularly--for example, dry cleaning, haircutting, or gardening. However, there is a third type of service that is not often considered or well understood. The authors refer to these as "negative" services because they are related to events most people hope they will not have to deal with: toothaches, leaky roofs, or collision repairs, for example. Because the events that trigger the need for negative services are not everyday occurrences, many people are not equipped to diagnose the needs or to make informed judgments about the solutions required; furthermore, even after the service has been provided, most people are in a poor position to judge its quality or the price they paid for it. Many kinds of companies in many industries, including health care, insurance, household repair, pest control, and ambulance use, offer negative services. Companies hoping to build positions in negative services face two major challenges: how to access inexperienced customers who are not in a strong position to evaluate the service being provided and may have a poor idea of its cost; and how to organize and deploy their services to meet customer needs when demand is unpredictable.
Velky Potraviny is a discount grocery store chain in the Czech Republic. The firm strives to be the market leader in providing a wide assortment of grocery products at the lowest possible price. The move toward a market economy has prompted rapid expansion, and the Velky distribution center is nearing capacity for the 37 outlets it presently serves in the greater Prague area. Velky has realized the need for efficiency in its warehouse operations. Velky further recognizes that the distribution center employees are an integral part of the company and critical for efficient warehouse operations, hence the need to address the performance measurement system of the workers. Velky cannot independently address the issue of worker performance measurement without addressing the inter-related issues of the warehouse, namely, the layout of the warehouse, flows within the warehouse, capacity expansion, managing deliveries to the outlets, and its overall link to the corporate goal.
This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Most consumption experiences are the routine stuff of life--filling the gas tank, buying groceries, grabbing a quick lunch. Such tasks for the most part are neither fun nor painful; they're simply things that need to get checked off the list. Indeed, the authors say, they are so neutral that people often choose the seller with little thought and forget the experience in a matter of hours. Some providers of neutral services want to keep things that way. They want to be so convenient and reliable that people continue to use them unthinkingly. For certain mature service businesses, however, the addition of fun can be an important differentiator. The authors present three case studies taken from industries not known for fun--furniture retailing, consumer banking, and the grocery business--to show how it can be turned to profitable advantage. Jordan's Furniture, Commerce Bank, and Stew Leonard's operate their basic business models at a very high standard of excellence. But they also have what it takes to make a routine experience into something positive: strong leadership, a clear vision, a discriminating filter for new employees, a focus on hiring for attitudes rather than skills, and the ability to come up with the unexpected. The authors offer some general guidelines and cautionary notes to help managers who may want to try to emulate these successful companies.
The PC industry was in terrible shape in 2001. As Sony strived to fit the PC into a larger business model that included the sales of digital cameras, MP3 players, camcorders, TVs, cell phones and PDAs, the latter half of 2002 turned out to be financially very challenging for the PC business. Analysts were questioning the sustainability of Sony's successful entry and establishment of its PC business in the United States. Chronicles the 1995 to 1996 (re)entry efforts and results of the major Japanese firms. Describes the history of the U.S. PC as well as the U.S. PC market environment and developments during the period from 1995 to 2000.
Integrates issues in service operations, organization behavior, and applications of management science models such as simulation and queuing theory. A complete analysis of the case includes understanding process flows, computing utilization levels, and using models of the stochastic arrival rate and service rates of the existing and proposed systems. In addition, considers the managerial issues involved in running an ambulatory care center. The Primary Care Clinic (PCC) is the only walk-in clinic on campus and presently works under a triage system. The Student Health Services (along with PCC) is scheduled to move to a new facility. The director of the PCC views the move as a good opportunity to review and improve on the present service delivery process and system. Three broad objectives have been identified for the new system: reduce the waiting time for seeing a healthcare provider, transform the perception of the clinic as an impersonal bureaucracy, and improve student perceptions (especially nonusers) about the performance and effectiveness of the PCC. To achieve these objectives, a new system of clinician teams (doctors and nurse practitioners) has been proposed.
This case describes the operations of a limited-menu restaurant to illustrate the following topics: restaurant as an operating system; cost structure in a limited-menu restaurant; areas of competitive advantage; basic process analysis in a service situation; and the development of a formula for a multisite concept.
Describes the deliberations of a problem-solving team at KomTek, a prosthetic hip manufacturer. The company's slight modification in one of its existing products caused some difficulty in the manufacturing process. One result is higher scrap and quality problems and, hence, lower-than-expected price-cost ratios for that product. The problem-solving team is digging through its cost accounting system and the data from the plant floor, looking for causes. The team is also closely looking into each step of the production process that might be contributing to the problems. Includes both quantitative (cost accounting and quality data) and qualitative (policies and procedures) aspects of the production process. Students should have some basic knowledge of statistics prior to considering this case.